I suppose we all grew up in a neighborhood, unless, that is, we were raised by wolves in the wilderness. Mine was a typical suburban one, or at least, 1950s typical. Not a sprawling subdivision, but elm-lined streets (remember elms?) laid out in a grid with wonderful, smooth concrete sidewalks (remember sidewalks?) My first big adventure was roller skating alone all around the block, (remember the skates you clamped onto your shoes?), up Park Drive, over Briar, down Melrose, taking a right on Sterling, and back to Park Drive. I knew who lived in every house on my street, not so many the further I got from home. Turning that corner at Sterling onto my own world again was a relief. I could tick off every name as I skated past the familiar houses.

 It’s still a mental game I play, driving the well-known routes from our house to Hannaford’s, to the Beach, to the Center. I put a name to each place as I drive by, wondering who lives in the ones I don’t know. There’s another version to my game now, 46 years after the March day we first saw this house. Call it the genealogy of the neighborhood. That little roller skater only knew the 1952 snapshot of her world; now each house announces its history powerfully, reminding me of the passing of time, of times gone by.

 Coming back from Camden I feel really home when cresting Snow Hill, where I’ll always see the motel of that name, though gone now several years. The Munroe farm’s gone, too. I remember a rambling farmhouse close to the road, on the edge of what became known locally as Munroe’s Field, the large open field running down to the shore. Bill Munroe ran a lumberyard across the road (today’s Vikings) and had a sawmill just down from the farmhouse. It’s not hard to conjure up a scene in the sawdust shed next to the mill. Wally and I are filling burlap grain sacks with Bill Munroe’s sawdust (he charged a quarter a bag – you kept track of what you got). I’m holding the bag open while Wally shovels in the sawdust; our firstborn’s just a toddler and we’ve propped him up on the pile. A bitter wind is blowing off the water, and we’re hurrying to finish.

 A little ways on is the house John and Bev Black own today, a lovely old Cape, like many of them along our shore, it sits end to the water, the barn between house and “view.” If you go inside one of these houses that hasn’t been modernized, you realize you can’t see the shore from any window in the house. Apparently the “water view” we pay for and are taxed on wasn’t valued when housing your livestock was more important than looking at a big, boring stretch of the Bay. But back to John and Bev’s house; it was the site of a never-to-be forgotten encounter (at least among the participants) between man and beast, sometime back in the late 70s — early 80s. I would never reveal any names or details, but it’s enough to say that a couple of young guys, out to impress their wives, but most likely each other, lied to each other about their prowess at “dressing out an animal.”  Thanks to the intervention of an actual experienced fellow (thank you, Dick Brakewood) the day, and the meat, was saved.

 Raymond and Myrtle Oxton’s place is classic, a weathered, worn out, on-the-verge-of-falling-down farmstead, probably the last one in that condition left in Lincolnville. When I first came to Maine in the late 60s these places were everywhere. You could explore them, climb up half-rotten stairs and sit in a rocking chair in front of a broken window. The Oxton place is properly closed up with a “No trespassing sign” on the door, but I used to visit the old couple who lived there. Raymond was a local character, his wife, quiet and homebound. I have no idea what it was like when the two were young, working hard at their dairy, tending cows, peddling their milk to the neighborhood. What I remember is every surface in that house covered with …stuff, barely space enough to walk through the rooms. Myrtle was gone by then, and Raymond slept in a chair in the front room. It’s the way people become accustomed to living when the daily chores, the mail, and more, pile up and overwhelm them. It’s more common than you think.

 Since her death, Norma Schmitt’s house has been renovated and dressed up beyond recognition, but I remember Norma and Ken, longtime emergency responders for Lincolnville, running the Camden First Aid, and mowing Maplewood Cemetery every summer. Ken, who was a good deal younger than Norma, died rather suddenly, leaving his wife unexpectedly a widow. She was a sweet woman and well-loved by her many friends. She was also, by the way, Lincolnville’s first female Selectman or, should I say, Selectwoman. And my husband nominated her at Town Meeting, back in the day when we did such things from the floor.

 Moving along towards the Beach, I always note Scout and Betty Sawyers’ well-kept Cape and barn. This one sits parallel to the road; its driveway doubles as the entrance to French Cemetery. That cemetery, so hidden from view, is one of our town’s treasures. Drive down and take a look sometime. It will always be the site, for me, of an amazing pig scramble. When the piglets we’d just bought, which we were sharing with our friends, the Buttermans, escaped from their barn at what is now Andy Young’s Bald Rock Builders, they headed into the French Cemetery. Young and agile, and determined not to lose our investment, Judith chased those two piglets up and down the rows of the cemetery, jumping over tombstones until she finally tackled them, piglets and Judith in a tangle on the ground. A fine day.

 I’ve turned onto Beach Road now, closer to home all the time. The first house on the left will always be known in our family as “Duncan and John’s”, the two men who owned it in the years our children were young enough to be trick or treating. It was  a favorite stop for Wally, who was the trick-or-treating guy while I stayed home and doled out the candy. He saved Duncan and John’s for last where he could count on being invited in for a liquid treat; I’m pretty sure this is why, every year, he’d offer to do the T or T duty, generously “letting” me stay home and man the fort. Duncan Vass and John Trowbridge had moved here about ten years after we did and bought the Beach Store. Duncan, a Scotsman by birth, had a wicked wit that went along with his brogue; John, a Korean War veteran, remained our good friend in the years after Duncan died. Our eldest was about eleven when he asked Wally just what Duncan and John were to each other. He seemed to understand the answer – “It’s like they’re a married couple.” Boy, do I wish those two had lived to see the day . . .

 A dear friend lives a bit further on, Connie Parker. She and her husband, Alton arrived in the neighborhood (a short hop as she’s from Camden and he from the Center) just a few years before we did. She’s almost my next door neighbor, though nearly half a mile away. We remember being at the same baby shower once, and certainly knew each other, but in that funny way with neighbors sometimes, didn’t actually know each other. Then one day, thirteen years ago she says (I’m pretty vague about the decades and really only guess when things happened), I stopped by to ask her about Bayshore Baptist Church’s history. One thing led to another and we went down to the Schoolhouse Museum, which she hadn’t seen. That day marked the beginning of a wonderful collaboration as she soon took over running the Museum; we’ve worked together on many projects, from cataloguing thousands of items to transcribing 19th Century handwritten diaries and letters. Best of all we each found a good friend living “next door.”

 Now I’m in a hurry to get home; the curving road through Sleepy Hollow is as familiar as the rooms of my own house. For the first 20 years we were here everyone said, “oh, you live in the Claytor house.” The last Claytor, Frances Collemer Claytor, had died in the late 50s. I think of her sometimes, sitting at the kitchen window, looking out at the road, a road that must have seen very infrequent traffic in those long ago days. Once she saw a big cat with a very long tail standing out there. I promise not to talk about mountain lions here, but that story came with the house. There are others, but I’ll save them for another day. The house stood vacant for a few years, and then, in 1960, Nat and LaVaughn Stone bought it.

 Nat, (his family called him “Stoney”) whom probably very few people in town now remember, was standing outside the house the morning Camden realtor Doug Green took Wally and I to see the place he’d been trying to discourage us from even looking at. “The floors are all uneven, and the walls cracked,” he’d said, and a few other things I can’t remember. “It’s not the house for you,” he insisted. Oh how wrong he was, and he’d later admit it as he saw how happily we settled in.

 I opened my eyes this morning to the scene that’s greeted us every day of our lives here: a mural on the eaves over our bed, the mural that Stoney painted. It covers the whole width of that wall, the ocean, the sky, a hint of land in the distance, and a five-masted schooner sailing across the horizon. It’s peeling a bit now, more than 50 years after he did it, but I know every inch of it. I asked Stoney once if that was Ducktrap in the corner, but he said no, he’d just made it up. No matter, I’ve always thought it was.

 So Nat was standing out in the fresh March snow that morning, a chickadee perched on his outstretched hand, eating the seeds he held there. Of course, this was the house we’d been looking for.

Lincolnville Central School

Rising 9 th graders (that’s this year’s 8 th grade class) will begin their high school experience Wednesday evening at the CHRHS Class of 2020 (!) Step-Up-Night. Students and parents are invited to the event at the high school that includes a potluck, tour of the building, activities fair, and class meeting. The Class of 2020 will divide into homeroom groups for the various activities. What a great way to introduce them all to each other. Imagine coming from little LCS or Hope or Appleton and joining the many more students from Camden-Rockport. It’s an exciting time for both the kids and their parents. A note to parents: the high school years fly by, as if you haven’t noticed with elementary school. I’m sure many will remember that first day of kindergarten as if it was yesterday. Best wishes to all!

Library News

The library book group plans to meet this Tuesday, May 17 at 6 p.m. to discuss Circling the Sun, Paula McLain’s novel based on the life of aviator Beryl Markham and her experiences growing up in Kenya in the 1920s. Everyone is welcome to come join in this discussion and also share ideas for other good books to read.

The Library’s Memorial Day Plant, Pie and Geranium Sale will be on Monday, May 30. Volunteers are organizing a pie sale, with a choice of strawberry rhubarb or blueberry, all handmade with butter crust and baked in the oven at Dolce Vita Farm. Pies are $12 each. To order or to help with baking the pies, call Kathleen Oliver at 789-5244 or email. Order your pies by May 25.

 You have until May 25 to order geraniums grown at Holmes Greenhouse in Belfast; choose from red, white, or fuschia, $5 each which is just what Reny’s charges. To order email either the Library or Barb Biscone. Please drop off payment at the Library for your geraniums by the 25th so the order can go in.

Last Library Presention of the Season

The second in the series of end of life discussions being held at the Community Building and sponsored by United Christian Church, will be on Friday, May 20, 10 a.m.–noon, with Dr. Deborah Peabody, Lincolnville family physician, who will address medical issues and concerns as we grow older, including physical signs to observe, medical documents everyone should have in place, and the impacts of dementia-related illnesses to an individual and the family.  Dr. Peabody

The Lincolnville Garden Group has scheduled its first meeting of the season for Wednesday, May 25 at 10 a.m. at the Library. Everyone is welcome to join this group to learn more about gardening, meet fellow gardeners, and help maintain the flower beds at the Library, in Lincolnville Center, and at the Beach. The group also plans to have plant exchanges, go on field trips, and be available to mentor new gardeners. Those who can’t make it but would like to be involved, email  Marge Olson.Lincolnville Garden Group

Chez Michel joined the other Beach restaurants, opening up on Mothers’ Day last week.

Rose Lowell and her La Dolce Vita Bakery is up and running, with her popular wood-fired oven pizza available every Friday evening. Call her to order, 323-1052, or better yet, stop by for a cup of coffee and fresh baked sweet.

I notice that Ararat Farm’s stand is open now at the corner of Belfast and Vancycle Roads, stocked with spring vegetables

And Josh Gerritsen’s Donkey Universe Farm now has a self-serve farm store in their barn further up the road at 84 Vancycle. You’ll find grass fed Highland Beef, Katahdin Lamb and organic, pastured eggs.