My mom, Diane O’Brien, has provided an article for this week.

The Nightly Drive Home

It’s dark at 7 when I leave Don’s house, one or the other of us the winner of that night’s ongoing RummiKube game. The way home has become a familiar one, a drive I make most nights. North up Atlantic Highway to the turn at Beach Road, then a mile more to home.

Most of the houses I pass are dark, their owners installed somewhere south of here for the winter, and I mentally tick off each one. It’s a ritual I began years ago, silently acknowledging my neighbors, a game I play with myself: How many people do I know, did know, or know of in the town I call home?

Right out of Don’s driveway and there’s Raymond Oxton’s farmstead – house and attached barn – slowly deteriorating before our eyes. It’s the last one in town to meet this fate – it’s owner long gone, leaving no heirs, abandoned to the elements.

The back roads were littered with these derelict farms when I first moved to Maine in the 60s. It was sport to poke around a falling down house, peek in the broken windows, even venture inside where a door was hanging by a single hinge.

But I knew Raymond, spent time sitting at his kitchen table, remember the cats that hung around the dooryard. Don’s memories of the man go back further, to helping him hay and deliver milk to local customers.

Raymond’s next-door neighbor was Howard Barrett, Waldo County Probate Judge and enthusiastic gardener. After Howard and his wife Shirley passed away, I lost track of who lived there. The next time I looked the house was empty, declining behind a thicket of bushes that hid it from the road.

Today, after a local guy spent a couple of years rehabbing it, the house looks sharp, all fixed up and regularly rented out. Some nights a dozen cars fill the dooryard, and every window is lighted. I wonder why so many gather and what are they doing in there?

Lighted windows. Beacons that say “someone lives here”. Once past the remains of the Oxton farm and the bright lights of Judge Barrett’s place heading north on Atlantic Highway is still interesting. Christmas lights festoon the facades of two side-by-side houses year-round and I smile. Just across the road a long empty house is finally alive again with new owners who’ve also strung Christmas lights to say “we live here”.

I’m comforted to see so many folks are home on a chilly winter night. Does anyone else glance in the lighted windows of their neighbors? Hope they all made it home safely that night? Feel a twinge of envy for the couple who still have each other? Worry how a recent widow/widower is coping with the numbing grief and loneliness?

Then there are the nests of snowbirds, and this being Maine there are several. Houses that are carefully battened shut against the winter, to patiently wait the return of their owners in the spring.

Just before Beach Road a soft, warm lamp glows, as it has for many years in the window of Victor Goulding’s house. But this winter Victor isn’t home in Massachusetts, counting the days until he comes back to the town he loved, but instead has joined his parents and grandparents in French Cemetery.

Every second house on the hill up Beach Road is dark in January, so I only need to check on the ones that aren’t. They’re easy to spot; of course, the lights, and in daytime the cars – who’s home, who’s out? – we’re (I’m) nosy in a small town. Connie and Alton’s sons have come by to visit (their vehicles are in the driveway), LuAnne’s hens are out, and every night I check – has someone (me) left a light on at the Historical Society?

The beacon I always counted on was the light in Richard’s kitchen window. My next door neighbor. I’d nod good night to him as I drove by, imagining the dinner he was fixing for himself, another of the many who never expected to end alone, but figured out a way to get along.

But as age and illness inevitably progressed, Richard’s kids, evidenced by the New Jersey plates that showed up in the driveway, said all I needed to know. When the lights were on upstairs at all hours, when someone was sitting up, it was only a matter of time.

All that’s left after Richard’s dark house is the winding road through Sleepy Hollow and I’m home. The place is all alight, upstairs and down. Upstairs a rambunctious family of teen-agers, cats, dogs and frazzled parents, downstairs my own quiet rooms. But I’ve left the lamps lit, and  the fire banked. I’m home.

One More Thing:

And since I’ve got podium this week, so to speak, I’ll mention the Lincolnville Historical Society’s Beach Bistro dinner coming up on January 20, a fundraiser that’s fun for everyone – the diners, the cooks, even the dishwashers. Wade Graham and a crew of helpers is presenting a meal celebrating the mushroom, and featuring braised shortribs. LHS volunteers set the tables with our eclectic collection of china, wine glasses, tablecloths, etc., wait on tables, and clean up afterwards. 

Reservations are paid through the LHS site – www.lincolnvillehistory.com — $45 per person, BYOB. As of this writing there are only 5 places left to fill. But if you miss this one, there’ll be another coming up in March. On the opposite month, watch for our Fridays at the Museum program; February 16 Kerry Hardy will talk about the Indigenous people on whose land we live.

– Diane O’Brien

I always love my Ma’s writing and her observations about this town.

In news from LCS, I have been asked to remind townsfolk who might have extra returnables after the holidays of the Bottle Shed next to the basketball courts if you wish to generously donate them to the LCS Eighth Grade to help fund their end of the year class trip.

As a graduate of LCS, I can attest that you end up getting quite attached to your little group after nine years together. The class trip is wonderful way to say farewell as after the transition to Camden Hills Regional High School you will never be together in he same way again.

Also in school news, it is the height of middle school basketball season. Last week a coed group of players traveled to Islesboro for a win against Islesboro’s coed team. They also played St. George at home Friday with wins for both the boys’ and girls’ teams. They will play Appleton at home Monday. Girls play at 3:45, and boys at 5 at the LCS gym. The team will again hit the ferry Wednesday for a midday game against Vinalhaven. Both teams appear exceptionally strong this year.

OK, Lincolnville, enjoy the snow. I for one am thrilled that it is falling as I write this on a Sunday, and hopefully won’t mess with my work schedule. And it feels like it has been way too long since we got more than a inch or two. Stay warm, be good. Reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

CALENDAR

Monday, January 8

Recreation Commission, 4 p.m., Town Office

School Committee, 6 p.m., LCS

Select Board, 6 p.m., Town Office

Tuesday, January 9

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Heart and Soul Committee, 12 p.m., Lincolnville Community Library 

Wednesday, January 10

Library open 2-5 p.m. 

Cemetery Trustees, 5:30 p.m. Town Office

Planning Board, 7 p.m. Town Office

Thursday, January 11

Conservation Committee, 4 p.m., Town Office

Friday, January 12

AA Meeting 12 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Saturday, January 13

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Sunday, January 14

United Christian Church, 9:30 a.m. Worship, 18 Searsmont Road

Bayshore Baptist Church, 9:30 a.m. Sunday School, 11:00 a.m. worship, 2648 Atlantic Highway