Here and there this week in The Borough of 04074 as we roar into the home stretch of August:

A sign that apocalypse is near

Cumberland Farms closes its two Scarborough locations Route 1 near the high school; and Payne Road near Sam’s Club; does this mean that the market for selling candy bars, Gatorade and microwaveable food to teenagers has dropped out?!

They also do good stuff, too, though

Did you see some of the times in the Beach to Beacon race by SHS boys? Wow! Sean McGovern, Jacob Terry, Colin Tardif and others in that 36:00 range?! And Tardif is 14?

If they build it, they will build it

Is there a square inch of “excess” grass left from the intersection at Oak Hill heading north along Route 1 to the South Portland line?

Tastes better than a real estate subdivision

Peg Harmon’s vegetable stand is still at it at the corner of Spurwink Road and Black Point Road. First sale 1966? Thirty years since she said no to a housing project.

Is American flag and giant flag pole a statement, “I have money?”

Saw a massive flagpole the other day installed on a Scarborough lawn. Calls to mind a group of Japanese tourists in Casco Bay in l986, seeing flag poles, and flags, on lawns of the biggest homes on Casco Bay island and asking if a person had to be a millionaire to have a flag up in the United States.

Quick, name me five scarborough police officers!

A Dallas sheriff told a “community policing” seminar in l987: “You know a small town has gotten big when residents can no longer necessarily name five local police officers.” Important goal.

And how about five scarborough firefighters?

Grant Worthing, age 90 now (?), said last year, “Fires were always an interesting experience if a truck showed up at your house for a fire, chances are the guys coming into your house knew you.” Hard for firefighters now to afford houses in town.

You better lie down

I know six Scarborough kids who had wisdom teeth out this summer. How long does recuperation take nowadays? (Answer here in days: 1, 3, 3, 4, 7, 11).

I think that I shall never see, a thing as lovely as a tree

That does it. I am finally going to start a Tree Committee in town. Get a group of volunteers to count the trees in all areas in town, estimate the number. Then, using those figures, estimate how many have been cut down since the first building boom in l973. Towns need trees.

Watch and learn

Scarborough High boys and girls are each defending state Class A champions in soccer. This week, they start two-a-days for tryouts. The secret? Hard work, rigorous regimen? Nope. Watch the kids smiling and chatting when they come off the field.

Seeds of peace, rays of hope

Scarborough has some students this month at two-week camp in Otisfield named Seeds of Peace. Israeli and Palestinian kids there. Our kids fight with siblings over TV remote control. The Middle East kids? Their stories floor our kids.

“I’ll try hard. Does that count?”

Packy McFarland said in l971, “Most kids who play catcher, we just can’t get them to run down to 1B to back up on a ground ball to the infield.” Still true! But the ones who do will make it in baseball and life.

Vroom!! Vroom!!

SHS student Alex Lacognata last week was the first right-handed pitcher since Mickey Martell in l965 to win a stock car race at Beech Ridge. Throw strikes, young man. And be careful out there….

The times they are a changin’

My 88-year-old father likes to sit out on the lawn and watch the cars go by now. “Boy, there is a lot of traffic on Fogg Road now,” he says. “Yup! People-watching a newly acquired hobby for this busy boy.

Teaching kids how to better argue with parents!

Doesn’t it stand to reason that a bunch of teenagers in Scarborough, given our demographics, would be really, really good at Mock Trial competitions in their schools? Rugby? Football? I don’t know. But talking?!

As you were. Please put your No. 2 lead pencils down, and exit the rear of the classroom quietly. Thank you.

Dan Warren lives in Scarborough.

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