Letter to the editor: Longtime summer residents want to return

My name is Henry Mulvey. I am 22 years old. I have been coming to Maine on summer vacation since I was about 3.

Those trips have defined who I am. My family took me to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport on one of our first vacations to the state. I am now studying transit planning. I return to that museum annually and I volunteer for the museum digitally. My heart and soul is in that museum.

I have been watching the Maine news since the COVID-19 quarantine was announced, in the hopes it would be lifted. My whole family counts on our Maine vacation for our mental health. I know I especially do.

I speak for myself, and probably for many other Maine vacationers, when I say it would be devastating to my mental health if this quarantine mandate were in place through July and August. If I don’t get to come to Maine in 2020, I will be lost in more ways than you can imagine.

I think there will be a way that would protect the citizens of Maine from the coronavirus while protecting all of our summer vacations. Maybe it will be temperature checks at the border, I don’t know. All I know is there must be a way to save summer vacations in Maine for those who want one and save the businesses that depend on summer.

Thank you for your time, and I hope I can visit your state this summer.

Henry Mulvey

Conway, Mass.