‘What’s with all the orange posts lining the neighbors’ driveways?” I asked my husband a year ago last November, not long after we moved to Cape Elizabeth from Baltimore. “Um…maybe to guide the snowplows?” he guessed. So off we went to the hardware store to buy our own orange markers. We soon renamed them “plow […]
Meetinghouse
Posted inMeetinghouse, Opinion
J. Lauren Sangster, Portland: Making our way through loss
I enjoy art exhibits, especially ones that document life stories. I recently visited Maine College of Art to see the exhibit “Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks and Pathways.” As I walked through the exhibit, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to start over in another country where the language, customs, beliefs, and […]
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Elizabeth Dostie, Fairfield: Dancing into the future
‘What year did you graduate?” I asked him. “1964,” he lied. We were dancing the circle dance during which the music stops and you switch partners. We were at a dance hall in Fairfield. I lived in Camden. I was working on my conversation opener and the crowd did not appear to be college graduates. […]
Posted inMeetinghouse, Opinion
Judith Robbins: ‘Now I was the mother’
Three of my kids and I were driving down I-95 on our way to Shrewsbury, Mass., to visit my mother, their grandmother, whom they called Mummu, a reflection of her Finnish heritage. As we crossed the Piscataqua River bridge and saw the sign welcoming us to New Hampshire, the level of excitement rose. We were […]
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Carson Lutes, Pownal: Fat Albert’s long, long journey home
I had recently moved back home to Brunswick from Rochester, New York after a recent divorce. My father had kindly volunteered to drive with me back to Rochester to help me gather up the rest of my belongings. My husband and I were quite civil dividing up the last of our things and packing them […]
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Steve Saunders, Wayne: Where you go to figure out what’s going on
My father enlisted late in World War II and by the time his troopship arrived in the Philippines, the war was all but over. He spent about six months there, saw no conflict and returned home to Maine with a few souvenir Japanese swords and a bad case of malaria. Before he arrived home, my […]
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Sarah Goldstein Szanton, Portland: Places change, but not the policy
“We have the same policy as Grandma,” my 26-year old son says to me from his home in Denver, Colorado, where he lives with his wife. “You’re welcome any time.” He grew up hearing that from his Grandma, my mom, who lives in the San Fernando Valley in southern California, my home from age 6 […]
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Elizabeth Dostie, Fairfield Center: Coming home, and keeping going
I flew up the front steps of 2021 East 4th St. clutching a huge stuffed dog I’d just won at the holiday bingo at Holy Rosary, our parish in Duluth, Minnesota. It was late evening by then. I’d been invited to go with my best friend Ibby Kubiak and her Dad. It was my 10th […]
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David Alexander, Gorham: Driving into the past
I turned onto the River Road, near the Boothbay Play House. My good friend Dick spent summers there back in the ’50s looking for a career in acting. River Road parallels the Damariscotta River, narrow, hilly, winding but without a view of the river. Access roads lead down to expensive homes, Dodge Point Preserve offers […]
Posted inMeetinghouse, Opinion
Amanda A. Meader: Home is a place to say hello and goodbye
I was 9 when I first realized that my father was being eaten alive by the monster of addiction. By age 16, my parents had divorced after 20 years of marriage. Contact with my father was sporadic over the next decade, and of decreasing frequency. At one point I had not seen my father in […]