The Boy Scout motto is “Be prepared.” Has better advice ever been given? Trapped under a blistering sun in the no man’s land between Morocco and Algeria, with Algeria not letting me enter on foot and Morocco not letting me back in because I’d obtained an Algerian visa, I was about to find out. But […]

What follows is a fishing story, so you can believe it or not. One beautiful spring day I was fly fishing on the Pleasant River, standing thigh-deep in cold, snow-melt water. I was trying to concentrate on the fishing, but a recent anxiety-producing experience was troubling me. A natural control freak, I can’t help but […]

“Just say no” is a lesson that is learned throughout life. However, in my experience with doctors’ visits and my husband, I never thought I would have to use it. “Would you like to be present for your husband’s physical?” “What?” I say with a startled expression and look around, expecting that he is speaking […]

I grew up in Maine. My mother’s family and my husband’s family have lived here for generations. I thought Mainers were a friendly, welcoming lot. It wasn’t until my husband took a job in Wisconsin and I continued my education out there that I re-examined that impression. Of course, I thought everyone back home was […]

Soon after I’d arrived in Tanzania to teach school, I was sitting outside with my fellow teachers one evening as four men walked by in single file. I thought I recognized the first, and asked who he was. “The brother of the last,” one of my new colleagues replied. I was taken aback. I had […]

I discovered the F-bomb the summer I turned 12. I dropped it indiscriminately, but initially just among my peers. We all did. What better way to add a point of emphasis? The F-bomb as an adjective, exclamation point, noun and verb, but never as an adverb. Mix in some other swears, and there was nothing […]

I watched my parents struggle in every way that two people can struggle when raising a family with meager means. In those days, creditors would come to the door and politely ask for a payment for that week or month. I would see our mom shake her head and declare that she did not have […]

Yes, I was relatively new to Maine – no, change that, brand-new by most standards; ergo, not to be considered dumb. Nevertheless, some would say I should have known better; after all, I wasn’t a child and it wasn’t circumstances that brought me to this point of discomfort, but choices, clear-cut, unfiltered choices, and I […]

The year was 1962. It was early summer. I was graduating high school and had landed my first job. I was working for Beal and Bunker on Great Cranberry Island. I started working weekends until graduation then right into five days and a half-day on Saturday, all for $50 a week. It was a dream […]

I once told my husband that after he died, I would cease to exist as far as his family was concerned. They always seemed off-putting and distant to each other as blood relatives. I couldn’t imagine them caring enough to get to know me, an American, after he, a Scotsman, was gone. We had only […]