I don’t know if you saw this in the news or not, but Frederick Moorefield Jr., deputy information officer for the Pentagon, was recently arrested on charges related to dogfighting. I saw the news thanks to an NPR report, and let me just say this – do not read the details. Not if you want to […]

The big news is, as I am sure you’ve heard, the government shutdown has been averted. For now. We will go through this whole rigmarole again, no doubt, in November since that is as far down the proverbial road as they managed to kick the budgetary can. And this leaves me feeling annoyed. I think […]

This week, the U.S. government resumes its program of providing free COVID tests through the mail and I have the website, covid.gov/tests, bookmarked. I am ready. Man, pandemics are tricky things. The Black Death, as remembered from my grade school studies, is haunting. We humans are always drawn to the morbid, trying to understand things […]

Before my mother was allowed to drive, she had to prove to her father that she could change the oil, fiddle with the spark plugs and fix a flat tire, all on her own and without help. He didn’t want his daughter stranded or dependent on strangers if the car broke down. Pretty progressive for […]

I try, as a general rule, not to indulge in nostalgia because the past is a slippery animal. It shapeshifts through memories. Take, for example, the time I am currently obsessing over: that oddly golden era for our country that was post-World War II until, oh, say the early 1960s. We often think of that […]

Labor Day. The end of high season, the start of the harvest, the lessening of traffic, the time to remember where we put the sweaters. These are all things that we in Maine associate with the holiday we just celebrated. But none of them are really what the holiday is about. Labor Day was founded […]

Massive congrats to the team from Maine for making it to the Little League World Series. You guys, that’s huge. We can talk about the stats and the figures if you want. We can talk about how, as noted in the Portland Press Herald, Gray-New Gloucester/Raymond is “just the fourth team from Maine to ever […]

It is beautiful out there right now. The rains are easing up a bit, the sun is out, but not too hot. It doesn’t get much better than this, folks. I hope you and yours are able to get out there and enjoy this weather before summer is nothing but a memory. At the start […]

I have a lot of favorite times of the year, I know, but this right here, the stretch we are just sliding into? This is probably my “most favorite” favorite. That’s right, it is agriculture fair time. I don’t want to give the wrong impression: I don’t actually make a circuit of them all (though, […]