“Burt Dow is an old deep-water man, retired of course, but retired or not he still keeps two boats. One is a dory so old and so leaky that it can no longer be launched. Burt has  painted it red and placed it on the little patch of lawn in front of his house, overlooking the bay.

He’s rigged it like one of the many ships he’s sailed to all the corners of all the seven seas. It’s filled plumb to the gun’ls with earth, and every sunner Burt plants it with geraniums and Indian peas. The geraniums brighten up the deck, and the Indian peas climb the rigging and sway this-a-way, that-a-way, in a smoky sou’wester.”

If your children grew up listening to you read Burt Dow Deep Water Man, Blueberries for Sal, and Make Way for Ducklings as mine did, then these words of Robert McCloskey still resonate somewhere in your head. I think of Burt Dow’s dory “so old and so leaky that it can no longer be launched” each spring when our town’s own old and leaky boat is once again newly planted for the season at the Beach. The Lincolnville Improvement Association, which dedicated it (complete with brass plaque) to long-time member, Robie Ames, some years ago, sees that it’s filled with plenty of colorful petunias each year.

Robie, by the way, though not a “deep water man” himself, was born and raised just north of Ducktrap, in the farm that straddles the Lincolnville-Northport line. His father, Robie Sr., was the last salmon fisherman on Penobscot Bay, according to Isabel Ames who wrote about their father. In 1947 Robie Sr. sold his fishing gear, wherry, and fishhouse to Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.

Lee Cronin’s the gardener who does the planting of the boat, which has this tenuous, though very real connection to Lincolnville’s coastal past, when “coastal” didn’t just mean expensive real estate and opportunities for tourist dollars. When men like Robie Sr. dragged the wooden wherries they or their neighbors had built over crude “ways” into the water to set the weir and nets to catch the huge salmon that, for a few months of the summer, would bring in a little cash.

Stand on the Beach sometime and imagine the schooners tied up at the long wharf that once ran out from the mouth of Frohock Brook; at low tide a line of rocks are visible, all that’s left of it. I think of the men who drowned in our harbor, falling into the icy water on a winter day, the story from a newspaper clipping I came across once (at the moment, can’t recall the date, some time in the 1840s). A young woman, Edith Philbrook, who later married Orren Ames, an uncle to Robie Sr., wrote in her diary of watching for her father’s ship to return from a months long voyage sometime in the 1880s. She lived just north of the Whales Tooth, kept house, shopped for wallpaper at the Beach stores and for lime at Ducktrap to whitewash her ceilings every spring. She taught at the Cobbtown School, which was at today’s 9 th Avenue, walking when she couldn’t catch a ride in someone’s wagon. Cobbtown Road went through in those days, all the way from Ducktrap to Belfast Road (route 52). That was a long walk from Lincolnville Beach.

And all this brings me around, as it always seems to in the spring, to gardening. Although Lincolnville gardeners have always tended their own vegetables and flowers, in the past few years we’ve suddenly blossomed forth here in town with public plantings. We’ve always had Petunia Pump, of course, with her window boxes overflowing with – what else? – petunias. She’s been tended by a succession of volunteers, often her neighbors in the Center, who’ve quietly planted and watered and deadheaded the flowers throughout the summer, Sally Laite, Joan Richardson, Bob Hollingsworth to name a few. Some years they’ve bought the plants, some years the Women’s Club has bought them; I’m not sure who is now.

Then the Library evolved, with an actual landscaping committee to plan the gardens that surround it. This spring the plantings are beginning to mature and fill in the space. It looks great! Take a few minutes to stop and walk around, go into the little fenced garden with its perennial border all around. Right next door the brand new Veterans Park awaits some topsoil and grass seed, and its own shrubbery. Then there’s the Breezemere Bicentennial Bandstand with a bed of daffodils every spring.

The Beach parking lot, after its Department of Transportation rebuild some ten or more years ago, had some 20 separate planting beds incorporated into the design.
Add to that Robie’s boat and the barrel planters on Frohock Bridge and there are flowers everywhere. The beds, which are generally enclosed in granite curbing, are intentional traffic-calming devices, bump outs into the roadway with parking in between them. These visual interruptions, including the four marked crosswalks between Beach Road and Carvers Lane, tend to slow traffic; suddenly the driver’s aware he’s in a village, a settled area. And they work. Oh sure, there are still the vehicles that speed through at 50 mph, but many more are obeying the 30 mph signs. Pedestrians can safely cross, cars can go in and out of the parking lot with less worry about getting rear ended.

Enter the Lincolnville Garden Group. Formed last year by our neighbor, Marge Olson, everyone is welcome to join the group and help maintain all these wonderful gardens – Beach, Library, etc. Their first meeting of the season will be Wednesday, May 25, 10 a.m. at the Library. Come meet other gardeners, have some refreshments and make plans for the season. If you’d like to be involved but can’t make this meeting, send Marge an email.

According to the Lynx the LCS newsletter, rising ninth graders (that’s this year’s eighth graders) from the Fivetown district (Lincolnville, Hope, Appleton, Camden and Rockport) “didn’t take long to bond with their future classmates during a recent transition activity at the Camden Hills State Park. Students were organized for the first time into the homerooms they will be assigned to over the next four years at CHRHS. Throughout the day they participated in problem-solving activities, hiked, and enjoyed a picnic lunch together. … This year marked the 12th time this event has taken place at the park.” Over the years the relationship between our “outlying” towns and the high school, with its preponderance of Camden and Rockport students, has become so much stronger; events such as this one go such a long way to making the group bond as a class. Good to hear…

The Lincolnville Bulletin Board acts as our own, very local Facebook, but without any political rants, off color videos, etc. At least, that’s the goal. Occasionally, someone can’t resist taking a jab at something someone has posted, doesn’t like their politics or their lack of political correctness. Then the postings fly, as other LBB members chime in to “spank” the offender, or gently chide him. Are you a member? If you live in Lincolnville, full or part time, or have L’ville connections, you can join by asking either me or Pat Putnam to add you to the list. So here’s my favorite exchange from the LBB this week:

 [woman writes] “Husband left cordless flashlight on rear bumper of truck when leaving house on Heal Rd to go to camp on mid 52 Megunticook (almost to boat launch). Up Heal across main street turn at Drake's. Can't believe it stayed on bumper but would probably have been in middle of road as on driver's side. Would love to have it back.Thank you.”

 [some guy responds] “I did this with an apple pie I bought at the LIA in 1971.  (my first date with my wife)  It landed on Route 1...I still miss that pie...but I kept the wife.”

 [woman responds] “A LOT to be said for your TO BE WIFE First date how awful......hopefully you were not looking to seal the deal with dessert. IN long run JUST A FLASHLIGHT not a heart or a liver. But he is distraught-----Thank you for pie story.”

Perseverance

And here’s a girl who must have learned that lesson: Abigail Hammond, 13 years old and a LCS seventh grader, she’s the daughter of Stephanie Thostenson and Doug Hammond, top target shooters themselves, and has just moved to the second stage of a new realty show’s, American Marksman, shooting competition. Next up is the regional in West Virginia this July. Check out the Portland Press Herald article  ; it’s all about Abigail. My favorite line is: “Hammond shot with robotic precision and with a steady cadence, showing no nerves. She hit the bullseye on 46 of her 50 shots, taking just 21.11 seconds for her first 25 shots.” The family will be doing bottle drives and Gofundme  to help pay for their trip to West Virginia this summer. Way to go, Abigail!

Another Childhood Memory

A friend, who grew up in Rockland, remembers her neighborhood: “I especially connected with going back and remembering my neighborhood. Just as you mentioned, though not all elm, but certainly trees "lined" up along the way, smooth sidewalks (and in my neighborhood, side streets) for skating, playing hopscotch, kick the can, etc., and knowing everyone in each of the houses. Most of them were called "aunt and uncle", though no real relation to us kids and we could expect them to contact our parents if they saw us doing something we shouldn't be doing. Thanks for bringing out this sweet memory.”