A badly needed night out

Traditionally either the Board or the Friends organization at my library has given each of the staff a little Christmas bonus, usually in the form of a gift certificate. This year I had purchased fancy but cheap Christmas stockings at the Dollar store for each of us, put our names on mailing labels and affixed them to the stockings, then hung same along the edge of the checkout counter. People were amused...and put things in them! The Friends put in $25 gift certificates to what is probably the best restaurant in the Augusta area: Slates, located just a couple of blocks from the library, on Water Street. And a couple of weeks ago, one of my staff and I treated ourselves to dinner at Slates, courtesy of the Friends.

Slates is such a popular local institution that when it burnt down three years ago, there were numerous fund-raising events, aimed in particular at helping the help who were out of a job until the restaurant could be rebuilt. The restaurant, which is housed in one of the many old, three-story red-brick buildings that line Water Street, now looks better than ever, and everybody's working again.

I was the tiniest bit disappointed when I walked into the place and saw that Barb, who had arrived ahead of me, had us a table, but in the bar area, rather than the main dining room, or the smaller room beyond. Just not as much of a dining "event," when you have to eat in the bar. On the other hand, it was better than having to eat at the bar, and Barb assured me that she had been told we were getting the very last table in the place, so obviously I had to count my blessings (one really should make reservations on a Friday or Saturday night, which thought had actually passed through my head, but then I failed to follow up on it.) And as a matter of fact, our location proved fascinating, because the table beyond us was a nonstop people-magnet throughout the hour we were there. When we got up to leave I saw why: at the end of the table I had not been able to see, because Barb blocked my view (and she had not been able to see because her back was to that table), sat the newly-elected mayor of Hallowell, essentially holding court. Slates is that kind of place.

The food was very good. I've eaten at Slates a total of three times, over the past four years, and the food has always been imaginative, and perfectly prepared. I had the haddock stuff with fresh Maine crab, at $22 the second most expensive entree on the menu. The most expensive, at $25, was the haddock stuffed with lobster. I was very torn between the two, loving both crab and lobster. It is so typical of me to want the most expensive item on the menu; indeed, my champagne taste and beer pocketbook has been the curse -- well, one of the curses -- of my life. People who can only afford beer and pizza and like living on beer and pizza are the lucky ones; the rest of us must wait for gift certificates to indulge in what we really like to eat.

Barb had the Mahi mahi, which she also proclaimed excellent. She also ordered, as one of her accompanying vegetables, caramelized onion, moments after I'd been wondering aloud how they could think someone would want to eat a dish of just plain onions. I had pureed winter vegetables, which proved to be a little pile of pale green mush, disconcerting to look at, but quite tasty.

We both ordered a drink to start. I wanted to have something I couldn't get from my own kitchen cabinet (the drinks I most often drink -- Wild Turkey over ice or with coke, rum and coke, white or black Russians, Brandi Alexanders and Rusty Nails -- I have the fixins for all of those at home), but was also in the mood for something warm as it was very cold out -- something like ten degrees, with a wind chill value of minus something, and I'd just walked the two blocks from the library -- so I ended up ordering a hot buttered rum. That's something I could make myself at home, but never do, so it, too, was a "treat."

Barb and I are the same age, have a similar sense of the absurd and the ironic, and can talk intelligently about a myriad of subjects. So...a good meal with a good drink at hand, good conversation, in a friendly, if somewhat noisy restaurant (I decided when we were standing at the archway leading into the dining room, buttoning up for the trip out into the elements, that I was just as glad we hadn't been seated in there, since besides the conversation of all the diners, there was Friday night music.)...for a lovely evening, Friends, we thank you.

Mother Nature has her say

Gardiner, Maine, along with neighboring Farmingdale, is currently experiencing its 15 minutes of fame, thanks to the fact that the border between the two towns is where the most impressive, mile-long Kennebec River moving ice patch has gotten stuck. This ice jam, which was caused by unusually warm temperatures and heavy rains combining to loosen ice upriver and start it moving down toward the sea, plowed ruthlessly through Augusta, a couple of miles from Hallowell, where I work, and seven miles from Gardiner, where I live, on Tuesday, January 26th. The ice jam caused sudden, abrupt flooding, with water pouring into the ground floors of stores all along Water Street. It's called Water Street for good reason, running right beside the river with the buildings, and the parking lot behind them, all that separates it from the water. The parking area completely disappeared, and the news was full of shots of the one car that didn't get moved in time (people had about 15 minutes warning), with just the top of its roof showing.

The ice jam proceeded to cause the same inundation in Hallowell, right next door. Lucky Gardens, the Chinese restaurant that I and the rest of Hallowell frequents, wasn't so lucky; they paid the price for being right on the river, with lovely views from the windows that run all around the dining room. Their basement (ground floor) was flooded, burying their furnace and oil tank under water, resulting in no heat. When I went by to pick up my lunch on Wednesday, I discovered that the restaurant was open for take-out only, because of the no-heat situation; and the very strong stench of oil, as the oil company was trying to drain the basement. I stood for a few minutes at the windows, staring in amazement at the great blocks of ice that had been thrown up beneath the windows, where there would normally be the narrow, unpaved road that runs behind the buildings on Hallowell's Water Street. This road serves as a parking area for the people who work and live in the buildings, but there sure wasn't anybody parked there now.

While the owner and I were chatting about the situation, a bedraggled young woman from the Bangor television station came in with her cameraman, and asked Jack if she could interview him. He was hesitant, because his English, as with so many Chinese working in Chinese restaurants in this country, is awkward at best (and why is that? Is it that Chinese is so different from English, it's especially hard to learn, or is it that these workers spend so much time with their fellow Chinese, speaking that more familiar language, that they don't get sufficient practice?) The reporter and I both assured him his English was fine, and when I saw him later on the news, effective editing had saved him unnecessary embarrassment, while making clear the plight of his and so many businesses in both Hallowell and Augusta. He was going to have to get a new furnace, a huge, unexpected expense.

But for the rest of us, this has just been a fascinating experience, watching Mother Nature assert herself, watching this blanket of ice -- not smooth, but covered with huge white shards and blocks -- make its sluggish way down our river. And now it's "parked;" since it's gotten extremely cold over the last few days (0 degrees at night, the teens during the day) it's anybody's guess when it will move again. Both yesterday and today people were parked all along the very busy corridor that connects Gardiner/Farmingdale/Hallowell/Augusta -- the road I drive every day, twice a day -- and were standing on the embankment, gawking at the sight, taking pictures with their digital cameras. Melody went down late this morning with her undigital camera -- disappointed to see she had only four pictures left on her roll of film -- and gawked, and took her four pictures. A little excitement in our humdrum lives.

Politically correct holidays

Today was Christmas in Old Hallowell, only this year it became Hallowell Holidays, to the dismay, if not outrage, of virtually everyone I've heard on the subject. Emails have been flying back and forth among members of my library's Board (the Director is always included in Board "mass mailings") saying "This is ridiculous!" "Who's idea was this?" "The new name isn't even accurate since Hallowell certainly has other holidays!" Etc., etc.

I do know that one of the people on the committee that organizes the various activities of the-holiday-formerly-known-as Christmas-in-Old-Hallowell is Jewish, and I think she is the sort of person who might suggest that "in all fairness" the day, which is for the whole city, should not have this explicitly Christian name.

I ask myself how I would feel if I were a practicing Jew, and people were forever wishing me Merry Christmas, expecting me (I would know) to say the same right back. Perhaps I would feel annoyed, maybe I'd want to be able to say "Happy Hanukkah" instead, knowing, however, that that "wasn't done." (Actually, it occurs to me that this might not be a bad idea. Such a response would surely serve to tip off people that you were, indeed, Jewish, and next time they might just wish you a Happy Hanukkah!)

And of course, it's not just Jews one runs the risk of offending, or at the very least annoying, by wishing them a Merry Christmas, or by celebrating Christmas in Old Hallowell. There are more and more Muslims in this country as well. Frankly, I think their numbers are quite small in the Hallowell area (more in Portland, which has a sizable Somali population now, and other immigrants from Muslim nations), but you never know.

On the other hand, there is simply no denying that Hallowell Holidays lacks the "ring" of Christmas in Old Hallowell (in fact, it's damn hard to say), just as "Happy Holidays" lacks the ring of "Merry Christmas." I think the real solution is to stop worrying about the "Christ" in Christmas, though my saying that will undoubtedly offend the devout Christians in the audience. But my point is this: you don't really have to be Christian to appreciate certain aspects of the holiday. I am not a Christian, but I love Christmas. Love all the decorations, the wreaths and centerpieces artsy-craftsy ladies make, the electric candles people put in all their windows (very big in New England), the smell and look of Christmas trees, the spiked egg nog, the Christmas carols, some of which are truly beautiful (I always nearly cry when singing "Silent Night"), some of which are great fun ("Jingle Bells," "The Twelve Days of Christmas"), love the idea of a holiday that celebrates "Peace on earth good will toward men." While yes, it is true that the traditional "true" meaning of Christmas was that it celebrated the birth of Christ (even though that did not take place on Dec. 25th, or even in the winter), I really think we are well past that now. Christmas has come to mean so much more, to so many people. I really don't think there's any reason to be offended, or annoyed, at being wished a Merry Christmas -- behind that politically incorrect wish is a generous and friendly impulse, that doesn't have to be seen as having anything to do with ones religion. And I don't think a celebration called Christmas in Old Hallowell need bear a religious connotation that excludes non-Christians.

I vote to reinstate Christmas in Old Hallowell.

Streams

When I was walking the rail trail in Hallowell the other day I crossed the most wonderful stream. A footbridge takes you over it, and I found myself pausing for a good five minutes, leaning on the wooden railing, mesmerized by what I was seeing and hearing.

The stream drops down in a zig-zag through a shallow, heavily wooded ravine. Every now and then it turns into a tiny, miniature waterfall, as it drops down slightly to the next level. And it makes a wonderful sound, the kind of steady, rushing-water sound that could lull you to sleep. There are large rocks and even out-and-out boulders, both in the stream and lying about on the sloping land to either side. Indeed, there is a fat wall of obviously finished granite blocks, marching to the edge of the stream on one side, then con-tinuing a very short way on the other. I was thinking this must be the remains of an old bridge, but conferring with Hallowell's historian, who very conven-iently is one of my little library's Board members, I learned that it's actually the remains of a dam.

Sam also informed me that this is Vaughan Stream, once part of the Vaughan estate, the Vaughans being one of the oldest and wealthiest Hallowell families. But in the 1830s, with the demise of the Second Bank of the United States, the Vaughans lost a good deal of their investments, and were forced to sell much of the land along the stream. A number of businesses were built along it, including a sandpaper plant just above the dam. No doubt the stream is much more pleasant now, shaded by the tall trees on its banks, than in its industrial heyday.

Streams are to be found everywhere in this area. And by this area I mean not only the Augusta area, but the state of Maine – for that matter, the region of New England. Water, water, everywhere. I was ill a few weeks ago, and when I finally began feeling somewhat better I decided a short walk through my neighborhood would get my sluggish blood flowing. I passed numerous narrow wooded areas through which water was inevitably flowing. I would walk to the side of the road and peer down at where a narrow trickle of water was wending its way over, under and around mossy rocks, fallen branches, small granite boulders, past banks pale brown with old autumn leaves. The water would be coming from beneath the road on which I stood, so then I would walk to the other side of the road to see whence it came. Sometimes there it was, twisting and turning its way to the pipe under the road that would enable it to continue its quietly gurgling trip down to the Kennebec River. They'd obviously interrupted the stream by bringing in rocks and earth, piling it up, with a pipe running through for the stream, then paving the top.

But sometimes the steam wasn't to be seen on the other side, just somebody's yard. So where was that water coming from? Or as in the case of the creek directly across the street from my house, that wends through a little woods beside the handsome white-with-black-shutters house on the corner, where does it go? It certainly doesn't continue on the other side of the road, because there's my house, my yard. The secret life of water...

So here we are, surrounded by water, taking it for granted, not even noticing that it is with us in all sorts of unexpected nooks and crannies, often not knowing where it's coming from or where it's going. And in many parts of the world – in many parts of this country – water is a rare commodity. If there is a stream, even a river, it may be dry during the dry season. In other parts of the world, what water there is may be badly polluted (we've been working hard in this country for the past thirty years to make that less the case here). And those in the know tell us that water people can safely use for drinking, cooking and bathing is going to become increasingly rare, thanks to both global warming and the aforementioned pollution.

I was thinking what a shame we couldn't bottle some of the trickles and creeks and streams with which New England abounds, send the water where it's needed. On the other hand...would I want to drink that stuff?

The rail trail

This morning I walked a mile on the Rail Trail, then the mile back to my car. The Rail Trail is a very pleasant paved walk running from Augusta through Hallowell and Farmingdale to Gardiner. It follows, funnily enough, the old railroad track, which in turn follows the Kennebec River.

The railroad no longer runs along this stretch of track, though there has been some talk of extending the Downeaster line, which runs between Portland and Boston, north to Brunswick, and diehard train fans cherish a hope that eventually train service as far north as Augusta could resume. Last May there was a special chartered train trip between Rockland, on the coast, and Augusta, with the train stopping for a couple of hours in Hallowell, so people could sight-see and attend the annual meeting of the Maine Rail Group (a "non-profit group working to enhance rail service in Maine"), one of the sponsors of the trip. The old Hallowell depot was located just across the street from the library, and while the depot building is no longer there, the platform is, and that's where the train stopped. I was able to run out with the library's digital camera and take a few pictures of the 50s era train, as it huffed and clanged in place.

But back to the trail that runs beside the rail. The trail is much used, by joggers, bicyclists, women pushing baby carriages, couples walking their dog, individual strollers like myself. This morning traffic on the trail was moderate; several times I was quite alone, which was especially pleasant. Just me, the wide, blue river down below – easily seen because our deciduous trees are still without leaves (yes, on April 19th – this is Maine, don't forget – though green buds are beginning to bulge and split), steep, granite-slab-littered embankments reaching up on the other side to the backs of houses that line Route 201, the road that runs through the four communities, and that I follow every day to and from work.

Indeed, the sound of traffic was the only thing that kept the experience from being perfect. Just can't escape the eternal hum of the combustion engine (will electric cars be quieter? Hybrids?) I think about my friend Linda, and her lovely home in Connecticut, just off the Wilbur Cross Highway. You can't see the road, thanks to all the trees (in New England trees hide a multitude of sins), but you can hear it, at all hours of the day and night. Same thing on the Rail Trail, though there is the occasional moment of silence, when there doesn't happen to be any traffic going in either direction.

This morning I wanted to walk a part of the Trail that I'd never been able to see from the road. At the southern end of Hallowell the path disappears under 201 and cannot be seen again for quite some time, until you get to about the middle of Farmingdale, when all of a sudden the trail is running right beside the road. So I was exploring, venturing into unknown territory, something I always enjoy doing (I often turn down a street or road I've never been down, just to see where it goes).

I walked a different stretch of the trail a year or so ago, starting at the northern end of Hallowell and walking about a mile into Augusta. Then I had especially enjoyed a little wooded area high on a bluff above the river. I had stood and looked down through the trees at a couple of motor boats whizzing up the river, then back again.

I had thought that the Rail Trail was specific to this area, but have learned there are rail trails all over the country. There's even (of course) an organization, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, dedicated to supporting and publicizing these walking (biking, jogging) paths. And the organization has (of course) a web site: www.railstotrails.org/index.html. Walking does everybody good, and walking where there is beauty to be seen and peace to be enjoyed is an absolute positive. So...more power to them.

Christmas in Old Hallowell

The little town (actually, it’s officially a city, the smallest city in the state of Maine) of Hallowell works hard to come up with events – fesitivals, etc. – to attract visitors, and business. One of those events is Christmas in Old Hallowell Day, usually held on the second Saturday of December.

My favorite aspect of CIOH is the Mouse Hunt. Kids pick up a list of participating businesses (and one public library), then go to those places and try to find the mouse hidden somewhere in the window display. The library has no display windows, but until this year we had a large, old-fashioned display case in which we would arrange a Christmas-themed display, with the tiny grey mouse tucked away somewhere. This year, having moved the display case to the basement to make room for a third computer (technology displacing everything in its path), we had to make do with the top of the one of the lower bookcases. Anyway it’s fun setting up the display, figuring out a good place to hide the mouse, then watching as kids come trouping through throughout the day, Mouse Form in hand. They peer and peer – sometimes they require a helpful hint – then it’s Eureka – they write it down – and off they go to the next place.

The library had never participated in the Mouse Hunt before I came, but I thought it would be good for us to be a part of this community activity, thought it would be a good way to get kids, with accom-panying parents, into the library.

The other major event for us on CIOH is our Christmas Carol Sing-along. This also dates from my first year at the library. I just thought it would be a cool thing to do. Again, invite the community in. The first year there was a very small turnout, the second year quite an impressive turnout – there was even a representative of the press there, so we got written up in the newspaper – the third year it was back to being small (and the keyboard that was being used literally blew up at about the third song, so the rest of the singing was done a capella), this year it finally reached a decent size, by about the mid-way point. I always agonize over whether enough people will show up, just as I do for every program we put on. Obviously I could never have been a Broadway producer.

Last year we also put out styrofoam balls, glue and glitter, and encouraged people to make decorations for our (fake, but quite nice) tree. And quite a few folks did. This idea sprang from the fact that for years homemade ornaments were the norm in my own household. Starting with my husband’s and my first Christmas together, when we were living in Los Angeles and had a friend of mine and her partner up from Long Beach to help us make decorations and trim the tree. Every Christmas after that, if I had a tree, I would have who-ever walked trough my door during the holidays make at least one decoration, despite any protestations about having no artistic ability. Believe me, I have some very interesting ornaments.

But ornament making, especially with children involved, can be very messy, and a lot of work, and I simply did not feel like dealing with all that again. We had plenty of ornaments left over from last year anyway.

Something different we had this year was Hanukkah at the Hubbard, for kids, suggested by one of the mothers who used to bring her small children to our regular Children’s Hour on Wednesday mornings (until they graduated to pre-school). I was very relieved that Stacy essentially handled everything herself – two crafts, a story-with-song, refreshments – since I was pretty well worn out by the time 3:30 rolled around, which was when Hanukkah at the Hubbard began. This was not actually a library program; they were basically just using us as a venue. But I was very glad Stacy had suggested doing this, since there is a substantial if not large Jewish population in the area, who are “left out in the cold” in terms of any notice being taken of their special holiday.

The city has a parade – for every occasion the city has a parade – then there were fireworks. But this girl cleaned up her little library, went home, and made herself a bourbon and coke. Another Christmas in Old Hallowell gotten through.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

When I was a kid, growing up in Texas, I dreamed of living someplace where it snowed at Christmas, where the houses had chimneys for Santa Clause to come down, fireplace mantles to hang the stockings from (we hung ours from window sills). As a contin-uation of that fantasy, I wanted to live where, in autumn, girls wore knee socks with plaid skirts, and everybody wore thick sweaters with scarves wrapped around their necks. Where in summer people went away to their cottages on lakes hemmed in by trees. I don’t remember a spring version of this paradise.

So here I am, living in a place where all of the above pertains. In autumn I am frequently decked out in sweater and scarf. Although it’s fairly rare for it to snow on Christmas Day, there’s nearly always some snow on the ground. And I actually spent two off-seasons living in one of those cabins-on-the-lake that people go away to for two weeks or a month every summer. Randy Pausch, in his famous Last Lecture, encouraged people to make their childhood dreams come true. It was just in writing this that I’ve realized I did manage to make that particular childhood dream come true.

The other Saturday I did the tiny bit of shopping I had to do for Christmas (in Starving Librarian mode, alas, it is rarely possible to buy presents for people, at Christmas or any other time). I drove to Hallowell, which is an ideal place to do a “tiny bit of shopping,” with its compact stretch of little shops. And it was the perfect day for Christmas shopping: appropriately cold (none of this 80 degree business) but sunny. The sun made people cheerful. And there were plenty of people, bundled up in parkas and boots, stepping carefully over the occasional icy patch on the more or less cleared sidewalks (snow everywhere in the background), bustling in and out of the shops. But there was not the hurry, the tension, the sense of desperation you get at crowded shopping malls. It felt...yes... Christmasy!

I was looking first of all for a decoration for my goddaughter. I have given Alexandra an ornament every Christmas since she was three years old, and she is now 21. I asked her, I think it was last year, if she’d had enough of this tradition of ours, and she assured me she had not. So it was time to find another beautiful/unusual/interesting ornament, as well as a little something else for her. I made my way to Paper Kicks, the card and gift shop on Hallowell’s main street, called Water Street. And it stuck me that this shop absolutely epitomized the small-town New England shop you spy in Hollywood movies. Two shallow, multi-paned bay windows, charmingly decorated for the holidays. Inside, a small space artfully crowded with a nice collection of cards produced by Maine artists, blank cards (beautiful picture on the outside, you come up with the inside), cards that are amusing without being crass, amazingly elaborate pop-up cards for grown-ups. And shelves on the walls and on stand-alone displays crowded with unusual little this and thats. There was a tree festooned with ornaments you could buy, and I found just the thing: a small round ball with a smiling face poking out of it, two arms sticking out, two dangling legs in striped stockings. It was one of the whimsical Krinkles characters produced by the artist Patience Brewster.

My favorite “display” in the place is all the clocks on the wall behind the counter. I love clocks, love the way people down through the ages have tried to make this functional item beautiful. And standing at the counter waiting for my change, looking at all those clocks, I felt like I was in some Swiss clock-maker’s shop back in the nineteenth century.

My next stop was the Harlow Gallery, where there was both a show I hadn’t yet caught – small works by local artists, both professional and amateur, all of which were priced at $80 (a good deal in some cases, you’ve got to be kidding, in others) – and the display of Gingerbread Houses from the contest that Hallowell throws every year as part of its Christmas in Old Hallowell Day. There was an amazing reproduc-tion of Bilbo Baggin’s home at Bag End, what looked like a Moorish castle, a church in snow (lots of cocoanut). One entry that was entitled “Too Much Eggnog” had reindeer skidding off a snowy roof, joining Santa in a jacuzzi. Easily the most unusual was the one called “D-Day,” which showed Normandy Beach. I voted for my favorites, then made my way on down the street to Hallowell’s bit of the global village: Thanya’s Imported Handicrafts, run by a smiling, plump-cheeked young woman from Thailand. Most of the jewelry she carries is a bit florid for my no-nonsense goddaughter, but I found a pair that was simple enough, but just different enough, to do.

And then it was time to go home and rest for an hour before plunging into my library’s contribution to Christmas in Old Hallowell.

In your own back yard

A few weekends ago I almost made another trip to Wiscassett, but found I simply did not have the energy. This is one of the reasons I “very rarely do anything for pleasure these days,” as I said in an earlier Note: I simply do not have the psychic or physical energy. This is a sad commentary on my life at present, but there you go.

However, I decided I had sufficient energy to pay a visit to the little art gallery in the town where I work, Hallowell, which is a ten-minute drive from where I live in Gardiner. Despite spending at least six hours every weekday in Hallowell for the past 2 ¾ years, I have partaken but slightly of what it has to offer. The post office – where I have my post office box – the cunning little card shop, Paper Kicks, that has a nice selection of cards a cut above the assembly-line selection at the local drugstores, Lucky Gardens, the Chinese restaurant where I get take-out about once a week, and where they know me by name (Mehody), and know to cut the sauces, Slates bakery, where I occasionally get a bagel and cream cheese and, during periods when I’m finding it a major challenge staying awake and alert, cups of coffee with enough cream and Splenda to completely disguise the fact that it’s coffee (which I don’t actually like), Boynton’s Market, a 70-year-old institution in the town, though there is really nothing special about it, it being your basic mom-and-pop corner grocery, where I get an all-but-daily candy bar in the never-ending battle to stay awake and alert.

These are the establishments in Hallowell that I frequent. But there is much more to this little town, which historically was a bigger deal (and was bigger!) than its next-door neighbor, Augusta, now the capital, and obviously both bigger and more important. Hallowell had at one time a thriving ship-building industry (it is located on the Kennebec River, which empties into the sea 25 miles away) and also exported huge quantities of ice, and of granite. My little library, built in 1880 to look like a English country church, is made of the local granite. There is still a Granite Hill, where you can still select a hefty chunk of granite, to do whatever with.

In the second half of the 20th century Hallowell was best-known for its many antique shops, but most of those have disappeared. Today it’s given itself over to a lively arts scene, including frequent live music at places like Higher Grounds (coffee house/bar) and The Wharf (good old fashioned bar); as well as several shops that feature jewelry, pottery, bags, woven wall hangings, etc. by local area artisans.

But on my Saturday afternoon outing I limited my dip into the arts to the Harlow Gallery, which as usual was exhibiting the work of Maine artists. I’ve seen a lot of excellent paintings at this little gallery, confirming in me the impression that there are lots of folks out there who are very talented, making beautiful/interesting/amusing art, who will never be rich or famous. I always wonder how these people survive. Do they all have day jobs?

I also visited John Merrill’s Book Shop, a second-floor walk-up. As you would expect of a writer and a librarian, I love books, and bookstores. John Merrill’s is everything a used bookstore should be: slightly claustrophobic with narrow aisles, crammed shelves reaching above your head, lots of little hand-written signs, the occasional nook with a chair where you can sit down and read. Traditionally, I’ve had to restrain myself when visiting a bookstore, but being in Starving Librarian mode, with virtually no discretionary funds at my disposal, and living in a very small house, with virtually no more room for bookcases, I didn’t find restraint so difficult. Still, I was glad to finally visit the place (after 2 ¾ years!), and John – whom I know because he comes to preview our books before we have a book sale at the library – encouraged me to use him as a resource, for those occasional items that I might want to add to our collection, but that are out of print.

Finally, I had lunch at the new restaurant in town, Joyce’s. It is on the river side of Water Street (Hallowell’s Main St.), and it was very pleasant, sitting out on the covered terrace, looking out at the water gliding by, at the tree-covered opposite bank. I splurged and had the lobster pie, which could more properly be called lobster soup. Very tasty – my God, I do love lobster – but the puff pastry topping was an annoyance. Why do chefs do such things? You can’t cut up the flaky pastry because it’s sitting atop liquid, and you can’t really eat around it. Had to lift it gingerly out and set it on my bread plate, sawing loose a bite every now and then, to accompany a spoonful of the sweet, creamy soup.

My experimental glass of wine was the perfect degree of dry. All in all, I was glad I had managed to overcome my torpor, and "do" Hallowell.