When I took new puppy Lena out before bedtime on Tuesday evening, she seemed very surprised to find snow on the ground. She wanted to run around and play in it, while the last thing I wanted was for her to get all wound up right before bed. But maybe the snow was actually a puppy miracle, because it turned out to be the first night since we brought her home that she slept through the night without getting me up to take her out once or twice. (Or three or four times.) I can’t remember how long it takes before puppies sleep through the night, but it can’t come soon enough!

Because it will be a long time before Lena is able to hike with me on her own—veterinarians don’t recommend taking puppies on anything but very short, easy hikes until their growth plates have fully closed, which for Labs isn’t until around 14 months—I’ve acquired two different carriers to see if I can figure out a way to bring her along. The first, a backpack made for carrying dogs up to 40 pounds, is still way too big for her, but the second, a cross-body sling type carrier made for puppies and small dogs, shows some promise. It arrived on Monday afternoon and we tried it out with a ten-minute walk around the yard.

Today, Thursday, April 9, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel: “Meditation and Music,” a unique, interactive health/wellness program presented by To Your Health. Mindfulness meditation practitioner Will Chapman will discuss the benefits of meditation, lead the group in a short, guided practice, and take questions from the audience. Then, the Oxford Hills Ukulele Group (OHUG), led by Lynette and Ray Seames, will perform their favorite tunes and lead the audience in a singalong. To Your Health, in collaboration with Western Mountains Senior College, the Bethel Family Health Center, and MSAD #44 Adult Education, provides free health education and wellness programs to the Bethel area communities.

Wednesday, April 15, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Thursday, April 16, from 12 to 5 p.m.: Third Annual Spring Fling at the Bethel Library. Come to the library to enjoy light refreshments, browse the bookshelves, visit with library staff, board members, and friends, and purchase raffle tickets. Then enter to win a wide assortment of great prizes!

Saturday, April 25, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church: Smile Fund Sale. Proceeds from this annual community yard sale go to help purchase dentures for adults in the SAD 44 region. The church is looking for donations for the sale. Items can be dropped off at the church between Friday, April 17, and Thursday, April 23. Appropriate items include toys, books, housewares, tools, gardening supplies, and small furniture. Please NO electronics, clothing, jewelry, or stuffed animals. For an application or more information about the sale, contact the church at 824-2689.

Wednesday, April 29, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Opening Day for the Swap Shop at the Greenwood-Woodstock Transfer Station, a sure sign of spring, no matter what the weather has in store for us. Stop by and see what your neighbors have decided to part with during spring cleaning!

Saturday, May 2, in several area towns: Green-Up Day, annual roadside clean-up. Greenwood volunteers will meet at the Legion/Town Office parking lot for road assignments at 9 a.m. Trash bags and disposable gloves are provided. If you choose to do clean-up on Greenwood roads prior to May 2, please email Lynn Cobb (cobblynn12@gmail.com) or let the town office know, so they will know which sections have already been completed before making road assignments.

There is a free year-long program starting up on April 21 at the Bethel United Methodist Church. Called “Food Is Medicine,” it is designed for people who are at risk for Type 2 diabetes, and who have limited access to affordable, healthy foods. See the details in the flyer below.

Last Saturday afternoon I traveled to Unity, where I had the privilege of helping to celebrate the 100^th birthday of former East Bethel farm girl Deborah (Farwell) Eldredge. Debbie is my second cousin, once removed (my dad’s second cousin) and she and her three sons were frequent visitors to our camp in the summers when I was growing up. I was accompanied by my brother Steve, our sister Leslie, and Marta Clements, whose sister-in-law was a close friend of Debbie’s from college. It was a wonderful celebration, and I’m sure Debbie is enjoying reading all of the cards, poems, and stories she received from the many folks who attended.

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“‘Snow in April is abominable,’ said Anne. ‘Like a slap in the face when you expect a kiss.’” – Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Ingleside

My three crow friends are still coming by for breakfast most mornings. The three of them seem to get along just fine, but when a fourth crow tried to join them on Sunday, there was a bit of a squabble. Maybe I’m not the only one who felt cranky when I saw the snow. (Here’s my first attempt at embedding a short video in my column!)

Here are some events happening in the next few weeks to help chase away the late winter (or mud season) blues:

Saturday, March 28, at 2 p.m. at the Norway Memorial Library, 258 Main Street, Norway: Book discussion of Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution, by Molly Beer. This is one in a series of book discussions that are part of the special programming developed for 2026 to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the founding of our country. The next book in the series, My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, will be discussed at the Rumford Library on Saturday, May 9, at 2 p.m. For a complete list of events, visit 250bethel.org

Sunday, March 29, at 9 a.m. at the First Universalist Church in West Paris: Sunday morning service, “A Noble Life,” led by guest speaker Marilyn Hammond, who writes, “Along with the traditional Luke account of Palm Sunday and a lighter look at the ancestry of Jesus, I want to change the focus from the death of Jesus to the life of Jesus, from the divinity of Jesus to his humanity.”

Sunday, April 5, at 9 a.m. at the First Universalist Church in West Paris: Easter Sunday Service, led by Pastor Linda Couture and the worship service committee.

Thursday, April 9, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel: “Meditation and Music,” a unique, interactive health/wellness program presented by To Your Health. Mindfulness meditation practitioner Will Chapman will discuss the benefits of meditation, lead the group in a short, guided practice, and take questions from the audience. Then, the Oxford Hills Ukulele Group (OHUG), led by Lynette and Ray Seames, will perform their favorite tunes and lead the audience in a singalong. To Your Health, in collaboration with Western Mountains Senior College, the Bethel Family Health Center, and MSAD #44 Adult Education, provides free health education and wellness programs to the Bethel area communities.

Wednesday, April 15, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Thursday, April 16, from 12 to 5 p.m.: Third Annual Spring Fling at the Bethel Library. Here are the details:

Saturday, May 2, in several area towns: Green-Up Day, annual roadside clean-up. Greenwood volunteers will meet at the Legion/Town Office parking lot for road assignments at 9 a.m. Trash bags and disposable gloves are provided. If you choose to do clean-up on Greenwood roads prior to May 2, please email Lynn Cobb (cobblynn12@gmail.com) or let the town office know, so they will know which sections have already been completed before making road assignments.

It’s been a month now since we lost Eli the Wonder Pup, and every day I’m still reminded of what a wonderful companion he was, and how much I miss him. One of the hardest things for me to get used to has been hiking without him. Even though he didn’t go along on all of my hikes, now that I know he’ll never be with me on the trails again, I admit that I’m having trouble recapturing the joy hiking has always brought me.

I actually haven’t hiked in over two weeks now. Except for the first few weeks after each of my knee surgeries last year, it’s probably the longest I’ve gone without a hike in several years. Don’t worry, I haven’t broken my ridiculous exercise streak, which is approaching 14 years without a missed day—I’ve been using the exercise bike and the “dreadmill” on bad-weather days, moving firewood and shoveling snow as winter hangs on tenaciously, and enjoying some wonderful “mental health walk-and-talks” with my friend Pat—but I do want to get back to hiking soon.

Maybe I need to take a drive and hike somewhere different, on a trail I’ve never done before…one that, unlike all my favorite local trails, isn’t filled with memories of our good, good boy.

I do have some very happy canine companion news, though. After I realized that it was possible that the only thing that was going to stop me from crying every time I saw someone with a dog was to make room in my heart for another dog of our own, Will and I started looking around.

I think we both realized it might be hard to get another golden so soon after losing Eli the Wonder Pup, but before Eli came into our lives, there was Remy, a black Lab I’ve often described as “the canine love of my life.”

And there just happened to be a litter of Lab puppies not too far away, with a little girl who hadn’t yet been spoken for. Next week, Will and I will be embarking on a “puppy share” with eight-week-old Lena Belle, who will be spending her days with both of us at the historical society. It will be a long time before she’ll be hitting the hiking trails (although I’m considering investing in a backpack carrier so she can join me sooner), but I think she’ll be just the kind of heart medicine we all need.

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“A dog is the only thing that can mend a crack in your broken heart.” – Judy Desmond

It was a blast, and I plan to do more of it this spring, summer, and fall. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I visited a book group on Monday and the local senior citizen club on Wednesday, my first two book events since November, and I’m still hearing from new readers who have just discovered Just Like Glass.

For the first year or so after it was published, it was fairly rare for anyone to ask me about my future writing projects. I think most people realized that, after spending a bit more than sixteen years, off and on (mostly off, I admit) writing my first book, I needed a bit of time to, well, just bask.

[Incidentally, if you Google the word bask, the first definition is, not surprisingly, “lie exposed to warmth and light, typically from the sun, for relaxation and pleasure” and the example given of that usage is “sprawled figures basking in the afternoon sun.” The second definition is “revel in and make the most of (something pleasing)” and the example given for that sense of the word is “he went on basking in the glory of his first book.” I am not making that up. Clearly, when you publish your first book, basking is expected.]

But recently, there’s been a change. Since sometime last fall, at each of my events, during the question-and-answer period, someone has raised a hand and asked, “Are you working on another book?” or “Tell us what you’re working on now,” or “When will your next book be out?”

It’s a compliment; I know that. Often the question comes with an ego-stroking comment like “because I can’t wait to read it” or “I want to make sure my library gets it.”

I love these eager readers of my work, and I want to give them an answer—and a new book--that will keep them from forgetting about me. I don’t want to be a one-hit wonder, after all.

And the truth is, I am working on another book…sort of. It’s a novel—working title: Banned Books—that I started writing about two years after I first began my research for Just Like Glass. I actually wrote 50,000 words in thirty days—my own personal National Novel Writing Month, although I did mine in February (plus the last two days of January) instead of November.

That was February of…2010. Sixteen years ago. According to the timeline I established in writing Just Like Glass, I guess that means it’s about time for that book to be done.

It’s not.

For a while, I went back and forth between the two projects, working on whichever one grabbed my attention. Even though I sometimes went years without opening the document on my computer, each time I did, I would think, hey, this has potential! Over time, I added another 22,000 words to Banned Books, and I can sort of see the end in sight.

Eventually, though, I started to feel strongly that Just Like Glass was the book I needed to finish before I could concentrate on writing anything else, and about two years ago I got serious about it and got it done.

Then I basked. And basked some more. And “went on basking in the glory of my first book.”

Even before people started asking about my next project, I had made up my mind that a year was a good length of time to spend basking, and that when November of 2025 rolled around, and Just Like Glass turned one year old, I would buckle down and rededicate myself to the novel.

You know how people are always saying they were going to do such-and-such, but then “life got in the way”? Well, life got in the way.

I had my second knee replacement surgery in October, and, two weeks later, my husband had a biopsy. In the five months since, he has had 35 medical appointments, and I’ve gone with him to all but two or three of them.

I have acquired an almost encyclopedic knowledge of medical abbreviations, from MRIs, PETs, and CT scans to ADT/ARPI therapy. I can pronounce things like Abiraterone, Darolutamide, and Lisinopril, and tell you what they do.

My role as Captain of the Cancer Ship is probably my most valid excuse for not making any progress whatsoever with the novel, but there are others:

I have a ridiculous compulsion to exercise every single damn day, cook and bake from scratch, and make at least some effort to keep up with current events. I have dozens of unanswered emails, three knitting projects in progress, and a long list of unfinished projects around the house. I spend way too much time playing with my phone. My part-time job takes up full-time space in my head. We’re getting a puppy.

For the past several months, I have started each day’s Wordle with the word “TIRED.”

So no, I’m sorry to say, I haven’t been working on my novel lately. But ask me again, maybe in another sixteen years.

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

FIVE YEARS AGO

In my March 18, 2021 column, I wrote about a trip to Bretton Woods, N.H., where I had hiked Mt. Willard with my daughter Annie: “The scenery as I approached the trailhead was dramatic, and a little bit daunting—bigger mountains than I’m used to!—but this hike is very moderate, only a little over three miles up and back, and the payoff is an amazing view of Crawford Notch.”

Also that week, Brian and Suzanne Dunham were preparing to host Maine Maple Weekend at Velvet Hollow Sugar Works on Dunham Road, “serving breakfast wraps until noon and maple turkey chili in the afternoon on both days, with tours of the sugar house all day, and maple syrup and other products for sale. Their facility includes a dedicated gluten-free kitchen, and they will be following CDC safety guidelines.”

In the March 25, 2021 Citizen, I observed that it had been six years since I had taken over writing the Locke’s Mills column: “In my very first column, I noted that, since no one else had expressed an interest, I was stepping in ‘on at least an interim basis, since I hate to see our town go without a local correspondent.’” [The “interim” lasted for more than ten years in print, and I hope it will continue for a long time online!]

Eli the Wonder Pup and I had done several hikes that week, “including two sunrise trips up to Lapham Ledge on Tuesday and Friday and one very chilly, windy hike of the Sanborn River Trail on Monday afternoon, after we waited all day for it to warm up and finally realized it wasn’t going to. Even after a couple of really cold days, the river was starting to open up, a sure sign of spring.”

TEN YEARS AGO

In the March 17, 2016 issue of the paper, mud featured prominently: “Who loves mud? Not the residents of dirt roads in Maine in early spring, that’s for sure. And not the town highway crews, who have been doing their level best to keep the roads passable and reopen those that degraded very quickly when the temperature shot up into the 60s last week.”

In Greenwood, both the Bird Hill Road and Hobbs Road had officially been closed temporarily, which meant residents could still attempt them at their own risk, “but it definitely required a 4WD with high clearance to get through.”

I wrote about living on Bird Hill almost 35 years earlier [now nearly 45 years ago!]: “There were very few houses there, and those of us who chose to live one to two miles up a dirt road on a hillside just accepted the fact that there were going to be times when we couldn’t get up the road, whether it was due to snow, ice, or mud. I remember using skis or snowshoes to get to my job at Bob’s Corner Store at least a few times, and walking more times than I can count. But things are different now; there are a lot more people living on Bird Hill than there were in the early 1980s, and they have different expectations. The entire road is a boulevard compared to the narrow lane I used to slew down in my car on icy winter days.”

I reported that Highway Foreman Alan Seames had been out with the rock rake, “going from one dirt road to another last Friday. With the warm temperatures, there wasn’t much else he could do, since using heavy trucks to haul gravel over roads that are already muddy just makes things worse. Fortunately, in the midst of a long stretch of days when the temperature wasn’t predicted to go below freezing, we had one morning in the 20s, Saturday, and our hardworking highway guys took advantage of it to haul enough crushed gravel to get the roads back open.”

I patted myself on the back for writing the Locke’s Mills column for one full year, and missing only one week in that time, when I was “out of town and away from internet access.”

In the March 24, 2016 issue, I wrote that I had had a taste of spring, attending the Boston Flower and Garden Show on the Adult Ed bus tour. Also along on the tour were Crystal Lake and her three sisters, who referred to themselves as “the Queens”: “As we were waiting for the bus to leave the show, they told me the story behind that name. There were five girls in their family, and after losing first their mom, Rowena Dunham, in 2014, then their older sister, Dolly Olson, last year, they realized that life is short and uncertain, and the remaining Hebert women should get together once a month. At one of their gatherings, they were playing cards, and when they took turns cutting the deck, each of the four sisters cut to a queen. The odds of such a thing happening are infinitesimal, so I have to think someone was sending them a positive message!”

The Facebook page “Journey on the Back Roads of Maine” had recently shared a photo of the schoolhouse on the Bird Hill Road as it appeared in 1890, and I wrote: “When, out of curiosity, I was poking around on the Internet to find out the last year that classes were held there (the answer is 1981), I found a Sun Journal news story written by Jane Chandler in 1985 that detailed an effort that year by a group calling itself the Mt. Abram Mercantile Association (although unaffiliated with Mt. Abram Ski Resort) to purchase the building and turn it into a nightclub. A special town meeting had been set to determine the fate of the old school. I was living on Bird Hill at the time (as a resident of Bethel, not Greenwood), but I must have been oblivious to local current events. I don’t remember hearing about the outcome, but I assume voters rejected the plan.”

Ten years ago, there were five Thursdays in March, and on March 31, 2016, I wrote that there would be an opening for a school board member at Greenwood’s annual Town Meeting in May, “as Dick Melville has decided that fifty years on the board is enough. I believe he became a school director in 1965, when the area towns joined together to form MSAD #44, and, except for the years when Bev was teaching in the district and he couldn’t serve on the board, he has been there ever since.”

The Greenwood Bicentennial Committee was looking for artists with a connection to the town to paint unique designs on wooden desks from the old Locke’s Mills School, to be auctioned as a fundraiser: “Butch Fuller and Peter Musso are working to identify and contact local artists, so if you are one, or you know of someone who is, get in touch with Butch or Pete.”

Ice on the ponds was thinning: “It looks like ice-out will occur any day now on our area ponds. I’m betting on April 3 for North Pond, but we’ll see. Some years it seems to take forever after the ice turns dark for it to finally go.” [In fact, the ice did go out of North Pond on April 3 that year, one of the earlier ice-out dates I’ve recorded in the 15 years or so I’ve been keeping track.]

Easter was early in 2016, on March 27: “We had Easter dinner in Sunday River with my brother Steve and his family, and later we went to see a movie at The Gem Theater in Bethel. It’s great to have a movie theater back in the area.” [The theater had reopened the month before under new owners Wade Kavanaugh and Beth Weisberger, after being closed since 2012.]

Although I’d be perfectly happy not to see any more snow this year, I’m not counting on it, and as for unseasonably cold temperatures, it looks like we’ll have a couple of days next week with overnight lows in the single digits. At least those cold nights might help to extend the maple sugaring season, as long as it warms up enough during the day to get the sap flowing.

Here are some upcoming community events:

Sunday, March 15, at 9 a.m. at the First Universalist Church in West Paris: The theme of the Sunday service will be “Kindness,” led by The Rev. Scott Campbell. What motivates people to care for each other?

Wednesday, March 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bethel Methodist Church: Soup’s On! Community lunch of soup, bread, and dessert.

Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m. at Gould Academy: Author Colin Woodard, whose books include American Nations, American Character, Union, and Nations Apart, will present “The Last Best Hope: The 250-Year Struggle for the American Experiment in a Divided Federation,” a talk and signing. Woodard’s presentation and book signing at Gould Academy will be free. Following the presentation there will be a special author reception at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. The reception will feature the opportunity to chat more with the author, enjoy some light refreshments, and socialize in the museum galleries. Special behind-the-scenes tours will also be offered with the Museums’ Executive Director. Tickets to the reception are $25, or $20 for MBHS members. Space is limited for the reception; please click here to reserve tickets.

Saturday, March 21, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Bethel Methodist Church: Church Supper—soup, chowder, stew, chili, bread, and desserts. Donations will be accepted for the church’s new roof fund.

Sunday, March 22, at 9 a.m. at the First Universalist Church in West Paris: “Americans Who Tell the Truth: The Spirituality of Activism,” led by Ellen Gibson. Robert Shetterly, an artist from Brooksville, Maine, has spent the last twenty years working on a project called “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” Shetterly believes that truth is at the foundation of a functioning democracy. To date, he has painted 280 portraits of Americans who exemplify moral courage and civic engagement, including many Mainers. For more information on this project, go to https://americanswhotellthetruth.org/ This service was rescheduled from January.

Saturday, March 28, at 2 p.m. at the Norway Memorial Library, 258 Main Street, Norway: Book discussion of Angelica: For Love and Country in a Time of Revolution, by Molly Beer. Few women of the American Revolution have come through 250 years of US history with such clarity and color as Angelica Schuyler Church. She was Alexander Hamilton’s “saucy” sister-in-law, and the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s “charming coterie” of artists and salonnières in Paris. Her transatlantic network of important friends spanned the political spectrum of her time and place, and her astute eye and brilliant letters kept them well informed. Copies of the book are available for the special price of $10 from the Norway and Bethel libraries and the Museum Shop of the Bethel Historical Society.

I want to give a shout-out to the great folks at Bennett’s Automotive. My car had been making a slight scraping sound for a couple of weeks, which I attributed to having bent something underneath when I got stuck in a friend’s driveway and had to be pushed out. It wasn’t very noticeable, so I didn’t worry too much about it until, when Tony and I were on our way to Scarborough for a medical appointment last Wednesday, it rather suddenly got a whole lot worse. We realized it wasn’t just a bit of bent metal rubbing against a tire, but the front brakes needing immediate attention.

By the time we got home, I was feeling both stressed out over the safety issue and mortified by the noise issue. I drove it up to Bennett’s the next morning and told them my sad tale. I believe what I actually said, in response to JJ’s cheerful greeting, was “We lost our dog, my husband has cancer, my brakes are making a god-awful noise, and I have a headlight out.”

Honestly, I was expecting to hear that it would be at least a week or two before they could get to it. But—possibly because he didn’t want to see me start crying in his waiting room, but more likely because he’s just a really good guy—JJ immediately offered to drive me home to get the truck and said he’d get the car fixed up and back on the road before the weekend. In fact, it was less than four hours later when they called and said it was ready to go. I’m really grateful for this busy, efficient, and thriving business that still makes kindness and small-town values a priority.

I had two very enjoyable opportunities to talk about my book, Just Like Glass, this week. On Monday, I was the guest at the monthly meeting of the Farmington Rotary Book Club, which had chosen Just Like Glass as their March read, thanks to the recommendation of my college friend Pauline. They were a wonderful group of folks who had thoughtful observations and asked interesting questions, and it was great to hear how much they had enjoyed the book, even without being familiar with my family or the Bethel area.

On Wednesday, I attended the monthly meeting of the Bethel Senior Citizens at the Methodist Church, where I read a short excerpt from the book, talked a bit about how I came to write it, and answered a few questions before enjoying a delicious lunch prepared with many local ingredients by Annette Roy of No View Farm. Thank you so much for inviting me!

Next Tuesday, March 17, is St. Patrick’s Day. I never thought I had any Irish blood, but my Ancestry DNA results do show that I have a bit—enough to explain my love of corned beef and cabbage, which might just be my favorite meal. Actually, when I cook corned beef, I always make a New England boiled dinner, with not only cabbage, but plenty of carrots, potatoes, onions, parsnips, and turnip. I like the leftovers, in the form of a second and third dinner, Reuben sandwiches, and corned beef hash, just as much as the first round. I even make a delicious corned beef soup with the cooking broth and leftover meat and veggies.

March 17 is also the day my new right knee turns one year old. I think my surgeon would be happy to know that this knee has done 92 hikes since being replaced last March, and the new left knee, which was replaced on October 8, has gone along on the last 41 of them. My longest hike between surgeries was Puzzle Mountain, at about 7.5 miles, and the longest since the second surgery is about 4.5 miles. I’m hoping to tackle a few more in the seven- to eight-mile range this summer.

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“March is the month God created to show people who don’t drink what a hangover is like.” –Garrison Keillor

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

FIVE YEARS AGO

In the March 4, 2021 issue of the Citizen, I mused about having just turned 62: “While 62 isn’t always considered a ‘big birthday,’ like the ones that end in zero or five, it has always felt somewhat significant to me…It’s the age at which my mother, and a lot of my friends’ parents, retired. Most people I know who are my age are still working, and I don’t have any plans to retire myself, but my lifelong best friend, Donna, is retiring this spring, just in time to spend even more time than usual at camp this summer.”

I noted that 62 is the age at which many businesses, especially restaurants and hotels, start offering a senior citizen discount, and added, “Of more interest to me, I’m now eligible for a Lifetime Senior Pass from the National Park Service. For $80, I can get lifetime free access to over 2,000 recreation sites managed by six federal agencies.” [I actually didn’t get around to purchasing my LSP until October of 2022, when I visited Rocky Mountain National Park with my Colorado kids, but I do have one now!]

In March of 2021, we were just beginning to emerge from a year of social distancing, thanks to the recent development and availability of COVID-19 vaccines, and I wrote, “Now that Maine has begun vaccinating those 60 and over, I hope to join Tony in getting vaccinated against COVID-19 soon. Most of my siblings have already had their shots, and I have high hopes for what I missed the most in 2020: family gatherings at camp this summer.”

“Trying to get an appointment to be vaccinated can seem a bit like playing the lottery. If you’ve been having trouble navigating the process, or you don’t have computer access, my best advice is to find someone to help you sign up online.”

A week later, on March 11, 2021, I reported that the most recent guidelines under the “Moving Maine Forward” plan would increase the limit for indoor gatherings to 50 percent of capacity as of March 26, adding, “That means that Greenwood should be able to hold our annual Town Meeting at the Legion Hall, which has a maximum capacity of 300, since we aren’t likely to have even close to 150 people in attendance. The selectmen had previously been considering how to hold a “drive-in” Town Meeting like the one held in Woodstock last year, but being able to gather indoors should make things simpler,” with masks and social distancing still to be required.

We had had a 30-hour power outage on my birthday, due to high winds, and had used our small generator to run one circulator from our wood furnace, keeping the house at about 55 degrees. I had also plugged my new Instant Pot into the generator “and enjoyed a pot roast like my mom’s for the first time in many years.”

TEN YEARS AGO

In my March 3, 2016, column, I had been out looking for signs of spring:

“I took a walk down the Greenwood Road past Round Pond on Sunday. Although I saw a few fishermen out on the ice, from the extent of the bare ground in the woods along the road, the lack of snowbanks, and, especially, the bright orange posters warning of ‘Heavy Loads Limited,’ it really looked more like late March than late February. My former mother-in-law, Mabel Kennett, who was a teacher, always said it was an early spring in Maine if she was able to rake her lawn during her April vacation. Unless we get some big storms in March, it doesn’t look like that will be a problem this year.”

The Greenwood Historical Society was offering packs of postcards for sale to commemorate the town’s bicentennial, with each pack of five postcards including scenes of Greenwood as it would have appeared in 1816-1855. “This is the first of several postcard packs that the historical society plans to release throughout the bicentennial year, so don’t miss your chance to start building your complete collection.” [I believe the commemorative postcards are still available at the town office.]

When the March 10, 2016, issue of the paper came out, the town was seeking interested residents to serve on the Planning Board and the Board of Appeals, as well as “two regular members of the soon-to-be-formed MSAD 44 Cost Sharing Committee. These are all important positions, and we need thoughtful folks to fill them. It’s a great way to get involved on the local level, something that I can say from personal experience is very rewarding.”

Tony, Will, and I had attended the Democratic caucus at Telstar, where several area towns held their caucuses. “Sixteen Greenwood residents came to caucus and seven had voted earlier by absentee ballot. Our local results of 15 for Bernie Sanders and eight for Hillary Clinton mean our town’s two delegates to the state convention in May will be split between them. Interestingly, if just one person had switched sides from Hillary to Bernie, both of our delegates would have gone for Bernie, which shows how every vote really can make a difference.”

In other local news that week, Peter Seames had broken his hip in a recent fall, and neighbors and friends were sending him their thoughts, prayers, and get-well wishes.

I was experimenting with baking sourdough bread from a starter I had been nurturing for a couple of weeks:

“Real sourdough bread depends on wild yeast and lactobacilli that are naturally present in flour, as well as in the air, and it takes somewhere between a week and two weeks of daily ‘feeding’ with flour and water to get the starter to the point where it’s ready to bake with. Then it can take several hours for the dough to rise, so it’s a real ‘slow food’ experience. I’ll let you know how it works out.”

And I was continuing my walks on the Greenwood Road, “now that the snow has melted back enough to leave the edges of the road dry and ice-free. I enjoy seeing the incremental changes on the ponds each day at this time of the year and keeping an eye on the expanding pool of open water by the culvert that goes under the road in the area Diddy Johnson called Mayes’ Bridge. Spring is on the way, and, even though this winter hasn’t been especially harsh, I’m always ready to welcome it.”

In the old black and white photo, six girls are gathered in Donna’s living room, below a paint-by-numbers picture of a deer grazing beneath some birch trees at the edge of a lake. It’s late November, as evidenced by the pile of birthday presents Donna has been opening just before her mother posed us for the photo.

I’m in one of my growing-out-my-bangs phases, and I’m wearing some sort of bell-bottomed plaid jumpsuit that my mother made, with a zipper up the front, and I have a white turtleneck on underneath.

This was not, I assure you, the fashion, even in 1969. It may be that my mother, despairing of ever getting me into a skirt outside of school or church (where I didn’t have a choice), combined a perfectly normal jumper pattern with a homemade pattern cut from newspaper, perhaps a tracing of my older sister’s bell-bottom jeans, and conceived what she believed to be an appropriate birthday party outfit.

Most of the other girls are dressed considerably more fashionably, especially Veronica, who wears white bell-bottoms with a white blouse. From the knees up, her pants are printed with small daisies, but on the flared lower legs, the daisies grow huge, transforming into a bold and riotous print that can only be described as mod. We are all a little jealous.

Debbie’s bell-bottoms are equally enviable, with a wide border print at the bottom. It’s hard to tell from the blurry photo, but the print might possibly even feature paisleys, my favorite motif at the time. But whether or not they actually have paisleys, her pants are definitely, definitely store-bought.

We all wear saddle shoes or Mary Janes from the Buster Brown store, or lace-up canvas Keds, or, in my case, a pair of knock-off canvas sneakers, the kind you can get for a dollar at King’s, the discount department store in the Milford Plaza.

Despite my lack of stylish attire, I don’t recall feeling like a misfit. In fact, I don’t remember any time during the five years I attended West Main Street Elementary School when anyone picked on me for my unfashionable clothes, barber-shop haircuts (which were, as my mother reminded me, so much cheaper than at a salon), or underdeveloped social skills.

I don’t know if this was a slumber party or not, but if it was, we would have slept downstairs in the finished basement, in sleeping bags on top of air mattresses on the cold, hard floor—white linoleum tile laid directly over the concrete. We would have played games like Truth or Dare, listened to The Monkees on 45 rpm records, and drunk orange soda and eaten M&Ms and Fritos with onion dip. We would have been awake until at least two a.m., and possibly until three or even four, and we would have been groggy and cranky when Donna’s mother woke us around ten to tell us that the first of our mothers had arrived to take us home.

Six months after this photo is taken, my mother will decide to sell my beloved childhood home, just two doors down from Donna’s, in a neighborhood so quiet and safe that we could ride our bikes, or play hopscotch and kickball in the street, without our parents giving much thought to what we were doing. We will move to a much smaller house on a much busier road, only two miles away, but it might as well be two hundred. I will attend a different school, where I will know no one, and life as I have always known it will change dramatically, but I don’t know that yet.

It’s Donna’s eleventh birthday, and, except for me, she is the last in the group to turn eleven. I’m the youngest kid in the sixth grade, due to a series of events that began five years ago, when I was caught reading a third-grade-level book aloud to a circle of kindergarten classmates and suddenly found myself, as a somewhat bewildered five-year-old, in first grade.

I will be ten years old for another three months. I will be barely seventeen when I graduate from high school. Eventually, my youth and immaturity will overwhelm my academic aptitude, and my innate but manageable shyness will blossom into full-blown adolescent self-consciousness that will somehow last until I’m about forty. I’ll never again make friends as effortlessly as I did in elementary school. Among the many bad decisions that lie ahead of me, I’ll drop out of college not once, but three times, and it will take me thirty-one years to finally finish the degree I’ll start in 1976.

But on this day in November of 1969, I’m just one of a gang of happy friends, closer to the world of mud pies, hopscotch, and Easy-Bake ovens than that of make-up, gossip, and mean girls. I don’t even know yet that life can be anything but simple, and ignorance really is bliss.

Dr. Stanley Russell Howe passed away at his longtime Broad Street home, the Hastings Homestead, on Sunday, February 22. To say that Stan was a giant in the realm of local history would be an understatement. He led the Bethel Historical Society as its first executive director from 1974-2010, and continued as associate director and director of education and research until the end of 2012.

I believe I first met Stan 50 years ago, during Bethel’s celebration of America’s bicentennial. I have an image in my mind of him dressed in Revolutionary War garb at the Mason House. I’ll have to ask Will to comb the archives and see if there’s a photo, or if I’m imagining it.

Stan had many relatives and long-time friends with whom he kept in touch over the decades, and in recent years he enjoyed sitting on his front porch in warm weather and chatting with drop-in guests and passersby; he was very much a fixture on Broad Street. His absence will be sharply felt, and my heart goes out to Randy Bennett, his friend and caregiver, and to all his friends and family, for whom his passing means the end of an era.

Margaret Mills passed away on February 17 in New Hampshire, where she had been staying with Blaine’s son, Sean. Sean called Kim at the town office to let her know. He hopes to be able to have a memorial service here in Locke’s Mills this summer to give everyone a chance to remember and honor Blaine and Margie and their many contributions to our town.

If you pick up your mail at the Greenwood post office, as I do, you already know that after many months of temporary and substitute fill-ins behind the desk, we have a new permanent postal clerk, Greenwood resident Samantha Mills. If you get your mail delivered and don’t frequent the post office, stop by to introduce yourself and welcome her. Window hours are 8 to 10 a.m. and 2:15 to 4:15 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8 to 11:30 a.m. on Saturday.

Here are some events for your calendar:

Saturday, February 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Locke’s Mills American Legion on the Gore Road: Live music for listening and dancing, performed by The Fossils. Admission is by donation, and light refreshments will be available.

Wednesday, March 4, from 1-3 p.m. at the First Universalist Church of West Paris: Cabin Fever Fun Day. Cribbage boards, playing cards, and a jigsaw puzzle will be available, or bring your own games or crafts for a social afternoon. Snow day is Thursday, March 5.

Thursday, March 5, from 4-5:30 p.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel: “Caring for Your Heart,” a free wellness program sponsored by To Your Health and presented by Dr. Daniel van Buren, a resident of Bethel and a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology.

Friday, March 6, at 5 p.m.: “Healing Scars of War” at West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel. Janet Willie will speak about her recent trip to Ukraine to work with healthcare workers on how to heal scars on Ukrainian soldiers. A community potluck supper begins at 5 (bring a dish to share) and Janet’s talk will follow the meal.

Tuesday, March 10, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Methodist Church on Main Street in Bethel: Neighbors Feeding Neighbors community meal.

Wednesday, March 11, at 11 a.m. at the Methodist Church: Monthly meeting of the Bethel Senior Citizen Club. Amy Wight Chapman (hey, that’s me!) will speak about her family memoir, Just Like Glass, with lunch to follow. New members are always welcome, and annual dues are just $10.

Saturday, March 21, at 2 p.m. at Gould Academy: Author Colin Woodard, whose books include American Nations, American Character, Union, and Nations Apart, will present “The Last Best Hope: The 250-Year Struggle for the American Experiment in a Divided Federation,” a talk and signing. This will be followed by a special reception at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society. The presentation and signing are free. Tickets for the reception are $25 ($20 for MHBS members). Space is limited for both events; please reserve your free presentation tickets and reception tickets at 250bethel.org/Woodard or by using the QR code in the flyer below.

The following is a list of speakers for March at the First Universalist Church of West Paris. Sunday services begin at 9 a.m., with music by Davy Sturtevant and refreshments following the service. All are welcome.

March 1, “Listening,” led by the Rev. Scott Campbell, who will explore what it means to truly pay attention to one another.

March 8, Bob Neal will be the speaker. His topic is “The Mustard Seed and the Pullman Porters,” based on the parable of the mustard seed (Matthew 13), using the example of how the Black middle class arose from the occupation of sleeping-car porter. It was the best job most Black men could get, and the pay and tips were enough to create a middle class in a still-segregated country.

March 15, “Kindness,” led by The Rev. Scott Campbell. What motivates people to care for each other?

March 22, “Americans Who Tell the Truth: The Spirituality of Activism,” led by Ellen Gibson. Robert Shetterly, an artist from Brooksville, Maine, has spent the last twenty years working on a project called “Americans Who Tell the Truth.” Shetterly believes that truth is at the foundation of a functioning democracy. To date, he has painted 280 portraits of Americans who exemplify moral courage and civic engagement, from Abraham Lincoln to Stacey Abrams, Margaret Chase Smith to Samantha Smith, Pete Seeger to Richard Blanco. We will investigate how activism intersects with the seven UU principles. For more information on this project, go to

https://americanswhotellthetruth.org/

This service was rescheduled from January.

March 29, “A Noble Life,” led by guest speaker Marilyn Hammond. “Along with the traditional Luke account of Palm Sunday and a lighter look at the ancestry of Jesus, I want to change the focus from the death of Jesus to the life of Jesus, from the divinity of Jesus to his humanity.”

For more information about the church and services, please contact Marta Clements, 674-2143, mclements96894@roadrunner.com, or Suzanne Dunham, 665-2967, dunhamfarm@msn.com or visit the church’s Facebook page. To learn more about the Unitarian-Universalist Association, visit

http://www.uua.org/

The First Universalist Church of West Paris is located at 208 Main St., W. Paris 04289

As many of you already know, if you read my blog or follow me on Facebook, my family experienced a heartbreaking loss this week with the unexpected passing of Eli the Wonder Pup. We are all devastated, but the outpouring of condolences from so many of Eli’s fans has been a comfort, confirming what we already knew, that while his time with us was too short, he had the best life a dog could ever ask for. If you haven’t read my blog post about our good boy, and you’d like to, you can find it by clicking here.

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.” – Roger Caras

We had to say goodbye—unexpectedly—to my beloved granddog, Eli.

As they say, f*** cancer—the cancer none of us even knew he had until a vet visit yesterday morning.

Eli was a Golden retriever, an irrepressible ball of fur who joined our household on July 12, 2017, seven months after we lost our black Lab, Remy—a loss that affected me so deeply that I thought I’d never again let another dog steal my heart. (I was wrong.)

Eli was special in a thousand ways, but one of the most obvious was that he had no tail. None at all, not even a stubby one. I was always quick to tell people that he had been born that way—it hadn’t been slammed in a door, or, worse, intentionally docked—and that Will had gotten him for half-price because of it. We already had a five-year-old bobtail cat, Roman, so we figured Eli was meant to be ours.

Will was still living at home with us for the first year that he was Eli’s person. Tony and I both let that crazy puppy charge right into our hearts, too, but he was Will’s best friend and constant companion, accompanying him to work from the very beginning. It’s probably remarkable that, in nearly nine years of spending his days hanging out in the archives of a historical society, he destroyed only one historical document, and it wasn’t a really old or irreplaceable one…honest. (Also, Will saved the pieces and was able to tape them back together.)

Eli was very highly food-motivated, a fact that probably meant he could have been fairly easily trained to do some practical tricks, like his predecessor, Remy, who knew commands like “shut the door” and “go back” (which meant he should scoot backwards on his butt, a trick Tony taught him to keep him from crowding the door when we were trying to open it). More to the point, he probably could have been trained not to do some less desirable Eli tricks, like helping himself to whatever food was on the counter or table (or in our hands) at the slightest lapse of vigilance on our part.

It didn’t seem to matter if the food he stole was something he probably wouldn’t have even chosen to eat if we had put it in his own dish—if it was something his humans thought was tasty, he was happy to give it a try. As my daughter Annie recalled, “My favorite Eli story was when he ate an entire bowl of refried beans and then looked at us like, WTF did I just eat?”

Then there was the time he wolfed down, in about two seconds, most of a cooling rack full of oatmeal-raisin cookies and had to be rushed to Lewiston to the emergency vet because, as it turns out, raisins are toxic to dogs.

Just a few weeks ago, when Eli was visiting us for an extended period while Will and Rosemary’s apartment got put back together after a plumbing disaster, Tony and I were having leftover pizza for lunch, and, as I texted Donna, “Eli made a sudden lunge and got my second piece, and when I jumped up to try to grab it back (and yes, I would have eaten it if I could have gotten it back before he chomped it up), I knocked the remaining half of my first piece off my plate and he grabbed that, too.”

And I’ll never forget the time he ate half an apple pie (along with the plastic bag it was in).

Eli’s enthusiasm for food was matched only by his enthusiasm for fun. We learned early on that “a tired dog is a good dog,” and that strenuous daily exercise was the only way to wear him out, which meant that his people got strenuous daily exercise, too.

He was my most eager, energetic, and spirited hiking partner. I couldn’t begin to tell you the number of hikes he took with me, but I’m guessing it was in the hundreds. Sometimes we were with Will, or Tony, or both of them, and sometimes with other friends or family members, but very often it was just the two of us.

Although he racked up many longer, more challenging hikes with Will, Eli’s hikes with me were short, most ranging from two to five miles, and we would go along at our own pace, stopping as often as we wanted to sniff as many smells (him) and take as many photos (me) as we wanted. And, of course, from nearly every hike there would be at least one mountaintop selfie.

All of this hiking and photo-taking, and my tendency to overshare on social media, coupled with the fact that I wrote the weekly Locke’s Mills column in the Bethel paper (and now online) throughout Eli’s entire life, made him something of a local celebrity. Many times I would meet other hikers who would exclaim, “Hey, I know this dog! This is the famous Eli!”

After Will, Rosemary, and I said our heartbroken goodbyes at the vet yesterday morning, Will went home and made the poignant social media post that let Eli’s many friends and admirers know what had happened.

Reactions came thick and fast.

“Such a wonderful dog. Eli loved everyone and everyone loved him.”

“He was such a character and wonderful companion, and he had the perfect family in all of you.”

“I loved watching all of his hiking adventures with your mom. You could tell he was the best.”

“You and your parents gave him such a wonderful life. I will really miss the Eli the Wonder Pup pics and stories.”

“I’m so sorry to read about Eli—the best hiking partner in Maine—and his premature exit from the trail. May he find you often in memories of streams, and snow-crusted mountaintops, and warm furballs by the fire.”

Over and over, I heard what Eli had meant to so many people. And I heard what I knew in my heart to be true—that, while his life may have been too short, it was a wonderful life, and we were his perfect family—and it comforted me. Thank you all for loving him, too.

The last thing I felt like doing yesterday afternoon was going for a hike. It’s hard to think about bundling up and hitting the trail alone when your heart is broken. But I knew that both my heart and my head needed it; there was just so long that I could sit around the house crying and reading condolence messages on my phone.

So in the late afternoon I headed to Buck’s Ledge, a place where, for as long as I can remember, I have gone to find peace, comfort, inspiration, and hope…and now, the spirit of a crazy puppy who, in his short life, taught me so many important things, among them:

Always be ready for a new adventure.

Take time to stop and smell the roses—or sample the blackberries—along the way.

On a hot summer hike, never pass up an opportunity for a cooling dip.

There is no bad hiking weather…

…and a little mud never hurt anyone.

The best hikes always end with ice cream.

And always, always, always—if you love someone, let them know.

Eli the Wonder Pup—Gramma’s good, good boy—I hope you always, always, always knew how much you were loved.

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

FIVE YEARS AGO

In the February 18, 2021, issue of the Citizen, I reported on five hikes I had taken in the seven days prior to writing that week’s column, including four on snowshoes. I had been to Buck’s Ledge and the summit of Moody Mountain; to the Upper Sanborn River Trail via Willis Mills; to Lapham Ledge and Buck’s Ledge, where I had a good view of rally races being held on the ice of North Pond; and, on two consecutive mornings, to Peaked Mountain in Maggie’s Nature Park in search of sunrise.

I also noted that “Besides hiking, my other adventures this week revolved around a flying squirrel that found its way into our house. Actually, I suspect he lives in the attic, but doesn’t usually let himself be seen. He created quite a bit of excitement for the cats, led me (armed with an old fishnet) on two unsuccessful high-speed chases over two days, and was finally escorted outside after Tony trapped him under a dog dish. (I’m sure he was safely back in the attic by the time Tony got back inside himself.)”

On February 25, 2021, I wrote, “Remarkably, there have been no further flying squirrel sightings here at our house, and not even any scrabbling in the walls and ceilings, since Tony shepherded our adorable little invader out the door under a dog dish last week. Do I dare to hope he was a rare loner of the breed, and doesn’t have a couple dozen siblings and cousins holed up in my attic?”

I reported on a visit to camp to clear snow from the roof and deck, another hike to the summit of Moody Mountain, and one to Wheeler Mines in Gilead to admire the ice formations.

I had also been getting some indoor exercise:

“I’m in the process of moving my work office from the third floor of the Bethel Historical Society’s Robinson House down to the first floor, and for the rest of the work week, I got most of my exercise by making at least 20 trips a day up and down between my old and new offices. It turns out that you can find a whole new set of muscles when you carry boxes, file drawers, and, sometimes, one end of a table, desk, or four-drawer file cabinet down two flights of stairs.”

(Coincidentally, now—exactly five years later—I am in the process of moving my office back up to the third floor!)

TEN YEARS AGO

In the February 18, 2016 issue of the Citizen, I extended sympathy to the families of Irving Cole and Eleanor Inman, who had both recently passed away, and concern for Gilbert Dunham, who had been taken to the hospital after suffering a mild stroke, but had been able to return home a couple of days later.

The Greenwood selectmen had voted for a resolution in support of a collaborative approach to the Age-Friendly Community Program, and I reported that “By joining with Bethel and other area towns to help provide the supports that make it possible for seniors to ‘age in place,’ instead of having to leave their homes as they age, we will be breaking new ground. The AARP and the World Health Organization have established a nationwide network of Age-Friendly Communities, but none, so far, in which towns have utilized a collaborative approach. Peter Musso has volunteered to be the community contact for Greenwood in the project.”

Planning for Greenwood’s bicentennial celebration was well underway, with a parade, food and craft vendors, concerts and other entertainment, an old-time slide show, a reunion of the Locke’s Mills School, and more all in the works. The Bicentennial Committee had recently met with Steve Marson of Central Maine Pyrotechnics, “who is promising the best fireworks display the town has ever seen for our 200th birthday celebration on August 13.”

Also from that week’s Locke’s Mills news, my son Will had just finished scanning and digitally archiving all of the glass plate negatives in the Greenwood Historical Society’s Nettie Maxim collection, and I wrote: “He’s now working on the Guy Coffin negatives, taken at about the same time, around the turn of the 20th century, as well as some earlier stereoptic images taken on Main Street by an unknown photographer around 1875. For a small local historical society, GHS is fortunate to have some very special items in its collections.”

I had spent Valentine’s Day weekend in Portsmouth, NH, with my lifelong best friend, Donna, and we had met up with two of my daughters, Annie and Caitlin. I reported on our visit: “We all enjoyed one of our favorite activities, thrift store shopping, as well as a visit to a farm with adorable 10-day-old baby goat triplets, which we got to hold and bottle-feed.

On February 25, 2016, I reported that I had read to 16 children at Story Time at the Bethel Library the previous week. “I read three books by Jan Brett featuring the adventures of Hedgie, a silly little hedgehog, and brought along a knitted Hedgie I had made for the kids to hold. It was nice to sit in the rocking chair that was purchased for the library with donations in memory of my mother after she died in 2004. My mom was a school librarian in Connecticut for many years, and volunteered at the Bethel Library for nearly two decades after retiring to Maine, her home state, in 1982.”

My own love of reading started early, too. One of my writing group’s recent prompts was to “tell about your most special Christmas gift, and what made it special,” and while I’m not sure the gift I described receiving nearly sixty years ago was my most special one ever, in a way it really was my “key to the treasure.”

It’s Christmas morning, 1966, and still very early. I am seven years old and I can’t get back to sleep. I wonder if my sister is awake in her bedroom on the other side of the bathroom, or my brothers, bundled under piles of blankets in their big, cold room down the hall.

Maybe it’s almost time for us all to get up and go downstairs to see if Santa came. If he did, the stockings we hung beside the fireplace last night before bed will be bulging with small, interestingly-shaped packages, with a candy cane at the top and an orange in the toe.

We always bring our stockings to the big table in the dining room to open while we eat breakfast, carefully averting our eyes from the presents under the tree as we carry them past it, saving our first glimpse of those for after we’ve eaten and the dishes have been cleared away.

Because she knows it’s hard to wait, my mother will have set the table the night before. She will have sliced the grapefruit into halves, loosened the sections with a special curved knife, and topped each half with a bright red cherry before placing them on a tray and sliding it into the refrigerator, ready to be set at each of our places as soon as we come downstairs.

The rectangle of sky I can see through the high dormer window above my bed is still black, but at this time of year, on school days, I have to get up in the dark to get ready, so maybe it’s almost 7:00 already. I feel for the flashlight on my nightstand and aim the beam at the clock on the wall across my tiny bedroom.

Darn, it’s not even 4:00 yet, hours before sunrise and too early for even my early-rising family to appreciate being awakened. I flop back onto my pillow and fix my gaze on the window, wondering how I’ll ever be able to wait until the sky lightens to gray.

After a few minutes, I get up to use the bathroom, slipping through the low, hobbit-sized door that leads to it from my bedroom, the one I call my secret door. The other way in and out of my room is through my mother’s bedroom, and I don’t want to wake her up, because I’ve just had an idea.

I leave the bathroom by way of the regular, human-sized door and creep down the dark staircase as quietly as I can, wishing I had brought my flashlight. When I push open the door at the bottom, there’s just enough light from the streetlights coming through the dining room windows to keep me from bumping into the table as I pass through to the living room.

In the wide doorway between the rooms, I stop short. The lights on the Christmas tree in front of the big picture window are on, bathing the room in soft color, and by their light I can see that the stockings hanging from the mantle are filled to overflowing, and the floor around the tree is piled high with packages.

Knowing I could get in trouble—I’m not even supposed to see them yet, let alone go through the pile, looking at all the tags—I nevertheless abandon caution and start digging. I’m thrilled to see my own name on so many of them, although, as the youngest in the family by nearly a decade—the only child, really, in a family of adults—I’ve almost come to expect that this is how it will be.

I give each package a gentle shake and try to guess what’s inside. One box that gives an intriguing rattle might be a game with lots of small pieces, or a kit to make some kind of craft. Another is the right size and shape for a jigsaw puzzle, and the muted sound it makes when I shake it could definitely be from the cardboard pieces sliding around in the box.

I’m tempted to loosen the Scotch tape on every one of them, just enough to expose a corner of the box, but I don’t let myself go that far. If I were caught doing that, I really would be in trouble, and, besides, none of these packages is what I’m looking for just now.

I unearth two or three wrapped boxes that are almost certainly clothes, then bury them again in the pile, hoping I’m wrong, or that, at least, they’re not underwear and socks. Then, under another probably-clothes gift addressed to my sister (who actually thinks new clothes are somewhat exciting, especially if they’re store-bought instead of homemade), I find a flat package, too slender to be a box, and slightly heavy for its size.

It can’t be anything but a book, exactly what I’ve been searching for, and this time I do loosen the tape, very cautiously, and only the piece that holds the flap of wrapping paper, folded to a point, in place at one end, being careful not to tear it. I peek in, just to be sure, and see the edges of the pages and a yellow cover.

I carry the book, still wrapped, to the couch, where I sit down and slide it ever so carefully out of the paper and onto the coffee table so I can read the title. Key to the Treasure. Tucking my bare feet up under my nightgown, I open the book and, by the red and green and yellow and blue lights of the Christmas tree, begin to read.

I only intend to read a chapter or two, just long enough to get sleepy; then I’ll slip back upstairs and crawl into bed, and no one will ever know. But the book turns out to be a mystery, the first one I’ve ever read, and I find myself turning page after page as I wait for my eyelids to grow heavy. It’s beginning to grow light outside the windows when I finish the last chapter and close the book. I slide it back into the paper, press down on the tape to securely reseal it, and push it deep into the pile under the tree.

As I tiptoe back up the stairs, I can hear my mother moving around in her room. Holding my breath, I slip into the bathroom, then through my secret door, and dive under the covers of my bed, just as the door that connects our rooms opens.

“Merry Christmas!” my mother says.

I open my eyes, stretch, and give what I hope is a convincing yawn. “Is it time to get up already? Do you think Santa Claus came?”

I’ve attended the first two Sunday afternoon live readings of The Age of Homespun, by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, at the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society, and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to slow down, sit down, and work on a knitting project for a couple of hours while learning something new.

Ulrich’s book is organized around detailed descriptions of 14 domestic items from pre-industrial America and how the objects, which range from a spinning wheel to an unfinished stocking, fit into the culture and history of the ordinary people who made or used them.

Last Sunday, we heard about Molly Ockett and her life and times from the chapter that describes a pocketbook created more than 200 years ago from fabric she wove and decorated with dyed moose hairs. It was given to her friend Eli Twitchell of Bethel (who, incidentally, was the brother of my fourth great-grandfather, Eleazer Twitchell, making Eli—I think—my fourth great-grand-uncle) and it is now in the collection of the Maine Historical Society.

The reading and discussion, led by Jessica Jolly, continues each Sunday in February, from 3-5 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Robinson House at MBHS. Please join us! Bring along a handcraft to work on, or just come and listen.

Some other upcoming events to chase away the late-winter doldrums:

Saturday, February 21, from 2-3:30 p.m. at the Mason House of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: “Ghosts of Centennials Past.” MBHS Executive Director Will Chapman will present a program on how the American Centennial of 1876 and Bicentennial of 1976 were celebrated in the Bethel area. (Having been in on some of the planning of his program, I can guarantee that it’s going to be both engaging and fun.) This program is just one of many events taking place in 2026 to commemorate the 250^th anniversary of American independence. Click here to visit the website 250bethel.org to learn more and see the full list of events, exhibits, and book discussions.

Wednesdays, February 25, March 4, and March 11, from noon to 1 p.m. at West Parish Congregational Church: Lenten Lunches. This simple meal of soup and bread is an opportunity for people of different faiths to gather and reflect together on the journey to Easter. The meal is free. Each church is invited to bring the food for the three lenten lunches.

Thursday, March 5, from 4-5:30 p.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel: “Caring for Your Heart,” a free wellness program sponsored by To Your Health and presented by Dr. Daniel van Buren, a resident of Bethel and a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology.

Each month, the Bethel Area Age-Friendly Community Initiative (AFCI) creates a calendar of community-wide events and activities that older people can attend to stay healthy. All are social activities that are mostly free and address emotional, mental, physical, and sometimes spiritual needs. Here’s February’s.

I made a late-afternoon solo trek up to Buck’s Ledge, and Eli the Wonder Pup and I enjoyed a couple more hikes in the McCoy-Chapman Forest this past week. On Saturday afternoon we hiked the Chapman Brook/Sam’s Trail loop in the still-falling snow, and had the place to ourselves after meeting one cross-country skier with his dog, also a Golden, near the start of our hike. Then on Monday we set off to hike to the scenic overlook on the McCoy-Gray Birch Trail. Most of the trail was pretty firmly packed, but we turned around about three-quarters of the way up, as soon as we got beyond the better-traveled sections, when my boots threatened to poke holes in the trail. As I’m sure you’ll agree if you’ve ever been on a snowy trail that someone hiked in bare boots when they should have used snowshoes, there’s a special place in hell reserved for “post-holers.”

While Eli was hiking with me on Saturday, Will and Rosemary were hiking the Flume Gorge in Lincoln, N.H. I’ve only been there once myself, and even though I was a sulky teenager at the time, it has always had a special significance for me. My mom took me there one summer, because she and my dad had hiked it on their honeymoon, in early April of 1942, and she wanted me to see it. I’ve always planned to go back again, and someday I will.

My mom was almost a Valentine’s Day baby, having been born on February 13, 1920. The 13th fell on a Friday that year; she always said that the 13th was her lucky day, especially when her birthday happened to fall on a Friday. This year, in her honor, I’ll donate blood on her birthday at the Red Cross Blood Drive, which is from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the West Parish Congregational Church in Bethel. As of Wednesday evening, there were still a few appointment spots left, in case you’d like to join me!

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“Winter is not a season, it’s an occupation.” – Sinclair Lewis

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

FIVE YEARS AGO

In the Locke’s Mills column of February 4, 2021, I reported that the Greenwood and Woodstock selectmen had met to discuss the 2021 budget for the transfer station. The proposed total budget of $257,850 was about 30 percent higher than the previous year’s, reflecting a steep increase in costs to the towns for the disposal of metal and construction debris, as well as municipal solid waste.

At 6 a.m. on January 31, we were experiencing our coldest temperature reading of the winter, ten degrees below zero, and Tony and I were hoping for a warm-up before our afternoon trip to Portland for “an outdoor, socially distanced visit” at a park with our then two-year-old granddaughter and her mom, who had relocated to Portland from North Carolina at the beginning of January.

A few days before, I had done an early-morning hike of Moody Mountain by way of the newly created J&J Backcountry Trail, starting out with a headlamp about 45 minutes before sunrise, and I reported that “Jurgen and Janice Marks, who created the trail, have recently added excellent signage at all of the trail junctions. They had been up it the day before my hike, and their tracks, as well as pink flagging and the new signs, made it easy to follow the trail.”

In my column of February 11, 2021, I wrote about four recent “hometown hikes,” two to the top of Peaked Mountain in Maggie’s Nature Park; one on the Sanborn River Trail, across the connecting trail to Overset Pond, around the pond, and back to my car via the Jeep trail (a.k.a. Overset Pond Lane); and the fourth to the overlook on Patch Mountain.

“Whenever I hike around Overset Pond, I always think of Rex and Roland Martin, and how Rex told me they used to spend a week there, camping and fishing, at the end of the summer before school started. It was their reward for working hard, haying and doing other odd jobs, all summer. Rex said that from the time he was only ten or 11 years old, they would set off without much more than their fishing poles, blanket rolls, and a few potatoes. They caught plenty of fish and cooked them over a campfire, slept on the ground, and were completely on their own until they hiked back out a week later—not something many parents can imagine letting their kids do nowadays!”

TEN YEARS AGO

From the February 4, 2016 Locke’s Mills column: “Peter Musso of Greenwood is the Artist of the Month for February at the Local Hub. He has been painting for many years and since his retirement he has found extra time to pursue his passion for art. Peter will have framed as well as unframed pieces for sale. Stop by to view his works, and enjoy some of the Hub’s delicious food.”

Frequent visitors to our birdfeeders had been goldfinches, purple finches, chickadees, and juncos, along with a few American tree sparrows, a couple of white-throated sparrows, and one female cardinal.

In the February 11, 2016 Locke’s Mills column, I shared the sad news that our Twitchell Pond friend and neighbor David Brainard had passed away after a long and difficult illness. “There are so many of us in Greenwood who are grateful to Dave for everything he has done for the town over the years, especially for having shared his expertise and leadership on the Planning Board. He will certainly be missed.”

We had just celebrated Greenwood’s official 200^th birthday, with cake and ice cream following the previous week’s selectmen’s meeting, the kickoff to our bicentennial celebration year. “Sally Smith made the cake, with a photo of a loon that I had taken a couple of summers ago on the top. Using edible ink and special “paper” made out of sugar, she can transfer any photo to a cake. Modern technology never ceases to amaze me!”

I also wrote about the Read to ME Challenge, a month-long public awareness campaign to promote childhood literacy in Maine. “To accept the challenge, all you have to do is read aloud to one or more children for at least 15 minutes, have someone take a photo or a short video of you reading aloud to kids and post it on social media with the hashtag #ReadtoME or #ReadaloudME and challenge others to do the same. I accepted Cathy Newell’s challenge after she posted it on Facebook. My read-aloud time is scheduled for Feb. 18, when I’ll be reading at the Bethel Library for Story Time. The photo I posted was actually a favorite photo of my mom, Ruth Wight, reading to five of her grandchildren at our camp on North Pond, back in 1976. She was a school librarian for many years and loved reading to kids more than almost anything else.”

Saturday morning’s short hike to Lapham Ledge in the Buck’s Ledge Community Forest really was chilly. Even though we waited until late morning to head out, the temperature was only one degree above zero, and there was a strong wind. Needless to say, we didn’t linger long on the open ledges.

I had planned to take Eli to Maggie’s Nature Park on Sunday, but then Will called to say that he and Rosemary were on their way to Portland and couldn’t remember for sure if they had unplugged the waffle iron after making waffles for breakfast—could I go and check? So I decided to head for the McCoy-Chapman Forest on the North Road (after stopping at their apartment in Bethel to ascertain that yes, the waffle iron was unplugged). The temperature was about five degrees warmer than the day before, but the real difference was the lack of wind—six degrees feels positively balmy when you’re dressed for it and the wind isn’t threatening every inch of exposed skin with frostbite.

I was glad to have gotten a couple more hikes in before hitting the trails without snowshoes became out of the question for a while. I did put my snowshoes on to get to the bird feeder on Monday afternoon, though, and then I stomped down some paths in the dog pen for Eli. The snow was so deep and powdery that I’m hoping a few other people will put on snowshoes and pack down my favorite trails before I get back out there.

I didn’t have to think about what to do for a workout on Tuesday morning—it was back to the “snow gym” to get the paths and ramp at the Bethel Library cleared off before it opened at noon. I enjoy snow-shoveling—really!—but I was glad this big snow was light and easy to handle…and I’m kind of hoping the storm that may be coming our way on Sunday misses us.

Here are some upcoming meetings and events for your calendar:

Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. at the Bethel Library on Broad Street: Book discussion of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, by Pauline Maier. This is the first of several book discussions relating to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution to be held during 2026 as part of the celebration of America’s 250^th birthday. A remote participation option will be available for those who can’t attend the discussion in person.

Saturday, January 31, from 2:30-5:30 p.m. at the West Paris Library: Communication Workshop. Facilitators Robin Dunn and Stephanie Frykholm will lead this workshop on “How to Talk With Somebody Who Sees It Differently.” This program is free, but space is limited and registration is required. To register, call the library at 207-674-2004 or email librarian@westparislibrary.org.

Wednesday, February 4, from 1-3 p.m. at the First Universalist Church of West Paris: Cabin Fever Fun. There will be a puzzle to work on and cribbage boards and cards. Bring your own game or craft and come and enjoy a social afternoon. There will be light refreshments. The snow date will be Feb. 5, at the same time.

Friday, February 13, from 5-6:30 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society’s Robinson House: Community Mending/Repair Group meeting. This newly-formed group meets monthly to share knowledge and other resources for fixing things that might otherwise go to waste. At their first two meetings, repairs included hemming pants, darning socks, sharpening kitchen knives, and putting shoes back in service. The Feature Focus of the February meeting will be repairing snowshoes, nordic ski bindings and poles. Bring your own project (anything you’d like to fix - it doesn’t have to be the Feature Focus) and a few dollars to put into the MBHS donation box. And if you have a friend that may be interested, bring them along too! If you’d like more information on how to become involved, contact Betsey Cooper at (207) 381-0713 or email awoodenhouse100@gmail.com or Robin Nesbeda at (978) 895 2320 or email RNesbead@gmail.com

Valentine’s Day is coming, and the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society is holding its third annual Haven’s Candies Valentine Fundraiser. Chocolate speaks louder than words—tell someone how much you love them with an I Love You Box from Haven’s Candies! Order online at bethelhistorical.org/shop or call 207-824-2908.

The selectmen and town managers of Greenwood and Woodstock met this week to finalize the transfer station budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year. After bids for hauling waste and recycling were opened, a three-year contract was awarded to our current provider, Casella.

The Greenwood Board of Selectmen and Budget Committee will meet at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 5, and at 5 p.m. on Thursday, February 12, at the Town Office on the Gore Road to develop the municipal budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026. Like all regular selectmen’s meetings, budget meetings are always open to the public.

If you’ve been reading this column for a while, you know that I celebrate the arrival of Groundhog Day each year. Even though I know perfectly well that we’ll always have at least six more weeks of winter (whether or not that prognosticating rodent sees his shadow), Groundhog Day always means the end of winter is in sight.

According to Wikipedia, “The first documented American reference to Groundhog Day can be found in a diary entry, dated February 4, 1841, by Morgantown, Penn. storekeeper James Morris: ‘Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas Day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back in for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.’”

An old rhyme goes: “February second, Candlemas Day: half your wood, and half your hay. Half the winter has passed away; we’ll eat our supper by the light of day.”

Actually, I’ve read that January 20 is statistically the midpoint of the heating season, with an average of half the degree days occurring prior to that date, and half after. If that’s the case, we’re almost two weeks closer to spring than the old rhyme indicates, so if you’ve already gone through half your wood, it may not be cause for panic. And with any luck, the second half of winter will be at least a bit milder than the past couple of weeks.

“January is the worst month. You are fat and broke from the holidays, paler than ever, and you can’t feel your own face when you walk outside.” – Anonymous

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

From five years ago—January 21 and 28, 2021

Despite having more than 20 extra minutes of afternoon daylight, Eli and I ended up racing against sunset to get back to our car after a hike to Lapham and Buck’s Ledges late on Wednesday.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, as we were coming down the wide, smooth logging road where we weren’t likely to encounter many tripping hazards, and I did have both a headlamp and a portable phone charger with me, just in case. But it was a good reminder that darkness still falls fast and early on these winter afternoons.

A reminder to all that face coverings must be worn on the premises of all municipal properties, which includes the transfer station and, of course, the town office. It seems as if everyone should be used to this by now and it should go without saying, especially with regard to indoor spaces like the town office, where people must be in close proximity, but apparently some still haven’t gotten the message.

If you are unwilling or unable to wear a face covering, please conduct your town office business by mail, email, or phone, or by requesting curbside service. I’m not looking to start a debate here; these are the rules for everyone, for everyone’s protection.

Last Wednesday was Inauguration Day and I wanted to do something special to commemorate it, so I hiked up to Buck’s Ledge before sunrise, then along the new trail extension to the summit of Moody Mountain, where I had views to the southeast and could watch as the sun came up. For once, I timed it just right and got to see a gorgeous sunrise, a great way to start the day.

As I mentioned last week, on average, our coldest winter days here in Maine fall between January 19 and 25, and this winter seems to be following that pattern. Although we still haven’t had any 20-below-zero mornings, and only a couple that were below zero at all, it certainly felt cold enough last weekend, with highs only in the teens and winds of at least 15 mph.

Despite the cold and wind, I got out for a hike on both weekend days, and I’d like to think I deserve extra points for not opting for the treadmill in the basement instead. I must be getting tougher in my old age.

On Saturday we bundled up and hiked to Lapham Ledges, Buck’s Ledge, and the summit of Moody Mountain. Tony hadn’t been on the new trail extension and wanted to check it out. I had assured him that, once we were past the steep section of trail just below Buck’s Ledge, the rest of it would be pretty much “a stroll in the woods” with little elevation change.

I had just been there three days earlier, but I had forgotten that, actually, even though the summit of Moody, at about 1,400 feet, is only about 200 feet higher than Buck’s Ledge, there’s quite a bit of up-and-down to get there. But that was probably a good thing, as the workout kept us warm.

From ten years ago—January 21 and 28, 2016

As I think most people have heard by now, 2016 marks the 200th anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Greenwood. While most of the bicentennial festivities will take place during the weekend of August 12-14, selectmen and town employees plan to kick off the celebration with a birthday party for the town at their next regular meeting on Feb. 2 at 5 p.m.

The date of the meeting coincides with the actual anniversary of the date when Greenwood’s incorporation papers were signed, Feb. 2, 1816. Everyone is invited to join the celebration at the Town Office on the Gore Road. There will be birthday cake—hope to see you there!

I’m sure there are many snow-lovers who will disagree, but I was happy to have Winter Storm Jonas (a.k.a. Snowpocalypse 2016), which broke all-time snowfall records in at least four states, miss us by a couple hundred miles.

Except for sending Will up to shovel off the rather flat dormer of our house, we’ve managed to avoid climbing onto our roofs to shovel them so far this winter, and I’d like to keep it that way. Last winter was an exception, but usually if most of our storms come later in the winter, they are followed by enough sunshine and warmer days to encourage most of the snow to slide off before it gets too heavy or builds up impressive icicles and ice dams.

At their most recent meeting, the Greenwood selectmen discussed stepping up enforcement of the town’s addressing ordinance, which requires that all property owners post their assigned 911 street numbers where they are clearly visible from the road so that emergency responders can locate them easily.

For houses that are within 50 feet of the road, this means posting them on the building, and for houses further than 50 feet from the road, the numbers should be placed near the road.

The current ordinance provides for a fine of up to $2,500 for those not properly displaying their house numbers. The selectmen hope to amend the ordinance to allow a fine of not less than $25 and not more than $250, since the intent of the ordinance is not to punish, but to encourage compliance.

As Selectman Fred Henderson said, “Not having the number displayed could be dangerous. It could even cost somebody their life.”

I always feel encouraged when the days grow noticeably longer. Since I can dress for the weather, it’s really not the cold temperatures, snow, and ice that I find hardest about winter (well, maybe the ice), it’s the lack of daylight. It’s much easier now that I work part-time and have generally flexible hours so I can take advantage of what light there is on the shortest days. I remember many years when I drove to and from work in the near-dark, and winter seemed so long!

Tony and I enjoyed a visit from our Colorado girls, Annie and Cait, last weekend. They arrived on Thursday, left on Sunday, and managed to pack a lot into a long weekend—a delayed celebration of Christmas, visits with family and friends, walks with Eli the Wonder Pup, and Cait even joined Katie and Lila at Mt. Abram on Saturday afternoon for Lila’s first ski lesson of the year. She and Katie skied during the lesson, then had time enough afterward for a couple of runs with Lila.

The Greenwood selectmen joined with selectmen and town managers from Bethel, Newry, and Woodstock on Monday for a meeting (and delicious meal) hosted at the Woodstock town office. We have had several of these joint meetings, facilitated by the Northern Forest Center, to discuss regional issues that affect all of our towns. Agenda items this time included an update from First Light on the progress of the broadband project, information from Campbell Environmental Group on grants to assess possible hazardous waste sites, and steps for updating municipal Comprehensive Plans.

Greenwood plans to begin the process of updating our Comprehensive Plan and will soon be seeking members to serve on a Comprehensive Planning Committee. Please let Town Manager Kim Sparks know if you are interested—call 875-2773 or stop by the town office.

Wednesday, January 21, at 2 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society: The Bethel Library Book Club will discuss Mad Honey, co-written by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. (I just finished reading this book in four days; I couldn’t put it down, and probably would have read it in a day or two if only I could have put everything else in my life on hold.) The Reading Room is located in the back of the building, with access through the rear door on the driveway side, and plenty of parking behind the building or on Broad Street.

Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. at the Bethel Library on Broad Street: Book discussion of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, by Pauline Maier. This is the first of several book discussions relating to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution to be held during 2026 as part of the celebration of America’s 250^th birthday. Copies of American Scripture are available for purchase at cost from both the library and the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society.

The Yarn Hub Drop-In knitting group at the Bethel Library meets on Tuesday mornings from 10-noon.

The Village Makers meet year-round on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Whitman Library in Bryant Pond to enjoy crafting and community. Organizer Liz Hatch calls herself “an obsessed knitter,” but crafters of all kinds are welcome.

Age-Friendly Community Initiative sponsors a drop-in indoor walking program at the Gould Academy Fieldhouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-2 p.m. through April.

AFCI also creates a monthly calendar to let people know what other opportunities and services are available for older citizens in our area. Here’s the schedule for January. Although we’re halfway through the month, and some of these events have already taken place, this should give you an idea of how many great programs are taking place throughout our communities.

I’m overdue for an eye exam, and my cat Carl would agree that it’s time. The other morning I dropped a pair of black shorts on the floor at the top of the stairs so I’d remember to take them down to add to the laundry, and before I got around to going downstairs, I had walked by, glanced at them, and said, “Hi, Carl!” to them…not once, but twice.

This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“Don’t stress about your eyesight failing as you get older. It’s nature’s way of protecting you from shock as you walk past the mirror.” -- Anonymous

On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.

From January 7, 2021

While the ground was still bare, Tony, Will, Eli, and I spent both days of the weekend after Christmas tramping around in the woods on four different remote hills in Hartford with a map, successfully locating four giant stone cairns of mysterious origin that we had recently learned about. Two of them, on Thompson Hill and Hutchinson Hill, are around 10 to 12 feet tall, while the two on Doten Hill and Irish Hill are smaller.

Since then, we’ve been told about two or three more similar stone structures in other nearby towns, but no one seems to know anything about when or why any of them were constructed, or by whom. If you have any information, please share it!

I spent several hours this weekend sorting through the records I’ve been keeping on my FitBit, posts to my hiking album on Facebook, and entries in a document on my phone where I’ve kept track of the mileage of all my hikes, walks, and runs in 2020.

Now I have lots of detailed statistics about what I’ve been doing for the past year, most of which are interesting only to me. I will share that I hiked, snowshoed, walked, or ran a total of 1,272.8 miles, which was well over my goal of 1,000, and I went on 127 hikes, comfortably surpassing my goal of 100. At least 2020 was good for something.

From January 14, 2021

The extra daylight in the afternoon means time for an occasional after-work hike for Eli and me, if we can duck out early. We did that last Thursday, and had time for a quick hike up Peabody Mountain in Albany, about a 3.5-mile round-trip. Even with the slightly longer afternoons, the sun was setting when we came off the trail, and it was almost dark by the time we drove home.

Although I didn’t need them on that hike, I was glad I had been carrying both a headlamp and a portable phone charger in my pack. One of my many resolutions for 2021 is to remember to be well-prepared when I head out on the trails, especially when I’m hiking alone (or with Eli, who is great company, but no Lassie when it comes to knowing what to do in an emergency).

Since the start of the new year, Will, Eli, and I have already made two hikes to the summit of Moody Mountain on the Woodstock Conservation Commission’s new trail extension that continues from the top of the Buck’s Ledge trail. We chose that trail for our New Year’s Day hike, and did it again this past Saturday. It’s definitely going to become a new favorite.

I mentioned this new section of trail after we hiked it the first time, in early November, when a potential route had just been flagged. Since then, the trail-clearing work of volunteer extraordinaire Jurgen Marks has resulted in over a mile of new trail that is easy to follow and leads to rewarding views.

In the future, there will be the option of making a loop via a short, steep trail connecting the summit to a point about a mile further up the logging road from the place where the Buck’s Ledge trail departs from it. This section is very steep, and the loop, when completed, will be best done counter-clockwise.

If someone would send me some real news, I wouldn’t have to write about hiking all the time!

From January 7, 2016

As predicted, the temperatures have taken a dive to more seasonal levels, and with the several inches of snow we got on Dec. 29, it finally looks and feels like winter. As I write this at noon on Monday, our temperature has only crept up to 16 degrees, from a low of 10 this morning.

I’ve already broken one of my New Year’s resolutions, which was to write a “real” letter—the kind you fold up, put in an envelope, add a stamp, and send through the mail—every Sunday. I do plenty of communicating via email, Facebook, Messenger, and texting, but there are a few people in my life who still write old-fashioned letters, and I’m afraid I’m not very prompt about answering them.

My current backlog of correspondence includes an Oct. 1 letter from a former Greenwood summer resident who reads my column from his home in Pennsylvania, and one from Nov. 5 from East Bethel native Deborah Farwell Eldredge, who lives in Unity.

Debbie is my father’s cousin, and always came to visit us at camp in the summer with her three boys. She told me in her letter that she works at the polls each year with a friend from Andover, who brings back issues of the Citizen for her to read.

She also told me a story about her grandfather, Porter Farwell, a farmer in East Bethel. He was disabled after a broken leg later in life, and unable to do much farming, so Debbie’s mother taught him to knit and “he kept the men in socks to wear working in the woods.” Debbie learned to knit by watching her grandfather.

Debbie’s letter was going to be the first one I wrote on the first Sunday of 2016...but I forgot all about my resolution until after I’d gone to bed. Of course, there’s no reason why I can’t write a letter on a Monday, or a Tuesday, and I hope to have her letter answered before next Sunday!

Betsey Foster says she doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions, but she follows a “100-day practice” started within the past 50 years or so by a T’ai Chi master named Jou Tsung Hwa. It entails simply picking a specific thing and doing it each day for 100 days, from writing a haiku to setting aside time for reflection each day.

“It doesn’t have to have any relationship to anything—it could be to brush the cat daily,” Betsey said, adding that it traditionally begins on the Chinese New Year, which falls on Feb. 8 this year. She finds it “a good way to appreciate the dark days of this season and note the progression toward light.”

From January 14, 2016

Time for some trash talk. At last week’s meeting of the Greenwood-Woodstock Transfer Station board, it was decided that the “swap shop,” which is currently closed for the winter, will reopen in the spring, but only if volunteers can be found who are willing to be responsible for its operation.

Transfer station employees have said that keeping the swap shop running and orderly takes a lot of their time and they would prefer to see it closed. Despite signage, they have had problems with people leaving unusable or inappropriate items, or leaving vehicles blocking the bulk trash and metal recycling bins while they visit the swap shop.

Some residents, as well as some members of the board, however, have expressed that the swap shop provides a valuable service as a way to pass items that are no longer needed by one person on to someone else who can use them. Besides the neighbors-helping-neighbors value, this reduces the amount of bulk trash the towns must pay to have hauled away.

After hearing from a friend in New Hampshire that the towns in her area have volunteer-operated swap shops, I searched for information on line. It appears that having volunteers run the swap shop, or having it open only a few hours per week, or a combination of both, are all common solutions.

Most town websites I looked at stress that items left at the swap shop should be clean, working, and usable, and many place restrictions on the types of items that can be donated.

Incidentally, while most towns simply call it the swap shop, my favorite name comes from the Midcoast Solid Waste facility, which serves Camden, Rockport, Lincolnville, and Hope. Their volunteer-run swap shop is called “The Pick of the Litter.”

Eli the Wonder Pup and I continued our streak of Christmas Day hikes with our ninth annual one, a short snowshoe hike on the Orange Trail in Maggie’s Nature Park. It was the first time on snowshoes for my new knees, and they held up well. We broke out the trail in fresh powder snow, and the 1.3 mile loop was plenty of exercise for both of us.

Three days later, Eli and I went back to Maggie’s Nature Park for another hike. By then the trails had been traversed by several others, and while I still needed my snowshoes, I was able to make it to the top of Peaked Mountain without much difficulty. I haven’t been out for a hike since Monday’s storm and the ensuing deep freeze, but I’m sure I’ll find the conditions have changed quite a bit, and I will probably be back to Microspikes, at least until the next snowstorm.

Five years ago this week, in my last column of 2020, I wrote, “As a confirmed introvert, and a dedicated avoider of most kinds of raucous celebrations, I’ve never enjoyed the party aspect of New Year’s Eve. I have, however, always loved the concept of the incoming new year as a time for new beginnings, an opportunity to do things a little better the next time around, and a time of great optimism and hope.”

Those two things haven’t changed: I still avoid raucous celebrations, and I still look forward to each new year with great (even if misplaced) optimism. As usual, I’ll be making—and probably breaking—a few resolutions. How about you?

I’m so sorry to have learned recently that several families in our community are grieving the loss of a loved one this holiday season. Sincere sympathy goes out to John and Eva Coolidge and their family for the loss of their beautiful granddaughter, Corey Blais, on December 29; to the family of Duffy Ellsworth, who passed away on December 23; and to Ken and Michele Cole and family for the loss of Michele’s mother on December 21. We are all holding you all in our hearts.

With the start of 2026, the country is preparing to celebrate its Semiquincentennial, or, if you prefer, Bisesquicentennial, Sestercentennial, or Quarter Millennium. Yes, those are all technically correct ways to express the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but there seems to be a general consensus across the country that, for ease of remembering—and spelling—the name, it should be called simply “America 250.”

“Engage With Our History - Independence 250” is a series of programs and events taking place here in western Maine, sponsored by the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society and community partners. Follow the Independence 250 Facebook page to stay informed about all of the upcoming events and activities throughout the year—the first two are coming right up!

Saturday, January 10, at 2 p.m. in the Meeting Room of the Mason House, 14 Broad Street in Bethel: Independence 250 Kick-off. This event will feature a screening and discussion of a highlight reel from Ken Burns’ The American Revolution documentary. (The complete documentary is now available for streaming on Public Broadcasting.) Come and learn more about what is planned for 2026, and pick up a copy of the first reading group book.

Saturday, January 31, at 2 p.m. at the Bethel Library on Broad Street: Book discussion of American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, by Pauline Maier. In American Scripture, Maier shows us the Declaration as both the defining statement of our national identity and the moral standard by which we live as a nation. A hybrid option will be available for those unable to attend in person.

Here are more things to do in the new year:

The Bethel Library Book Club meets monthly at 2 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society’s Robinson House, next door to the library. The Reading Room is located in the back of the building, with access through the rear door on the driveway side, and plenty of parking behind the building or on Broad Street. The first meeting of 2026 will be held on Wednesday, January 21, at 2 p.m., and the book is Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan.

The Yarn Hub Drop-In knitting group at the Bethel Library meets on Tuesday mornings from 10-noon. The group has been on hiatus for the holidays, but will resume meeting on Tuesday, January 6.

The Village Makers meet year-round on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Whitman Library in Bryant Pond to enjoy crafting and community. Organizer Liz Hatch calls herself “an obsessed knitter,” but crafters of all kinds are welcome.

MSAD 44 Adult and Community Education is sponsoring a four-day hands-on workshop on the Art of Sourdough, Wednesday-Friday, January 7, 8, and 9, from 6-7:30 p.m., and Saturday, January 10, from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. For more information and to register, contact the office at 824-2136, ext. 1341, or email adulted@sad44.org.

Age-Friendly Community Initiative sponsors a drop-in indoor walking program at the Gould Academy Fieldhouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-2 p.m. through April. The program has been on holiday break, but will resume on Tuesday, January 6.

If you haven’t yet checked out Western Maine Neighborhood News at wmnn.org be sure to do so. You can read columns by seven former Bethel Citizen town correspondents on the website, or subscribe to have them delivered to your inbox each week. This online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included there, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

Since I’ve been writing the column for Locke’s Mills for more than ten years, I thought it might be fun, on some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, to look back through a decade of local news reports for the same calendar week, to see what was happening in and around our town in those years.

This week in 2015, I reported that “I was out doing errands when the first of the snow squalls hit—it only lasted about ten minutes, but it was certainly intense! I was in The Local Hub when it started, and was quite surprised to look out and see white-out conditions. Norm Milliard had left in sunshine to walk to the post office and got caught in the sudden blizzard on the way. He said his toes got a bit nippy, but the sun was back out by the time he got home.”

In 2016, we had a messy storm the weekend before Christmas, and I wrote, “Although Saturday’s snow didn’t add up to as much as the storm we got last Monday, the follow-up of freezing rain on Sunday made it much heavier to deal with, and left us with a driveway that resembles a skating rink. Thank goodness for the municipal sand pile right across the street. I used four buckets on the driveway on Monday morning before I even dared to drive down it, and brought home another four buckets to keep on hand for next time.”

The week before Christmas in 2017, Joyce Hathaway let us know that Dick Melville was recuperating from shoulder surgery at home, and I reported that Cathy Newell was staffing the rug-hooking exhibit at the Robinson House of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society on Dec. 22 from 1 to 3 p.m. to welcome visitors, demonstrate the craft, and give people a chance to try it out for themselves.

In 2018, we were experiencing “a banner year for ice-skating,” and I wrote that “I’ve seen photos posted on Facebook of people skating on North Pond, Norway Lake, and other area ponds. One friend said he skated 15 miles one day last week!”

In 2019, Will had taken Eli for a hike on the Speck Ponds Trail, opposite Hutchinson Pond in Albany and had returned without the remote control for Eli’s e-collar. “Will was pretty sure he knew approximately where he had dropped it, so on Sunday we went back there to hike and, sure enough, found it beside the trail. It even seems to still be in working order, despite being out in a two-inch rainstorm the day before.”

Just before Christmas in 2020, Tony and I had received the wonderful news that “the world’s most perfect grandchild,” then two and a half years old, and her mom would be moving from Raleigh, N.C., where they had spent a year, to Portland, where our daughter Katie would be working remotely as legal counsel for the Boston Conservatory, and we were looking forward to spending a lot more time with them.

In 2021, “After reading in last week’s Citizen that a resident had complained about the way the Greenwood highway crew was maintaining our roads, Betsey Foster emailed Town Manager Kim Sparks and the three selectmen to express her support for the crew and highlight the great job they do: ‘We have probably the best road crew in this area of Maine. All anyone needs to do is drive to any of the surrounding towns to see how well our roads are maintained in winter compared to Bethel, Norway, etc etc. We need to be applauding our road crew not condemning them. Please let the folks who work for the Town highway department know that some of us do not agree with the complainant. They do great work and, since I hear them plowing in the middle of the night, they are out plenty early enough.’”

The week before Christmas in 2022, we had received 19 inches of snow in a single storm, and some places nearby had gotten over two feet. I wrote, “So far, we’ve spent two days cleaning up from the storm, and I’m planning to go to camp to clear the roof and deck tomorrow. Two feet of snow provides a lot of exercise and entertainment.”

In December of 2023, I reported that the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society had discovered online and purchased a wonderful painting, “Skating on the Bethel Common,” done by Eleanor Brooks in 1997, and was having it made into a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle. “The whimsical folk art painting depicts a winter scene of the Bethel Common, with the historical society, the Bethel Inn, the library, and other familiar buildings.”

(The popular puzzles are still available in the Museum Shop, as well as online at bethelhistorical.org/shop)

In 2024, despite having had cortisone shots in both knees, and having scheduled two knee replacements for the following year, I was still hoping to make it to 100 hikes before the end of the year, and had just done three short hikes on three consecutive days, twice to Lapham Ledge in pursuit of sunrise (once a few minutes too late and once successfully), and once, with Tony, up Peaked Mountain in Maggie’s Nature Park and out to the overlook on the Red Trail on the way back down.

2025—I hope that all of my readers who celebrate Christmas had a wonderful one this year! We spent the afternoon of Christmas Eve in Portland with our granddaughter, Lila, and her family, and the afternoon of Christmas Day with my brother Steve and his family, and are looking forward to another celebration when our Colorado kids are home in a couple of weeks. Eli and I enjoyed our traditional Christmas Day hike (our ninth annual!) in fresh powder snow at Greenwood’s own Maggie’s Nature Park, and I got to try out both a new pair of snowshoes and a new pair of knees to see how they worked on unbroken trails in deep snow. (Both got high marks.)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We intend to use this space to carry on the longstanding tradition of providing the most truly local of local news. Our goals are twofold: 1) to inform and entertain and continue to share with current readers the news and events taking place in our towns, presented in our own unique voices (and often with our own stories and commentary added for good measure), and 2) to provide historians studying Maine’s past—perhaps a century from now—with access to the kind of local news that has informed their research for 240 years, since the founding of Maine’s first newspaper, The Falmouth Gazette, in 1785.

With regard to the second goal, History Today notes, “Historians have relied on the local press for valuable snapshots of everyday life. Column after column of births, marriages and deaths chronicled the ebb and flow of human existence, enabling the tracing of ancestors, celebrities and locally influential people.”

As for our goal to inform and entertain our readers, I can’t count the number of times people have told me that the town columns are their favorite and most valued part of the local paper. I hope that those who miss reading us in print will find their way here—if you’re here online reading this, please spread the word!

Town Managers Kim Sparks and Tonya Lewis of Greenwood and Woodstock have received word from Casella Waste Systems that the cost of their services to transport waste from the Greenwood-Woodstock Transfer Station will be increasing by 30 to 50 percent in 2026. The towns’ multi-year contract with Casella ends December 31, and prices will increase January 1. Kim and Tonya will be looking into the costs paid by other towns, and the possibility of requesting bids from other haulers before a new contract is signed.

At their last meeting of 2025 on Tuesday evening, the Greenwood selectmen made the following one-year appointments: Codes Officer Anne Kwoka; regular Planning Board members John Kwoka, Sarah Wood, Andrew Baker, David Newcomb, and Cheri Thurston; and alternate Planning Board member Matt Mitchell.

The Planning Board’s next meeting is scheduled for Monday, January 5, at 5 p.m. at the Greenwood Town Office. The Board of Selectmen will meet on the first and third Tuesdays, January 6 and 20, at 5 p.m.

By the time you read this, Christmas will be just a week away! Here are some holiday events still ahead:

Friday, Dec. 19, from 4-6 p.m.: Greenwood Farmers’ Market and Holiday Wonderland at the old Town Hall on Main Street in Locke’s Mills. Shop for all your favorite local goods, including maple syrup, granola, eggs, delicious baked goods, fresh greens, and Icelandic wool yarn, then go “free-shopping” for donated holiday décor to round out your seasonal decorating. Donations for the Bethel Food Pantry will be collected at both December markets.

Saturday, Dec. 20, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at Jackson-Silver Post #68, 595 Gore Road in Locke’s Mills: Legion Cookie Walk. Purchase a festive holiday cookie box for $8, then fill it to the brim with homemade cookies for a perfect last-minute gift.

Sunday, Dec. 21, at 4 p.m.: Annual Candlelight Service at the First Universalist Church of West Paris, led by Pastor Linda Couture. There will be Christmas carols, a Christmas story, and a reading by Rodney Abbott, with music performed by organist Elaine Emery. No collection will be taken at the service, but there will be a collection of non-perishable food items for the West Paris food pantry. Holiday refreshments will be served after the service.

It’s hard to believe that it’s time to start thinking about a new year already! If, like me, you’re hoping to find time for some quiet and/or creative pursuits in 2026, here are a few like-minded groups to get you started:

The Bethel Library Book Club meets monthly at 2 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Museums of the Bethel Historical Society’s Robinson House, next door to the library. The Reading Room is located in the back of the building, with access through the rear door on the driveway side, and plenty of parking behind the building or on Broad Street. Here’s the schedule of 2026 books and meeting dates.

The Yarn Hub Drop-In knitting group at the Bethel Library meets on Tuesday mornings from 10-noon. The group is currently on hiatus for the holidays, but will resume meeting on Tuesday, January 6.

The Village Makers meet year-round on Tuesdays from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Whitman Library in Bryant Pond to enjoy crafting and community. Organizer Liz Hatch calls herself “an obsessed knitter,” but crafters of all kinds are welcome.

MSAD 44 Adult and Community Education is sponsoring a four-day hands-on workshop on the Art of Sourdough, Wednesday-Friday, January 7, 8, and 9, from 6-7:30 p.m., and Saturday, January 10, from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. For more information and to register, contact the office at 824-2136, ext. 1341, or email adulted@sad44.org.

If you’re looking for something to keep you active throughout the winter months, the Age-Friendly Community Initiative sponsors a drop-in indoor walking program at the Gould Academy Fieldhouse on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1-2 p.m. through April.

I’ve been baking and sewing, but my preparations for Christmas are far from complete. We’ll be heading to Portland on the 24^th for a Christmas Eve lunch with our granddaughter, Lila, and her family. Our tradition has been to go later in the day and stay through dinner, but that long, dark drive home from Portland has been getting longer and darker every year, and we’re happy to be switching the schedule up this year to allow us to get at least part of the way home in daylight.

Speaking of daylight, I’m happy to report that we have passed the date of the earliest sunset, which was at 4:04 p.m., and sunset tonight (Thursday) is at 4:05! Next Thursday, Christmas, the sun will set at 4:08, and by New Year’s Day it will be all the way up to 4:14. However, sunrise will still continue to get a little later each morning until the beginning of January, when we’ll slowly start to gain daylight on that end of the day, too—just seconds at first, but by the end of January, sunrise will be at 7:03, up from its latest time of 7:19. And the day’s length will increase from eight hours and 50 minutes on the shortest day, December 21, to nine hours and 47 minutes by January 31, a welcome and noticeable difference!

Sunday, December 14, marked 5,000 days for my “exercise streak,” meaning that I haven’t missed a day with at least 30 minutes of some form of exercise since I started the streak back on April 7, 2012. I celebrated with my longest hike so far with my new knee, a 4.3-mile loop of all three peaks in the Buck’s Ledge Community Forest: Lapham Ledge, the summit of Moody Mountain, and Buck’s Ledge. Because of the powdery snow on the trails, it took me somewhat longer than I had planned, but that worked out well, because I ended up at the overlook on my way down the logging road just in time to catch the sun setting behind Mount Abram. (And yes, I do carry a headlamp, but I didn’t need it this time.)

This new online newsletter is intended to keep our communities informed, so if you have news, events, or photos you’d like to have included here, I hope you’ll share them with me! You can reach me by email at amy.w.chapman@gmail.com or by phone or text at 207-890-4812.

“The need for connection and community is primal, as fundamental as the need for air, water, and food.” – Dr. Dean Ornish