In a time when nothing seems certain, when I wake up every morning worried about the immediate future, at least one insecurity has been put to rest. Tonight, via Zoom,  the selectmen will be reviewing – and hopefully approving – the Purchase and Sale agreement for the LHS to buy the building that’s been its home for the past 25 years.

Phew.

Now we can get to work. And who are “we”? A steering committee of nine – Brian Cronin, Lee Cronin, Rosey Gerry, Jane Hardy, Pat Shannon, Cyrene Slegona, Niel Wienges, Andy Young and myself – is already busily making plans for when the LHS officially owns the building that the town is selling us for a dollar.

If you haven’t been following the saga of the Beach Schoolhouse, AKA the LIA building, here’s the story in a nutshell. When the one-room school for Lincolnville Beach children closed its doors in 1947, the town apparently ceded it to what was then known as the Village Improvement Society. That group, which changed Village to Lincolnville, was wholly responsible for its maintenance, utility bills, and improvements until about five years ago when its members finally went to the Selectmen and asked for help with the building the town had owned all along.

Mostly made up of Beach residents, both full-time and summer, the group set about renovating what may well have been a pretty dilapidated building in 1947. They did it the old-fashioned way: with volunteers (themselves) and with fund-raisers (potlucks, rummage sales, and fancy work tables). Their names are mostly forgotten in town today, and there are many I never knew, but here’s who I remember: Lena and Bill Brooks, Al Mathieson, Robie Ames, Eddie Stephens, Julie Payne.

I haven’t forgotten their summer potlucks. I think they might have done one a month. What made them stand out from the other potlucks (and there was always a public supper somewhere in town every weekend it seemed) was the meat. There was always a huge ham or maybe a turkey, right out of the oven, that someone was slicing up to go with the dozens of casseroles and salads. Dessert in those days was always pie, homemade pie, not store-bought (or not that you could tell anyway). With three hungry little boys we generally made it to those suppers.

I don’t remember biscuits made on the spot at the LIA suppers; we arrived in town at the tail end of those days, when a woman famous for her biscuits – Ruth Pottle and Janet Richards come to mind – would be mixing up batches of biscuits right in the kitchen, baking them in enormous pans. Have you ever been in Tranquility Grange’s kitchen? That’s the last place where biscuits were made on the spot, then put out piping hot. But I digress.

Lena Brooks ran the LIA’s summer rummage sale during the 70s. They held it at Bernice and Stanton Collemore’s front yard, two houses north of Chez Michel. Oh my. Where Chez Michel used to be. It was a huge sale, and when Lee Cronin took it over sometime in the 90s she moved it to the LIA building, spending over a week of long days with an intrepid crew of volunteers, labeling every last thing – the clothes, utensils, books, gadgets, lamps, appliances, trinkets and geegaws. Memorably, one time two boxes of ashes, the remains of two departed citizens, turned up, accidently sent down to the sale with the all the stuff that family had cleaned out of their parents’ home. Luckily, someone remembered where it had all come from, and the remains were returned. Must have been an unforgettable moment in that family.

When the Improvement Association took over the downstairs space was unfinished as the schoolroom had always been upstairs. They added a kitchen to the back of the first-floor room, put in a bathroom, new windows, turned the double outhouse (one for boys, one for girls) into a storeroom, hung curtains, and stenciled the walls with tiny schoolhouse images.

They kept paint on the wooden clapboards, must have done the roof at some point, added a hot air furnace under the kitchen addition, dug a well, mowed the grass. Except for running hot air ducts to the upstairs room, until the early 1990s the schoolroom was left alone. Until, that is, the Lincolnville Historical Society came looking for a home.

The LHS, founded by Jackie Young Watts in her living room one day in 1975, existed mostly in the files and boxes stored all over her house. Jackie and Leslie Hall ­– Cappy to those who remember him – got permission from the phone company to use the tiny brick building that still stands across from the General Store as a museum. For a few summers the two took turns opening their museum to the public. But the place was too damp to store stuff, and the LHS had no money to fix it.

Membership grew through the 80s with monthly potlucks and programs, along with the popular Founders Week-end held at the Grange during those years. People began giving their family heirlooms and photos to the Historical Society.

Though she never found a suitable home for all the things that were being donated – the photos and diaries, books and other memorabilia – Jackie started writing and publishing books about her hometown: four of them in just a few years at the end of the 70s. She collected stories, borrowed photos, and got ads from local businesses. She called them “scrapbook histories”; we refer to them by their covers – the white, red, blue, and green books. They are full of first-person recollections such as Bernice Scruton’s “Tale of Two Grand Old Ladies”, her grandmother Dora Moody and Georgia Thomas Dean who “when there was sorrow in a family it was always ‘Georgie’ who came to comfort her neighbors.”

Or the fire on Tuesday evening, Dec. 13, 1927 when “Lincolnville was shocked by a most disastrous fire, when the farm buildings of R.G. Lermond were burned to the ground, including all household furniture, nine head of cattle, three horses, and six pigs. Nearly all the farm machinery and crops stored for winter, 150 bushels of beans and 450 bushels of potatoes were a total loss . . . for almost 150 years it had been home of six generations of the family, having been built by Mrs. Lermond’s great-grandfather. . . many old relics and invaluable antiques which can never be replaced go to swell the total of their great loss, which is estimated at about $10,000.”

Then, one day in about 1990 or thereabouts, Peggy Bochkay and I, while working on our book Ducktrap Chronicles of a Maine Village, wandered up the stairs of the LIA building and into the schoolroom. It had a fairly new paint job including the original blackboard at the front of the room, and the cloak room with its little built-in bench, but other than the paint didn’t appear to have been touched in the nearly 50 years since it had been a classroom. It hit us both at the same time: “this would be a perfect place for all our stuff!”

The LHS’ stuff lived at that time in several large cardboard boxes which seemed to travel from one member’s home to another’s. For a time, those boxes just accumulated in the school room; Peggy and I would take things out and arrange them for display only to come back a week or two later and find that all the stuff was back in the boxes. Clearly, a bit of a tug of war was going on between the two of us and some of the quite a bit older members who had different ideas. A healthy treasury had accumulated over the years, a few thousand dollars I recall, but no one seemed inclined to spend any of it – ever. Certainly not on our idea, and that was to turn the schoolroom into a museum.

Eventually, with the publication of our book, and our obvious interest in growing the Historical Society, Peggy and I prevailed and had control of the LHS money. It sounds like some kind of hostile takeover, and maybe some of the members thought it was. I just remember our glee at being able to go shopping for display items – in particular, bookcases and rolling carts we could move around. Harbour Mitchell, an archeological student at the time, found us three enormous storage cases, eight feet long and about three feet high, with a total of 55 drawers that U Maine was giving away. We rented a UHaul truck and he and I drove it up to Orono and brought them back.

I still don’t know how we ever got those things up the stairs and around the bend at the top.

Chris Polson had built eight beautiful glass and oak cases for the then new town office (c. 1987), but they never got used. They ended up at the evolving Schoolhouse Museum, 3 feet on a side, about 3 inches deep. Al Mathieson and I installed them on the long blank wall opposite the window wall that overlooks the Bay. Each one has a story to tell as the displays in them change – photos of all the old stores in town; Elenora French and Maidens Cliff; the Phillip Ulmer Archaeological Dig; Every Woman Sewed; old greeting cards; Found in an Attic.

So why did the town want to sell it? When the LIA made it clear their membership couldn’t continue to maintain the building – everyone’s getting old, you know – the Selectmen decided to have an assessment made of its condition. When the results of that extensive survey of all the building’s systems came back with a price tag of $650,000, they threw in the towel. The rest is history.

Townspeople voted to authorize the Selectmen to sell it. Though it was first offered last spring to the LIA/LHS, both organizations passed. Neither felt they had the man- or even woman-power to tackle all that needed to be done. But then this summer, after a flurry of online activity when people realized that not only could the town lose a historic structure, but the town’s historic archive would become homeless, we found out we had a good number of supporters out there.

And what else do we have to do with our time this winter? Cooped up, some of us without family around, nervous about Covid even those we count as friends, we all need a distraction. We’re hoping to be able to fix most of the building’s deficiencies for a third of the town’s price tag with local contractors, some volunteer labor, and donated materials. Figuring out how to raise what still seems like a huge sum will take some creativity. We’re compiling a list of grant-giving organizations. And we have an email group of some 97 names, folks who’ve expressed a wish to help in some way. Let Jane Hardy know if you want to join us.

Have you visited the Schoolhouse Museum lately? Have you ever? Let me know if you want a personal tour. I’m happy to do it!

Town

The Town Office staff has now issued in excess of 1000 absentee ballots with more than 800 returned! 

Dave Kinney writes:

“If you are voting via absentee ballot we encourage you to return your ballot to the Town Office in advance of Election Day via the mail or in person to the Town Office.  Ballots can be returned in person at the front counter, in the mail slot or the new ballot drop box.   For ballot drop offs on weekends or during the hours that the Town Office is closed (or when we are open and you just don’t want to come in), the mail slot is located just to the right of the front door.  All items deposited there go into a locked metal receptacle.  The ballot drop box is located adjacent to the front walkway directly in front of the accessible (handicapped) parking spot.  Both locations are checked periodically (including weekends) by staff.  If one drop off seems like it is full please use the other.  Before you return your absentee ballot envelope make certain to sign your name on the envelope in the spot indicated (on the flap). 

“It is also not too late to vote via absentee ballot if that is your preference. Voters can request a no reason absentee ballot via the online service through Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020; or in-person at the town office through close of business on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. In order to be counted all ballots must be in hand with the town clerk no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020 (but please if possible return your absentee ballot in advance).

“Obviously voters can still vote in person on Election Day, Tuesday, November 3, 2020 in the gymnasium of the Lincolnville Central School.  In person voting will commence on Election Day at 8 a.m.  While the polls close at 8 p.m. any voters in line by 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.  Special protective measures will be in place to minimize risks to the voters and poll workers.   The polling place will also be setup differently in order to comply with gathering limits and social distancing.  Regardless of the weather, those waiting to vote may have to wait outside.  Dress appropriately.  You can avoid the wait and minimize potential exposure by voting via absentee ballot. 

“There will be no local ballot on November 3^rd.  The Town will be conducting a special election to fill the vacant seat on the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday, December 15^th.  Nomination papers for the position are available at the Town Office during normal business hours.”

Madder than Ever

What’s the matter with people? Waldo County is experiencing a big bump in Covid cases, thanks, apparently, to the disrespect of one group of people who insisted on gathering without the precautions we know will protect all of us. Now our county is the only one in the state with a “yellow” designation instead of “green”; keeping our school open for in person learning is in jeopardy, though for now LCS remains fully open.

Disclaimer here. I like men, young men. But why do so many guys not wear masks? A large crew has been working on the Beach Sewer District project the past month or more, and I don’t believe I’ve seen a single mask. My favorite lunch place, Scott’s, is also the favorite of workmen, guys stopping by on their lunch break. And few, if any, wear masks.

What’s with that? Sure, Scott’s is outdoors, and so is road work, digging trenches for the sewer line. But so is window shopping, and most of the folks – men and women – walking up and down Main Street are wearing masks. Being outdoors doesn’t mean the virus can’t spread.

So is it just a man thing? I don’t think so.