Archive for ‘Opinion’

  • The Special Session

    By State Senator Bill Diamond This time of year is usually pretty quiet at the Legislature. There is often a meeting of the Senate to take care of any gubernatorial nominations that require timely confirmation by the Senate, but this is a brief affair that only takes a few hours. This year things will be […]

  • Keeping warm this winter

    The weather is starting to get cooler, and that means that the heating season will soon be upon us. The current economic problems, coupled with high heating oil prices, mean that more Mainers than ever will need help keeping warm this winter, and I thought this would be a good time to let people know […]

  • Driving right into the wrack & spume

    Now I enjoy a good summer storm as much as the next guy. I love standing on my back porch, staring westwards into the pre-tempest calm, the air vaguely purple and pregnant with meteorological dread. I enjoy schlepping the lawn furniture away to a safe place and lashing the barbecue grill to a post with […]

  • Aftermath

    By Susan Meeker-Lowry It seems the weather gods aren’t doing anything halfway anymore, at least not this year what with mile-wide tornados, wildfires burning out of control, extreme heat and drought, and most recently Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene hitting the East Coast and New England with once-in-a-hundred-year flood damage. As I type this, friends in Vermont […]

  • Hummingbirds in late summer

    It is most pleasant to sit on the porch on a late summer afternoon, watching the birds come and go at the feeders. The air is warm, and humid. Voices drift over the water as vacationing families enjoy the final hours of the weekend. Children laugh, and call to one another. A motorboat goes by. A […]

  • And the dock glides out to meet us

    In a misty drizzle the color of an old man’s beard, the boat skims north up the lake, the two-stroke outboard straining, the aluminum hull skipping across a light chop and banging like a wind chime made from old metal garbage can lids. I’m young and small, hunched into a ball in the bow, the […]

  • Celebrating Labor Day

    Labor Day is coming up this weekend, and for most of us this marks the unofficial end of summer. This long weekend has become a traditional time for families to come together and picnic, barbecue and enjoy a local parade.  Even though school has already started, young people look at Labor Day as their final […]

  • Brushing up on hawks

    The afternoon was warm, and I was floating on my back in the lake to cool off, when a hawk flew across the cove. It was moving fast, and in the few seconds before it disappeared into the grove of trees on the point I was able to get only a quick impression of the […]

  • Cardboard: the unlikely entree

    The world seems bent on going green these days and my family seems bent right along with it — from a gardening standpoint, we’re positively verdant. Grass, flowers, shrubs, trees, ground cover, vegetables: if it can be cultivated, transplanted, pruned, fertilized, or have bugs picked off it, we probably have some of it running rampant […]

  • Observing the changing seasons

    By Ron Fryer Special to The News It seems that just yesterday we moved to Bridgton and into our old farmhouse. It had to accommodate Fran and me, our children, three felines, a pool table and a piano. The only requirement was five acres. These characteristics led us to a nice location with some nice […]