Tag Archives: Biddeford

The Holidays are Here

Posted on by

I’m no longer sure who visits this space. Since almost everyone uses social media for communication and I’d prefer not to, it’s been months since all but a tiny contingent of people have remained connected.

It’s December. For some of us, it’s not a time of holiday cheer, or happy memories from Christmases past. For families who’ve lost a child, or currently going through their first holiday season without a loved one, it’s a painful time, one infused with memories that more often than not elicit sadness.

For Mary and me, this is the first year we’ve decorated a tree since Mark was killed. He was a Christmas baby, born on December 19. This will be the third birthday of his we have to endure without our son.

Christmas in the saloon.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be filled with joy and happiness (I probably never have been), but at least this year, the dial on the sadness meter has dropped a few notches: still sad, just not “wrecked with grief.” I guess that’s an improvement when you’ve set the bar very low.

Today, I concluded a difficult class at USM. This was the first one of my history classes I’ve taken that I didn’t enjoy. In fact, I really didn’t care for the professor or anything about the class. First, it was an online class. Being that in 2019, universities are moving away from bricks and mortar and face-to-face meetings, I guess I need to adjust. Continue reading →

Roots and Community

Posted on by

I’ve been fascinated by the concept of community for a long time.

Communitarianism, sometimes called “community,” is a concept I’ve been captivated with and have read widely about for the past 25 years. I even got to play in the “laboratory” and forge elements of this concept in various places around the state of Maine. I think the germ for me was first planted by Wendell Berry’s writing on the subject.

When I was directly engaged in community-building and nonprofit work during the first decade of this century, Berry’s foundational values: place (it matters), community, good work, and simple pleasures resonated with the side of me that tended towards seeing what was ideal, if not always practical. The best part of the time I spent engaged in what I found to be “good work” however, was that it taught me that people working together could produce positive results that benefited many and rippled outward long after I was no longer around doing that work.

My son embodied these values. He saw the good in people. Mark also had the capacity and the drive to move beyond mere words and playing around the fringes of social justice. He actually took action.

Friday, as youth around the world came together in a global chain of voices and actions around protesting climate change, I was reminded of the ultimate sacrifice that Mark made for what he believed in. His death profoundly altered my life and the life of his mom in ways that we’ll never be able to step away from. Loss is forever. Continue reading →

Going With the Flow

Posted on by

If you don’t know how I feel about people who sow hate and division (like our president), you’ve obviously never read more than a post in passing. I’m not going to bother to summarize my politics or ideological leanings. I’ve left plenty of bread crumbs to follow.

I’ve written about playing the guitar. I continue to play.

The recent move cut into available time I had with my guitars. I missed the familiar rhythm I’d cultivated over the prior nine months of playing nearly every day.

We’re settling into a new place that feels right for us. We like the neighborhood and being within walking distance of an ever-evolving-and-vibrant downtown district is another perk to being in Biddeford.

I’m in week three of a new job. It’s been awhile since I actually enjoyed reporting for duty. My co-workers have been welcoming. One of my managers is a music aficionado and we share a similar interest in bands/artists, including Deer Tick. She was actually impressed with that one.

When I worked at Moscow Mutual years ago, the “mentor” I was matched with was a lousy trainer. She was narcissistic at best. I swear to this day that she purposely sabotaged my training for whatever reason. At the most basic level, she wasn’t a very nice human being.

The woman who I’ve been shadowing and who I’ve spent the lion’s share of time with in my new position has been fantastic. She makes learning fun and she regularly catches me doing things right. She is also an empathetic person of the highest order with customers, both internal and external.

Enough of work and real estate. I’m here to talk guitar yet again. Continue reading →

Southbound

Posted on by

Moving is a lot of work. Transitioning stuff 50 miles might not seem like much, but it is.

The last time we made a major move, we sold a house we’d been in for 26 years. We found a place we thought would be a good placeholder until we figured out whether we wanted to own another home.

Then, less than two months later, the floor of our lives opened-up: Mark was killed.

Living in Brunswick was tarnished. It became a place where we experienced the horror of losing our son. I guess the house by the cove was as good a place as any to grieve and deal with our loss.

Brunswick is a nice community. Mary always loved their farmers’ market. Curtis Memorial is a terrific library. I enjoyed downtown, visits to Wild Oats, and walking around town with my friend, Paul.

I also found living outside of town lonely and isolating—not as much as Durham, but Brunswick never felt like home for me.

In 2015, I stumbled upon what was beginning to ripple in downtown Biddeford. I ended up pitching a story and ultimately writing one about city’s mills and their redevelopment for the Boston Globe. I was proud of my work.

When we began actively looking to buy a house, Portland was too expensive. There were also things about Portland that I’ve never loved. We broadened our geographic horizons and began in earnest to look in Westbrook, then Saco, and eventually, Biddeford. Westbrook did nothing for either of us. Saco is a nice community, but we found a place we both liked in Biddeford.

Biddeford’s downtown has really blossomed. Some have taken to calling it, “the Biddessance.” I like that. Continue reading →

Too Much Talk

Posted on by

So last night we had our first presidential debate of the 2016 campaign. This one featured only 10 of the large Republican field of contenders, or pseudo-contenders. Maybe the biggest accomplishment of Fox News (the debate’s host) was winnowing the Republican field of 64 (actually, there are only 17 “serious” candidates at this point) down to a workable number—even that is debatable.

No doubt I could spend Friday’s blog post space devoted to politics. But really folks, isn’t an August debate a full 15 months out from that fateful day in November when we choose someone else to lead us, a little premature? I know the driveby media at the NY Times and Washington Post have done a great job whipping up enthusiasm for the horserace, yet again. But like they always do, it’s more about the race, or a sentence taken out of context, than the actual issues facing ordinary Americans. And with politicians, you always have to take what they say with a grain of salt. Continue reading →

Our Critical Nature

Posted on by

There’s apparently something comforting in lobbing criticism at others. This seems obvious because everywhere you turn, someone is carping at someone else’s lack of competence—at least that’s the way it appears. It’s easier to do that than look at your own ugly mug in the mirror, and write down your personal laundry list of foibles.

On Sunday, Boston Globe staff writer, Sara Schweitzer, profiled another New England mill town’s post-industrial attempts at reinvention, focusing on Franklin, New Hampshire. I was envious of Schweitzer, as she was given double the word count I had to tell my Biddeford story the week before; just one of the perks of being a staff writer, versus freelancing.

Franklin on the mapSchweitzer’s article was excellent, and her focus on an entrepreneur/developer, Todd Workman, and his struggles and challenges in this small city smack dab in the center of the Granite State highlighted the difficulties inherent in bringing back forgotten places like Franklin. The story gathered a number of important threads in this narrative focused on economic development in rural America.

Continue reading →