Elizabeth Dostie, Fairfield Center: Treasures in the old cookbooks

All of my cookbooks had copyright dates from 1964 to 1971. The ones I mostly used, anyway. The decidedly not new “New Better Homes & Gardens” (Better Homes & Gardens, 1968) with the three-package cream cheese cheesecake recipe (p. 216) and the beef stroganoff (p. 238) with the 2 tablespoons of wine in it, which, […]

Jody Rich, Waterville: As clear as the nose on my face

Errand list in hand. Good. Purse on shoulder. Good. Keys in other hand. Good to go. I put my hand on the doorknob to leave when something didn’t feel right. Criminy, I didn’t have my glasses. I chuckle at the thought of driving around town without them. All fuzzy-edged. The idea of the headache I […]

Kassie Dwyer, Athens: Even a rusty tractor wheel can be a precious ring

It was like a scene out of a romantic movie … he was down on one knee in the pouring rain, asking me to be his wife. But instead of a ring, he had a rusty tractor wheel (it was the closest thing at hand); I was holding a weed wacker. My high school sweetheart […]

John Lawrence, Winslow: Hiding out from Mom and Dad

In 1950, when I was 4 and my sister was 3, we were in the Ben Franklin Store on Main Street in Madison, Maine. Our mother had taken us there on a fine fall afternoon while our father was out deer hunting. For little kids, it was a pretty good walk from Nichols Street and […]

Brian Heath, Hallowell: The good outnumber the bad

My just-after-dark drive home from the grocery store last summer was a windows-down, radio-a-little-too-loud kind of ride. It included the sweet smell of cut grass from nearby fields on the warm night air. It was the perfect kind of night, and it included something unexpected. I got a call from a Hannaford clerk saying someone […]

Suzanne Guston, Arrowsic: A silent portrait asks an important question

I had an uncle once. His name was Robert. I would not have known of him at all if I had not found his Bible in my father’s bookcase. The year was 1957, and I was 12. My dad explained that Robert was his younger brother, a quiet boy who loved to draw pictures. When […]

Elinor Connell, Standish: One good deed to bring him home

Mozart was from Maine Lab Rescue, and he was the family’s first dog. Mo had breathed new life into our home and family. He loved being outdoors. His face captured the look of wonder that we all felt whenever we stepped out into a Maine day. On this November morning, the wind blew cold. Dad […]

Lorna Healey, Litchfield: What once was lost is now found

It’s a bright, crisp, late-winter morning in Maine. The snowstorm from the day before left the trees and yard glistening. My oldest son, Michael, just returned home with a friend with plans to take a snowmobile ride. “There’s a dead cat on the road,” Michael tells his dad. “It looks like Cloud.” Cloud is our […]

Lee Van Dyke, Portland: Giving in to the tyranny of style

Dating back to Tom Wolfe’s essays, I’ve been hip to the tyranny of style – but hip to it doesn’t mean immune. I drove convertibles with long fins when I was chasing perfect teenage tans. But as I grew to adulthood, I graduated to the vicissitudes of men of my era: Nehru collars and, eventually, […]

Mainers tell their own stories in ‘Meetinghouse,’ a monthly forum