Major League Baseball returned to the airwaves – live! – this week. It was something I was looking forward to watching besides the fourth or fifth round of sitcoms, Red Sox or Celtics rewind shows…
Editorial

On Mondays, we are rounding the turn for the print week’s Tuesday homestretch and finish. We may have most of what we need, much of which you may have already read on our websites. But a happy…
I decided this week to take the first week in August as a vacation week. Like everyone, I have been inundated with daily pandemic news since March and I feel it’s time to take a break. I am going…

If you think it’s hot wearing a mask around town in July, you are right. But instead of your trip though the grocery store with a brief refuge in the frozen section, maybe lingering with the door…
Heading down Shore Road and seeing the white-haired man using a cane to get to the picnic table covered with a red and white checkered tablecloth, while other family members were bringing out food…

What’s wrong with running for school committee? Yes, your time put in may outweigh, at times vastly, the stipend. And, like other town panels, a school committee is an easy mark for political…
Did June feel like one long day to you? It did to me. I guess when you don’t do anything exciting, the days turn into weeks and then the month is up, just like that. Other than covering the local…

As the summer of strange and still scary on some fronts continues, our towns are getting down to serious business doing their same old business in new ways and places, indoors and out, and…
A Boothbay Harbor business owner contacted me a couple of weeks ago. She said business was down and perhaps one of the reasons why – besides the COVID-19 pandemic – was that people didn’t know her…

The swimming hole Atlantic Salmon Federation and Alna officials said Head Tide Dam would not lose is still there, and getting a lot of use these hot days. This is the first summer swimmers have…
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers I know and don’t know. Sunday, June 21 will be quite a melancholy day for me despite my being a father. My siblings – six of them, including my older sister…

An especially strong gust blew across Wiscasset’s graduation early in Friday night’s ceremony, knocking off one of the floral displays. And a strong one near the end of Morse High School’s at…
In these troubling times, we all look for words of comfort, ideas to help us make it through the day.
Over the years, I have collected various articles, photos, staff and personal notes,…

Has anyone noticed a lack of traffic tie-ups on Wiscasset’s Route 1 post-Memorial Day? Usually by now, some of the time, cars are backed up to Ames or even the Woolwich line, not counting…
Dear BRHS and WMHS 2020 graduates,
Here’s hoping that the COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest curve ball you will face in your lives. The pandemic is a hard-breaking curve that made all of our…

First, the bad news: 2020 isn’t even half over. Like an especially bad Maine winter and it’s only December, it just feels endless.
Many of us are doing all we can, except those who look…
I am amazed and thankful that teachers (and students) adapted to online instruction so quickly and so well because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They – both teachers and students – are a wonderful lot…

Raise your hand if you know a senior. Not the seniors so many of us in this region are, or are getting to be. I’m talking about the other seniors: Those just becoming adults and nearly half a…
That is our job as journalists – getting the facts. We do our best to find the best sources and get that information to our readers, day after day, week after week, year after year. We aren’t…

Will the coronavirus spring make for the summer of strange? It already has, felling everything from St. Philip’s strawberry festival to Pumpkinfest; and more importantly are the lasting impacts…
It felt good to get outside and take some photos of people doing things this week. Besides battling the weather – seems like it has rained every other day this spring – and the slew of…

Nothing but what the seniors’ older siblings and cousins got for a Wiscasset graduation will look or feel exactly right. That big day and then the moving on with their diplomas and lives are the…
No Memorial Day Parade, no Boothbay Harbor Lobster Boat Races, and no Windjammer Days. Three of the Boothbay region’s major events scheduled before the July 4 holiday have been canceled due to the…

One of the friendly faces around Wiscasset Municipal Airport gave me a call the other day. I have interviewed pilot Lisa Reece and her husband and fellow pilot Steve Williams, or both, many times…
Not much room in my printed page corner this week, so here goes.
♦ Did you read or hear about the return of Prickles, the barefaced merino sheep who went unshorn for seven years after…

Be disappointed it hasn’t been a normal spring for getting around to your favorite places to eat, shop and recreate, from Wiscasset Community Center and Boothbay Region YMCA, to the made-over…
One of my Mom’s favorite words of advice was “Good things come to those who help themselves.” I adhere to that advice, and I also want to add to it: “Good things come to those who help others.”…

Until recently, “Zoom,” for me, was a PBS children’s show when I was a kid. I remember a good egg salad recipe from it (it’s the yellow mustard!) or was that on “Big Blue Marble?” and, on “Zoom”…
I decided to not write solely about the coronavirus pandemic after four weeks of doing so in this column (too depressing) so I am using my old stand-by of writing about “Three things,” which I…

Check it out.
You are not seeing double. We have both papers’ names atop page 1 this week. And our editorial and sports and education pages are combined, too. The editorial page, where the…
More than one person has contacted me over the past couple of weeks about the proposed (but nixed) delay of the summer water start and about columns which suggest that summer residents and…

First the fun part: An email the other day from First Congregational Church of Wiscasset linked to a video of Charlie the Church Mouse speaking to the camera, telling viewers how to make their own…
The COVID-19 pandemic has virtually shut down the world. Our day-to-day routines of going to work or school, taking a vacation, or attending funerals for our loved ones have been altered to the…

All things coronavirus rightly have our river of news online and in print flowing big and fast like the real Maine rivers in spring when the snow melts. That has us busy feeding the river,…
We are all dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and if you have internet access, you have surely found dozens of ways to handle social distancing, the correct way to wash your hands, isolation,…

Reporting online and much of it in print, all things COVID-19 – what is closed, partly closed, canceled and postponed, and how our town governments, townspeople, schools, parents, businesses and…
My apologies to Rachel Carson. I'm not stealing her famous book title. I am using it as a metaphor of what we're all going through right now concerning the coronavirus outbreak.
Don't you…

When freedom’s enemy has been terrorism, domestic or foreign, the Midcoast and the rest of America have shown support by coming together and turning out. We’ve shown we can still go to the movies…

First, kudos to Wiscasset Superintendent of Schools Terri Wood and Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12 Superintendent of Schools Howie Tuttle for their letters in recent days addressing…
Selection Sunday is March 15. For the non-basketball fans out there, that’s when they pick the field of teams for the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, which feature dozens of games…
I.J. Pinkham and Toby LeConte – two icons of the Boothbay region school system – announced last week that they will be leaving their respective positions.
Having worked with them over the…

With the new lights downtown about to finish going live, some predictions have been re-emerging, that the new setup, years in the making, will not help and may worsen Wiscasset’s summer backups on…
I had my to-do list ready, got a few things done, then “bam,” our internet provider went down around 8:30 on Monday morning – a replay of what happened in December.
We received email OK,…

Have any electing to do in your town, in contested races or otherwise? And how about that springtime staple, the annual town meeting? Those will be cropping up with or, in some cases, before the…
Basketball tournament time is great. You get to catch up with friends and neighbors as the towns clear out to gather at the Augusta Civic Center to cheer on the high school teams during school…

Enough cheers this week to fill a box of Cheerios, or an editorial on a cold winter’s morning. Here we go!
Thank you, Warren Cossette and Wiscasset Middle High School for honoring Wiscasset…
It has been another great season of Seahawk boys and girls basketball — 30 wins and only six losses combined. Our season rival, Winthrop, has had just as fine a season and it may come down to a…

Phil Di Vece is a familiar and well-regarded name around town and around these pages and web pages, for sports and Woolwich and other news and features, some that tap his talent for taking us back…
We have a new (former) printer, Lincoln County Publishing Company, in case you didn’t read the printed article or the featured story online.
Not much will change in the immediate future as…

A newsletter Wiscasset Newspaper and Boothbay Register got via email Jan. 30 from Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation & Forestry said Feb. 8-17 is Take a Friend Snowmobiling Week.…