This summer, Robert Bernstein of New Haven, Connecticut and his college friends of more than half a century continued their tradition of getting together annually. They got a place in Portland and were going up the coast to see a woodworking school where one friend goes.

Bernstein had a suggestion for the ride: Stop in Wiscasset for lunch. "I've been there before. And it's a wonderful town," the educational therapist and author told Wiscasset Newspaper July 31. "So I was really happy to be there."

Red's Eats was the plan. But it was a little early for lunch that sunny June 26 morning downtown, and he said neither the famous food stand nor Sprague's Lobster nearby on Main Street Pier was open yet for the day. Bernstein and his friends still needed to eat, he recalled. "So then we saw these two guys ... eating ice cream. So, I stopped them. I said, 'Hey, where did you get the ice cream? We need food,'" Bernstein said, smiling in the Zoom interview about a month after Wiscasset Newspaper had taken his picture that June day.

The two ice cream eaters gave the group directions to Treats up the street, where the friends then got scones, coffee and more. "It was a lovely place. And we ate outside, which was nice, on a bench."

Bernstein added: "But here's the thing about Wiscasset." When the ice cream eaters gave the group those directions to Treats, "It wasn't like (they said) 'It's up the block.' They said, 'OK: It's two blocks up the street, on the left side.' It seems like everyone you ask really is kind of nice."

That strikes an extra chord for him, because he works with children who have autism, so he thinks of environments for them to go into where they can thrive and be accepted. It's therapy with real-life situations in a community, he explained.

"So when I go to a town, I'm almost subconsciously thinking, 'Is this a town that's (accepting of) people who are a little different?' And I get that feeling from Wiscasset."

He thinks he will probably be back in town next summer, and have lobster. He likened that interest to his rabbi's eating matzo only on Passover, even though matzo is available year round. "It's sort of special (to) have it only that time of year. 

"That's how I feel about lobster. You go to a restaurant anywhere and get lobster, it's probably going to be from Maine. But I wait until I'm in Maine, over the summer, 'cause I know I'm going to have lobster there." And that, he said, makes it "especially good."