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 had access since the made over site reopened late last year.

You remember last year. Before AP Style explained global pandemic is redundant. Global is what makes it a pandemic; before we had covered a reverse parade and drive-in graduations, and the region’s volunteer hands and a Wiscasset teen’s 3D printer turned to mask-making; back when only robbers or the immuno-compromised wore masks into businesses.

Before a president said Kung flu and set an example of not wearing masks; before the Black Lives Matter movement gained new momentum and a Morse High School valedictorian, rightly calling on us all to step up, was at Wiscasset Municipal Airport, not Bath’s McMann Field, when she said it.

I do not like a year when the presidency is a mockery, and when not knowing what the future holds is an incredible understatement. I do like all the good, but we already knew our towns were full of good people. With the exception of Alna’s latest residents versus residents uproar, this one over a proposal to the planning board, recent local news has been mostly positive, a beam of hope in the national uncertainty and disbelief, proving once again a lesson I learned about four years ago, to stop watching the national news.

So you will have to allow, I hope, when I make a big deal out of a Wiscasset Elementary School’s sweet sendoff to students, and Alna’s community garden and Westport Island’s jovial, respectful teleconference meetings. We must not ignore the strange times, and we see their impact as Maine works to recover as the pandemic continues.

But sometimes focusing on the good, and holding it up, helps people see an opening for a good tomorrow, with strawberries and dog parades in Wiscasset, Windjammer Days in Boothbay Harbor and a Pumpkinfest in Damariscotta again. Let’s not just say it and plan it. Let’s believe in it, and keep believing, as long as it takes.