You can be assertive without being rude.
We’ve all seen or heard it – restaurant customers being demanding over a certain meal serving, being loud and obnoxious, letting children run…
Editorial
From the assistant editor
Even before school starts next week, I have found myself slowing down to 15 mph in school zones. No matter how old we get, September always feels like school, because that’s what it was for our…
From the editor
It has been a delight to attend and record this summer’s Boothbay Region YMCA Y Arts productions. Director and choreographer Emily Mirabile, along with her assistants, have done an amazing job –…
From the assistant editor
If Schoonerfest can spend a couple years coming to fruition as it did in Wiscasset last week, we can take a few minutes honoring what it accomplished. Make that about 12 minutes, to come up with…
From the editor
For the past two years, I have written two columns about motorists going too fast and asking everyone to slow down on our roads. This is the second one for 2021.
Ever since I got pulled…
From the assistant editor
Sometimes, some of the nicest story ideas take a while, weeks or longer, to become the stories you read in print and at wiscassetnewspaper.com and boothbayregister.com. We prioritize much of our…
From the editor
It’s funny how things transpire when you stop and talk to people.
I had stopped at Walgreen’s last week to pick up a prescription and, upon returning to my car, I noticed the license plate…
From the assistant editor
Remember Wings Over Wiscasset?
The inaugural WOW in 2013 at Wiscasset Municipal Airport was really nice, honoring veterans, having an air show and other attractions including static…
From the editor
Reporting on tragedies is one of the unenviable jobs a reporter has, especially in a small community. Not much is gained except the truth and reporters should be cognizant of how such a story will…
From the assistant editor
For U.S. House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, R - California, to joke it will be hard not to hit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D -California, with the gavel if he succeeds her, and for that to receive…
From the assistant editor
Kudos to the artists who came this month to capture Wiscasset’s outdoor beauty, which is both easy and hard to do. As I recall once saying about Westport Island, Wiscasset, too, cannot take a bad…
From the editor
Boothbay Harbor is a friendly town with a lot of things to do and see, especially during the summer months. That's why we get an influx of tourists every year. It seems that this summer, as…
From the editor
Olympic Games: Are you looking forward to watching the 2020 Olympic Games from Tokyo, Japan the next two weeks, July 23 to Aug. 8? Even with a few American athletes already out of the Games due to…
From the assistant editor
I used to be afraid of heights, including on the teeter-totter. Being really high up, enough so you could fall, was not fun. It was something to get through.
Being back on the ground was a…
From the editor
We made it through the hottest June on record in Maine and now we're halfway through July. There is still plenty of time to enjoy the season many of us look forward to the rest of the year before…
From the assistant editor
Wiscasset and some of our other towns have serious things on their plates this summer, from schools’ future to the immediate crisis Bill Pearson reports on this week, several area eateries’…
From the editor
Thank you, Mark and Dianne Gimbel, Peter Ripley, their Friends of the Windjammer committee members, Boothbay Harbor Region Chamber of Commerce, and everyone else…
From the assistant editor
What did Wiscasset do with a rainy day? Have a parade anyway! Good call. Everyone we talked to agreed. That’s one more for normalcy.
So is First Congregational Church of Wiscasset’s return…
From the editor
Whoa, Nelly! I had to adjust my eyes Monday morning after hooking up my laptop to the 12" x 24" monitor I haven't used in 15 months. After working from my 7.5" x 14" screen over the past year and…
From the assistant editor
This is Wiscasset’s chance.
Usually, area residents and visitors have more choices to get their Fourth of July fill. Bath Heritage Days is off this year, including the parade, but several…
From the editor
We don't always look forward to winter ending. Why? Because that's when the clock seems to move faster and the deadline draws near to get our special publications – Home and Landscapes, Summertime…
From the assistant editor
A week after we said one Wiscasset official’s apology to a committee for a drop in communication was sufficiently swift, we have seen another Wiscasset official’s apology that, this time, we are…
From the editor
It's that time of year again ... when the news hole shrinks but the news, columns, press releases, photos and more come flooding in.
It actually started last week when we weren't able to…
From the assistant editor
Wiscasset’s controversies over fences proposed to the then-Wiscasset Historic Preservation Commission were at least in part communication issues. The same goes for the town’s new fence controversy…
From the editor
To the graduates of Boothbay Region High School and Wiscasset Middle High School, I first would like to congratulate you on completing an important first phase of your lives. You've formed your…
From the assistant editor
Since face mask guidelines have changed, usage has, to little surprise, been dropping to varying degrees, from what I am seeing around. You will still see me wearing one indoors and outdoors in…
From the editor
As we turn the calendar to this year's sixth month, there is a little more "Joy in Mudville," unlike as the poem, "Casey at the Bat" reads. People are on the move – did you witness the traffic…
From the assistant editor
Don’t wear a life jacket on the water? You might want to start. Without them, a pair of West Virginians canoeing Chamberlain Lake in Piscataquis County on Sunday would be dead now, according to…
From the editor
I "got out of Dodge," as the saying goes, last week. My wife and I finally got to use our airplane tickets, paid for in 2020, to visit our son, Tim, in Nebraska. We met him and his lady, Megan, in…
From the assistant editor
Which makes a better comprehensive plan for a town: One a few (read dozen or so) residents draft, or one dozens or, dare we say it, hundreds had input on?
I’m going with B.
The…
From the assistant editor
Garden Club of Wiscasset’s plant sale last weekend and other events and venues reopening have seemed like old home week, people seeing others they haven’t seen in so long due to the pandemic, or…
From the editor
Looking back at local news a year ago this week, we reported on the wonderful tribute organized by Sue Burge and others presented to the Hannaford staff for maintaining vigilance and being on the…
From the editor
The fluctuating weather gave us a bit of summer, spring and fall this week. I guess we get that during the spring, but I would prefer some more temperatures in the mid-to-high 60s ... and perhaps…
From the assistant editor
A proposed James Weldon Johnson memorial plaque on Wiscasset selectmen’s plate this week sounds like it would hit the right chord: The town and private hands chipping in a plaque on a downtown…
From the editor
I wonder what goes on in the minds of a young girl or a young boy these days when they officially become a teenager?
My oldest granddaughter turned 13 this week and, although I talk with…
From the assistant editor
The line at Bath Iron Works’ annual picnic at Thomas Point Beach when I was growing up was long, but part of the tradition, with people holding big empty cardboard boxes and returning to their…
From the editor
My fellow dog walker on Back Narrows Road, Peggy Kotin, wrote a letter to the editor this week which inspired me to get out there and do what I have been putting off for months. I spent about an…
From the assistant editor
Stay hydrated and watch for ticks, all you volunteer roadside picker uppers in Westport Island and Alna. It is getting warmer in this second pandemic spring and yet you have given or have signed…
From the editor
Having lived in the Boothbay region most of my life and been at the forefront of knowing what has transpired as the editor of this newspaper for over three decades, I am still amazed at the amount…
From the assistant editor
Soda comes caffeine-free and sugar-free, bread gluten-free, and the Wiscasset June ballot budget committee races, candidate-free. This is not an isolated incident for the panel that reviews and…
From the editor
The Maine Bureau of Highway Safety and Maine State Police were scheduled to hold a press conference on Tuesday, April 6 to talk about "a disturbing trend," excessive speed, speeding through…
From the editor
Maine, as we all know, is a state with an elderly population. Perhaps that is one reason why, in the 2020 America's Health Rankings, the state received very low marks for having multiple chronic…
From the assistant editor
You have to hand it to locals who give vast amounts of their time week in and week out, and year in and out, to their towns. Jack Sarmanian has, helping Edgecomb get its long needed fire station…
From the editor
My Monday mornings can be unpredictable in a squeamish way. I might receive a phone call about someone's personal problem (which we may or may not be able to fix by reporting on it) or an email…
From the assistant editor
Nothing can take town meetings’ place, for their debate, humor, common sense, muffins and egg salad sandwiches.
But for many towns, including Alna’s this weekend, something has: The ballot…
From the assistant editor
The pandemic and the gradual climb out of it, with vaccines and easing restrictions, have made the shop local slogan more important. For some businesses, locals’ loyalty, or rediscovery of…
From the editor
Have you filled out your brackets for the NCAA men's and/or women's tournaments yet?
After last year's tournaments got canceled because of the pandemic, I have enjoyed watching college…
From the editor
We have one of those dogs who chases cars and other things. Motorists who travel Back Narrows Road, Boothbay often see Lacey, our friendly mini (actually a medium-size) Australian shepherd,…
From the assistant editor
Yes, April sometimes kicks a snowstorm our way, and March has been having its wintry winds. But the more bare ground that appears on the Midcoast, the more it feels like spring.
Good…
From the editor
There is light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel with the available vaccines, but what we don't know is the length of the tunnel and whether the variants or other factors will slow the process of…
