On Wednesday, I stopped at the St. Andrews Auxiliary thrift shop to chat with Carol Ostermann. She was in charge of the cash register.

“I would like to write about you. Is that OK with you," I asked her.

Her smile turned to a pensive frown, and she locked eyes with me. “What are you going to write,” she asked. “Something good,” I replied.

Her frown turned into a broad smile, and she said, “Good? OK.”

I asked her when would be a good time to have a sit-down chat. And her pensive frown returned.

“I can’t do it tomorrow. I am going up to Sunday River to ski with handicapped kids. On Saturday, I have a funeral to attend and have to pick up a friend and drive her to the service."

“What about Monday," I asked.
 "That won’t work. I do taxes on Monday and Tuesday, and I can’t do it then. Hummh. I have to go to a luncheon on Wednesday, but I think I will be home in the afternoon. Be sure to call first. I might be out walking the dog."

Do you get the idea she is busy? Despite her age, (she tells folks she is 83 1/2) she is not ready to sit back in a rocking chair, watch TV and nibble bonbons.

If you looked up the word busy in the dictionary (remember dictionaries?), you would find a reference to Carol Ostermann.

She and her late husband, Bill, a computer programmer for Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut, moved up here in 1986 after she had worked as a physical therapist for 20 years.

They picked Boothbay Harbor because it had a 30-bed hospital and she was looking for a job. “I visited the hospital and decided it was a job meant for me.”

She worked there and served 12 years as a trustee for the Boothbay school system. After 15 years she retired.

Then the fun began.

In 2001, she and her son Mark flew to Seattle, assembled a tandem recumbent bicycle, and rode to Boothbay. They took the back roads and, averaging 68 miles per day, it took them 65 days to reach the coast.

“He rode in front, and the guy in the front does most of the heavy work. I sat in the back, pedaled and knitted,” she said claiming she knitted 15 baby sweaters and 10 baby hats along the way.

In the pre-smartphone age, she kept in touch with her husband Bill via e-mail, using a small computer that she hooked to a phone.

In 2006, she joined a group that took a raft trip through the Grand Canyon.

A few years later, she and Mark took to the road again riding from Boothbay to Cortland, New York and back for a bicycle event. It took about three or four weeks. But they had a bit of a problem.

“When we started, it seemed like it was harder to pedal the bike than it was when we rode cross country. Well, it was. A slow leak in an inner tube was the culprit. Once we got a new one, it was OK again,” she said.

She lost Bill about 10 years ago and still misses him. “We started dating when I was a junior in high school in Troy, New York. I had mentioned to him that I liked the cheesecake at a local family-run bakery. It turns out, his father was the baker.”

“Sometimes, I miss talking to him or mentioning that a deer was running through the yard. You know, that kind of stuff.”

She still rides a bike in the summer, but not in Boothbay. Instead, she goes to Portland where she rides with the Maine Adaptive Sports and Recreation group. In the winter, she goes to Sunday River where she is a volunteer with the group’s skiing program.

During income tax season, she is a volunteer helper with the AARP tax preparation program in Boothbay and Wiscasset.

On most mornings, you can find her in the pool at the Y, where she still can swim a mile, although she admits it takes her about an hour to do that length.

And she volunteers on the desk at the Y, is a greeter at the St. Andrews Urgent Care Clinic, a volunteer at the St. Andrews Auxiliary and their thrift shop, and she delivers library books to shut-ins.

Along the way, she somehow found time to visit Iceland, Korea, and Australia, where she donned scuba gear and explored the Great Barrier Reef.

Last fall, she joined a group from the Congregational Church for a tour of Oman.

“It was interesting, the food was a bit spicy, and it was a learning experience. But it was very sedate. I like to be active.”

“I like to have fun,” she said.