Scattered Acres

There are over 31,000 Post Offices in the United States. The come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They are present in all quarters of large cities and stretch to even the most remote hamlets in America. The Unites States Postal Service is the most ubiquitous of any American institution. Almost everyone has been to the Post Office. There, across the counter you will engage with a postal worker when you buy stamps, send a package, or expedite an important letter. You may find the agent friendly, helpful, cheerful or perhaps a little cranky or just plain bureaucratic. You know what to expect at your local Post Office. The have a personality. It’s not just the Post Office personnel with whom you engage, but also the letter carriers. Those who walk miles each day. Most of them are easy to engage in conversation. We have gotten to know some of them. There was Richard who became known as the Mayor of Downtown Amherst when he had that route. He even came to the neighborhood Sunday brunch. Th...

My wife and I treated ourselves to a ride in the car down the Pemaquid Peninsula yesterday. On the way we stopped for a dip at the Biscay Pond beach. It wasn’t crowded and social distancing was easy. We carried on to Round Pond to see how a friend was progressing on a renovation project and to drop in on another friend whom we hadn’t seen all summer - with masks and social distancing out doors. We checked on our favorite lobster co-op shack; it was operating. We’ll be back. Next we went to New Harbor, a favorite of ours. It’s where the Hardy Boat leaves for Monhegan Island.  Heading for home, we passed a sign with an arrow, Evacuation Route . And we wondered why anyone would need to evacuate the peninsula. It’s on rugged high ground not to be flooded by a hurricane surge. What else could cause us to evacuate? We couldn’t fathom what it could be - or how it would be better anywhere else. But maybe the Evacuation Route signs are pointing the wrong way. Could it be a route f...

Last Sunday we drove from Amherst to our place in Damariscotta, Maine. It's usually a five hour trip, but this time we made it in a bit over four. Not much traffic. Dreadful I-495 was a breeze. We counted fewer than twenty tractor trailers on the road the whole way. That's less than one every ten miles. On our road trips I've used truck traffic as a surrogate for the state of the economy. The dearth of large trucks, even on a Sunday, said it all. As we came off the Interstates on to Route 1 on the last leg of the trip, it was distressing to see the number of small roadside business shuttered. Each one was somebody's enterprise that employed people and served the public. I wondered it any of the aid for business and unemployment was reaching them. Is the pain being shared? Now we are quarantined for 14 days until June 1. In anticipation, we packed food for at least two weeks. It will be a good chance to get things organized.

Scattered Acres is going to be a site for random thoughts. Here in the time of coronavirus, there will be some commentary about the passing political, economic, environmental, social and cultural scene. There is much to be said about all of these.