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Island Commons Marty’s Memorie - Meandering By Marty Trower

Donna Damon gave us all due warning…find your old pictures of youthful summers on Chebeague and get them to her by sometime in January 2020. The next exhibit at the Museum of Chebeague History, about growing up on Chebeague, is counting on us. Did she know what she was doing to the population of unorganized, sentimental pack rats and hoarders among us? I missed the deadline to get my photos in. They are still sprinkling each and every surface of my three main rooms; we are of course eating on our laps in front of the T.V. I’ve enjoyed the challenging process of going through these visuals, though, and found that I wanted to stay with the many subtle memories they evoked. Maybe that’s what held me up, why I couldn’t find the pictures I was looking for and I digressed. I felt the distance in the years not just from how the people had changed but from how the land around our family cottage, my present year-round home, has evolved. In one early Chebeague photo, my older sister and I are squished into a wooden swing seat. I remember that it was painted green like our house behind us and that I found that same seat years later in the shed with the frayed rope still attached to it, wound around its middle. The shed is gone now and the huge oak whose branches held the swing has disappeared forever over the bank. Jen looks protective of me; I look leery. I wonder now, did the swing swoop out over the bank? There is no front lawn now. There are no longer any stairs coming down from the house to the path of grass. There isn’t any room for them anymore. The edge of the bank is a few feet from the edge of the porch railing. The few remaining birches of those many that once stood along the shore with their extended family, glowing white against all adversity, it seemed, linger quietly now, gathering in the early orange fuzz of light.

In a later picture, Dad has started to hack through the overgrowth to the cottage from the dirt road to the house. There is lawn now at the back of the house and down what could be and will be a driveway much later. The job was always a kind of an artistic endeavor for my father, sculpting the property out of a tangle of forest. When they got their first car on the island, my parents parked it at the top of the property. So did anyone who visited or dropped you off or picked you up. One night I was in the back seat of a car full of teenagers and I was being dropped off. I was trying to get out of the car but couldn’t because there were tree branches being fed into the open windows of the car! Everyone was laughing and giggling hysterically. It was my father, returning from a night meeting in the neighborhood, using his pile of branches to make sure we were behaving ourselves! Now a real, though rugged driveway slices through my father’s prided lawn and forest and loops around a transplanted hydrangea. A neighbor’s driveway skirts the edge of the property in what used to be woods and orchards, I think, from the Soule farm. I brought an apple tree back to life there a few years ago and though it struggles today, l still hope to see it blossom in the spring someday. It could be that being here on the island all year long I am more aware of trees being companions you take for granted because they’re always there. I realize now that that is no longer true. Thanks to friends, many of the blown down and uprooted trees have been turned into firewood but their stubby trunks and gnarled roots snake into the frozen air, questioning. I want to look underneath the ground to see what is coming next and hope there is enough good earth to nurture the new growth. So, that’s what happens when you start looking at pictures from the past, you can even get transported to the future. And that’s just two photos, Donna.

A big thank you to the Chebeague Rescue, the Islander boat crew, and the Yarmouth Rescue for rushing me to the Maine Medical Center on December 11th. Thank you for all the healing thoughts and prayers and well wishes as I recovered. We are so grateful to be living in the Community of Chebeague. Diane, Hartley, and girls

Notices Ladies Aid: Please join us for crafty projects and camaraderie at 11:00am each Thursday. Catholic Communion Service: A regular Catholic Communion Service will be held every Saturday at 4:00pm at the church. Sew Good: Sew Good will meet February 5th and 19th from 1:00-5:00pm at the Parish House. For more information, please call Lola Armstrong (846-4737) or Karen Corson (846-0938).

Classified Ads Top Shelf Cleaning and Services: Cleaning, moving cars to and from the Stone Pier or Chandlers Wharf, snowplowing and snowblowing, and winter house watching—daily, weekly, or monthly—lawn mowing, and light tractor work. For more information, call Cindy at 207-846-1055. Seasonal Rental at 13 Island View Rd: Fully equipped summer home with 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, and private right of way to the water; $1100 per week plus a $300 security deposit. Contact Richard Bowen at rhbowen3@gmail.com or 207-831-6148.

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FEBRUARY 2020 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR