COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is ten years old, and it keeps getting better each year. We visit on our own and also bring all of our guests. Our granddaughters are especially fond of the play house where there are kitchen appliances, a cupboard, and a small table and chairs where you can serve tea and cupcakes. Also a draw are the two old fashioned water pumps, a laundry tub with a washboard, a rowboat to climb into, the puppet theater, and a sandbox.
For adults, the scent garden is always worth wandering. And there’s also an outdoor art exhibit, “Unearthed,” a series of towering root sculptures by Pennsylvania artist Steve Tobin. The sculptures are made of metal and placed throughout the grounds. Some are realistic colors (brown and black) while others are bright such as a mustard yellow one and a glossy white one. The sculptures will be on view into 2020. A few years ago Lehigh University presented an outdoor exhibit of Tobin’s impressively large “Termite Hills” sculptures.
MAKING MEMORIES
Our son and daughter-in-law and two granddaughters were here for the week. E is a poised seven and F an active three, the age at which most kids form lasting memories. The Chief Penguin and I very much enjoy their annual visits to Maine and know that even when we’re gone, they will have Maine memories.
Memories of making blueberry pancakes with Grandma, of sampling Grandpa’s muffins, of visiting the botanical gardens, of clambering on the rocks at Molly’s Point for sea glass, shells, and smooth stones, of checking out the books and toys at Sherman’s, and memories of riding the narrow gauge train at Railway Village and more.
E is a voracious reader and quickly devours chapter books. F is at the “why?” stage and is a fan of trains and motion. Together the girls and I read umpteen stories, played with Josie and Rosie, their dolls, and colored and created with construction paper using an assortment of pencils, pens, and crayons.
There was no set schedule and the mornings flowed from a leisurely breakfast, to a walk in the yard or games on the deck, followed by an afternoon outing, and then dinner, be it pizza with friends and their grandkids, hot dogs and lobster rolls on the deck at Cozy’s, or comfort food here at Grandma and Grandpa’s. It was about as perfect a week as could be!
RECENT READING
America’s Reluctant Prince: The Life of John F. Kennedy Jr. by Steven Gillon
Much has been written about JFK Jr. and the Kennedys in the twenty years since his tragic death in 1999. One might wonder why we need yet another tome, and this one is a tome. Gillon was the graduate assistant in an undergraduate course Kennedy took at Harvard. Only a few years older than John, he became a friend and the two got together occasionally over the years. John sought out Gillon’s advice and writing suggestions when he was editing George magazine. While John was alive, Gillon respected and protected his privacy; now he feels comfortable sharing his perspective and his knowledge of the challenges John faced as a Kennedy, the standard bearer after his father’s death.
What was most interesting to me was the account of Kennedy’s years founding and creating George and struggling to make it a truly viable proposition. There is new information on his wife Carolyn’s inability to adjust to being trailed by the press, her volatile behavior, and her drug use, all of which made a marriage fraught with tension more tumultuous. It is in this context of daunting issues at work, difficulties at home, and the prolonged dying of his closest friend (his cousin Anthony), that John Jr. takes off on that fateful flight. The book is overly detailed and, sometimes tedious, but I found myself modifying and enlarging my view of this Kennedy. (~JWFarrington)
Note: Photos and text ©JWFarrington (some rights reserved). Header photo taken at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
