STINKY?: Emily Poulin, of China, photographed this chipmunk as it appears to be smelling something in its paw.
SOARING HIGH: Joan Chaffee, of Clinton, caught this bald eagle in flight.
FAMILY FOR DINNER: Michael Bilinsky, of China Village, snapped this group of blue jays feeding.
(NAPSI)—There is no question, migraines can be hard to live with and treat. If you’re one of more than 36 million Americans living with migraine, you know that finding just the right acute treatment can be challenging. Keeping an open dialogue with your doctor will help make sure that he or she knows what types of migraine symptoms you suffer from so that a treatment plan can be tailored for you. Take this simple challenge to determine your Migraine Treatment IQ:
If yes, you are not alone. According to a survey of migraine sufferers, as many as 90% of patients have experienced nausea during migraine attacks.2 Nausea or vomiting associated with migraines can make it difficult to take and to absorb oral medications.
Migraine is the most common medical condition associated with light sensitivity. In fact, light sensitivity is one of the symptoms used to diagnose migraine. Between 85% and 90% of people with migraine feel sensitive to light.4 Sensitivity to sound is also a common migraine symptom. Sounds may make the head pain of migraine worse.
According to the American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study, more than one-half of all adult migraine sufferers surveyed did NOT experience adequate pain freedom within 2 hours of taking their usual acute treatment.
In a separate survey, 37% of patients were not satisfied with how quickly their current migraine therapy worked.
Ready-to-use and well-tolerated migraine treatments that offer straightforward administration and rapid pain relief are a good option for an active lifestyle.
If you and your healthcare provider decide that a fast-acting medication should be part of your treatment plan, consider options that fit best with your lifestyle. For example, a self-administered, portable treatment that requires one spray into one nostril may be a good choice for certain patients who are unable to tolerate an oral medication due to nausea. Tosymra® (sumatriptan nasal spray) 10 mg is a fast and powerful, ready-to-use nasal spray with mist-like administration used to treat acute migraine headaches with or without aura in adults. Tosymra works as quickly as an injection and can provide migraine pain relief in as few as 10 minutes for some patients (13% of patients vs. 5% for placebo). Tosymra is not for everyone. Do not use Tosymra if you have heart problems, narrowing of blood vessels (peripheral vascular disease), or uncontrolled high blood pressure. These are not all the reasons you should not take Tosymra.
For more information about acute migraine and Important Safety Information for Tosymra, including a link to full prescribing and patient information, visit www.mytosymra.com or talk to your healthcare provider.
Lindsey Childs, of Palermo, presenting salutatorian address with her favorite horse.
Maine Connections Academy (MCA), in Scarborough, the state’s first tuition-free, online charter school for grades 7-12, hosted its commencement ceremony online on June 8 to honor 77 students in its sixth class of graduating seniors. Lindsey Childs, of Palermo, was class Salutatorian.
Due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, the in-person ceremony took place online, with all students and their families, as well as Maine Connections Academy faculty and staff, invited to attend. Childs will be attending the University of Maine at Orono this fall. She will have a double major in political science and sociology, with a concentration in crime, law and justice.
Her remarks as Salutatorian were notable in that Childs delivered them while standing next to her favorite horse. She focused on the presence of change in our lives: “We’re all going to have to make significant changes, and some of us don’t even know what to do with our lives. But change can be a positive, we can’t avoid it. The secret is to adapt to change.”
As an online school, Maine Connections Academy students learn from wherever there is an Internet connection across all of Maine’s 16 counties. This online graduation was simply one more way of collaborating together. With families and friends, Maine Connections Academy students, “walked across the stage,” and showed each other meaningful images and words to capture their time together at the online school. Four Maine Connections Academy teachers acted as MCs throughout the online ceremony.
Maine Connections Academy is now in its sixth year. Students come from all across Maine and choose online school for many reasons, including wanting a safe environment, the ability to work faster or slower than their peers, flexibility in terms of scheduling, and more. Maine Connections Academy offers students an award-winning online curriculum and the opportunity to work closely with certified teachers using detailed daily lesson plans that can be personalized to meet individual student needs. Maine Connections Academy is currently enrolling up to 429 students for the 2020-21 school year on a first-come, first-served basis—it is recommended that families interested in virtual school submit an application as soon as possible to avoid being waitlisted.
For more information about MCA, please call (207) 805-3254, or visit www.MaineConnectionsAcademy.com.
by David ReedA couple of months ago we didn’t really know much about this scourge, but now it appears that the elderly, immune-compromised patients, and nursing home residents are those at highest risk. Like the common cold, this virus spreads by a sneeze, cough, droplet dispersion or contact with a contaminated surface with the virus infecting via the nose, mouth or tear ducts.
Recognizing this, Governor DeSantis, of Florida, targeted nursing homes with strict infection control measures with amazingly good prevention results, as contrasted with Gov. Cuomo’s ill-advised New York policy of discharging coronavirus patients to nursing homes. If you have a high number of automobile accidents at a particular intersection, you fix the problem: install a traffic light, put in a turn around, change the speed limit, whatever. You don’t make everybody in the state drive 35 miles per hour.
How can you foster a tourism industry in “Vacationland” when you impose a 14-day quarantine on state entrants, especially if they only have a two-week vacation? I’m 83 years old with a heart murmur, so I’m highly vulnerable. But why should the whole state suffer because of me? What right do I have to hold the whole state hostage, particularly when suspect forces in government may be exploiting me to promote some pet agenda?
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tipped her hand with her trillion dollar relief bill. It’s not really about the coronavirus. It’s about ramming an agenda-driven, outrageous, rape of the treasury spending bill down our throats.
I know what precautions to take: wear a mask, avoid crowds, social distance, hit the grocery store at 7 a.m., and stay out of jail and nursing homes. Will we have cases of coronavirus? Certainly. Just like the flu. Just like an automobile accident on the road not protected by the newly-installed traffic light. If you’ve got to quarantine anyone, quarantine me, not the whole state.
What gives Gov. Janet Mills the right to pull some restaurant owner’s liquor and operator’s license? Did he violate some licensing provision in the way he served alcohol and food? Has he violated some law passed by our legislature concerning the coronavirus pandemic?
And, by the way, where is Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon during all this? We could use the wisdom, expertise, and supposed problem-solving skills of our elected representatives to do some of the heavy lifting during this crisis.
The China Food Pantry at 1320 Lakeview Drive in China. (photo by Eric Austin)
To the editor:
My mother, Ann Austin, runs the China Community Food Pantry. She is an eternal optimist, and lives by the expression, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
During the food pantry this Saturday, which occupies much of the upstairs floor of our home in China, I heard my mother come down the stairs. She strode into the kitchen and waved an envelope at me. “An older gentleman got in line just now,” she said. “He handed me this.”
I squinted at the white envelope in her hand. It looked like a bank envelope. The number “500” was written in one corner.
“He wouldn’t give me his name,” she continued. “He wanted to remain anonymous.”
My eyes widened. It was a sizable donation and would go a long way toward helping those in the community facing difficult times.
“With all the evil in the world,” my mother, the eternal optimist, declared, “there are still plenty of angels around!” Then she marched out of the room and back upstairs to continue handing out food to the hungry.
She’s right. There are plenty of bad people out there, but there are an amazing number of good people, too — and many of them live right here in our community.
It’s important to remind ourselves of that every once in a while. Thanks, Mom.
Eric W. Austin
China
Kalie Hess
To the editor:
Most if not all of us have had some terrible struggles lately—life has been hard if not downright scary. But we also have reason to hope for better days to come. While the Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on so many folks we care about, it has also helped us see that we cannot afford to let serious unresolved issues ride any longer. We certainly cannot just watch as politicians fail to work together to ensure reasonable access to healthcare for all—especially our most vulnerable. We need them to work together to ensure support for our local businesses, to ensure those struggling have a reasonable opportunity for a living pay check, and to ensure strong educational resources are available so our kids will be ready to be productive citizens in the future.
We need our legislators and other leaders to be ones who are going to work together on these issues—not call each other names, close their minds, and point fingers. But to do this we need them to be knowledgeable, engaged, and—most of all—ready to listen and work together.
I only met Kalie Hess this year, but what a breath of fresh air! With a good education and experience in public health, a mind clearly engaged in current issues, and a voice that doesn’t start preaching but starts with asking questions and listening well, I was impressed. And the more I learn about her, the more I have been impressed. A native Mainer living and working in our community, a person willing to take the plunge into the public arena to have hard discussions (not arguments) and work toward solutions, Kalie is worth looking into.
I sincerely hope you will review the information online about her (kaliehess.com), take (if not make) the opportunity to speak with/contact her, and consider her candidacy for the Maine Senate this fall. We need her energy, her constructive focus, and her caring about her fellow and sister Mainers in our legislature. We need her working for us.
Susan Cottle
South China
AARP Maine State Director Lori Parham (source: AARP)
To the editor:
AARP Maine State Director Lori Parham released the following statement today in response to the Governor’s Executive Order on the July 14, 2020 Primary & Referendum Election.
On behalf of our 230,000 members 50 and older across Maine we want to thank Governor Mills for clarifying the rules and processes for the July 14 election. During these uncertain times, AARP Maine wants to ensure that every Maine voter has a safe, secure, and efficient way to cast their vote in the primary election.
The Order allows for important adjustments including:
The Order also allows for the suspension of requirements that Town Clerks facilitate absentee balloting through in-person visits to certain licensed facilities. AARP Maine will be monitoring this change closely to ensure that residents of Maine’s licensed long-term care facilities are given every opportunity to cast their vote in the primary election.
As we look to the General Election in November, we urge the Secretary of State to consider additional procedures that will ensure a strong voter turnout while maintaining the health and safety of Maine residents. These include making online submission of voter registration documents possible, mailing absentee ballots or request forms to all registered Maine voters, with return postage paid, and ensuring that voters are notified if their ballot is rejected because of a technical error so that they can be given the right to cure that error. We look forward to continuing to work with the Secretary and his staff in the months ahead.
AARP Maine continues to urge Maine voters who are able to Vote Safely. Vote from Home. by requesting an absentee ballot from the Secretary of State’s office or their local town clerk.
Lori Parham
AARP Maine State Director
The Asian Giant Hornet. Notice the long wing span.
by Roland D. HalleeA couple of weeks ago, while driving into work, I heard over the radio about this giant Asian hornet that had made its way to the United States, and was first detected in Washington state. Haven’t we seen this movie before? Isn’t that where we were first introduced to the coronavirus Covid-19?
This hornet, from all reports, can reach a size of two inches in length. So, here is what we know.
Hornets are found in many parts of the world and play a vital role in the balance of natural ecosystems through pollination, biodiversity and natural pest control. Unfortunately dubbed the “murder hornet,” the Asian giant hornet (AGH), the world’s largest, was sighted for the first time in the United States in December 2019.
Do you suspect that coronavirus may have hitched a ride on this hornet, arriving in the United States at about the same time?
The Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, is the world’s largest hornet. It is native to temperate and tropical East Asia, South Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and parts of the Russian Far East. It was also found in the Pacific Northwest of North America in late 2019, with two additional sightings in 2020. They prefer to live in low mountains and forests, while almost completely avoiding plains and high-altitude climates. They create nests by digging, co-opting pre-existing tunnels dug by rodents, or occupying spaces near rotted pine roots. It feeds primarily on larger insects, colonies of other eusocial insects, tree sap, and honey from honey bee colonies. The hornet has a body length of 1.8 inches, a wingspan around three inches), and a stinger a quarter of an inch long, which injects a large amount of potent venom.
The Asian giant hornet is often confused with the yellow-legged hornet, also known as the Asian hornet, an invasive species of major concern across Europe, including the United Kingdom.
According to Dick Rogers, principal scientist and entomologist, at Bayer Bee Care Program, while the AGH is large in size and has a big stinger compared to other hornets, it is typically not aggressive with humans. As always, those allergic to bee or wasp stings should practice caution and avoid contact with hornets in general.
Rogers has been a professional entomologist for more than four decades and has been keeping and studying bees for over 40 years. He joined the Bayer Bee Care Program in 2009.
The down side is the Asian Giant Hornet can pose a risk to honey bee colonies because it feeds on large insects, including wasps and bees. So far, they’ve only appeared in the northwest part of the United States, and monitoring efforts by the Washington State Department of Agriculture (WSDA) are underway to better understand these hornets and help educate beekeepers on how to protect their colonies.
On top of this, a team at Bayer is being pro-active by organizing a first detection trapping program in North Carolina and Missouri, which will be deployed in early July. They will then share their results with the WSDA at the end of the season. While they do not expect to catch any AGH this year, early detection is vital to an effective effort to eradicate them.
You can be confident the early introduction of the AGH in the United States and Canada is being closely monitored by professionals who have management plans in place should there be any future sightings. There’s no need to worry about catching a glimpse of these hornets in your yards or gardens, as they are not yet established in the United States. In fact, the only hornet that is established in our country, the European hornet, has been around since the late 1800s.
As always, it is important to protect our bees. It’s not only researchers and entomologists who can help protect honeybees. Everyone can support bees by getting outside to plant pollinator-friendly gardens or flowers.
As pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem, crop production and biodiversity, I recommend you stay calm and keep gardening to provide your fuzzy friends with the flowers and habitat they need to thrive.
Learn more about how to plant pollinator-friendly gardens that help bees, monarchs and other important pollinators by visiting https://beehealth.bayer.us/home.
Who was the first Boston Red Sox pitcher to win the American League Cy Young Award?
Who was the first Boston Red Sox pitcher to win the American League Cy Young Award?
Jim Lonborg, in the “Impossible Dream” season of 1967.
by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & PercyGood morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!
It isn’t often that I have more local news to share than I have room for! I didn’t receive the following email until after the fact.
The Marijuana Ordinance Committee held its first meeting on June 3. They worked on drafting the town ordinance to regulate marijuana businesses in Solon.
The annual town meeting voted in a 180-day moratorium on allowing marijuana businesses in town. They have until September 3 to hold the special town meeting on a proposed marijuana ordinance. They hope to have the ordinance completed by the end of July so we can hold a public hearing the beginning of August with the special town meeting to be held at the end of August. Committee members are Jeff Pomelow, Peter Pfeiffer, Heather Forsten, Joe Albuit and Lisa Caldwell, with Wayne Gushee being an information officer.
The town office is open Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays with a limit of one customer or family unit at a time in the lobby area. Also, the governor has decreed that masks are required to be worn in businesses open to the public and in public buildings where social distancing is not possible.
Was very surprised and please to receive another Solon School News in the mail this week with lots of recent news to share. It starts with Best Wishes to Fifth Graders. We want to extend our best wishes and good luck to the fifth grade class, who will enter sixth grade at Carrabec Community School, in the fall.
All of us will miss our wonderful and talented fifth graders. We wish we had been able to have them with us at school all year long. They are wished the best luck in the next step on their educational journey.
Please check out our slide show farewell message to them, which will be posted on the Solon Elementary School Facebook page on Friday, June 3.
Goodbye and good luck to Izaiah Busler, Kaylynn Clark, Katelyn DeLeonardis, Kaitlin Dellarma, David Dixon, Emmy Golden, Veronica Hoffman, Alex Jerkins, Elijah Katz, Joseph McLaughlin, Craig Nile, Riley Pelkey, Jillian Robinson and Haylee Towers.
Solon staff members stay busy during school closure. Our school has been closed since March 13, but the staff members have been busy. Teachers have been preparing learning packets for their students every week as well as contacting families to check in. Some of the staff have worked at the food hub or helped to deliver packets to students’ homes. Mrs. Hines worked at CCS to prepare meals for the food hub. We hope our efforts have helped students and families during this difficult time.
Third quarter honor roll includes: All A’s and B’s, Isabella Atwood, Kaylynn Clark, Amelia Cooper, Lydia Dixon, Emmy Golden, Veronica Hoffman, Allyssa Hutchins, Alex Jerkins, Jayden McKenney, Joseph McLaughlin, Riley Pelkey, Aiden Powell, Ben Powwell, Spencer Rogers, Haylee Towers and Michael Towers.
All A’s, Maxx Caplin, Katelyn DeLeonardis, Kaitlin Dellarma, David Dixon, Lane Frost, Charlotte Hamilton and Jillian Robinson.
A letter: Dear Solon parents and guardians, The Solon staff would like to extend our thanks and appreciation to all our parents, grandparents and guardians who took on the role of “teacher” for our students when our school closed on March 13 for the remainder of the school year due to the coronavirus pandemic. You helped your child complete the activities in his or her learning packet for ten weeks, and you taught him or her lots of other things about the world we live in through family activities. We know this has been a difficult time for you as well as for us.
You have been strong and you have supported the school through these hard times. For that we are immensely grateful.
We have missed our students so much this spring. School is not the same without them. We hope that with some safety protocols in place, our school will be able to reopen in the fall. We will keep you posted over the summer.
We hope that you and your families will stay healthy and safe until we meet again. If there’s anything we can do to support you, please email or call the school or your child’s teacher at any time.
Stay the strong and wonderful people that you are and have a nice summer.
And now, for Percy’s memoir: Stressed spelled backwards is Desserts. (and I think there is a lot of stress these days…try it, you might like it!