by Norma Best Boucher Glenna Johnson Smith of Presque Isle died August 8, 2020, at the age of 100. She had been a potato farmer, an educator, a columnist, an editor, a dramatist, a poet, an author, and a community leader. At age 90 she published her first book, Old Maine Woman. Her second book, […]
by Norma Best Boucher “Shhh! Can you keep a secret?” I look first to my left and then to my right. “Well, can you?” Here goes. I read other people’s mail. That’s right. I read other people’s mail. Okay, before you get all bent out of shape, I don’t steal and steam open envelopes as snoopy […]
by Norma Best Boucher “Hey, great shoes!” I hear a man yell across the convenience store parking lot. “Thanks!” I answer loudly as I look around for the person with the compliment. There he is, a thin, old man with a scraggly white beard sitting in an old beat-up red truck. “I like them shoes!” […]
by Norma Best Boucher “My Big Sister” “I have a baby sister!” she yelled riding her bike up and down the street. That was what my parents told me my older sister Marlene did on the day I was born. I wasn’t there, of course, but I always felt pride and love knowing that she […]
by Norma Best Boucher I locked up my car and walked to the sidewalk leading to the thrift shop. When I looked up, the child’s eyes met mine. We both smiled. “What a beautiful baby,” I told the young mother. Inches away from them, looking straight at the face of the roughly six- month-old child, […]
by Norma Best Boucher My cat Olivia loves to bird watch. In her wild outside cat days, I suppose she hunted a few birds, but she was more content catching lizards and snakes that didn’t take off into the air in the middle of the chase. I found many heads of these dead reptiles at […]
by Norma Best Boucher Christmas time is sometimes the happiest, sometimes the saddest time of the year. People are so wrapped up in the moment that they forget to remember. Often a simple thing like a card, an ornament, or a song will trigger their memories, and for a brief moment the past embellishes the […]
by Norma Best Boucher After supper yesterday when my friends and I were walking, we saw first, an osprey, then a hawk, and bringing up the rear a black bird chasing the other two. The osprey landed on the bank of the retention pond only to find the hawk swooping down upon him. They both […]
by Norma Best Boucher Fall isn’t a date on my calendar, the lowering of the outside temperature, nor the coloring of leaves. Fall is the day I buy my heirloom pale blue Jarrahdale pumpkin. I didn’t start out being highfalutin. On the contrary, I started out modestly years ago with a garden next to our […]
by Norma Best Boucher I am writing a cookbook. No, really, I am. Everyone else has written a cookbook – a pioneer woman, a Barefoot Contessa, Frankie Avalon. Yes, even teen idol Frankie Avalon has written a cookbook. What to write about? That is the question. Most chefs promote recipes that are their favorites but […]