SOLON & BEYOND, Week of April 6, 2017

by Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

The Solon Congregational Church will be having their annual Spring Inside Yard and Craft Sale on Saturday, April 29, from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m., at the Solon Elementary School. They are still looking for yard salers and vendors to take part in this popular event featuring many crafters, vendors and second hand tables! New this year is a plant sale, 50/50 Raffle and Spring Themed Guess the Amount Baskets. The kitchen will be open for breakfast and lunch with homemade items. Homemade baked goods table. Spring is here, Don’t Miss Out!!

Much to my horror, when last week’s paper came out, I had failed to put in the date of the very ‘Important Dinner to benefit the Timdall Family! Of course I started to worry that my failure to write the day would keep people away from such an important endeavor! But…when Lief and I arrived for the meal, it was almost impossible to find a place to park, there were so many vehicles! ( Someday, my prayer is that I will stop worrying! Wish me luck!). There had been lots of posters posted around also and there was a huge crowd enjoying the fellowship and wonderful food in abundance. We left before the auction but I hope to find out more about the whole affair before I write this column next week.

Every year when I turn the page on a calendar to April, I start thinking about age. In my dictionary it describes ‘aging’ as “to grow old, to show signs of age. 2 to become mature, heavy wines age slowly. 3 to cause to become old, worry aged him rapidly, 4 to allow to mature. Act your age, behave more sensibly. ( I’ve been told that I don’t act my age, and I totally agree, and I continue to work on that problem!)

But as I get older every year, it impresses me more and more when I find out what other people are still doing in their lives. I can’t say enough about the great job the person who delivers our daily paper does, especially in the winter, (with all the snow storms and blizzards we’ve had this winter!)

Her name is Mary Reed and when I found out last week that she had just had her 80th birthday, my admiration at all she still does was beyond measure. She has been delivering the Morning Sentinel for 37 years. She also delivers the Bangor paper Monday through Saturday and the Portland Sunday paper as well! She said she worked at a shoe shop before starting to deliver papers.

She and her mother found a place to live on Fire Road 15 on the lake, she loved it there, but after her mother died she had to sell the place because the taxes went up. She then bought the place where she now lives in East Madison. She said she made it into a nice house, it was going to be a place to fix cars. She has lived there for 37 years and at one time did do some wood working projects and sold them.

She said she had cancer a couple of years back but was cured. She spends most of her time planting roses, her mother loved them. She wrote on a note to me that, “I love your roses, I watch them grow.”

But again I can’t say enough about how much we appreciate the great job she does in delivering our paper right to our door. (Our driveway curves up a hill and unless there is an ice storm or a blizzard it is there, but if not, it is a tube on South Solon Road. Thanks Mary for a job well done!

I’m sure Percy probably watched Mary’s lights coming up the driveway around 3:30 or 4 a.m. on many a morning, his memoir is to Keep Going: There’s no skill in easy sailing When the skies are clear and blue. There’s no joy in merely doing Things that anyone can do. But there is great satisfaction, That is mighty sweet to take When you reach a destination That you said you couldn’t make.