The first thing any soil student learns on the first day of class is to never, ever call it dirt.

Applications for 2018 any-deer (antlerless) permit lottery are now available online from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. To apply visit www.mefishwildlife.com. Online applications are due by 11:59 p.m. on Aug. 15.

A long-lost fellow acquaintance of mine, who took far too many chances as a young man, once mused “If it ain’t scary, it ain’t no fun.” He would have enjoyed a ride in a rubber raft down the West Branch of the Penobscot River below the dam at Ripogenus Lake.

The Abbot Town Hall will be the location of the first annual reunion of students who attended school in Abbot, which organizers hope will become an annual event. A potluck picnic is planned to start at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 29 and this is a rain or shine event.

Two of the state’s busiest prosecutorial districts will have new district attorneys in November after long-serving chief prosecutors decided not to seek re-election. Both Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson, a Republican, and Penobscot and Piscataquis County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy, a Democrat, will step aside this winter.

I met Jared Golden on several occasions while he ran in the primary. He struck me as being astute and forthright in his apprehension of the problems facing America and the people of Maine.

You may have run across the initials NEHGS in a footnote or heard someone refer to “Hist Gen” and wondered what they are.

If any of you frequent the East Outlet Dam on the East Outlet of the Kennebec River, you’ve probably seen IFW Fisheries biologists sending coworkers and assistants down into a fishway and netting up fish to collect data. This is known as the East Outlet Fishway trap.

The siren had sounded, and an all-hands-on-deck alert had been issued. A Supreme Court vacancy had opened up, and a Republican president had just announced a candidate to fill the vacancy. A candidate that must (full stop) be (full stop) defeated (full stop).

Religious conservatives have stuck with President Donald Trump – despite the lies, the infidelity, the cruelty, the hate – and now they are close to the payback.