It’s not often that I can write a column thanking the Trump administration, but this week is the exception. Breaking news out of the US Department of Interior has given me the chance to return to my school years and write about what I did on my summer vacation.

For more than three generations, my family has been in the forestry business. Pleasant River Lumber employs 300 people in our four mills in Maine. In our time, we have seen the ups and downs that come with the job.

For over half a century, Americans have paid into the Medicare system with the expectation that they will have access to healthcare in retirement. For those 65-plus, Medicare provides more affordable health coverage where private insurance would cost seniors out of the market.

I strongly support Sue Mackey Andrews for Maine Senate District 4. I've known and worked with Sue for over 20 years. Her commitment and passion on behalf of families in Piscataquis, Somerset and Penobscot counties are well established.

The pond on which I live looks like lots of small Maine ponds, but has its own seasonal sounds and rhythms.

Don't let Rep. Bruce Poliquin buy his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is sitting on about $3 million that he intends to use to do just that. He has been a poor representative for the people of Maine, showing time and time again that he is a party creature with little or no interest in you and me and the problems we face in Maine.

As Americans, we have the resources and compassion to rise to this crisis for our fellow human beings. Learn more about the refugees at our Mexican border and how we can help by attending Keeping Families Together at the Thompson Free Library from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 5 in Dover-Foxcroft.

Let’s say you have a knack for design.

Enough already. The media — no monolith, mind you — is not the enemy. Sure, individual reporters make mistakes, bias occasionally slips in, facts get mangled, and spin proves effective. But by and large — and with the exception of some elements of Fox News — reporters are operating in good faith.

Before I moved to Sangerville 44 years ago. I worked as a custodian in a K-6 grade school and then I went and worked in a 7-8 grade school. In both schools I saw some very sad and depressed students. The younger children did not understand why their mother or father was not coming home anymore and the older boys and girls became very angry and some needed anger management. Children are the biggest losers. Very sad.

President Donald Trump is taking quite a risk if he succeeds in putting an anti-pro choice judge on the Supreme Court. He faces the fact that the big majority of women in this country support a woman's right to choose.

Yesterday morning, July 12, I got up at 4:30 — my usual time; went downstairs, filled the bathroom sink with hot water, wet and brushed my hair, washed my face, then shaved. A new wrinkle just above my upper lip has me creating new ways of getting a clean shave. One small challenge of getting older while keeping a hairless face, I guess.

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.

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.

The Moosehead Lake region is world famous.

Thank you to the Bangor Daily News for the recent editorial on LD 1666, which the Legislature just passed to make proficiency-based diplomas an option for Maine schools, rather than a mandate. This would allow Maine schools a little more local control, rather than having to serve another unwieldy state mandate.