More than a week, and no winner. Glitches. Memory stick problems. Ballots sent by courier from remote Maine towns. And all for likely selecting the winner that would have been selected anyway under the old system? This is really how you want to do elections, Maine?

It’s that time of year again when genealogists are apt to feel the urge to track down a family cemetery.

Maybe this time will be different. But I’m skeptical, disappointed and angry. The plight of children stolen from their parents at the border has generated a national moment of outrage.

I offer praise to Bangor's Peace and Justice Center for showing the just released documentary “Awake” that shows the efforts of Water Protectors at the North Dakota Standing Rock Sioux Nation. The video exposes violent actions of the North Dakota National Guard, sheriff department, and hired mercenaries who worked for the oil pipeline company throughout 2016 and 2017.

Why do basic good manners seem so hard to grasp? I was thinking about that last night whenever our 4 ½-year-old grandson, Grafton, announced, “I want a snack,” or “I want juice.” My initial response was, “I’m not hearing any manners,” or the shorter, “Manners?”

As a new resident of Maine, I am dumbfounded at the recent legalization of marijuana in Maine. Everyone agrees that there is an opioid crisis in this state and around the country. So how does legalizing marijuana make any sense? It doesn't.

After all that, it turns out the Republicans don't need to worry about the foolishness of ranked-choice voting after all. The reason for that, of course, is that Shawn Moody became the Republican nominee for governor on Tuesday night by absolutely wiping out his opponents.

On Tuesday, for the first time Maine, voters had a chance to use ranked-choice voting to pick their nominees for governor and for Democrats in the 2nd Congressional District. Despite all the hand-wringing, ranked-choice voting itself is pretty straightforward. You rank the candidates in the order that you like them.

It’s hardly a startling headline that rural Maine is in crisis. In fact, the face of rural Maine has been a sporting a series of fresh bruises as a regular occurrence since the 1890s. The utter collapse of the farm economy, the demise of the ubiquitous shipyards and the sawmills that fed them, and the gradual, inexorable decline of papermaking has shaped the prospects for prosperity for which people in rural Maine tirelessly strive.

Is there ever a time suicide doesn’t leave a wake of sadness and grief? Suicide and death were very much a part of my week. I didn’t make it a point to engage suicide and death. The week just turned out that way.

Hold your horses! Ease off that throttle. Slow it down there, bub. The U.S. Supreme Court did not legalize discrimination and it did not affirm the right of business owners to turn people away who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. And the court certainly did not say that the First Amendment allows business owners to ignore state law, including anti-discrimination laws, on the basis of religious beliefs.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." That, of course, is the text of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In my last column I wrote about the importance journals can play in genealogical research. But how do you find an article in an obscure journal, perhaps one you never knew existed?

Driving two-lane back roads along miles of woods, bordered and interwoven with old stone walls, I was exploring new areas of rural Maine. Up and down a rise in the road, around a curve, I see a red-winged blackbird perched on a lone cattail stalk rising from a small roadside wetland. Across the street a small cemetery catches my eye. I stop and visit.

This week the SAD 41 community lost a valued board member and friend. Sheila Ellis passed away on May 31 after a battle with cancer. Sheila was a long-time member of the SAD 41 Board of Directors. She began her service on the board in April of 2008 and remained a member until the day she died.

This spring I have realized once again just how lucky I am to live in Dover-Foxcroft. Although I have retired from my medical practice, I am now devoting most of my “working hours” toward making life better for the people of our area.

Having recently finished a book, I was looking for something to read. I have a rather eclectic taste that varies from historical biographies to science fiction and fantasy. And of course, there is my insatiable appetite for political books.

“We have failed these kids.” Those were the words of state Sen. Roger Katz, a Republican from Augusta, during a hearing on an investigation of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services about the death of two children.