Lewiston police investigate single gunshot
Isn’t it sad how the fact that only one shot was fired feels like progress? Hey, maybe the bad guys are running out of ammo so they have to be more conservative with their shots. Brass ain’t cheap, you know.

George Stanley strikes again!
It’s always a good week when I get a chance to write about Greene’s most infamous resident. I had a long conversation with him while reporting this story and got treated to a long string of his unique insights and exotic non sequiturs. You know those giant heaps of runaway oddities in front of Stanley’s Route 202 home? A conversation with the man is the verbal equivalent of that. And that’s a compliment, by gorry. George Stanley is never dull.

Wednesday, May 7, at 9:12 p.m.
In the fall, we go around asking one another “Did you get your deer yet?” because that’s just what you do. In the spring, it’s the same type of thing except we’re asking about a certain uncoiled frond that grows in swampy areas of the Maine woods and which we like to put in our mouths and eat. “Did you get your fiddleheads yet, bro?” Don’t worry about me, son. I got mine Wednesday night. I accidentally bit into one before I had put anything on them and almost died, but once I got them soaked in vinegar like a bucket of Old Orchard pier fries, all was well. People who eat fiddleheads without vinegar are weirdos.

I will make you Chinese dumplings
Know what this means? Yeah, me neither. The weird statement was just sitting there like that in my Talk of the Town file with no explanation or context. I suppose I could Google “Chinese dumplings” to see what they’re all about but where’s the fun in that? I’m just going to assume that it’s some super secret code and that by writing it here, I can rest assured that the revolution is underway.

Alfred Hitchcock approves
So last year, I regaled you all with flowery stories about my relationship with the lovely phoebes that had built a nest right above my front door. It was a beautiful thing, that relationship; a truly benevolent co-existence between man and beast worthy of a sonnet. This year? Nope. I got robins laying their eggs beneath my car port roof and robins have no interest in peaceful co-existence. Every time I step outside the door, one of those enraged mothers comes swooping down upon my head and I find myself elbow crawling across the driveway just to put the trash out. And when they’re NOT flying straight at my face, they’re pacing angrily in the grass and glowering at me with those beady, hate-filled eyes. I tell you, if I survive the spring without beak wounds, it’ll be a wonder.