I don’t want to single anybody out or prompt the gathering of a lynch mob. But somebody in Lewiston has their Christmas lights up already.

No, really.

I cringe, I shudder. Turn from a certain downtown block, still jammed with vestiges of summer, and you will see it. The house is aglow with lights of red and green and blue. There may be a dopey-looking reindeer trapped in all those lights, too. I really don’t know. The nausea set in at once. The queasiness was overpowering. I mean, fa-la-la-la-la, my butt.

I discovered this horror while making a planned sortie through the downtown area. I could not have been more disgusted if I’d stumbled upon a giant web filled with dog-sized spiders. Christmas in mid-October. Would someone please fill my drinking glass with Drano? This is all too much for me.

I make these trips through the downtown area like a mouse moving through a maze. There is seldom a cheese treat at the end of the labyrinth. This night was no different. Downtown Lewiston, seldom boring, was predictable as can be.

On College Street, I slowed to let a stumbling, bearded man cross the road. Just my luck, I recognized him at the last second as the reigning mooch of the city.

Instead of throwing up a hand of gratitude as he crossed, the panhandling champ weaved over to my car and went into his spiel.

“You got any change I can have? I need like 85 cents to get me a something something something.”

The guy is always quite clear when he announces how much loot he requires to meet his needs. He always mumbles when he explains why he needs it.

I’ve given this particular self-starter enough to buy a car over the years. I declined this time and continued my inspection of the city.

On Sabattus Street, I slowed to watch police arrest a man who never goes down easy. One time, he climbed to the top of a roof in the middle of winter to avoid capture. Mostly, he just runs until he finds a closet or crevice to hide in. This time, the glare of blue lights surrounded him like a giant balloon before he could find a burrow. No drama, no hijinks.

On Pine Street, a pair of young men squared off to fight. They assumed the position, but then proceed to commence trash talking. They knew what they were doing, too. There was some real verbal nastiness being thrown around.

Both men flung their arms out to their sides in the obligatory “I’m right here, take a swing. No, you take a swing” posture. It was getting tense. But the exchange of dialogue went on and on (“Oh, yeah? Well, you’re mother’s so fat, she broke her leg once and gravy poured out …”) and the verbal sparring seemed to take its toll. Coming up with mother insults is draining work. The last I looked, the two men were moving apart, still glaring at each other, but with much less ferocity. The fight had gone out of them.

Near Kennedy Park, a disgusted caller told police he had witnessed something vile. The man said he overheard an older man saying lewd things to a young boy with whom he was walking in the dark. The pair seemed to be moving toward the shadows of the gazebo when the witness called the cops.

I went over. Several officers went over. The older man was sitting on the gazebo steps with the youngster. This was him, all right.

The cops moved in. Pointed questions were asked. The fiendish crime began to unravel. Upon closer examination, the object of the man’s desire wasn’t a young boy at all. It was an adult woman with particularly soft features and a wool hat pulled down over her brow.

A night of premature holiday decorations, a fight where the first-round bell never rang, a panhandler with no finesse, a nice woman with the face of a little boy. For those of you keeping score, you will note the glaring lack of news value in each of these scenarios.

Many cities wind down like a music box when summer retreats. Lewiston is not one of them. Lewiston is subject to periods of high and low activity based on factors altogether different than normal places. Lewiston is a moody wench.

But most of us who live here are moody, too. Especially when it’s getting cold and you need to think about how you’ll heat your home this year. Especially when some jolly old elf decides to announce the approach of Christmas nearly three months in advance. I mean, what the fa-la-la-la-la?

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter. Visit his blog at www.sunjournal.com.

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