How well I remember the delicious prospect of school vacation week, offering infinite possibilities for fun and, well, yes, romance. I expect that the teens around the River Valley have, despite the years that divide us, experienced happy anticipation as they launched into President’s Day weekend. I know Molly MacGregor was planning a sledding party.

February school vacation week in Maine is very different from its Ohio counterpart I remember in this respect: basketball tournaments. Watching them broadcast live on Channel 10, you find yourself cheering, “Go, Dirigo. Spencer Berry, yes! Josh Daley, you’re the one!”

But by day, the basketball competition fades and it’s easy to forget its school vacation week. For example, I hustled off to River View last Wednesday morning for good old water aerobics and didn’t remember there were no water aerobics during school vacation week.

Meetings

No matter what week it is, the Rumford Whitecap project committee meets every Tuesday morning at the Mahoosuc Land Trust. These are long, working meetings, well worth it to keep the magic of Whitecap for generations to come.

The Rumford Library Growth Committee was another of the many meetings, some routine, some extraordinary, that went on last week. At the library meeting, Laurie Soucy happily reported on the fun she and her daughter had had during vacation days. Kathy Sutton remarked that she was beginning to imagine how sweet, relaxed retirement might be.

Dream on.

Good news, bad news

The Valentine’s Day storm “was a blessing to us,” Black Mountain’s Cindy Decker told me. “We’ve had a wonderful week.

“Visitors from many other towns and states love our low prices and family atmosphere,” Decker said. “The whole mountain was open. We’re ecstatic.”

The bad news was fire destroyed the new home of Gloria Morton’s Flowers, Etc. on Waldo Street. The 911 call was placed from Connie Arsenault’s Deluxe Diner. Several days after the fire, the one-story building lay half a story deep, rubble and ashes. Gloria hopes to put a new structure on the site but she has a long road ahead.

Linda Farr Macgregor is the author of “Rumford Stories” and lives in Rumford.