Reporting on Doris Doe, my first speeding ticket, moths and moles, another successful sale for the Rumford Historical Society and that the Portland Brass is returning to the grounds of Bethel’s Moses Mason House for another Fourth of July delights me.

It also fills a growing need for local news, news that’s hard to come by – though we hunger for it – in an age when a few media organizations are gaining a Monopoly-like hold on the “news.”

Most of what is written and read of Valley Voices is like the foregoing: positive. But now and then a worry or a wonder creeps in.

Example: The weed cutter’s motor conks out and the lawn mower doesn’t start at all. Randy Welch confirms the speculation that it’s last year’s gasoline. But it’s not that water seeped into the gasoline over the winter. No. “Today’s gasoline is so cheap, it starts to degrade after 30 days.” Who knew? Bob Richardson says that there’s an additive that will stabilize the gas, but you have to put it in last year, so to speak.

Getting last year’s gas out of the machine is no easy feat and messy, too. The good news is that waste fuel can be dealt with: burned in an oil waste furnace with, we’re told, no ill effects.

Even so, a good deal of “non-source point pollution” is generated around here, everywhere. Non-source point pollution is the kind of bureaucrat-speak that discourages us from learning more. What non-source point pollution is stuff – like motor oil – brought to the water’s edge, stuff that may leak and be rain-washed into the river or pond. Another example is stuff like manure, produced right there on the riverbank or pond-side and, by one means or another, released into the water.

To defend our waters from either, we look to local planning boards, code enforcement officers, and appeals boards, right? Yes, but not always: In the heat of the Med Care discussion at last week’s Rumford town meeting, the passage of article 8 – changing the zoning designation of three riverside lots from limited commercial to general development – was un-remarked.

Ah well.

Next up is a lesser subject and more wonder than worry: What causes the Brillo pads to vanish from the shelf at Hannaford, or Chery Gallant’s favorite olives, or soldier beans, canned fiddleheads, or Brigham’s ice cream? Sometimes, as in the case of fiddleheads and soldier beans, bad crops translate into empty shelf space. But there’s another answer, store manager Dave Duguay told me. Here it is: category managers and plan-a-grams. Yep. A Hannaford category manager, let’s say for frozen desserts, determines what may or may not be included in the plan-a-gram, or shelf space chart, for each of the chain’s 174 stores. He or she determines that Brigham’s ice cream does not belong in the Rumford Hannaford’s dessert freezer. What to do?

Dave offers two suggestions: 1) get your friends together, as many as possible, and fill out customer comment cards: “…bring back our Brigham’s!” or 2) request a special order – one case minimum.

(If you do place a special order, please pick it up! Right now, there are four unclaimed cases of Carnation’s no-sugar-added, double chocolate breakfast drink in the manager’s office.)

What’s the big deal about ice cream anyway? Why aren’t we talking about childhood obesity here and all over the U.S. while around the world children perish of hunger?

Enough.

No worry here: High above the Androscoggin on Rumford Avenue, work is going forward on the renewal of the former Chisholm Park! Despite the relentless rains of last week, “Bebe” Belanger – “…lots of people don’t know my real name is Laurier” – is well along with handsome masonry for the first of the new trail-heads. Stop and have a look; it’s a wonder.

Linda Farr Macgregor lives with her husband, Jim, in Rumford. She is a freelance writer. Contact her: [email protected]