A wedding, a birth, a death – any one of these will, at least temporarily, make you indifferent to all other concerns. Such has been the case for me these last weeks.

No seedlings reaching for the light in our basement – so? Bales of hay decaying ’round the foundation. They can wait a little longer. New town manager. What else is new? The market’s up, unless it’s down. News from the mill is there’s no news.

But my awareness is making a comeback. First inkling surfaced at the Concord Trailways – Amtrak Terminal in Portland one Sunday afternoon. Jim fetched us a beverage from the big vending machine there. This was a “Glaceau Vitamin Water, vital-T.” Just think: a great-tasting drink that actually supplies a big dose of vitamins!

Probably many readers have known about Glaceau and the Center For Responsible Hydration for years. These vitamin waters have been around for a good 10 years, but my first was not a month ago. The Rip-Van-Winkle effect in play.

In fact, didn’t we enjoy our vita-t? Didn’t we feel a little better for having it? Well, why not? Check it out: vitamin water contains distilled water which is said to deplete the body’s store of vitamins and minerals. Next in line, good old sugar, and just third in the mix, crystalline fructose, corn syrup, that is. Some research suggests that fructose plays a role in obesity and secondarily, then, in type 2 diabetes. Opinions differ. Research supported by the soft drink industry says, fructose? No problem. (Coca Cola bought Glaceau two years ago.)

Now, once again awakened, I’m hooked on reading package labels. Major ingredient in Cheerios is: modified corn starch. Modifying corn starch is the road to crystalline fructose. But Cheerios are good for us. What to do.

Perhaps this same kind of dilemma figured into the Obama administration’s decision to stay with Bush’s polar bear policy. Or, right here, the debate on what to do about the River Valley Tech Center.

What a lot of excitement the Center generated a few years back. Mike Michaud was present for its launch. Visions for its future and our region were grand. One favorite: the Tech Center becomes a center for the visual and performing arts: a satellite program of an urban art college; artists-in-residence, students and faculty, craftspeople – all enlivening Rumford’s Island, eating at the Grill on Exchange Street, offering outdoor art exhibits and live music in summer … interrupting tourists’ treks to Bar Harbor to tour the River Valley.

Hard to hold on to dreams in hard times. But dream we must, for a better – fructose-free tomorrow.

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