We start off this Saturday, June 20 with the second Ladies of the Lake Bake Sale at The General Store parking lot at 10 a.m. They will be there until noon unless they have sold out before then. Come get pies, muffins, cookies and peanut brittle for your Dad on Father’s Day on Sunday, June 21.

The selectmen meet Monday, June 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the multi-purpose room in the Town Office Complex. On Tuesday, June 23 the Bicentennial Committee meets at the multi-purpose room in the Town Office Complex at 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday, June 24 the Recreation Committee meets at 6:30 p.m. at the multi-purpose room in the Town Office Complex. Wednesday, July 1 the Weld Public Library Reading Program begins for the month of July.

On July 3 the popular annual pontoon boat rides on Webb Lake leave from Paiton’s dock at 6:30 p.m. For a fee of $10/person to support the Weld Free Public Library, you can enjoy a ride around the lake with wonderful views. A rain date, if necessary, will be announced.

The Ladies of the Lake will have their third bake sale on Saturday, July 4 from 10 a.m. until noon, so stop by the General Store parking lot to get your goodies for the weekend and avoid turning your oven on! They will have just two more sales this summer, one at Lake Days on July 18 and the last at Heritage Days, July 25. Fresh strawberries will be just picked and for sale at The General Store parking lot, hopefully the end of June when they are ready at Stevenson’s Strawberry Farm in Wayne.

There is going to be a possible once a month Farmer’s Market at The General Store on Sunday, June 28 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. in The General Store parking lot. The rain date is Sunday, July 5 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. It will feature licensed vendors, such as Pale Moon Farm in Madison with Heritage Pork, natural beauty products and more; Love to Farm in Strong featuring novelty baked goods and farm fresh free range eggs; and Sandy’s Country Flowers in New Sharon with a large variety of flowers, veggies, country baskets and patio pots. Other vendors will be announced. FMI, call Gerry at 585-2231.

And the original Webb Valley Rockers made right here in Weld, which are also available in a non-rocking straight leg version, a beautiful addition to your camp or home, will also be there for you to sit and try out before you buy. They hope to continue throughout the warm months but may not always have the same vendors and it depends upon the interest, so be sure to stop by. It’s worth checking out, you can pop up to town Sunday morning or stop by after church.

The Bicentennial Committee is gathering information on businesses in town to show what was available locally in our Bicentennial Year and we fear we have not been able to get everyone as I have discovered three since I started. If you own and operate a business here in Weld and haven’t been contacted to complete a form please call me at 585-2215 or Carol at the Town Office 585-2348.

Now, from the Spring 1998 Weld Enterprise. “Name That Tune” written by John W. Odlin. Cruel Catherine De Medici (1514-1589), one of the fanciest killer queens in history (not to be confused with Catherine of Aragon, the first of the six wives of Henry VIII of England) paused in her wicked career as the ruler of France, long enough to make dancing fashionable in her realm.

The dance which brought the highest degree of terpsichorean perfection was the “Minuet” founded on an old rustic dance. This with its graceful, stately movement, low salutations and polite curtsies, proved to be the fairest flower of court dances. The minuet came to be the favorite in America in colonial times, harmonizing beautifully with the quaint and charming costumes of the period.

Although the sinful Catherine probably put order into the unorganized gyrations of primitive dancing , she knew nothing of the waltz, which was introduced in England near the close of the 18th century. The waltz, danced in triple time with its smooth gliding steps and backward and forward motion, took on largely because it gave a sense of rhythm and delight in graceful movement to the participants. This grace and rhythm of the waltz, parallel in nature by the rise and fall of the sea on the shining shore, the rippling of the brook, the play of light and shadows, or the tossing of flowers in the wind has been an inspiration of poets far and wide.

Tennyson puts it nicely in “The Brook”: I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance Among my skimming swallows; I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows. And joyously, Wordsworth, writing of the golden daffodils: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The popularity of the waltz came about with the immortal compositions of Johann Strauss, particularly The Blue Danube, and this popularity was renewed intensely with the still appealing Merry Widow Waltz. From the period following the Civil War, up until the time when the “turkey trot”, “bunny hug”, and the Charleston” came into vogue, the waltz was the most popular ballroom number.

Sometime during this period, the waltz came to Weld, Maine (population 465), and that is what, at last, this story is about.

An orchestra, three pieces sometimes four, came into being in Weld sometime in the 1870’s. It was made up of Game Warden Dennis Swett, who had a violin inlaid with ivory bear cubs, a gift from a Massachusetts violin maker whom he had conducted on a successful bear hunt; Wallace Ladd, who alternated his instruments, bass viol and tuba; and Bernie Plummer who knew all the necessary chords to be played on a square piano that served the more than half century of this music trio’s history. Later, carpenter Arthur Coburn, who had musical gifts, took Game Warden Swett’s place in the orchestra.

Through the years, the order of dances consisted entirely of square dances — Speed the Plough, Through the Cedars, Hull’s Victory, Lady of the Lake, and, on occasion, Sir Roger DeCoverley, the dance so charmingly described in Dickens’ Christmas Carol.

Added to this repertoire was the Grand March and Circle, in which those not quite up to the more rugged dances joined heartily. Everyone became familiar with the various maneuvers of these dances and “calling” became a lost art. A stranger participating got along fairly well after the dance got going through the assistance and even polite showing of other participants.

Sometime late in the last century, the orchestra boys decided that the time had come to go modern and they “sent away” for a waltz. This they played several times at each dance. Through the years, the original music disappeared, but the musicians, not needing it, played it stalwartly on and on.

In time, the very name was forgotten, but “The Waltz” served as its identity to distinguish it when one or two other waltzes were made a part of their programs. “That Waltz” was not only played at the Saturday night dances in the Grange Hall, but whenever the little orchestra performed at a school graduation or an entertainment by the Grange, it was sure to be part of the program. In fact, on one occasion, the orchestra leader called upon his assistants to play it three times processional, interlude and recessional – having forgotten that it was previously rendered.