I was entering town and just passing the new Furbish House line, when a loon call echoed through the all-around, a greeting to my arrival and a welcome of harmony during my brief visit. It came  again during the night through an open window, and all during the day, blending with the blue sky and whitened surf as all else so easily does in this idyllic setting. This is my chance to say thanks to a thoughtful town, one that, even at the time of a special loss, does things with proper class.

Let me try at finding the source of much town folk’s gratitude each trip I make from NH. I am not sure just where it might lie. Maybe it’s the visits I make to Bob Summers’ memory place and the Bald Mt. view across Rangeley Lake with the island in the foreground, or also like, years ago, as I caught the setting moon in reflection, the streak running beside the island which, because it is unique, has always been my favorite.

On this trip I was seeking out a friend by driving down the Manor road to the beach, where I viewed  magnificent  blue sky and water, with surf from speeding boats. I lingered while looking across to Greenvale Cove, the blue especially being brilliant, while in contrast with boat wakes.

Maybe it’s those pictures I carefully sought years ago, as there are twenty, compiled into a  book with words accompanying. Maybe it’s the blue heron on Dodge Pond or maybe the nursing baby moose. Good photo work can last a long time, as with the “A Child’s  World” bringing the sky animations down to a youthful lap.  Maybe, it’s the self-published book, the rocky snow in the “Snow Everywhere” scene and the imagination involved. Maybe it’s the EcoVenture years, with much capture of young smiles, engaged in the first flag raising event, now of even greater keepsake value, and the Legacy Award granted from it all. I seek the source of your following my small and hopeful ways, made up of my forever quest for beauty at your doorstep, still to remain my home.

Maybe it’s the several years with the youngest grade level, the elementary school. I was there to give what might be lacking elsewhere. I gave them my time. And so, playing the tag game and having George being the “chaser’ was the never forgotten excitement, now with those likely in their twenties, and may still recall. I asked to sit with them at lunch and I inevitably took pictures, which today are precious, perhaps as much to me as to them. It was the thoughtful thing to do, except now much is different and so something is very much lost. My gracious days in Rangeley.

In the last hours of the short visit I was approached by two retired elementary school teachers of the days mentioned above. They both endorsed my children giving, and so we shared deeply wonderful classroom stories together for a short time. Bonding with it all was just now renewed, during what might be my last solo visit to these soothing parts.

And so, I am just now reminded of the words that Allen Wicken ends his Highlander column: “We need to write, otherwise nobody will know who we are.” Before I forget, maybe I write here with thanks of the beauty and the friends that came to be. I am so glad a few can bring so much in return, a pursuit I would continue, for it is all right here.

There is still one brief gift yet to be heard from. Done in true Rangeley style, a dear kayaking friend saw me at the last at water’s edge bidding my thanks for this trip with some water reflections and all. And as she drove up to me and away, she spoke some words in a special farewell of love, taken as if from all those who I knew of my days in play with friends and the loons and the wonderful land, being now well cared for as in forever good deeds.

 

 

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