Artful Endeavors New England: A Walk along Penny Pond Trail in Berwick ...

Berwick, Maine Public Library: at the corner
of Old Pine Hill Road and Sullivan Street.

Dateline Berwick, Maine (March 23, 2016): If you've the good fortune to live in or near the village of Berwick, Maine, there's a swell, built-in way for you and your family to celebrate the arrival of Spring. Here's what you do: spend a worthwhile hour or two at Berwick Public Library, then do yourself a favor and follow it up with a health-inducing, soul-healing walk along nearby Penny Pond Trail. Together, these two back-to-back adventures will amount to a mind-body experience that you, your friends, and your family are sure to savor! I did just that yesterday, and was rewarded -- as you will be, too -- in ways small and large and unforgettable.

It makes sense for me to share a few of my trail-walking observations with you, but first, I want to commend the nature writing class of Kate Gardoqui and Parker Cavallaro at Noble High School for creating the attractively designed, remarkably informative signs you'll see along the trail. It's great to know we have teachers and students in our schools sufficiently trained, motivated, and inspired to bring their enthusiasm for learning out of the classroom and into the community for the enrichment of us all.

To get to Penny Pond Trail, you need only walk out of the library's main entrance, move swiftly across the lawn to the right of the library, and step directly onto Sullivan Street. Walk to the right, and a short way down Sullivan, on the left, you'll see the entrance to the Trail. If you don't stop along the way to explore, you'll be able negotiate the entire length of the Trail in about 15 minutes, following the red-marked trees. If, on the other hand, you decide to make the smart choice and look more closely, you'll easily finish your trek in less than an hour. And whether you explore it or not, the end of the Trail will drop you off between two lovely homes and directly onto Dobson Road. Turn right on Dobson, and you'll soon be in downtown Berwick!

One of the informative, attractively
designed signs along Penny Pond Trail.

It may be Spring, but as of March 23, the trails -- including the various ramps, installed not long ago by the local Boy Scout troupe and their leaders to help visitors avoid waterlogged shoes -- are still covered with snow from the little Springtime Surprise that recently blanketed the area. So if you walk Penny Pond Trail now, be sure to wear smart shoes for the occasion. And watch your step!

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." Albert Einstein's inspiring words are a reminder to all of us that our world is a fabulously multi-faceted classroom, and learning occurs wherever we have either the wisdom or the dumb luck to plant our feet and activate our senses. That includes Penny Pond Trail and everywhere else in Berwick. So how, I must ask, can anyone fairly cry "boredom" and claim there's "nothing to do" in our town!

The River Runs Through It --
(through Penny Pond Trail, that is!)

Just observing the elegant patterns in the snow, the tall pines standing proud sentinel in the forest, and the graceful movement of the waters along Penny Pond Trail is a hard-to-beat aesthetic experience. Sure, the Trail may appear to be dormant right now, but beneath that rapidly melting snow, and deep down beneath the steadily warming soil, things are very much alive. You can bet that both the evolving plant life and the myriad small inhabitants down there are eagerly waiting to emerge from their wintertime doldrums and work their way triumphantly up into the sunlight.

The Mystery of Penny Pond
Trail: What can it be?

We're never too young -- or too old -- to be explorers! With that undeniable truth in mind, enter Penny Pond Trail with the thrill of discovery as your goal. What creatures are lurking beneath the slowly-melting surface of Penny Pond? What birds, happily back from their months-long journey to faraway places, will soon be adding their intoxicating music to the upper reaches of the pines? Where might you find traces of long-abandoned structures along the Trail? And wait! What is that mechanical oddity I found halfway along the Trail -- a ghost from the early agrarian history of our town? If this one has managed to survive the ravages of Time, then there must be others waiting to be discovered!

Penny Pond Trail, I've been told, is only the beginning of an exciting project to establish an ambitious network of trails leading to the rapidly changing downtown area of Berwick. This fact -- along with the prospect of transforming the onetime Prime Tanning facility into an aesthetically appealing cultural and mercantile destination; the dramatic improvements in downtown Somersworth; and the long-anticipated completion of that beautiful bridge between the two neighboring towns -- cannot help but put a smile on the faces and a glow of accomplishment in the hearts of the citizens of Berwick.

This Sign Leads to ...
Learning!

Soon, the snow will be gone, and the surest signs of True Spring's imminent arrival -- buds on the trees, steadily warming temperatures, coats and gloves consigned to the closet -- will make a walk on Penny Pond Trail the perfect topper for your next trip to Berwick Public Library!

In one of the signs you'll find along the Trail, teachers Kate Gardoqui and Parker Cavallaro have recommended an excellent guide to exploring any natural environment, including Penny Pond Trail. It's Reading the Forested Landscape by Tom Wessel, Brian D. Cohen and Ann H. Zwinger. The book is available on Amazon, but check first with your local bookstore or the librarians at BPL. Melissa Saggerer, Lyn Rouff and Co. will be more than pleased to help you with this and other relevant outdoor exploration titles.

It's Springtime at Penny Pond!
Picnic, anyone?

And just think: If you wait a few days, you'll be walking a snow-free trail. Along the way, overlooking Penny Pond, you'll find a picnic table, waiting just for you! Bring binoculars, smart shoes, insect repellent, your friends and family, and your very own intellectually curious mind. And once you're done exploring, you can go straight back to Berwick Public Library and borrow even more stimulating, informative books! Call BPL at 207-698-5737 for Hours and Information.

Nothing to do in Berwick? Surely you jest!

-- Essay by Ross Alan Bachelder

March 23, 2016

artsmultiple@gmail.com

The Life We're Living: November 16, 2020, 2020

December 22, 2020

Dear Readers (of life-enriching books) and Sharers (of heartfelt, well-informed convictions):

We're only human.

Am I not right about this? I think I am right, though there will always be a small handful of people who, on the basis of their inhuman conduct probably don't deserve to be included in that esteemed number.

So! Given our shared humanity, there are certain yearnings that all of us have, even though we're not always able to satisfy or even articulate them.

We always want, for instance, the Holiday Season we're currently immersed in to be at least as fulfilling as, if not more than, the one we were immersed in the year before.

But I also think it's safe to say that this year's Holiday is going to go down in history as one of the most painful, heartbreaking, and challenging Holiday Seasons in recent memory.

As we near the end of the year 2020, we know, to our anguish, that we've lost more people through to the grossly incompetent mismanagement of the Pandemic than in all the world's wars since the year 1900.

We're all struggling, some valiantly, to get past the most amoral, ruthless, corrupt, and politically inept Administration in the history of this country.

Unemployment, underemployment, and homelessness are easily as bad as they were during the Great Depression, more than a century ago.

It has become painfully obvious that our beloved, vaunted Constitution lacks the power -- the critical apparatus -- to put an end to a Presidency -- and a President -- who finds a perverse kind of joy in violating laws and moral precepts, destroying careers, and rewarding gross incompetence and criminal conduct with grotesque perks and blatantly unwarranted pardons.

The unavoidable deficiencies in remote learning are causing anxiety, depression, and educational chaos in America's families, and in our public schools and universities.

Contempt for and distrust of science and higher learning is at an all-time high, and the current President of the United States is more responsible for it than anyone else on this troubled planet.

White Nationalism -- bigotry of every imaginable kind, driven by an amoral President and the rampant re-emergence of the Neo Nazis and other hate groups -- is spreading across the globe at breakneck speed, and with terrifying consequences.

Lawlessness has become fashionable, in traffic, in stores, in churches, in schools, in police departments, in courtrooms, and in America's very centers of government--those grand edifices in every state where laws are written for the protection of everyone who calls him- or herself an American.

Countless people across the country are either undernourished, hungry, or starving thanks to a collapsed economy, unemployment, and an alarming inability to buy food and put it on the table.

And it's not just the physical and economic wellbeing of America's citizens that are being crippled by the greed and indifference of the One Per Cent -- it's also their mental and emotional health. People are going begging for psychiatric help, and suicides among farmers, doctors, first responders -- and even children -- are occurring at an alarming rate.

I'm not going to make an ass of myself by suggesting for one minute that I have solutions to any of these problems. But I know one thing, deep within both my heart and my intellect: the answer is not in religion, flags, and jingoistic patriotism. Nor is it in violence, bigotry, and sanctimonious pronouncements.

All I feel qualified to offer my readers this evening is a modest, well-meant handful of reasonable, rational, practical, heartfelt recommendations:

1. Read worthwhile books -- a great many books -- but don't bother with books that lack substance and preach hatred, and learn to recognize the difference.

2. Question authority. Too many Jews, Immigrants, children, people with disabilities, and People of Color have stopped doing so over the centuries -- have caved into manipulation and discrimination, bigotry and brutality -- and they've paid for it with their dignity, their humanity, and their lives.

3. Be kind -- to your friends, to your relatives, to people anywhere who serve you in any capacity in the marketplace, to your neighbors, and to any people you come across at random in your daily affairs.

4. Be helpful. I've found, as I age, that the more helpful I am with people from every walk of life, in any manageable situation, the better I feel, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. (No, I am not a formally religious person -- not at all -- but I believe there's a spiritual component in all of us -- a proclivity to kindness, a drive to be good -- which, with or without religious influence, I'm more than happy to call spirituality.)

5. Have the courage of your convictions, but not if they're designed to insult, demean, or cause pain to the people around you.

6. Know the difference between constructive and destructive behavior, and teach that difference to your children.

And this, as I see it -- and for what it's worth -- is the life we're living as of December, 2020 -- soon to be Christmas Eve and with a New and Better Year close on its heels.

Thanks for reading this outpouring, and may you find as much joy as you possibly can in both the Holiday Season we're immersed in and the New Year that will soon be upon us.

Ross

12/22/20

Artful Endeavors New England

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A Walk along Penny Pond Trail in Berwick ...

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