Today, I should be writing the next installment in my series On Being Fat. (I promise that the next installment will be coming soon.) Instead, I’m going to write about maple syrup. I just can’t help myself. I am so keen on maple syrup that even the merest hint that the season is about to begin sends me into a fever of anticipation. I love the whole process—the tapping of the trees, the boiling of the sap, the great wood fires, the steam, and finally, the glorious substance itself—maple syrup, which can also be made into sugar or a soft spread to be used on toast. (My mouth is watering as I write this.)

I’m not the only one who loves maple syrup. There are a couple of sugar shacks in the area, and when the season is in full swing, those shacks are packed on weekends.

As it happens, there is a sugar shack—Mike’s Maple House—not far from our house, probably not more than three miles away. Yesterday, as I was taking the dog for a walk, I saw a man hauling logs out of the woods, and they came from a dead tree he had just cut up. It was Mike Smith, owner of Mike’s Maple House, and his face was very red from the exertion of pulling the logs with tongs through the snow.

Naturally, I stopped to talk with him. “That’s a lot of work.”

“It is,” he said, wiping his sweating face. “But I’m about done and am ready to throw the wood into my truck.”

I nodded, seeing the truck parked a little ways down the road. “Looks like pretty good wood.”

“Yup,” he replied.  “Three weeks in a shed or a barn, and it will be ready to burn. I don’t dare leave it here until tomorrow. I’m afraid someone will take it.”

“I can see your point. Do you use it to heat your house?”

“No, this is for making maple syrup.”

Ah, maple syrup! Beside me, the dog sat down and resigned himself to waiting until the conversation was over and the walk would resume.

Mike continued, “The season’s coming right up. Hope it’s as good this year as it was last year. I actually ran out of wood to boil the sap. But who knows how it will be? It’s been such a weird fall and winter.”

Yes, it has.

Then Mike went on to tell me a couple of maple syrup stories. “One year, someone drove by, saw flames shooting into the sky from my sugar house, and called the fire department. Must have been somebody new to the area who didn’t know me. When the fire department came, they told me they figured it was just me. You should have called me first, I told them, before coming out here.”

Indeed they should have.

“Lots of new people on this road and a lot more traffic, too. When I first moved here, I could let my children take oxen down the road to haul wood out of the forest. Wouldn’t do that today. Too much traffic.”

He is certainly right about that. The dog and I have to constantly watch for oncoming cars, and occasionally, we even have to stop and move over if one seems to be coming too fast and too close.

“Well,” I said, “I’d best be on my way. But I’ll be seeing you soon. In the next month or so?”

“I hope so,” Mike said.

The dog and I continued our walk. The sky, which had been gray when we started out, began to clear, the cloud cover rolling back like a receding tide, leaving blue sky in its wake rather than a sandy beach. A dusting of snow covered the evergreens and the bare branches of the trees, and as the sun emerged, the branches glittered and sparkled.

“It looks like a fairyland,” I fancifully told myself.

But thoughts of maple syrup quickly returned to replace thoughts of fairyland. On my way back, I saw that Mike had loaded the wood into his truck, and he waved to me as he went by. I waved back. Maple syrup season is almost here. And I can’t wait.

In a small town such as Winthrop, there are certain people who are so integral to the community that it is nearly impossible to imagine the town without them. Tom Sturtevant, who died suddenly last Saturday, fit that description. What a loss, not only to friends and family, but also to Winthrop, to central Maine, and—dare I say it?—to the world.

My husband, Clif, and I were trying to figure out how long we had known Tom. We moved to Winthrop in 1984, and while I don’t think it is accurate to say that we met Tom the first week we were in town, it seems as though it couldn’t have been too long afterward. I suppose it was because we were interested in similar things—gardening, social justice issues, the environment, reading, and, of course, the library. Tom and I both had plots in the community garden; Tom and I were both on the board of the Winthrop Food Pantry; and Tom (as well as his wife, Mary) and I had both agreed to be on the committee to raise funds for the proposed library expansion. In fact, we were all at a library meeting last Thursday, and he was delighted that I had walked rather than drive. “Good for you,” he said.

Tom might have been in his eighties, but he had the energy of a much younger man. At a food pantry meeting in October, both Tom and I rode our bikes, and, yes, we were very pleased with ourselves for using such a low-carbon way of getting to the food pantry.

His obituary in the Kennebec Journal is beautifully written, and it does such a good job of summing up this terrific man’s life. In brief, he was a husband, father, grandfather, English teacher, proof reader, peace activist, devoted volunteer, a charter member of the Veterans for Peace, a swimmer, a skater, a maple syrup producer, and a gardener. The small yard at his home in town is a marvel of beauty and productivity, bursting with vegetables and flowers, and it is a wonderful example of how much food can be raised on a relatively small amount of land.

One of the things that fascinates me about people is how the various and sometimes opposite strands of their personalities are woven together. As my friend Claire has put it, Tom was “a great peace activist.” Indeed he was, but Tom was also crazy about hockey, not exactly a peaceful game. One day, I met him in town.

“Hi, Tom,” I said.

“Hi, Laurie,” he croaked back, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you have a cold?”

“No,” came the whispered answer. “I went to a hockey game last night and screamed myself hoarse.”

No doubt, hockey games were a great release for this dedicated peace activist, a place where he could go and safely scream until he could barely talk.

Everywhere we go in town, we hear tributes to Tom and such sadness over his passing. How he is missed already! At a Green Committee meeting on Tuesday, there was a moment of silence as we reflected on Tom and his life. I spoke about how Tom never seemed to give up caring about the world and about people, about how he was an example for all of us.

A service for Tom will be held on Saturday, January 14th at the Winthrop Middle School gym at 2:00 P.M. My husband, Clif, and I plan to be there early as we know it will be packed.

What a busy week it’s been in Winthrop.

On Monday night, the officers (I’m the secretary) and the volunteers of the Winthrop Food Pantry hosted a reception in honor of Carole and Norman Ricker.  For 14 years, the Rickers have been instrumental in running the food pantry, but they both decided the time had come to retire. Carole had been the executive director, and Norman did so many things for the food pantry that it’s impossible to list them all. He made many of the shelves and all of the carts. When something was broken, Norm fixed it. He stocked shelves. He kept the food organized, an important task all year round but especially so at Christmas, when the food pantry distributes its Christmas baskets.

As for Carole…over the years I found her to be steady, tenacious, persistent, tireless, organized, fair, stern, but compassionate, and understanding. She had a keen sense of how people suffered when they lived on the edge of financial stability and how some people are mysteriously more resilient than others. I once had a conversation with Carole about the probable age of a food pantry recipient. Old or middle age? We couldn’t tell, and Carole noted, “Many of the people who come here look older than they really are. They are just worn down.”

The reception was held at the Winthrop Middle School so that it could coincide with the town council meeting, where Carole and Norman would be officially honored.  First there was a buffet, and I must say that we food pantry volunteers certainly know how to throw a tasty shindig. There were finger rolls, salads, cole slaw, homemade crackers and cheese spread (guess who made the crackers?), potato chips, and a whole table devoted to desserts. Then came the town council meeting, where Kevin Cookson, the chairman, thanked the Rickers for their many years of service.

The Winthrop Food Pantry is now in the capable hands of JoEllen Cottrell, our new executive director, and Mike Sienko, our new president. They are both energetic and compassionate, and even in the short time that JoEllen and Mike have been at the food pantry, they have done a terrific job during very tough economic times that show no signs of getting better in the near future.

Still, we will always remember Carole and Norman and all that they did for the food pantry.

Yesterday was Election Day across the country, and I went to the Winthrop Town Office to do my civic duty by voting.  My name was on the ballot—I was running for a trustee position at Bailey Public Library—and it’s the first time I’ve ever voted for myself. To top off the day, I agreed to help staff the Keep Winthrop Warm table, which had a big jar for donations as well as lots of goodies on hand to give as a thank-you to donors. Keep Winthrop Warm is, well, an organization that provides fuel assistance to Winthrop residents who are in need. Despite climate change, Maine winters are still long and cold. With the price of fuel going ever upward, and salaries remaining flat, the cost of heating a home has become a significant expense. Not long ago, when my husband was at the grocery store, he overheard a conversation where one person wondered how he was ever going to afford to heat his home this winter. So I was happy to help with this project, which combined food with staying warm, two essentials.

All the goodies were homemade, and they included blueberry muffins, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, blueberry cake, oatmeal cookies, and chocolate-frosted brownies. As I sat at this table filled with treats, I showed remarkable restraint by eating only one small piece of blueberry cake, which was everything  blueberry cake should be—moist, light, and loaded with blueberries. Oh, how I love blueberry cake.

The Keep Winthrop Warm table was right outside the big room at the town office where people were voting, and even though it was an off-off year for elections, it seemed to me that voter turnout was brisk. (Today, on the town of Winthrop’s website, my suspicions were confirmed: voter turnout was 45 percent.) As I sat at the table, I noted with interest the number of people who stopped to donate and the number of people who either walked by without noticing us or who flat-out refused to donate. Some people sheepishly admitted they didn’t have any money on them, a believable statement in this era of credit and debit cards. Other people had money in their cars and came back to give us a donation.

Priscilla Jenkins, who is on the Keep Winthrop Warm committee, was with me at the table, and I asked her what she thought the percentage was of people who donated. “When you take into account the people who don’t notice us and the people who don’t give, I’d say about one-third of the voters donate,” she answered.

I couldn’t help but wonder if this is par for the course for such organizations as Keep Winthrop Warm. Still, by the time I left at 2:00 P.M., the big jar was nearly full, and the generosity of that one-third will go a long way to help heat the homes of Winthrop residents who are in need.

And, as it turned out, I was indeed elected to be a trustee of the library, a place that is very dear to my heart. I will certainly do my best to help the library thrive in these tough economic times.

Addendum—11/10/11: Today, I went for a walk and had lunch with my friend Debbie Maddi. When I spoke about the people who would not donate to the Keep Winthrop Warm fund, she said to me, “You know, times are hard, and some people have nothing to spare, not even a dollar. You can’t tell by their clothes how people are doing, especially if they’ve just been laid off.” Yes, indeed. Important words to keep in mind.