Though it seems to have eluded detection by the state's two leading newspapers, Wednesday this week was a pretty big day in some parts of Maine — notably school hallways and classrooms.

On that day, October 20, people around the country (and I would guess, thanks to the Internet, around the world) participated in a nearly spontaneous display of social consciousness by the simple act of wearing purple.

On Thursday, with a nor'easter approaching, I took a drive that I take more days than not, back and forth between Lincolnville Beach, where I live, and the village of Lincolnville Center. On the return trip I made a video.

I never leave Maine. I don't see the point of it. And what's odd about this is that I don't think of myself as an insular sort of person, or a small-town person, though on the evidence that's what I am. Or at any rate what I've become.

"The first thing you've got to learn about this ship," declares the Fred McMurray character near the start of The Caine Mutiny, "is that she was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots."

Like many places in the country, Maine seems poised to raise the curtain on a grand political farce that should keep us all entertained for the next few years. As a fan of theater onstage and off, I am eager to play a modest role. And so I've come up with a proposal that will change everything, that will show those [suitable epithet here] who's really in charge here — without, I hope, actually doing any lasting harm to the environment, the exchequer, or the state of basic human rights.

        

Click image for slideshow.

Happy the man who can ride all the way home from Portland to Lincolnville with his son at the wheel. For that man may lean back and take in a bit of scenery, instead of buzzing dronelike up an endless two-lane asphalt ribbon with his eyes locked warily on the SUV ahead.

Sometimes you feel the climate of Maine is being controlled by a madman. Other times, the weather settles down into being one thing or another for a long stretch, and you wonder if the madman has fallen asleep on the sofa, or maybe lost the remote.

Then there are pivotal moments — this is one of them — when the gears of the seasons mesh smoothly, great changes happen around you in an orderly fashion, and you entertain, however briefly, the idea that perhaps after all there is an Intelligent Meteorologist up there.

This is Maine, where anything can happen — and probably will, eventually — but as things stand, it's shaping up to be a rare week when those of us who cannot afford waterfront property are a tad relieved about it.

My friend, the Tattooed Novelist Mom, called me in alarm (or it may have been amusement) to report that many extra-large dragonflies have been flying lately, much higher than usual, above her place on Coleman Pond.

"Maybe you could blog about this," she suggested.

In a pair of thought-provoking articles this week, Tux Turkel of the Portland Press Herald looked at how New Brunswick — our neighbor and near-twin to the east — is responding to the slow-burn demographic crisis of an aging workforce and shrinking tax base.