Just went to my high school reunion. Seems like we graduated only yesterday and a million years ago at the same time.

David Geary must be crying in his beer.

Alan Pugsley must be inconsolable.

Rob Tod must have that deer-in-the-headlights look that precedes disaster.

That’s because Geary, Pugsley, and Tod, three of Maine’s best brewers, have been beaten soundly in a beer-tasting competition.

By Budweiser.

So I’m working at the A&P on Thursday, when I overhear a conversation between Amy Plourde and Stephanie Jackson that went something like this:

“How’d your yard sale go last weekend?” Amy asks.

“What a waste of time!” Stephanie replies. “First, we spend all day Friday getting ready. Then, we get up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and haul it out to the driveway, while people with big vans and pick-ups cruise back and forth like sharks, waiting for us to set up.”

“Early birds!”

I suspect my neighbors are terrorists.

I base this assessment mostly on keen insights, sharp deductions and paranoid delusions, plus the fact that the American flag sticker on their car (an import!) is getting tattered.

It’s Saturday morning and Charlie’s running ‘round like a chicken with it’s head cut off. In and out, in and out. Door slamming. Muttering to himself. Finally, he gets into his truck and starts ‘er up. I breath a sigh of relief, sit down, and begin making my list of things to do for the day.

Next thing I know, Charlie’s barging in the house again.

“Ida, you see my wallet?”

“Did you look in yesterday’s pants?”

This weekend, hundreds of volunteers will spread out across southern Maine to count loons. Based on anecdotal evidence, they’re likely to find a lot of them.

And not just at the State House.

It’s a beautiful day here in Mahoosuc Mills: high seventies, no humidity, sun shinin’, birds singin’. I’m sitting at my computer thinking about what I’m going to write about this week, when across the street, I see two men wheeling a stretcher up the walkway to the Phinneys’ front door. Weird! Never heard an ambulance. But as I look more closely, I see there’s a body bag on the stretcher. My heart sinks as I realize: Lois has finally died, poor dear.

I have a deep and inexplicable affection for anything that’s been taxidermed.

Birds showing off their gorgeous plumage.

Deer displaying their impressive racks.

Bears flashing their fierce dental work.

Expired legislators posed as if they were sleeping through a lengthy debate.

Well, Fourth of July is behind us and summer is in full swing here in Mahoosuc Mills: picnics, yard sales, tourists, BBQ’s, watermelon, iced tea, tourists, boat rides, s’mores, and did I mention the tourists? Gotta love ‘em!

Before I begin this week’s in-depth analysis of the important issues of the seven days just past, let me confess to a stunning and shameful inadequacy.

I am not a hockey fan.

I pay so little attention to hockey that I get it mixed up with other ice-related sports, such as curling, figure skating, and ice road trucking. But I’m pretty sure hockey isn’t the one where you drill holes in frozen lakes, sit on ice blocks in little shacks and drink heavily until somebody catches a fish or freezes to death.

That’s lacrosse.