Where in Maine?
December 2018
Camden Harbor
Photograph by Benjamin Williamson
Each month, Down East editors select our favorite response to “Where in Maine?” Here is our favorite letter from December’s photo of Camden Harbor.
Be still my heart. This “seaside hamlet” is none other than Camden. The lighted tree overlooks its harbor, and in the distance is Curtis Island, a town park with a lighthouse, with Penobscot Bay beyond. Once, while I was sipping tea on the deck of the Smiling Cow, a teenage tourist asked me, “Is this place real?” I looked so puzzled that she continued, “Well, you know, at Disneyland they create waterfalls.” I assured her it was indeed real and the water was the Megunticook River tumbling down from the hills above.
Bill and I discovered Maine as students at Bates College. When we retired, we summered in a home we bought a few blocks from this spot. We came to cherish the friends we made just as we did the spectacular natural beauty. Our idyll lasted 16 years. We felt perhaps our greatest gift to our grandkids was that they have spent part of every summer of their lives in Maine, learning its ways and its beauty. Wanting to recognize this, we donated a bench, not unlike those in the foreground of the picture. It sits near the Harbor Master’s Office on the boardwalk.
— Colleen Huckabee, Delaware, Ohio