A Maine Day 40 Years In The Making

My Walker’s friend Karen and I were in the same class together. That meant that we also would go to class reunions together every five years. But Walkers was a small school and we were friends with people from classes above and below us, but we don’t go to reunions together. Such a shame because we loved those friends just as much.

A couple of years ago I reconnected with my friend Dinah Bortz on Facebook. She was the year ahead of me at Walkers. She might not have remembered that I was in her very small Latin class my first year, along with the five other smartest people in the whole school. I was the worst Latin student in the class, (Arabella and Cathy, you can attest to that. For the record Dinah, Arabella and Cathy went to Princeton, Harvard and Yale and shit I had to take Latin with them, or more likely they probably thought, “Shit, we have to have Dana in Latin with us.) But I digress.

Dinah lives on Vinalhaven, an island just off the coast near where I stay. So we made plans to finally see each other. The perfect opportunity was when Karen was here for a mini Walkers reunion.

Russ dropped us off at the ferry terminal in Rockland, just 10 minutes from our house, for the hour and fifteen minute ride to the island. It was a glorious day for a boat ride where we watched seals and bird and passed the Rockland light house on our way out of the largest protected harbor in the country.

Once we arrived on island Karen and I walked into the tiny village and texted Dinah we had arrived. She came in a jiffy and we hugged like we had back at walkers when we arrived back at school after summer break. Nothing about Dinah had changed. She was still as warm and fun and friendly and tall!

Kar and I had discussed all the things we wanted to know about living on a small Maine Island on the Ferry and we peppered Dinah with our questions. She toured us all over the island and answered every inquiry about what it was like in the winter and how they got their electricity.

Our first big stop was at her husband Jeff’s boat yard where we got to see the lobster picnic boat he was expertly restoring. We saw the school, the pond that acts as back up water supply in case the aquifer runs dry and the two old quarries used as swimming holes.

Dinah picked up lunch from the Sand Bar, the only restaurant open today and we met Jeff back at their house on the water where we ate at the table Jeff had made that looked like the deck of a million dollar sailboat.

It was a glorious day catching up with a wonderful old friend. Dinah promised to come over to the mainland while I am still here and let me take her to lunch and continue catching up on all the stories from 40 years ago. We missed Nancy Mack who should have been here and both agreed Sarah Sneve will comment quickly on this blog.

We decided we wanted Walkers to do multi year reunions. So all you Walkers girls let’s start a campaign to get that to happen. See, once you go to boarding school with people you stay friends with them for years and years, even if you don’t see each other.

Thanks for a fabulous day Dinah. You are still the best.