Dear Editor:

It isn’t easy to define what keeps a person connected to Place.

Family and friends. A certain smell, like the ocean, or the characters that reassuringly cross your path on a regular basis, or memories community traditions.

The Fishermen’s Festival is one of the traditions that has kept me emotionally connected to Boothbay Harbor. No, it wasn’t a big festival that brought large amounts of traffic and dollars. For me, it was the “just-the-right-size-ness” that made it so special.

Sitting on the rocks and watching spindly-legged children race across the lobster crates, cheering when they made it across, cheering when they didn’t. The warm and delicious feeling of knowing that at no point, anywhere else in this big world, were people racing through the streets with dead cod fish, or applauding a newly-crowned shrimp princess or yelling to the point of hoarseness as teams fought to retain their tug-of-war titles. Perhaps, most importantly, it honored a way of life that had nourished and defined the town for generations.

These are the moments that knit together community, and keep family connected.

I will miss the Fishermen’s Festival; I’m sad to see it come to an end, and I am so grateful to be able to share those memories with my son, for having been a part of something truly life-affirming.

Diane Dorbin

Belfast, Maine