Last night it was getting close to dinner time and neither Pam nor I had any interest in cooking anything. We had delivered Patrick and Sarah to the airport and were feeling a slight letdown in our spirits which always happens when the kids leave. I was reading a book and she was reading something on her Kindle when she said, “Why don’t we go up to Fraternity for dinner?” That’s the general store just up the road in Searsmont. Although we have ordered sandwiches and pizza from there many times, we had never had a sit down experience there. Since I had no better idea readily available I agreed.
=This was our view. Just around the corner from that awesome stove was a bar where an older couple sat reading the Knox Courier-Gazette, better known as the “Village Soup”, while waiting for their dinner. Soon, another couple who had finished their meal exited through those red double doors, leaving one of them opened. Then the most marvelous thing happened.
This girl waltzes in and makes her way under the abandoned table to peck at the crumbs left by the aforementioned exiting couple. She did it in a very practiced way as if she had been doing this all her life. No one seemed to notice except the table of Virginians who immediately began discreetly taking pictures. Then, as soon as she was finished she unceremoniously left the same way she had come…
No harm, no fowl…I suppose.
Then I noticed the floor in this picture, worn out and indented by people—and chickens—entering through these doors for so many years. The people of Searsmont are proud of their village. There’s a giant print of an article which appeared in DownEast magazine 8 years ago naming it the “Friendliest Village in Maine”…
While we were there we overheard snippets of conversations between the locals:
-Patriots first pre-season game coming up, and you here that the Bruins got a new coach?
-What about Tampa Bay? Wonder how Tom will do this year?
-Ten more weeks and we’ll see the snowflakes swirling.
The Fraternity General Store in Searsmont, Maine…where even chickens are welcomed.
Incidentally, my Reuben sandwich was excellent.
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