MSI Press Blog

  The fish man came to the door like clockwork every Thursday. He parked his refrigerated truck in our driveway, walked past Duke, who had come to know him, and asked Ma to come out and see what she might like that week: haddock, clams, oysters, mussels, scallops, lobster, and more. Most often, Ma would load up on haddock, scallop, and clams, leaving the lobster for our supermarket trip in the city after church on Sundays. Ma made a wicked haddock meal. She would bread a big fish with corn meal, put a little bit of milk into a fish-shaped white corning-type bowl, and bake it. Those were the days. I hanker after haddock a lot. It is almost impossible to find outside of New England, and no one makes it like Ma did. Every Sunday after church, we’d stop at the supermarket and pick up eight live lobsters. Some folks called them sea spiders (not because they did not like them but because, well, they do look like spiders, especially when they are alive). Lobster was our Sunday meal ...

  Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication from the forthcoming memoir,  In with the East: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life  by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver Acton Fair               Every summer, the Acton Fair transformed our quiet Maine town into something electric. For a few days, the dusty roads led to carnival lights, livestock ribbons, and the unmistakable scent of fried dough. It was the social event of the year—part agricultural showcase, part family reunion, and part theater of the absurd.              The fairgrounds buzzed with energy. Farmers displayed their prized heifers, kids clutched cotton candy like currency, and all over the grounds unknown people appeared; those would be the folks from all over Maine who made the trek to Acton each year for its famous fair. The fair was pure Acton: 4-H, farmers, livestock, produce, homemade articles; local, proud, a...

  Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication from the forthcoming memoir,  In with the East: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life  by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver Community Life in Acton              Acton wasn’t just a town—it was a woven tapestry of neighbors, stories, and shared memory. Everybody knew everybody, and yes, everybody’s business too. Not out of nosiness exactly, though there was a touch of that. It was more about staying connected, about knowing what was going on so you could lend a hand if needed—or at least have something to talk about the next time you ran into someone in Milton Mills (the location of the closest store, gas station, and post office, Acton having none of those).              One of the easiest ways to stay in the loop was the party line. I don’t recall when Acton finally switched to private lines, but next-door Lebanon still had party l...

Precerpt (excerpt prior to publication from the forthcoming memoir,  In with the East: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life  by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver Blueberry Hill Farm Blueberry Hill Farm sat just up the hill from our family farm in Acton—walking distance, if you were local, maybe half a mile or so. The entrance was a long dirt road that wound its way along the hilltop, eventually opening onto wide, sun-drenched fields of domestic blueberry bushes, their rows neat and generous. It was a commercial farm back then, owned by the Robinson family, a kind and upright clan whose patriarch had done more good in his lifetime than most people ever hear about. I liked working for him. He encouraged me. And he especially liked my sister—she was a natural, one of the best blueberry pickers around. As kids, we started with pea picking, the domain of the younger crowd, ages five to fourteen. But once we hit our teens, we graduated to blueberries, which required more finesse. You had to know how ...