All right, I’m calling it. We’ve had the last hard frost of the season.  It happened about a week ago. I should have made a note -- let’s call it April 15th, for ease of memory.

I’ve written here and in the print edition of Down East about the VA medical center at Togus. My take, drawn largely from my own observations, has been strongly positive.

That has drawn a couple of responses from readers — a couple as in two, so far — which are striking in that they represent almost polar ends of the spectrum.

Handel’s Messiah was written for Easter, not Christmas. Which really makes perfect sense. Because when you think about it, an amazing blessed infant is born every few seconds all over the Earth. That famous “Hallelujah” chorus — the one that prompted the king of England to jump to his feet — was meant as an exaltation of something rather more unprecedented.

What a week it has been!

On Tuesday, school was cancelled on account of rain. Rain, I hasten to add, of Old Testament ferocity, washing out driveways and flooding pastures and carving out new watercourses where previously there were none.

The man was filled with passionate conviction: give him that.

Standing in line at the Lincolnville Post Office, I listened to this fellow — 40-ish, barrel-chested,  armed with a resonant voice and fetching grin — inform another man at some length that our little town ought to scrap its police department.

Cabin fever no longer applies. The helplessness of spring is different from claustrophobia. We can open the door -- après vous — and plunge into the great outdoors. But what do we plan to do when we get there?

Big doings on the education front!

Living in a very small town -- ours has a population of 2,133, according to the ever-vigilant town office — your life tends to fall into a certain dependable rhythm. This is not the same as a rut, or even a groove. Such images are altogether too flat.

We all share this fantasy, I bet, of walking down a street in a quaint  New England village and discovering, tucked among the old storefronts,  a Great Secret Place. It might be a charming restaurant or a book- lover’s haven or a little shop of wonders. And the great thing about  Maine is that, now and then, this actually happens.

Of all the reasons to celebrate diversity (as the bumper sticker says), a novel one emerged at the State House yesterday: Tolerance is good for business.

The issue on the table was gay marriage, specifically a bill introduced by State Sen. Dennis Damon that would recognize same-sex unions in Maine.