It was the summer of 1981 and we wanted to get away with our five kids, really away; not our usual two weeks at the Jersey shore with all the same friends, parties and confusion we had at home. We had had enough of those vacations. 

       We heard about Mosquito Island from some friends who had met Howie and Mollie, the caretakers, in Jost Van Dyke, in the British Virgin Islands, where Howie captained a sailboat in the winter months. 

       “You can rent the whole island and Howie will watch out for you.  It’s off the coast of Maine, near Tenants Harbor,” said our friend.  “Give him a call.”

        Jerry and I were excited to try something new so we called Howie who agreed to make arrangements for us to take our five kids on an adventure to Maine.  We had no trouble talking our friends, Chip and Nancy, and their three children into coming with us.

         When I asked Howie about the ominous name of the island he assured us. “Don’t worry. It gets too cold for mosquitoes at night and they are only around in early June.”

          I planned the trip over the phone with Howie.

         “Take the third dirt road on the left after the Grange,” he said. “Get there at five-thirty.  It’ll be high tide then and I can get you in the boat.  Don’t bring any food. Wait and see what we have. Never had eight kids out here before.”

        I tried to pack as little as I could while the children asked a million questions. “Can I take my fishing rod?”

        “Is there a boat we can use?”

        “Where will we sleep?”

        The only thing I knew was that we were going for two weeks to an island that was off the coast of Maine and had no phone or electricity. 

        “Wagons, ho,” Jerry shouted to the kids, as we piled into Big Red, our Suburban station wagon and were on our way.  During the ride I read the book The Day no Pigs Would Die to Jerry and the kids to try make the trip go faster.  It is a heart wrenching story about a Vermont farm boy and his father who slaughters pigs.  As we finally approached our destination, after an exhausting twelve hours, I had only a few pages left.  The kids begged their dad to drive around a bit until we found out the fate of the boy’s pet pig.  As I choked my way through the end of the story I had my first tear-filled view of the Maine Coast.

        Chip and Nancy and their kids were already at the water’s edge waiting for us. At the appointed time we spotted Howie—a tall, long blond haired, bearded, bare-chested young man with a golden retriever at his side in a little putt putt boat coming toward us.

        “Am I crazy to take my five children out there with him for two weeks?”  I asked myself. It was if Nancy could read my mind. 

        “Are we crazy, Kris?”
  
        But we did get in the boat, four at a time on each trip, kids first, and chugged our way out to the island.  As the rocky shore got close I could see the children ahead of us running up the hill. On the bluff stood a small stone house atop a grassy slope dotted with sheep. To one side was a field of long grass the color of honey.  We climbed the steep hill with Howie and Jason, the dog, to meet young, brown-eyed Mollie.

        “We’ll get you settled and then have some dinner.  I made some chili and bread.  Tomorrow we’ll take the boat to town and you can get what you need, but look through our cupboards first. This house is yours from now on,” Mollie said. “In the morning I’ll show you kids where to pick blueberries, for pancakes.  Now come with me to the garden and we’ll get some lettuce for dinner.”  From that moment Mollie was our guide, our mother, our teacher, and our friend. 

        Howie tied up the boats, offered us a beer, and then gave us an abbreviated tour.

        “In the 1800s there was a granite quarry here. The owners lived in the main house where you’ll be staying.”

        For four summers Howie and Mollie had been coming to this spot and staying rent-free in exchange for taking care of the property. The present owners had inherited the island and could hardly pay the taxes.  By renting it out they hoped to be able to keep it.  The house, with its thick granite walls, was built to be tough.  A hundred or more winters it has stood facing the sea.  Inside it was fairy-tale quaint with curtains and quilts and painted floors.  There was a long cherry table in the dining room that sat sixteen.  Old oil lamps lit the rooms and the kitchen’s kerosene stove and refrigerator amazed Nancy and me.

       “We’ll let the boys sleep out in the bunk house,” Howie said.  “Let’s go see it.”

        It was a small structure in the woods about a half mile from the big house.  Five bunks lined the walls.  Erik, our oldest, who was twelve, later told us, “It was so dark out there you didn’t have to close your eyes.”

        Mollie called us all to dinner.  We were starved and her home-cooked meal, topped off with pineapple upside down cake, tasted divine. Nancy and I were already asking her for recipes.
 
        “Who wants to get up with me tomorrow - at five - and help haul in my lobster traps?”  Howie asked.   All the kids volunteered.

        “How about this?  I’ll take two of you each morning.  But be ready to get up early.

        That night, after dinner, we all lay on the hill on our backs watching millions of stars and searched for Mars.  We couldn’t see around us the night was so dark, but in the sky every inch had a spark.  We used an oil lamp to lead the boys to the bunkhouse; but when we got there, it didn’t take long for Paul, who was six, to decide to come back and sleep in the main house with us.

        Jerry and I climbed under the thick comforter, the only sound the clanging bell buoy off in the distance, and I knew we had found a special place.

        Early the next morning, the sun streamed through the window and woke us.  We were well rested since we had gotten to bed soon after dark. Howie and two of the older boys were there to meet us in the kitchen.  Their grinning faces peered out of yellow slicker hoods and they reported the day’s catch.

       “How ‘bout a lobster bake tonight?  But you guys have to help,” Howie said to the kids.  He was truly a master at much more than trapping lobsters. 

        Later that day he gathered the kids.  “We need to get those buckets filled with seaweed.  Erik, Mike and Tim, go collect some big pieces of driftwood.  Peter and Paul, I need lots of these smooth, round stones.  Girls, you come with me and we’ll get the lobsters.”

        I helped shuck the corn and wash little red potatoes while Jerry and Chip carried the big wooden table down the hill to the beach.  Howie had everything timed to the minute.  He covered the stones with the wood and got the flames going.  After forty-five minutes he kicked the wood off the hot stones into another pile. 

        “Now that’s a bonfire,” he said.  “Now cover the stones with the seaweed and watch it sizzle.” 

        The kids loved it. Next Howie put lobsters, potatoes, corn and a pot of butter on top of the seaweed.  Jerry and Chip helped him pull a giant canvas tarp over it all and we waited. This is where Howie’s timing came in.

       “Sunset is at 8:13 tonight.  These beauties will be ready at 7:42.”

       As the sun plunged into the water, that cool August night, we ate lobster with tender shells we could crack in our fingers and the best corn and potatoes any of us will ever remember.  We watched the sun dip into the night, sang songs, and listened to stories as long as the bonfire could keep us warm.

       “Who wants to stay here?” Jerry teased the kids. “I’ll become a lobsterman and we’ll sell Christmas trees in Tenants Harbor.”

        “Yeah!” They all yelled as we walked up the hill in the dark.

        The next day we explored the thick forest in the middle of the island surrounded a deep quarry which looked like the ruins of an ancient amphitheater.  Great waves crashed on the east side of the island while our side had a beach with a rippling tide.  Only Jerry, shrieking all the way, dared to swim in the ice cold water. Wandering the island there were close to a hundred sheep, left there by the miners long ago.  Lamb Chop was Howie and Molly’s sheep that they found injured when they came the year before.  Lamb Chop stayed close to the house teasing some of the kids and terrorizing others.  If they got too close to him he would butt them. 

        “Baaa Lamb Chop, Baa Lamp Chop,” the boys would taunt him making Kristin run full speed into the house to safety.  Howie showed us where to spot starfish, sea urchins, and sea glass when the tide was low.  He taught us about ancient lichen that took thousands of years to leave its crusty yellow mark on the rocks and that the Indians used to color their clothes.

      Paul had a birthday that week. We made paper hats from the newspaper, baked a cake.  Mollie presented him with a stuffed lamb that he named Lamb Chop that she had sneaked into town to buy.

        Every day a few of us would go into Port Clyde to the general store in Howie’s old boat.  One day, as we were crossing a large expanse of water, another lobster boat cut us off.  There was a huge splash and we were soaked.

         “I think they did that on purpose,” Howie said. It was some old-timers who knew Howie’s boat.  He was the new kid on the block and they did not like any competition for their established lobster businesses.  Howie told us that the summer before they had cut some of his traps. 
   
        “They’ll get used to me,” he said.  (A few years later, we read that a Port Clyde lobsterman was shot for tampering with someone else’s trap.)

         Port Clyde had few tourists so when we went by boat to town the locals eyed us up and down.    When they asked us suspiciously, “You the people staying out there on the island?” We nodded and stayed out of their way. We must have made the right impression as they welcomed us into the General Store.

        “I’d like to buy some hamburger.” Jerry politely approached the butcher.

        “How much you want?”

        “How much is there in the case?”

        “About seven pounds.”

        “I’ll take it”

        “Nope. Can’t sell it to you.”

        “Why not?”

        “If I sell you that I won’t have none left to sell the rest of the day.”

        Jerry settled on five pounds and went to the cashier where he had his first taste of true Maine humor.

        “I’d like a newspaper.”

        “You want today’s or yesterday’s?”

        “Today’s— please.”

        “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

        On one of our trips to town Howie recommended that we stop in the local bank to see the art that was for sale. We were enchanted by the watercolors of Greg Mort, a summer resident, who painted the ever-changing sea and landscapes as well as defined  still-lifes of ordinary things. When were inquired about buying a painting we were directed to the nearby barn where the artist worked. As our kids picked wild raspberries outside, and played on a rope swing that hung for the rafters, we negotiated a price for a charming painting of a grouping of pumpkins and copper pots. That afternoon was the start of a longtime friendship with Greg Mort, now a renowned artist whose works hang in the Smithsonian and the White House.

        On our last day, Nancy, Mollie, and I went by boat to Camden and found a yarn store and the pottery shop.  We spent more time than we had expected.  There was a storm.  As we tried to get back to Mosquito Island, the putt-putt could barely buck the waves. We faced the wind and rain, trying to keep the boat on course, and prayed that there was enough gas to get us home. It was an adventurous trip but Mollie piloted us safely back to the island.  As we arrived we saw then men and kids all dressed in slickers frantically waving to us.  Chip and Jerry had binoculars out and they had been ready to call the coast guard. 

        That last night we celebrated our safety and toasted our friendships vowing to return to Mosquito Island. 

        We did return one more summer but it was the last season the owners rented the island, and Howie and Mollie moved on to other adventures. 

        I keep a piece of blue sea glass on my kitchen window sill to remind me of our time in Maine. Mosquito Island - to us the words stand for paradise.

*     *     *

Biographical Note for Kristin Flick Strid: I started writing stories and poetry as a young mother of five, sneaking time at my typewriter while the children napped. In the early 80’s I enrolled in an autobiographical writing class and have been there ever since. Every Monday morning, I would steal away to my secret place, behind the heavy wooden doors, in the parlor of the old Victorian house, where we read each other’s work, talked, and listened to each other. It was there, engrossed in the works of my classmates, that I forgot if we were out of milk, if the dog needed his shots, and didn’t care what was for dinner. I made many life-long friendships and began to learn the art of good writing.  My published works include The Swimming Lesson, an eighty-three page collection of poetry, two children’s stories, and inclusion in Monday Mornings, an anthology of short stories and poetry. For more writing by Kristin Flick Strid, see Author Index Prose L-Z and Author Index Poetry.