Our band played in rainy Medway yesterday evening to a cheerful crowd that was happy to listen to us while they were waiting for the professional wrestling show to begin. In the front row sat a beaming white-haired man with broken teeth. Afterward, he came up to me and, with a courtly air, announced, "Stephane Grappelli is dead."

Half an hour later he returned. "Excuse me," he said, pressing one hand to his heart. "Do you happen to know where I could acquire a copy of Die Fledermaus for use with an eight-string banjo?"

Backwater Maine never ceases to surprise me.