I must share with you the very pleasant surprise I got today when I picked up The Coastal Journal and read the front page article about Harold Grundy and the part he played in dredging the Kennebec in 1941. I am fairly certain this is the same Harold Grundy who made such a difference in the lives of several college students attending the University of Maine at Machias in the early 60s.

I myself had just graduated from Boothbay Region High School, and during the first several months at college was more than a little homesick. One day shortly after the semester started I saw a note on the dorm bulletin board which stated that a Mr. Harold Grundy of Bath, working at the base in Cutler would be willing to give rides back and forth to the Bath area on weekends, if anyone was interested. Was I ever!

Is it just my imagination or are all the restaurants your intrepid dining reporter, Will Gottlieb, reviews great? Surely there must be some negative things he has uncovered in the experiences and meals he encountered during his tenure as your dining critic. Going back through previous reviews I don't think there is a restaurant he has dined at that he didn't like. In my humble opinion the public wants an honest evaluation of the food and ambiance in a dining establishment, the yin and yang of it all, if you will. After all, isn't that what a dining critic or reviewer does?

The bottom line is that we readers know it can't be all good, all of the time, and it isn't. If Mr. Gottlieb wants his reviews to be taken more seriously, I think he needs to be more objective.

James E. Brown, Jr.
Edgecomb

As an observer and writer living in Maine, I frankly have turned my eyes and ears away from the continuous fiascoes arising around Governor LePage, mainly to maintain "personal composure."

But today I read Publisher Bruce M. Hardina's Commentary "Chief Executive LePage," and I compliment him for expressing his truth in a very diplomatic and gentle fashion (a very rare gift).

I am not a Mainer, so I won't speak for them, but coming from New Jersey (the rough and tumble of it) and having learned the Maine style of living, including its politics, I was aghast, stunned and shocked when Paul LePage was elected. Where am I? Where did he come from? Am I still in Maine?