Monday - Saturday; 10am-4:30pm Sunday; 10am Worship Service only 707 Shaker Rd, New Gloucester, ME 20 minutes North of Portland sabbathday lake Shaker Village Museum and Shaker Store Maine Native American Summer Market Saturday, August 26 10am-3:30pm FREE maineshakers.com • 630 Forest Ave Portland,ME 04101 • 800.773.4154 • www.phoenixstudio.com • Custom Designs, Restorations and Repairs, Windows, Doors, Lighting, Kitchen and Bath, Fusing, Painting, Sandblasting, and more... Custom art glass for any application. J u ly / A u g u s t 2 0 1 7 1 3 5 and headed down the path into the alder- cloaked empty lot. While the day was sun- ny and hot, it was a cooler and darker world in the green underworld. I descended slow- ly down the path, taking in the world that stretched out before me from behind my oval blinders. Alder branches brushed by me as I went deeper and deeper. I reached my maximum depth when I found the col- lapsed foundation. The lot had original- ly been cleared for a house build, the foun- dation hole dug, and the concrete founda- tion poured. But it progressed no further, and the alders reclaimed the lot, and the foundation walls collapsed into the cen- ter. This became our play world, and here at its lowest point I was exploring the con- crete slabs for an octopus or maybe a killer whale. Finding no danger here, I continued my dive along the alder-lined pathway, then cut to my left and headed up to a shallower depth. The whole time I was on the lookout for a bad guy sporting a dive knife or may- be a spear gun. Ahead of me was the bright light of Greentree Lane and the surface. Checking my imaginary air gauge, I fig- ured I must be getting low, so I retraced my steps back to the foundation under the cov- er of the alders. Just a short distance from the garage, I felt my air run out, so I hit the emergency lever to access the final 300 pounds of air and scrambled the final steps up to the Johnsons’ garage. Danny was there to greet me after my successful dive. The magic of the undersea world elud- ed me until my fortieth birthday, when I re- ceived a present better than the Aqua Lung One–diving lessons enabling me to become a certified scuba diver. Recently, I was div- ing in Aruba at the Finger Reef dive site. Donning a 3mm full-body wetsuit with tank, weights, buoyancy compensator, reg- ulator, fins, mask, and snorkel, I stepped off the back of the Dive Aruba boat and en- tered the underwater world of the Carib- bean Sea. Descending to twenty feet in the eighty-degree water, I’m in a world I only dreamed of in that vacant lot. It’s like div- ing in a crystal-clear fish tank. Joining the other divers we slowly descend along this reef, watching the corals change from brain to stag horn and finally black coral which looks eerily like white pine trees. I am as amazed on this day as I was diving the va- cant lot with Danny’s Aqua Lung One. It’s another world. n