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Join Friends of Merrymeeting Bay (FOMB) on Wednesday, January 11, at 6pm in the Bowdoin College Cram Alumni House, 83 Federal St (parking off Bath Rd.) for a potluck supper, followed at 6:30 by a brief annual business meeting. Beginning at 7pm will be the 4th presentation of FOMB’s 15th annual Winter Speaker Series. This program, “Notes on a Lost Flute”, features eco-historian, linguist, author and activist Kerry Hardy. All three events are open to the public and the food is outstanding.
 
Hardy studies the human ecology of pre-Contact Native Americans, primarily by aanalyzing the words they use to describe the world around them. As he says: "The oldest words, in any language, are like little time capsules packed full of ancient thoughts. If you can crack an old word open and let those thoughts out, you start to see what the land and its people were like long ago, and history starts to really come alive for you." Tom Wessels begins his Orion magazine review of Hardy's book with this: "Like beads in a wampum belt, writers carefully stitch together words to create images, but what is conveyed by a solitary word? To Kerry Hardy, a single word can reveal important connections between people and the landscape in which they live-more specifically between the Wabanaki and their ancestral homeland in Maine."

Kerry has a Master's Degree in Landscape Architecture from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He wrote “Notes” in 2009, which led to becoming a keynote speaker at the 2010 Common Ground Fair. He’s currently working on a new book. Most recently, Kerry spoke at the 2011 Algonquian Conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and helped plan and serve a Native foods banquet at that event. He lives in Rockland, rides his bike almost anywhere else in the state in the name of research, recreation, or advocacy.
The FOMB Winter Speaker Series takes place monthly from October-May on the second Tuesday or Wednesday. The series, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Friends of Merrymeeting Bay with support and valuable door prizes from Patagonia Outlet in Freeport. The next FOMB presentation, on February 7th at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick entitled “Birds, Bats & Blades-Wind Turbines and Wildlife”, will focus on new research dealing with aerial migrations in Maine’s offshore environment and features wildlife biologist Steve Pelletier.
 
To receive more information on FOMB’s programs call Ed Friedman, Chair, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, at 666-3372 or edfomb@comcast.net. Full speaker schedule and speaker biographies are available on the web at www.friendsofmerrymeetingbay.org <http://www.friendsofmerrymeetingbay.org/> .

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