Since I’ve been back living on the island, I’ve taken up a regular volunteering gig at the Long Island Community Library. This past Saturday I was there, and somewhere between the two patrons, I started thinking about all the other volunteering experiences I’ve had on the island.
I’ve done a lot of volunteering over the years, some of which was motivated by the promise of a college scholarship, some my mother signed me up for without asking me, but most I chose because I wanted to help and support the various events and organizations on the island.
It’s been a variety of things. I’ve helped run kids games at the Wharf Street Festival, put stamps on the Long Island Newsletter, made ginger bread houses before the Long Island Elementary craft day, moved banana boxes of books from the basement of the library to the Community Center for Art and Soul, watched kids for the parents at town meeting or Parents Club and so much more. I keep thinking of more volunteer experiences as I’m writing this list. The details of some, however, stick out in my mind more prominently than others.
One of the more memorable experiences was when I was a pretend patient for an EMT test. My first role was as a “splint dummy,” in which those being tested were told what was broken, had to decide which splint and then actually put the splint on me.
My friend Henry and his splint-test teammate, Robert, were the first to go and they had to do a traction splint. It turned out that a traction splint was one of the more awkward ones to put on, requiring some sort of bar adjusting in between my legs. Henry asked me whether it was comfortable or placed right, and I, not sure that a splint like this could actually be comfortable (since mine was definitely not) and hoping to end the exercise, lied and said it felt fine.
Another of the more notable (or at least bizarre) volunteering experiences I’ve had involved leveling old gravestones in the East End Cemetery. The cemetery had many old stones that had, over many decades, tilted forward or backward. My younger sister, Val, my friend Holly and I helped to dig out the graves, shifting the dirt around and using a level on the top of the headstone to see which direction it favored.
It probably wouldn’t have been so bad, but it was too early, too hot, and Holly was feeling sick the whole time, so Val and I were just anticipating her keeling over. I think the icing on this whole situation was when one of the men heading up the operation managed to somehow puncture into a hollow spot that led down into the grave. I remember looking down into the hole and, thankfully, not being able to make out anything.
Luckily, that moment didn’t scare me out of volunteering on the island. I’ve had so many other positive experiences as I’ve volunteered, like this past summer when I helped the littlest kids do a costume change at their dance recital and managed to get one of the shyest girls to talk to me. Or when I got to dress like a pirate for the kids Halloween party. I’m not ready to give up volunteering just yet.
Melanie Floyd is a recent University of Maine at Farmington graduate who has returned to her family home on Long Island in Casco Bay.