THE EGGEMOGGIN COUNTRY STORE serves as the center of community life for the villages of Sedgwick, Brooksville, Penobscot and Sargentville. Always on hand are pretty much all of life's necessities—fresh produce, meat and other staples; a wonderful little bakery; the latest videos, fuel, magazines and newspapers. You can buy gifts, drop off dry cleaning, and recycle cans and bottles. You also can get documents notorized. Proprietors Dennis and Patricia “Trish” Robertson like to say, “If we don't have it, you don't need it.” In the interests of community, they maintain a large bulletin board on which is posted imporant events such as yard sales and baked bean supers. In their building, but run separately, is a thrift shop and a beauty salon. Their efforts at establishing community extend beyond the commercial. Their 18 full- and part-time employees are treated like members of an extended family. A tradition they've established is having Santa Claus arrive in a horse and buggy on the Saturday following Thanksgiving. This is a festive occasion with free treats for all. Both Dennis and Trish were brought up in the area. Like so many other Mainers, they began to really appreicate what they had after going away for awhile and ultimately coming back. The Robertsons spent 16 years in Salem, New Hampshire, where Dennis was an engineer for Raytheon and Trish had a custom drapery business. They came back to Maine 18 years ago and bought the Eggemoggin Country Store. The Robertsons have two daughters, Debra, 25, and Dawn, 27. Debra works for Maine Aviation at the Portland Jetport; Dawn is a teacher in Berwick. The Robertsons are actively engaged in several community endeavors. Trish is a trustee for Nichols Day Camps on Walker Pond. The camp, which has been in business for nearly half a century, takes children age seven to twelve. Trish says that in 1963 she was among the first campers. Today, there is also the Scamp Camp for children four-and-a-half to six and the Adventure Camp, which teaches craft skills to kids 10 to 14. For 12 years, Trish was president of the board. She is also deeply involved with the Penobscot Methodist Church. Dennis is Chief of the Penobscot Volunteer Fire Department and also a member of the Sedgwick Fire Department. He is the town fire warden for both Penobscot and Sedgwick. Dennis says that over the years his bakery has gotten a lot of press, including a segment on the Travel Channel. Unique for a convenience store, it's a professional operation with a fulltime baker. Every morning by 4:30 baker Danny Hinckley is doing donuts. He makes everything from scratch, including whoopie pie filling, which Dennis insists are unsurpassed. I would have tried one, but I was there at mid-morning and they were sold out. I asked about the derivation of the word Eggemoggin. As I suspected, it's an Indian word. According to Dennis, it means “fishing weirs place.” Eggemoggin is the name of both a settlement and the waterway between Deer Isle and the mainland—a deepwater stretch where fish were once unusually abundant. Gordon Lightfoot's haunting song,“the Reach,” refers to this passage.