They say time flies when you're having fun. I say time flies.

It has flown so past this past year that next Saturday, April 11 is our annual Maine Appalachian Trail Club annual meeting -- already!

This can't be right. There's still some ice in our yard, and even where there's not, the straw mulch I put over the bulbs I planted a few days ago -- well, last fall -- is still frozen so I can't yet remove it.

True, some of the bulbs have pushed their way upward through the frozen everything and are an inch to three inches tall.

That may be true, but it can't be time for the MATC annual meeting already.

This means I have to stop on my way over in Norridgewock and eat breakfast in that great restaurant I found last year -- or was it last week? -- called "Restaurant."

That's the restaurant where last year when I stopped to take a break from the early morning fog and chow down on a great veggie omelet, the local gang -- also chowing down and then lingering over coffee -- told me lots of stories and invited me to stop by their garage sometime where they would tell me more tales and give me a beer.

Time has flown too fast. Haven't stopped at the garage nor gotten that beer.

This time flying by and bringing the annual meeting means I'll get a chance to chit chat with other MATC members in the reception area of the Roberts Learning Center at the University of Maine at Farmington before the actual 9 a.m. meeting begins. Last year a lot of those guys -- never the women -- had gray hair. Mine has gone from brown to not so brown... I wish the snow that fell on parts of my head would melt.

Sure glad there are newer, younger members too. You can tell them by their hair that's not white and still full atop the young pate. As some of us grow too ancient -- no, no, never! Please, God, not us! -- to continue the more strenuous trail work, they can take over.

Shall I take my new L.L. Bean walking stick -- half of a pair with Dolores being the happy new mom of the other one -- to show off my keeping up with the hiking Joneses? It certainly does not meaning letting anyone there know I find my half the of the pair helpful to relieve some of the pain of that leg which is still sore, the one that limps a little.

We hikers don't limp. Also, a lot of we hikers in MATC don't hike. We're too busy volunteering.

I'm already working with Camp Merrowvista and Harvard on their group camping routes for the summer, part of my year-round volunteering as the guy who does the MATC Group Registration program. Our web site, www.matc.org, states that I do this from May through October. Time flies too fast to try to limit it to those months. I never am sure what month it really is -- not from any hint of senility but from time flying too fast.

Little "Ellie" Echo will take me to Farmington in about three hours at 45 miles per gallon. I get poorer meal mileage than she gets gas mileage. I'm glad some time has flown fast enough to be able to get that kind of mileage. Didn't get that on my ‘36 Plymouth (which was as old as I was when I inherited it from my big brother), my ‘62 Rambler, my bunch of Chevies, and a Ford or two.

Time has flown quickly since my first two attempts at finding my new corridor-monitoring section off of Breakneck Ridge west of Monson last October. This year I'll actually find it. I know, because the faster time flies the better I get at finding Appalachian Trail corridor boundary lines to look for those permanent monuments that were buried in the mud -- let's see, 20 years ago? 30?. I don't know but we're trying to get all their locations onto digital pictures with their GPS locations.

In all my fast-flying years of CMing at my old section west of Andover -- where they were buried in 1976 -- I found one. (Actually a local guy who owned a camp nearby had found it accidentally and showed it to me.)

This year I've got this new little GPS gadget that a mariner in Southwest Harbor gave me last summer -- time has flown so fast that it's almost time for me to take it out of its plastic wrapper and see if I can figure out how to use it.

Our MATC volunteering season, you see, goes from Memorial Day through September -- if we remember to limit it to that time... it's hard because time flies and we're having fun. We limit it to that time to avoid the other two seasons on the AT in Maine, snow and mud.

We don't even try to avoid the remaining seasons, moose and mosquito.

Among the annual-meeting agenda items will be Dave's usual what-used-to-be-a-slide presentation of work done along the Trail in the past (now a computer presentation on a huge screen), a report on wind power as it affects the AT in Maine, a report on the Maine Trail Crew (the group that pays a stipend for the students and others who apply and are accepted) and the hard work it has done such as installing stone steps. Ever try to install stone steps? On a mountainside?

I'm writing this column as an invitation to you -- and other members of the public -- to visit our annual meeting this year. Maybe you'll get so excited about spending the best weather of Maine's year working for nothing and having fun doing it that you'll want to join. You have to join to take part in that volunteer fun. The cost is $15 for an individual annual membership and $20 for a family. (Try and find membership costs that low in any other organization.)

Maybe you're even young enough to take over as some of us ancientize (new word, of course) and have to slow down a bit -- or a lot.

To get there, follow Route 2 east from the west or west from the east until Route 27 and 4 head north at a set of traffic lights in Farmington. Head north, and not far beyond McDonald's on the left you'll find a road angling ahead to the right. UMF is right there. Turn into the first entrance, park for free, and hike toward the building. You'll see MATC directional signs and arrows pointing the way.

And, oh yes, don't forget to stop at the Restaurant first for breakfast. If you're coming east on Route 2 from the west that will mean continuing east on Route 2 through Farmington. Just before Route 2 makes that 90 degree left turn in Norridgewock where Route 139 comes in from straight ahead, turn into the public parking lot on the left that is next to the restaurant.

Maybe I'll see you there for breakfast -- and at the MATC annual meeting at UMF afterward.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.

Milton M. Gross Copyright 2009