This year, reports Margy Vose, the Harbor Hose Flamingo Festival in Southwest Harbor has expanded and features “On the Wild Westside” as its theme.

Attendees are encouraged to don their cowboy boots and hats and kick up their heels at the Dude Ranch Dance, as well as test their adult luck at Cow Poke Poker night.

The festival, featuring the flamingo lawn ornament created by Don Featherstone in 1957, begins at 5 p.m. Friday, July 18, with the arrival of the Great Flamingo on a tractor.

Saturday’s activities start at 6:30 a.m. with a pancake breakfast sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard. Sunday activities begin at noon with visits to the Harbor House Flamingo Art Gallery; the Friends of Harbor House annual golf scramble will be at 3 p.m. at the Causeway Club, and the annual Polo & Yacht Club Cocktail Party will be 5-7 p.m. at the Causeway Club.

Each day is filled with a variety of activities ranging from games and movies to tours and entertainment.

Festivities will conclude at 7 p.m. Monday, July 21, with the Flash in the Pans Steel Drum Band benefit concert for Harbor House and the MDI Alcohol & Drug Abuse Group.

For information, call Diana Novella at Harbor House, 244-3713 or visit www.harborhousemdi.org.

The town of Lincoln is celebrating its 2008 homecoming today through Sunday with a host of activities and entertainment to delight all ages.

For a complete schedule, visit www.lincolnmaine.org and scroll down to Homecoming Schedule 2008.

Hospice of Hancock County Executive Director Jody Wolford-Tucker and board chair Michael Smith invite you to join the fun and help to raise money for hospice by participating in any activities in the 12th Hospice Regatta of Maine for adult and junior sailors Friday through Sunday in Southwest Harbor.

Also planned: a High Card for Hospice Power Boat Poker Rally at 10 a.m. Saturday at Dysart’s Great Harbor Marina and a Celebration of Hospice Lobster Bake with the Atlantic Clarion Steel Drum Band at 4:30 p.m. with dinner at 6 p.m. at Dysart’s.

Fran Grant of Orono invites descendants and the members of the public to attend a dedication of the military tombstone of Revolutionary War soldier Lt. Joshua Treat at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 19, at the old family cemetery at the foot of Devereaux Cove Road in the Sandy Point section of Stockton Springs.

Grant said her ancestor was the first white settler on the Penobscot River, and that his old gravesite was recently discovered and identified. Born Sept. 22, 1729, in Boston, Treat died Aug. 12, 1802, in Prospect.

Treat was an armorer and American Indian interpreter at Fort Pownal. He assisted Gen. Pownal in a conference with the Tarrantine Indians in May 1759 in Hampden.

Attendees can bring a picnic lunch to enjoy, after the dedication, at Fort Point State Park, which was formerly Fort Pownal.

Martha Whitehouse reports that the Hampden Garden Club third annual garden tour will be 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, July 19, beginning at Harmony Hall on Kennebec Road, where tickets will be available for $12.

Presale tickets are $10 and are available from garden club members at Hampden Floral or Rebecca’s on Main Street in Bangor.

The tour features “several lovingly-tended gardens, each one unique and very special,” Whitehouse wrote of the gardens, “all located very close to a five-mile stretch of Main Road South and Main Road North, so gas costs will be reasonable.”

For information, call club president Ann Bennett at 862-3467.

When retired photographer Bob DeLong died last Friday, we lost one of our most beloved BDN family members.

Being of the same generation and coming to the editorial department at the same time, Bob and I shared much from the evolution of women’s sports coverage and typing photo requests and captions on standard typewriters, to joining the computer age.

Bob’s gift to a reporter was his ability to go about his work in such a respectful way you hardly knew he was there but when you saw the results of his presence you knew he was everywhere.

He dearly loved his wife, children, family, friends, work and, above all, life.

With Priscilla DeLong and his family, we share the loss of this kind and gentle man, and we hold memories of him dear to our hearts.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; javerill@bangordailynews.net; 990-8288.