MACHIAS – Eight new residents of the Maine Veterans Home have eight new friends, although the friends are quite a bit younger than they are.

The opening of the Veterans Home last month coincided with the start of school for Wesley Elementary pupils, so the matchup was about new beginnings for all.

The veterans and pupils have exchanged letters, and the older folks have visited the Wesley school, 15 miles up Route 192 from Machias.

Now the youngsters have returned the favor, joining their friends at the Veterans Home on Friday for lunch and one-on-one chats.

Lewis Lyons, 85, shared a photo of the artillery he used back in World War II with Tyler Durling, a sixth-grader. The boy in return gave Lyons, formerly of Dennysville, a sketch he drew of a U.S. Army tank from the era.

“I told him all about myself in my letter, things I like to do, like draw,” Durling said.

In another room, where her certificate of honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy in 1945 rests on a mantle, 85-year-old Dorothy Leighton enjoyed a visit from Chelsie Hawkins, an eighth-grader.

“We have been getting acquainted and we are having a good talk,” said Leighton, until recently a Cherryfield resident. “I told her what a difference being a veteran has made in my life. Here I am now [in the Veterans Home], for one thing, thanks to the veterans.”

In one of the common rooms, fourth-grader Taylor Durling was having a Coke and ice cream alongside Charlie Johnson, 70.

“She is a very capable young woman and she has very good manners,” is how Johnson described Durling.

“He’s very nice and he sure knows stuff about the war,” Durling said in turn. “He also plays a lot of horseshoes.”

“I have them all in my closet,” Johnson said of his lifelong favorite game. “I have never been beaten in Maine.”

Then, he confided, he has only lived in Maine, near his lobsterman son in Addison, for the last six months, moving over from New Hampshire.

The exchange between the generations is being called ACT – for America Coming Together. It has been coordinated by Beverly Taylor, the teaching principal at Wesley, and Cathy Chandler, one of the activities directors at the Veterans Home.

Chandler is also a music teacher every Wednesday in Wesley, so she put the young and the older people together.

The back-and-forth visiting will continue through the school year.

It’s the veterans’ turn to travel next. Once back in the classrooms, they likely will help with some academic tasks such as reading.

Friday’s visit was purely social, to the enjoyment of all.