OK, I didn’t get why they had a poll on this story or why it was about whether readers thought the No. 13 was unlucky. But when you throw in Stephen King, almost anything makes sense … sort of.
But the real point is that some servicemen and women will get to see their families for Christmas and that’s cool.
Posted in Maine
Also spotted on DownEast.com the “Coffee With That” blog about driving in the snow. It is written by Maine novelist Richard Grant. The tips can be used by winter drivers in Maine or in the Sierra Nevada, for my California friends. Also, some of the tips are useful for driving on rain-slicked roads.
Here’s the latest from DownEast.com’s trivia selection. I’m not sure “treehugger” is PC any longer, but what the heck. It is Maine, after all.
Who was Maine’s first treehugger?
Gov. Percival Baxter, who was considered something of a radical in the 1920s when he proposed a public park surrounding and protecting Mount Katahdin. Rejected by the legislature, Baxter used his own money to create his “forever wild” reserve. Today more than 60,000 people each year visit the two hundred thousand-acre Baxter State Park to enjoy the stunning beauty that his vision first recognized.
Mount Katahdin is the official northern tip of the Appalachian Trail, although some believe it actually goes to Mars Hill, Maine. My family went camping in Baxter State Park when The Sis and I were young. It was a fantastic adventure — hiking, skipping stones on water, watching the black bears wander into the park’s garbage dump for evening chow. As I recall, we may have stopped off at the Lumbermen’s Museum in Patten during the same trip.
Posted in Maine
Tagged Appalachian Trail, Baxter State Park, black bear, Maine, Mount Katahdin
Maine is incredibly fortunate to have someone the likes of George Mitchell call it home … that is, when he is not off trying to make peace in the world.
I grew up in a small town on the shores of Portage Lake in Aroostook County, the largest county in the state of Maine and the largest county in much of the eastern half of the country. It is so large, in fact, that both Connecticut and Rhode Island could fit within the borders of the county.
Portage Lake is situated along the Fish River Chain of lakes and nestled in ancient rolling hills that turn a deep, lush green in the spring and summer, a mosaic of colors in the fall, and a picturesque snow-covered landscape in the winter. Loon greet the sunset at night – as do fireflies and mosquitoes – and it is not uncommon for deer, moose, bear and other creates of the Deep Dark North Woods to wander out to visit the village on the lake’s southern shore.
It is a wonderfully beautiful place. A Maine tourism catch phrase some years ago read: “Maine, the way life should be.” The inspiration for that could have come from Portage Lake.
Earlier today I posted a poem by Ruby Garrison Searway, a poet from Aroostook County. I shared it for two reasons: 1) the poem used a touch of Maine humor about a snowstorm and that region was dumped on yesterday (My sister said she could relate); and 2) I am from that neck of the woods, as they say.
She is not a force in the literary world, but she did write a poem about Portage Lake. As I posted earlier, the parents of a girl I dated in high school gave me Searway’s “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” from which I took the earlier poem. The poem about Portage Lake, appropriately titled “Portage Lake,” was a supplement to that book, essentially a card on which the poem and line art representing the lake were printed.
“Portage Lake” by Ruby Garrison Searway
Cradled among Aroostook’s hills you lie,
And cabins face the sunset on your shore;
A motor’s widening wake disturbs the calm
Unbroken by the Indian’s silent oar.
Above a circling seaplane’s shining wing
An osprey hovers, and a loon’s weird cry
Echoes across the lake and near the reeds –
Pond lilies in a patch of mirrored sky.
Care drifts away when silver salmon rise,
And fires on the farther shore burn low;
Above West Hill the evening star’s soft light
Caught in your hear becomes a candle glow.
Gift of a wise and beauty-loving God,
Rare jewel of Fish River’s glistening chain,
A lonely city dweller far away
Longs for a friendly camp fire up in Maine.
I am not sure what she means by “silver salmon rise,” since Portage Lake was and very probably remains a poor fishing lake. It is too shallow and the environmentally questionable practices of long-gone mills and earlier cabin dwellers make it not the best of fishing spots.
It is, however, a fantastic place from which to venture to wonderful fishing and it is a classically beautiful location.
I still could not find much online about Searway, just online references to available copies of her books and one genealogical reference, but the website would not load and I could not read it. I believe she lived in Blaine and may have lived in Ashland, which is about 11 miles from Portage. The following is from the back cover of her book “Yesterday’s Tomorrows” published in 1974.
“Mrs. Searway’s poems are sparkling and alive. Her style is natural with a relaxed technique that flows from the pen of a truly great poet. A meticulously expert understanding of poetry has not stilted the lovely creations that her latest work enfolds. You will marvel at the delicacy of her tastes, such as the joy of touching a flower and smelling its fragrance. Her sense of compassion for wildlife is beautifully described in her poem ‘The Last Flight.’
“Everyone from New England will treasure a copy of this book by a Maine author who was born and has lived all her life in Aroostook County. Her wealth of knowledge of bygone days and their nostalgic heritage is exemplified in Yesterday’s Tomorrow. Walk with her into an old-fashioned kitchen and smell the pungent, spicy flavor of ‘New England Pickles,’ a poem of hers that is written with the quaint accent of ‘downeast’ colloquialisms. It warms the heart and gives the reader chuckles of delight.
“Her subjects touch all facets of life. It expressions superbly the very experiences that you and I have, such as in ‘The Day After Christmas.’ The exhaustion and litter of the home is so vividly portrayed, you almost sigh as you read it with complete understanding of the feeling and the scene.
“But do not be bewitched into thinking that Mrs. Searway is only taken up with the lesser tasks of living. Her poetry throbs with the depth of an insight into the Spiritual Realm. You will be brought into harmony with your Creator when you read her lovely lines of ‘Peace.’ Also the poems ‘A Prayer’ and ‘Search’ express the longings of heart that all of us have, culminating in the fulfillment of finding God’s presence. Mrs. Searway is truly a woman with Greatness of soul, sharing her genuineness through her beautiful poems.”
Was going through some stuff yesterday and found a book of poetry by Ruby Garrison Searway, “Yesterday’s Tomorrows,” and thought one of the poems might be appropriate for those of you digging out from the winter storm.
Beautiful Snow
(**##!!XX**)
By Ruby Garrison Searway
Beautiful shimmering drifting snow,
(Where in heck did my shovel go?)
Lovely glistening feathery heap,
(I’ll bet the stuff is ten feet deep.)
Marvelous wonderful tiny flakes,
(Darn it all! How my back aches!)
Shining crystals – a spotless bed,
(Another storm and I’ll drop dead.)
The book of poetry was printed in 1974 and given to me by the parents of the girl I was dating at the time. I could not find much about Searway online, just a bunch of eBay offerings of the book for sale or library references as to its availability. Searway wrote at least one other book, “Time to Remember” published in 1964, and I believe she lived in Blaine, Maine, and may have lived in Ashland.
If any readers of this blog have any more information about Ruby Garrison Searway, please add a comment to the blog entry.
I loved it when a storm caused snow closures. It was like getting an unexpected vacation day!
Posted in Maine
I’m not sure that I miss the cold and snow … too much.
Sloppy, fast storm swats northern Maine – Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Maine
Got this from DownEast.com and for some reason found it interesting. “What is Maine’s best-known gun battle? Answer: On October 12, 1937, federal agents killed Public Enemy No. 1 Al Brady and two cohorts on Central Street in Bangor in the bloodiest shoot-out in Maine history.”
Here’s a link from the Bangor In Focus website’s profile of the incident.
Below is a link to a blog that provides some hope — and growth — for the future in newspapers.
Newspaper Execs Tell Investors There are Better Days Ahead in 2010.
However, as with any story, there are at least two sides. Alan D. Mutter has the other side on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.
Deer hunting, especially in the North Woods, is a pretty big part of life for Mainers. It is a rite of passage for boys and girls whose fathers – and sometimes mothers – drag them to their first hunters’ breakfast , pile them into all sort of vehicle, drive them into the wilderness, and help them slog through the woods to just the “perfect” site for bagging that first deer.
I know, I know, Bambi was a deer and killing deer is bad, bad, bad. At least, in the minds of many people.
But in many parts of the country, including Maine, hunting is more than just sport. Deer and other game are hunted for meat; some families, especially in this economic climate, are looking for meat from game to help them get through the winter. In most cases, it is not a life-and-death situation, but it is pretty serious.
And the deer population – and the subsequent decline in deer kills – is way down.
The effects go well beyond those to the individual hunter. I came across a blog entry on DownEast.com about the decline of the deer population and the far-reaching effects on the local and state economy. It is a pretty devastating situation.
Stores and restaurants, outfitters, sporting goods stores, hotels and motels, and hunting lodges, some of them in the same family for several generations, are hurting financially this year in part because there are fewer deer and fewer deer hunters.
My mother, who occasionally works at the small general store in my hometown of Portage, Maine, where deer kills are registered, said the take this year has been incredibly disappointing. She echoed some of the comments by the blog’s author, George Smith, who is described as “a columnist, TV show host, executive director of the state’s largest sportsmen’s organization, political and public policy consultant, hunter, angler, and avid birder and most proud of his three children and grandson.”
Smith wrote that deer population has been reduced by two back-to-back rough winters, poor habitat, and thinning by bears and coyotes. That – and I would dare say the sluggish economy – have caused longtime hunters to cancel or shorten their trips to the North Woods. Others have cut short their trips after spending days in the woods and not spotting deer or deer sign.
The blog outlines the economic hardship being caused to businesses and the financial loss to the state’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in license fees.
As Smith says, the only real fix in the southern part of the state is to have a milder-than-recent winter. Mother Nature controls that.
But he also quotes a former game commissioner warning that deer hunting in the North Woods may never return. That would be a terrible loss to poor Mainers looking to stretch their grocery dollars by putting game on the table. And it would be even more so for the future generations of would-be hunters who will never be dragged to their first hunters’ breakfast, loaded into a rig, and taken to remote spots in the North Woods seeking to bag their first deer.
Back when I was an opinion page editor for The Reporter, the daily newspaper in Vacaville, CA, I wrote a weekly column. For those of you who are too young to have picked up a newspaper ever before, a column is sort of a printed blog from a time before online blogs. (No, really! There was something before blogs.)
In the column I wrote about things that happened to me and around me. And that includes writing about the time two friends, a married couple, each had a broken toe at the same time and my officemate was in a car crash. At the time I was cautiously pleased that such things happened in threes so that I was free from painful toe injury and full-body bruising. [The column is at the bottom of this blog entry.]
Also, I have been accused in the past of mercilessly teasing a former co-worker who has suffered several broken toes at various times, but each time involving European plumbing. Yep, European plumbing.
So, I suppose it is only right – given that I made public the embarrassing circumstances of the various injuries – that I also would suffer toe injuries.
Sometime last spring or summer, I was walking from a parking lot to a retail store and did not notice the angle of the ramp in the sidewalk. I slammed my right big toe smack-dab into the side of the curb, bending back about a third of the nail.
Oh, it hurt like a dickens and there was plenty of blood. I was able to hobble around a bit, but for the next few weeks I stubbed the toe every time I turned around, it seemed. It was painful and a rather frequent basis.
OK, fine, I figured that would have realigned my toe karma. No more bad toe juju for Keith.
Well, not so fast, buckaroo.
Last night as I was jumping into bed, there was a freak accident. Somehow, as I was swinging my legs under the covers, my left big toe slammed into my right heel. That left me with a broken left big toenail and a sliced right heel.
A few curses later, my nail was clipped and it and my heel were bandaged.
Moral: Never, ever tempted toe juju! You never know when it will come back to be a pain in your, well, toe.
By Keith Michaud
Something is just not right in the world around me and I’m keeping my head down. I don’t need any broken bones or full-body bruising.
I’m not some wimpy namby-pamby, mind you. I’ve taken my lumps, figuratively and literally, and the aches and pains of some physical exertion is a good thing. It reminds you why there are lounge chairs.
But lately something has been thrown out of alignment. Stars are not lined up properly. Or solar flares are burning a hole in the Earth’s ozone layer … or something.
It all began when my friend, Michele – the saintly, understanding woman married to my beer-drinkin’-wine-makin’-trout-fishin’-cattle-raisin’-golf-playin’ buddy, Rick – decided to tend to her beautiful horse one day not long ago.
As she was retrieving something from her car, the horse followed. Michele turned and was startled, which startled the horse and caused the horse to step on Michele’s foot, breaking a toe and causing some colorful bruising.
She hobbled around for a few days because of that. I think she might still be limping.
Then, if I recall the timeline correctly, a few days later my officemate, Lynn – who I am guessing will one day reach over the desk we share and simply clock me one and I will have had it coming – was in a car crash.
Oh, she’s OK, now. She wasn’t hurt too badly when another vehicle pulled out in front of her car and they crashed. But the airbag went off and the force caused some nasty bruising up and down her right arm, across her chin and chest, and down her left arm.
And then there was the terrible “mopping accident.” My beer-drinkin’-wine-makin’-trout-fishin’-cattle-raisin’-golf-playin’ buddy, Rick, was mopping his floor when he felt something on the bottom of his foot. Thinking it was a small rock, he shook his foot to get it off, which it did not since, he later learned, it was some sticky asphalt that had been tracked into the house.
He shook his foot as hard as he could to dislodge the object, but in the process kicked the corner of the base to the kitchen counters, breaking his toe.
“I went down like a tranquilized caribou,” Rick recounted. “In slow motion.”
Yes, that’s correct, Rick and Michele now have matching broken toes. For both of them, it is the piggy that went wee-wee-wee all the way home.
I’m really hoping these sorts of freak occurrences to people around me only come in threes. They have to, right? So, I’m probably safe, don’t you think? At least, for now?
But don’t be surprised if I’m somewhere and I dive for cover if a car backfires.
Or if there is a horse or a mop nearby.
The author was the opinion page editor of The Reporter in Vacaville, CA, when this was published on July 27, 2005.
Posted in Uncategorized
Here are links to a couple of news stories on the deployment of National Guard units from Maine and the rest of New England.
Maine, N.E. Guard prepare to deploy; ceremony today – Bangor Daily News.
Posted in Maine
Three Maine State Troopers, including two from The County, are going to the memorial service for the Lakewood, Wash., police officers killed Nov. 29. As a reporter, I covered several of these fallen-officers stories. Always a tragic thing.
http://updates.pressherald.mainetoday.com/updates/maine-troopers-attend-officers-memorial
Posted in Uncategorized
Here’s a link to a Portland Press Herald story about a Pearl Harbor attack survivor.
Posted in Maine
I did not see it, but they say it snowed in Stockton today.
The National Weather Service and TV meteorologist for the past couple of days had been calling for the snow to fall and it did, especially in the foothills and in the Sierra, where snow is king this time of year. Ski resort owners and skiers will be pleased with the results of this storm.
Anyway, the snow here melted pretty much on contact, according to witnesses quoted in the local newspaper. The online story also has a photo taken by one of the newspaper’s staff writers who works from his home in San Andreas, CA. It appears a bit messy up there.
Of course, it is nothing like the snow in northern Maine some years. As a child I recall snowplows pushing snow banks high above the road. Before my folks bought a Jeep Commando with a plow on the front, I was the one who had to clear the driveway with a shovel. After a good snow dump and a hearty push by the snowplow, that meant a lot of clearing away.
S.J. County and surrounding area awakens to snow | Recordnet.com
Posted using ShareThis
Posted in Uncategorized
The Portland-South Portland-Biddeford area are on the list that goes with this Forbes.com story on the “best bang-for-the-buck cities” in the country. Yeah, the region comes in at No. 36 and I have no idea where the metro area might have placed previously, but considering how many cities there are in this country and that the area ranked above quite a few areas that have a lot to offer, it is a very good thing.
Clicking on the head and text below should get you to the story and then you can click within the story to get to the overall list.
Nice column by the Press Herald’s Bill Nemitz. It is about Auburn, Maine’s Paul Bosse, who will be leading a company of soldiers to Afghanistan.
Bringing out their best, as soldiers and as men | Portland Press Herald.
Here’s a link to a Maine Public Broadcasting Network story on a proposal to put people back to work using a program similar to the one used by FDR.
I have been out of work since March and am hungry to find a new job, but the cost of this program seems too high. But I am glad people are at least voicing such ideas. From one — or many — of such suggestions will come a sustainable solution.
Lewiston Leaders Push For Depression-Era Style Job Creation Program.
Posted in Maine
Letters From Away 