The peepers are back. That makes everything right in the world, for me. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on. A credit crisis. Unemployment is up. The State has a huge deficit. Taxes are up. People on fixed incomes are struggling to get by. People not on fixed incomes are struggling to get by. This past winter I was struggling to get by. But the peepers are back and things are looking up. I suppose everyone knows what I'm talking about, but that position has gotten me in some jams before, so I'll tell you that peepers are tree frogs. They're real small and I've never seen one, but the male calls out for a mate in the spring or maybe the female calls out for a mate, but either way, it's just about the most relaxing sound I can think of.

If you know about peepers, you're saying "Ah, yes!" If you don't know about peepers, I can't describe the sound, so you'll just have to wonder. When the peepers come out in the spring, it always makes me appreciate where I live. It's a small thing, I'll give you that, but small things are the big things about where I live. You can look through catalogs and find all sorts of "sleep sound" machines for sale. I have a natural one outside my window that works great and doesn't cost a thing.

The bullfrogs are back, too. They start with a lame croak or two, which is always really neat because I know it's going to grow into a full blown chorus in just a few days. The bullfrogs live in the small pond in front of the house and the peepers live in the trees around the pond. All this happens on the side of Route 17, a major highway between the Mid-Coast and Augusta. It's a busy road, too. Lots of traffic all hours of the day or night. Big trucks. Lots of big trucks. I'm on the big hill by True Value so there's lots of engine brake noise from loaded trucks going 60 miles an hour heading for the coast to bring you the things you need down there. I don't hear a thing. I hear the peepers and the bullfrogs. I should probably set up a recorder and record the chorus at night so that I could play it back whenever I had trouble getting to sleep, but that seems kinda weird. I mean, if I could hear the peepers and bullfrogs whenever I wanted, it wouldn't be special when they came out in the spring now, would it?

Every day of our lives, all day long, we're faced with choices. We choose what we want to focus on and what we want to ignore. When the peepers and bullfrogs come out in the spring, it reinforces to me what I want to focus on. I could complain about the traffic. I could complain about the noise from the engine brakes from the trucks. There's a whole bunch of things I could complain about, but I focus on the peepers and the bullfrogs. Those people that are going by the house all hours of the day and night are not at home. They're working, or picking up kids, going to the doctor's, who knows what. But they're on the go. The guys or gals driving those trucks are working. And it's not an easy job, I can tell you from experience. They're making some noise going down the big hill so that they can hold back their truck and be safe. Works for me. I'm listening to the peepers and bullfrogs. They're not. The older I get, the more I appreciate the natural things in this area that I'm priviledged to be a part of. If you've never heard peepers or bullfrogs, you can't appreciate what I'm writing about, and I understand and feel sorry for you.

Something that many people new to the area have missed is the fact that they can choose what they focus on and more often than not, they focus on the traffic or the engine brake

It's me again. Commenting on current events. You probably suspect a piece about Dunkin Donuts in downtown Camden, but I'm way above that. I want to talk about the legislature. I probably should have capitalized legislature, but they don't give me a really capitalization feeling and this is my story, so I'll do what I want.

Ever since the legislature has been in session, I've read about this bill or that bill that some legislator or senator has proposed. Many of them, no, most of them seem pretty stupid. Often when a bill is questioned, the legislator or senator says that they introduced it at the request of a constituent. Well, the legislator's job is to say to some people "That doesn't make any sense and while I appreciate your concern, I'm not going to introduce that as a bill." I don't know for sure, but it appears that a lot of time is involved looking over a bill. It seems that if you have a seat over in Augusta you can just enter a bill. Once it's entered there appears to be some sort of process involving committees and such that all costs money and takes time.

I'm not convinced we need many more laws. Maybe we do, but I doubt it. I wonder if legislators are scored on the number of bills they introduce. Does it help get them reelected? It seems to me that the time would be much better spent getting the state government machine working better rather than making more laws.

Here's the latest example of what I think is stupid. Some legislator has introduced a bill to make it illegal to use squaw or words with squa in them to describe a place. The squaw thing has been out there for awhile now, so I think we all get the deal there. When that whole thing was brought up as being offensive to Indian women, I just didn't get it. As I understood it, the Indians named the women squaws, but now the use of that word is offensive to the Indians that brought it up in the first place. Maybe women's collided with Native America, I don't know.. It seemed to me like it was the Indian's business and that's where it should have stayed. If the Indians had decided to change the term that referred to the women of their race, just tell us. That's all. We've now decided to call Indian women, Indian women. Simple as that. Squaw Mountain becomes Indian Woman Mountain and so on and so forth. That didn't happen. There's a law.

I may be in trouble for writing the word squaw. I might go to jail and you would never hear from me again unless I could get a guard to smuggle a column out for me. How many towns in Maine have a location that's called a square? Can't have that. Slamming the Indian women. Squash? Squash patch road/ How offensive. How about squall? Nope. Get rid of that word. The wind may blow wicked on your street next to the ocean, but don't even think of naming your street Snow Squall Lane. Actually that even offends me. We need to create a state agency to police this whole thing and look for violations, fine the offenders and rip the signs down. Monument Square in Portland is the place to start.

I think there should be a review board of citizens that look over every bill that is presented to the legislature. I'm thinking 11, 12 people from all walks of life. They review the bills and rate them. Worthy ones go on. Questionable ones, the legislator gets a warning and maybe there should be varying degrees of warning. The ones that are deemed really stupid, the legislator has to clean out his or her desk, leave Augusta, and the district they represent goes without until the next election. That will get people's attention.

The latest issue that backs up my position that the legislature should straighten out what's going on now before they pass lots of new laws is MaineCare. Again. That thing has been a mess from the get go. I tried to figure the whole thing out in the beginning but it was way beyond me. Just too complicated. Doctors and hospitals can't get paid, and the whole thing is $65 million in the red. What could possibly be wrong with a program like that? Does that warrant some close scrutiny by the legislature? Of course not. There's a stimulus package. Federal money to stimulate the economy. Why not just take some of it and pay bills that we can't pay any other way? How about this? How about if there was no stimulus package? Where would the $65 million come from? You know the answer, Bucky. They'll tax you and I. Well, hang onto your pantyhose because we're not going to get stimulus money year after year and unless they get a handle on this 'ole girl we're in for a long ride. But, never mind all that boring stuff, let's pass some laws. That sounds like fun. Make it illegal to name public places with words that have squa in them. That should send you home at the end of the day with a sense of accomplishment that most people can only imagine.

I lied at the beginning. I am going to talk about Dunkin Donuts, too. People say "There ought to be a law!" There is. Don't try to make a Dunkin Donuts law. The zoning laws in Camden are about as restrictive as they can be and it doesn't make any sense to me to make them more restrictive unless the town doesn't want any business. If that's what the citizens want, that's what they should have, and they can do it. Ban all new business downtown and when an existing business closes, give them a month and then make them nonconforming. Two things about the whole Dunkin Donuts debate. The letters that say Dunkin Donuts doesn't fit or sends the wrong message. Sorry to tell you this folks, but that's prejudice. That's all it is. Starbucks would be O.K., but Dunkin Donuts isn't is no different than saying I'm O.K. with a single family residence next door to me, but I'll decide who can live there. If the coffee hop opens, one of two things will happen. It will make a profit, people who work there will continue to have jobs and life will go on. If it can't make a profit, the property will go back to what it is now and life will still go on. Here's the second and most important thing, and this is the thing that so many people who move here miss about life in this part of the world. If zoning allows or doesn't allow a Dunkin Donuts on Elm Street in Camden is the biggest news there is, you live in a pretty good place.

Bike Paths

One of the things we all do is focus on what is bothering us or what we want and not think about the big picture. This piece will no doubt offend or at the very least irritate some folks, but that's just the way it is. There's a lot of talk these days about alternate transportation and one of the hottest topics is bicycles. Of course we need to be safe and they need a safe place to ride. Whenever roads are paved or other work is done, there is always a big lobby to provide a path for bicycles. Those lobbying efforts make lots of sense unless one looks at the big picture.

The only way to get money for bike paths on the sides of roads is from the highway tax. I, you, we, pay about 50 cents a gallon tax on every gallon of gas and diesel we purchase. The tax is tied to the consumer price index, not the price of the product, so as I write this, it's about a 14% tax. If the price of fuel goes lower, the percentage of the tax goes higher because the tax stays the same. Sorry, but I'm taxed to the limit. I can't afford any more tax to fund bike lanes. While I think biking is a good thing and good for the environment, the reality is that we see very few bikes in the winter and really a very small number of bikes used for commutes. Funding bike paths for recreational riding is a whole other issue that is not what is being talked about here. There is a pattern in this state of funding one program with revenue from something else. This is a perfect example. I didn't include the cost of excise taxes, but there is another tax that goes to support local roads in the community the vehicle is registered in. When I have a hard time keeping my vehicle on a road because it is so rough, it's hard for me to get my arms around the idea that some of the money I pay in fuel taxes goes toward bike paths. So does that make bike riding a bad thing, or building bike paths for safer riding a bad idea? Certainly not. What needs to happen, though, if we want these things is they need to be funded at least in part by the people that use them. A registration fee for bikes could go directly toward funding safe areas for riders. An excise tax modeled after the automobile could add additional revenue. A base rate could be established based on the cost of a basic bicycle and if the sales slip was under that amount, there would be a certain fee for registration. Over that amount could be a sliding scale based on the amount paid for the bike, with a depreciation schedule figured in. I can hear people crying now, saying "I paid $1000 for my bicycle and now you want me to pay to ride it on the road?" Yes. I paid $20,000 for my pick up and I have to pay to drive it on the road, and you want some of my money to pay for your area to ride. There are solutions out there and we can get to where we want to be. We just need to be realistic and fair.

The recent hoopla about the beverage tax and Dirigo Health is a perfect example of stupid logic. The state created a program, Dirigo Health, with no way to fund it adequately. Whether or not Dirigo Health is a viable program or not has nothing to do with the fact that there was no adequate funding for the program. What is a state to do? Find some money somewhere. Maine chose to tax soda, beer and wine. Somehow, someone made some connection there which I don't' understand. So now when people are protesting the excessive tax on the beer, soda and wine, the backers of Dirigo are accusing these folks of being against health care. There is absolutely no connection between purchasing soda, beer and wine and funding a state health care program. If Dirigo is the way to go, fund the thing before you institute it. I don't know anything about the requirements to qualify for Dirigo, but maybe everyone that qualifies should have to pay something. $10 a person a year, 100,000 people. That's a million bucks. I'm just saying.

The bike thing is the same deal. Don't build bike paths into road rebuilds or new construction unless you have the money to fund the work. At least get something. I don't' think for a minute that bicycle registration fees would begin to fund bike ways around the state, but it would be a start. We need to look at things differently or none of us will be able to afford to live here anymore. How sad would that be? A state with a motto of "The way life should be" that only the very privileged can afford to live in.

As often happens with pieces I write, I put them aside and see if I can make them better. Something doesn’t read right or I want to say some other thing. Such is the case with this piece that I started in 2006, revisited in 2007 and now bring out of the file. As an aside, one of the reunion people was Paul Tibbetts. I mention in the piece that he thought we should do teriyaki. He meant karaoke. Paul probably would have chuckled while reading this, but I kept it in the file and Paul won’t get to read this because he has passed away. Maybe I should just put things out there and not worry about how they read. Time goes by so quickly.

Advertisement Class reunions. Who organizes those things anyway? The same people that were making things happen when you graduated from high school, that’s who. You know who I mean. Those people that wanted to get you involved in stuff in school and fire you up but you weren’t interested. Those people. They’ve been bugging me. Calling me. Telling me about meetings. Hinting that I should go to the meetings. You know how I feel. No interest. It was years ago. Leave me alone. But, oh no. They don’t give up, these reunion people. They’re serious. So I said, OK. I’ll come to your meeting, sip a cup of coffee and feel good that I did my thing. Of course I couldn’t leave it at that. There were addresses and phone numbers to validate and plans for a gathering at the Camden American Legion Hall on a Saturday night. If that isn’t a blast from the past, I don’t know what is.

So, we’re all sitting in Brenda’s kitchen discussing who colors their hair and who doesn’t and it occurs to me that 40 years have gone by while I wasn’t paying attention. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of stuff and life’s been great, but 40 years? Kids graduating from high school used to think they’d be lucky if they lived to be 40. Where did the time go? Another popular topic at the table was who was retired and who wasn’t. I didn’t even fit in there because I was the only one that had “enhanced” retirement. That means you get a check, but have to keep working someplace else.

My how times have changed. 1966. Camden, of course, was very different. The physical properties are kind of similar, but the demographics are vastly different. The Knox Mill and Tannery were big employers of the working class. A lot of the stores closed for the winter. There were only a couple of restaurants in town, three grocery stores and a “neighborhood” store in every neighborhood, three in Millville. The high school variety shows were replaced by a production of “Our Town” directed by the new English teacher Michael Herron. A very big happening in the Opera House. In my opinion, the birth of the Camden Civic Theatre. Faith Vautour, Bruce Buxton and Charlie Crockett were all “new” teachers. Charlie still calls me Willie whenever he sees me. For some bizarre reason that I can’t remember, I enrolled in Mrs. Sturdee’s typing class. Forty years later, I can burn up the keyboard and bombard you every two weeks with this drivel. Who would have thought it back then? Just take a minute and think about what you’re doing right now, what your life is like and see if you ever could have imagined it back when you graduated from high school. What a picture.

There were nowhere near the opportunities to fill our days that kids have today. The Y was very small down on Chestnut Street and other than Scouts and sports there wasn’t a lot to fill our idle time. There were three, depending on where you lived maybe six, TV channels. Sorry, but PBS didn’t count. Some places in town got Bangor and some got Portland stations. A few people in certain locations could get both. Still it was just NBC, CBS and ABC. Eddie Driscoll was on Bangor and Frankenstein’s and Stacey’s County Jamboree were the beginnings of "American Idol." As I’ve written before, I can’t remember being bored. We did some stupid stuff as kids, but we did it because it was stupid, not because we were bored. Rolling the cannon balls down Main and Elm streets was great fun. They used to be stacked in a neat triangle pile, but wouldn’t they roll down the street. Very little traffic to bother the cannon ball bowling on weekend nights. King’s Pizza in Rockland was a big hangout for the kids in my crowd and dances at the Rockland Rec Center were popular. Bobby Myer’s band was a local hit. The Tremelos, I think.

But that was then and this is now. What we’ve got is what we are. Forty years since high school graduation. I just can’t believe it. Some days I don’t even feel 40 years old. Most days I don’t act 40 years old. Everything looks different than it did back then. We were all going to change the world. We didn’t realize that this ol' ball is spinning so fast that it’s just about all anybody can do to just hang on. But we had our dreams. I suspect that most of us realized our dreams, but maybe didn’t know it was happening. Only when you look back, can you see how far you’ve come. Yes, the reunion people have roped me in. I’ll be down to Camden again folding letters and stuffing them, and I’ll come up with something for the Saturday night at the Legion Hall. Probably no streaker, but maybe an old garage band. Paul’s suggestion of doing teriyaki sounds like fun. Most any other class might consider karaoke, but we were never like everyone else. I think it’s going to be a good time. I’m looking forward to getting together with the old people.

It’s December, and I’m writing about August. The reunion was great! I was at a terrific wedding that afternoon so I was late and missed the class picture. We all stayed up very late. It was a trip back in time. It really was. I needed that. For a little while that Saturday night in August, time stopped. I was back in high school. My classmates and a teacher were there. Life was simple again, even if for only a few hours. When my head hit the pillow that night I was as content as I could be.

The reunion people are important. They are the ones that make these things happen so that we can benefit from them. They were a pain in the rear in high school and they are a pain in the rear today. But they get things done. They make things happen. As I age, I realize more and more that without the pain in the rear people, nothing would ever happen in this world.

    When I first started writing for the website in 2007, I wrote this but couldn't find a good way to finish it. So it sat. I've been back to visit several times and had nothing to add. So here it is, just as I wrote it.

    I wrote in the last piece about how volunteers were so important to Union, and I really believe that. When we start thinking that we're way more important than we really are, we're headed for trouble. That whole thing got me thinking about Union as a town and how I feel about it. It feels like my favorite pair of jeans or my favorite shirt. Neither one makes a fashion statement, but I think I look O.K. in both, though I don't really care how I look. It's who I am, and I'm comfortable when I wear those clothes. That's how I feel about Union. It makes me feel like those comfortable clothes. I feel good about living here. I feel good about who I am and how I fit in these comfortable clothes.

    Every once in awhile, though, I get a little irritation. Some times it develops into a rash. The first thing I do is blame my clothes. There must be something wrong with my jeans. Maybe a seam coming loose or the laundry soap causing an irritation. Nope. It's never the jeans or the shirt, it's me. Most of the time, I put my clothes on wrong. For whatever reason, I lost sight of Union as a town and put something else first. It's taken lots of sleepless nights to figure out that I feel uncomfortable in my clothes because I'm trying to make them fit my situation rather than getting comfortable with what I'm wearing.

    Have I lost you yet? We all get involved in what we live for our lives. Some things are more important to some people than other things. This community is a precious resource that we are the keepers of. We citizens are the people that have made it what it is, and it's future is in our hands. Everybody plays a part. If you just moved here, the honeymoon is still going on, and that's great. But you have an obligation to be a part of this place that you chose as your home. It's not all fun and games. There are issues. Your obligation is to become informed on these issues, take advantage of your opportunity to vote and speak your mind and vote in the best interest of that comfortable pair of half worn out jeans, not your best interest. What's the biggest challenge for people from away, is to distance themselves from where they came from and focus on where they are. They mean well, but it never works. It's not important if there were similar issues on Long Island or in Boston. What's important is what's going on here and now. Your life experiences can contribute a lot, but they need to be presented in a comfortable way, just like the jeans fit.

    You natives and people that have lived here awhile have a more important role. You understand what is going on and you need to make sure it continues. What you do is nothing. You don't go to the selectman's meetings. You talk about things around town that bother you, but you don't follow up. It's neat to talk about all the problems of the town over breakfast, but it gets nothing done. You need to go to your town manager, your selectmen, your planning board. Share your concerns. Hold them accountable. They' ve made a commitment to this town and you have every right to make sure they live up to your expectations. But if you don't say anything, nothing will happen. The people from away are not the problem. They are not changing things in this town, we are letting them do it. They can't help themselves.

    This whole energy thing is right out of control, isn‘t it? They’re arguing about whether to drill or not to drill in Alaska. The whole thing about our dependence on foreign oil is a big topic, and the price at the pump, well, we all know about that. So, I got to thinking, maybe we’re better off here in Maine than many others because of where we live. I got to thinking that Maine could generate a lot of energy right here to be used right here and if we all got cheap power and heat, we’d have more money to cover the cost of gas. As I looked deeper into the situation, the picture got more and more dismal.

   One of the first things I thought of was water. We’ve got a lot of water. Once you build a dam, it generates power with virtually no pollution. It doesn’t burn any type of fuel, or require trucks or trains to haul anything to it or away, and has no waste. But I forgot about the fish. The fish need to have complete access, I guess, to the whole state. So instead of building more dams, we’re removing existing dams that used to generate power. See the fish thing threw me off. Hydro power is out. That was first on my list, but I moved on. Biomass. We’ve got lots of wood. Lots of wood. Cut it down and you can grow another tree. Manage the forests using good stewardship and this power source is unending. This time I forgot about the trees. We can’t cut the trees. If we keep cutting the trees, there won’t be any more trees and then there’ll be nothing to look at. That’s what the experts say and they have degrees and letters after their names so they must know what they’re talking about. All I know is when I was highway foreman, as fast as we cut the brush on the sides of the roads it would grow back to the point that we couldn’t keep up. I guess the forests work differently. Biomass is off the list. Wind. That’s the answer. No pollution, very little disturbance of the earth to put them babies up and we’re getting cheap power from the wind. Hold on ‘ole boy. What about the visual pollution? Did you think about that? Actually, I didn’t. I was out in my kayak recently and marveling at the absolutely breathtaking views in all directions around the pond. In two directions were towers on or near the tops of hills. I hardly noticed them because everything else was so stunning. I suppose I could have focused on the towers and let that ruin the rest of my view, but I didn’t. Still, visual pollution is real here in Maine, the way life should be if you can afford it state, so wind power is out of the question. But we’ve got the tides. The tide comes in. The tide goes out. That’s energy that could be harnessed. I guess they put turbines under water and they change direction with the tide so they generate power when the tide is coming and when it’s going. What a concept! This is it! No harm, no foul. Put these things in rivers and watch our light bills practically go to zero. I don’t remember exactly what the issue is with these, but I guess boaters have lots of concerns and maybe a fish might get caught in the thing, (it’s the fish thing again) but at any rate, they’ve got a lot of opposition, too. So I got all excited there for a little bit thinking that we had what it takes to make power without pollution and dependence on foreign oil, but I was wrong. We’re screwed.

   What if we weren’t, though? What if we could generate power from any of these sources? Seems “the grid” can’t handle it. I know the know it alls expect me to understand this, but I don’t. “The grid” can only handle the amount of power that is on it now, not any more. I’m a little suspicious of “the grid”. I’m starting to think that “the grid” is an excuse. Maybe not, but I’m just saying. I think “the grid” is some bogus boogey man that everyone in the industry is sure that the average person won’t understand and won’t question. But, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there really is a transmission problem so that the power that is generated in, say Millinocket, ME. can’t make it to Connecticut, where it’s needed. I’d say “So what?” We are the highest taxed state in the country. We’re at the end of every highway and most of the rail lines. I understand cooperation and the big picture, but all the power we generate should go to the state of Maine and if there’s any left, I’m fine with selling it to whoever needs it the most or wants to pay the most. Just because the rest of New England needs more power than they can generate doesn’t meant that we have an obligation to provide their power.

   But the beat goes on. CMP needs to spend I don’t know how much to be able to send the Maine power to ‘the grid”. The CMP ratepayers will fund the project. Meanwhile the do gooders in the state are fighting the whole thing. We’ll probably end up with a higher light bill to pay for the ability to hook into “the grid” and not be able to generate one single additional kilowatt of power because it might harm something. Does pessimism come with age? I don’t believe much of anything people tell me anymore. Stuff goes on all over the globe. There are power plants, casinos, big businesses, just lots of stuff. We can choose what we want and we can put restrictions on the operations so that we maintain what we have. The attitude in Maine seems to be that we don’t want anything. Period. Those businesses will go on and they will employ people. Those people will take the money they make and buy houses, cars, groceries, clothes and even gas. They just won’t buy those things in Maine, the way life should be if you can afford it state. We can manage that industry or let it go somewhere else.

   A footnote. The fish. What do freshwater fish do? I mean in the big scheme of things. I understand the balance of nature and that all species have a purpose, but if the fish can’t get to some place, so what? I don’t want anything bad to happen to any animal or plant, but sometimes I just stop and think. What if there were no fish? The only thing we do with them is eat them. A lot of people eat them. I eat them. Life is about choices and I’d rather have affordable energy than fish. Hope we can reach some sort of compromise here, but if it comes to that, I’ll give up fish for a cheaper electric bill. And you know what? Screw “the grid”. Keep the power generated in Maine, in Maine.

   I’ve decided to change the direction of what I write for awhile. This medium is pretty comfortable for me and it’s not the same as trying to connect with subscribers to a newspaper. When I was writing for The Soup, I was always a little leery of writing about people I knew, fearing that what I wrote would make them uncomfortable. I let my guard down and wrote about Ed Bean and the article came out in the paper on his birthday. He called me up and said he thought I had too much time on my hands and should find something else to do to with my time. The family liked it, but Ed was a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. Deep down inside, I think he appreciated it, but since it made him a little uncomfortable I chose not to go in that direction again. Then Bobby died. I wrote a piece about how I viewed him and our relationship and it touched a lot of people. But it didn’t touch Bobby because he had already passed away. I would have written the exact same thing while he was alive, but I didn’t.

   So we’ll start with another Bob. Bob Linscott. He’s not going to be happy with any of this, and he will have trouble seeing himself as I portray him. Bob, you’ve just got to live with it, buddy. I first met Bob and Janice about thirty years ago, shortly after the exodus from Camden. I joined the Fire Department because I wanted to serve on the ambulance and got to meet Bob. It was clear from the first that this was a person that was dependable. Like, take it to the bank dependable. We had a red phone system back then and when an ambulance call came in, there were several homes that the phone rang into. Once we had the nature of the call, if I was able to go, I’d ask Janice if she’d watch Jesse. If she was available, which most of the time she was, I’d load Jesse in the truck, go to the fire station, Janice would already be there and she would take Jesse and I’d go on the call. Sometimes Kathy and I both would go and Jesse would go with Janice. He always hated to go home with us after the call because he had such a good time with Janice.

   As time went on, I got to know Bob better as I became more involved in the fire service. The oldest engine, with the least pumping capacity was the one assigned to Bob. That was more out of tradition than anything else because he had been close to the appartatus from the time Union bought it in 1959. That engine and Bob were dependable. He went to the water source and supplied the attack pieces. Bob wasn’t in the limelight, but he was very important to the success of many fire operations in Union. All that changed when we brought a used pumper back to Union from Pearl River, New York. The chief and I had talked a lot about Bob and his ability, how he always stayed cool and what a quiet leader he was. We drove that engine from New York right to Bob’s house and announced to him that he was the Lieutenant on the first due piece in Union going forward. Bob was really proud. Paul and I were too. That engine is a Hell of a fire truck and while kids and new people will tell you that it’s junk and better off in a museum somewhere, Bob and I know better.

   Bob can get 150% out of anything he touches. As a chief officer on a fireground, I can’t put into words how important it was to me to hear Bob sign on with Engine One. I knew we’d have all the water Bob could get us out of that piece. Anything that came up, and something always does at a fire, Bob would work around. A quiet sensitive person. He would actually call me and apologize that he was going on vacation and would not be available to respond to fire calls. I always told him that wasn’t necessary, but at the same time, it was good to know that we would have to get by without Bob. He took care of his equipment. That was a responsibility that he took very seriously. As long as someone hadn’t been in the engine and fooled with stuff, you knew that Bob’s engine was ready to respond anytime, day or night. It bugged him and it bugged me when people fooled around with his engine when they didn’t’ know what they were doing.

   He’s just celebrated 50 years of service to the Union Fire Department, a goal that he’s been looking forward to. It’s quite an accomplishment. One that very few people see. And he’s still active, and still able to get that 150% out of a piece of apparatus. Fifty years is a special milestone in anything, but very rare in the volunteer fire service. This is way more than a hobby for Bob Linscott. The citizens of the Town of Union have been very fortunate to have had Bob Linscott and Janice quietly serving them for all these years.

   This is my tribute to Bob and all he’s done for the town and all he’s done for me. I really, really appreciate it.

   P.S. Bob, I apologize if I embarrassed you by writing this, but I felt it needed to be said. Enjoy your milestone 50 years and we’ll set around your kitchen table sometime and talk about it, just like we have so many other things.

   A couple of times when I started writing, I really fired up some people. They were downright namecalling angry. It may happen again. I’ve been thinking lately about how things are going here in Midcoast Maine, and it’s starting to scare me.

   A lot of really great things are happening here. More employment, better jobs, strong retail growth. All good stuff. But something else is going on. We’re giving in to the rest of the world. I’m not one of those “people from away vs natives” cats. I’m really not. We all came from somewhere. I moved to Union from that awful “Camden place” 30 years ago. So many people who moved to this area have contributed so much to our well being that it can’t really be measured. I’m thinking that might be part of the problem. We see the benefits that some people from away have shown us so we buy into all the ideas that come into the area. Examples work for me, so let me give you a few.

   Time. Everything today is based on time. Texaco was the first I think, to introduce “Quick Lube”. A servicing of your car for a flat rate price in a certain period of time. The price part is fine, but the time thing is dangerous. It used to be that when you needed your car serviced, you took it to a dependable mechanic that would do a competent job. Now you go to the place that promises to do the job the quickest and the people you meet that you entrust your vehicle to are different every 3000 miles. Now, I’m not saying any of these people don’t do a good job, and I only mentioned Texaco because they were the first to offer the quick lube deal.. What troubles me is that we are starting to do things for the wrong reasons. Used to be, you entrusted your car to somebody with a reputation for looking out for your safety and making sure your vehicle was dependable. Someone like Harry French, down in Rockland. He’s out of business and now you go where you can get it done the quickest, and if you can get it done the cheapest too, you feel like a hero. In case it’s not clear, this peace is aimed at the natives and people that have lived here a long time, not the people from away. We’re the ones that are screwing things up. You can’t blame people from away for offering ideas. They didn’t force anything on us, we surrendered.

   Here’s another innocent example of our lives slipping away from us. Roads; and this time of year plowing and sanding. We would all be fine with less money spent on plowing and sanding. We could watch the weather, plan ahead, properly equip our vehicles and accept a lower level of service for our roads in the winter. The burden of safety could be shifted back on to us as it used to be and we could save some serious money and be just as safe. Not happening. We expect to hit the road any time day or night and have excellent driving conditions. To make matters worse, we set a standard that is impossible to meet and then demand that our towns and the State meet that standard. The standard is that whenever I want to go, and wherever I want to go, I expect perfect driving conditions. The fact that you may or may not expect the same thing means nothing to me.

   Convenience Stores. These were the beginning of the end for the Midcoast Maine that I knew. Open Early, Open Late. That wasn’t good enough. Now we need 24 hour stores. We need stores open on Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas and even Labor Day, so that we won’t be inconvenienced. We used to have inconvenient stores. They opened at 7 or 8 or 9 in the morning, and closed around 5 or 6 at night. We knew it and planned around it. They weren’t open on holidays, you needed to plan ahead. I think it was better for everyone.

   One more recent example is the traffic report. The radio reports there’s a backup at the light in Skowhegan, but after that it’s clear sailing up 201 to the Canadian border. Come on. Who needs a traffic report in Maine? We have it because people from away had it and we let them bring it here. So what if the traffic is backed up at the stop light in Skowhegan? What are you going to do if you want to go north on 201? You’ve got to sit at the light.. There’s no other way to go unless you’re a local and if you are you’ld do it anyway without the traffic report.

   It’s easy for those of us who have lived a good number of years here to lament what the people from away have done to us and our lifestyle. I’d say we’ve done it to ourselves. We’ve let it happen, and we’ve encouraged it. Maybe we feel we’ve missed something. Most everyone that has moved here is operating at wide open speed. Delivering the kids to private school, going to the gym, meeting this person and that for business or pleasure. We don’t need it. Relax. Let that car out from the side street. Wave to the person crossing the street. Calm down. Let’s resist the bad stuff and embrace the good. We are so fortunate to have so many intelligent, talented people choose to live in this area, we need to act like responsible people and educate them on how to behave. How else will they know if we don’t teach them?

The Peepers are back

Bike Paths