FOR YOUR HEALTH: Increasing Diversity In Cancer Clinical Trials

/0 Comments/in /by

Researchers are looking for new and better ways to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in cancer research and improve outcomes for minority populations.

(NAPSI)—There’s good news, bad news and better news about combating cancer in America these days.

The good news is there’s been an overall decline in U.S. cancer deaths since 1991.

The bad news is not all patients have benefited equally from advances in prevention, early detection and precision medicine. One study found that around 8.1 percent of cancer patients participate in a clinical trial. Of those, FDA data show that only 4 percent of clinical trial participants are Black and 5 percent are Hispanic.

What’s more, minority groups overall in the U.S. have both the highest death rate and shortest survival rate for most cancers. These inequities in cancer care have been ongoing for decades, due in part to socio-economic barriers, insufficient information about trials and their benefits, as well as other challenges.

The better news is a major funder of cancer research is working to tackle cancer disparities. Stand Up To Cancer® (SU2C), which raises money to accelerate the pace of research to get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now, began formalizing its Health Equity Initiative in 2017. The initiative aims to increase minority representation in cancer clinical trials and ensure new cancer treatments are effective for all.

Improving diversity in cancer clinical trials

Moving forward, SU2C-funded research teams will be required to address issues related to recruitment and retention of patients from minority groups to improve diverse participation in cancer clinical trials.

“As one of the leading funders of cancer research, we believe it is our duty to ensure that minority representation in cancer clinical trials is addressed. Now, more than ever, better understanding of the role of biology in cancer treatment, advances in precision treatment, and development of new technologies demands that we also make significant improvements in diverse clinical trial participation,” explained SU2C CEO Sung Poblete, PhD, RN. “We are confident that this initiative will make a significant and meaningful impact to ensure all communities have equal access to potentially life-saving treatments.”

SU2C is collaborating with a number of industry leaders who are also committed to improving cancer disparities, including Genentech, Exact Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb and Amgen. Funding from these donors supports SU2C’s Health Equity Initiative, including cancer screening and clinical trial awareness efforts as well as research into specific types of cancers that disproportionately impact people of color. Another collaboration with the Black Women’s Health Imperative and Friends of Cancer Research is Project TEACH, which will empower Black women to effectively engage with researchers and clinicians as well as increase participation of Black women in cancer-focused clinical trials. Project TEACH is supported by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

“Bringing a diverse patient population into the clinical trials arena is complex,” said Dr. Edith A. Perez, MD, professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic, chief medical officer at Bolt Biotherapeutics, chair of the SU2C Health Equity Committee and vice chair of the SU2C Scientific Advisory Committee. “As a part of this effort, Stand Up To Cancer is amplifying the conversation around health equity so that researchers, institutions and cancer research funders join this effort and become more engaged in increasing diversity in cancer clinical trials, similar to Stand Up To Cancer’s successes in normalizing collaboration across cancer research.”

Learn More

For further facts and stats about Stand Up To Cancer, go to www.StandUpToCancer.org.

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS: Be different

/0 Comments/in /by
Growing your businessby Dan Beaulieu
Business consultant

There are a series of books out about what is called Blue Ocean Strategies. The premise is that most businesses operate in the same ocean, “the Red Ocean”, but to truly succeed a company has to swim in their own ocean, the Blue Ocean. This is all fancy metaphor talk for being different, being better, finding a way to do things differently. A way that will change everything and wow your customers to the point of not only improving your business, but dramatically changing your market as well.

Some examples of Blue Ocean companies are what Uber did for paid ridership and what BnB did to the hotel industry, what Door Dash did for food take out services and, yes, what Instacart did for grocery shopping.

And, of course, there is the biggest example of Blue Ocean strategy, what Amazon did to the retail business…not only changed everything but literally took it over to the point of outright domination.

Okay, let’s get our head out of the clouds and back to earth. What can you do about your particular industry, and marketplace? What kind of Blue Strategy can you come up for your business?

Now, I don’t claim to have all the magic answers, I don’t know your particular business as well as you do, but I can show you how these companies did it.

It’ simple: they focused on their customers. They used their imagination to take them out of their proverbial box of business as usual.

They followed George Bernard Shaw’s advice as often quoted by Robert Francis Kennedy, “Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.”

And they ignored the advice of Charles Holland Duell, the commissioner of the U.S. Patent office who, in 1899, wanted to close the office saying, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

So how about you and your business? “What can you do to dream things that never were and ask why not?”

Here are a few steps to help you along the way:

  • Sit down and think about your business. Put yourself in your customers’ place. If you were your own customer, what would you like from your business?
  • Forget what has come before, what you did before and think of what you can do now, and better yet, what you can do tomorrow.
  • Dream a little, or a lot. Don’t let facts and existing barriers get in the way of your imagination. Just let yourself go wild and when you come up with a new great idea…then walk backwards to figure out how to do it.
  • Take a look of the world around you. Research what similar companies in other parts of the country, and the world, are doing. Learn more about your own industry, network with other owners in other parts of the world and get some ideas and inspiration from them. The nice thing about being a local business is that if you discover a great Blue Ocean idea from someone in your industry in Salem, Oregon, or London, Ontario, there is nothing wrong with taking the idea and bringing it into your local area.
  • The most important thing here is to dare to dream, to find a way to do it, not only differently, but better than anyone in your local marketplace has done it. Create your own Blue Ocean to swim in. And that’s a great way to grow your business.

CRITTER CHATTER: This is time of year to release healthy animals

/0 Comments/in /by

Opposum.

by Jayne Winters

This is the time of year many critters are released from the Duck Pond Wildlife Center, although if animals are old enough and sufficiently rehabbed, releases also take place throughout the summer. Chipmunks and squirrels are usually not turned out after mid-October, as their primary natural food sources have dwindled. This year’s fawns are still small and likely unable to survive the first winter on their own, so will be kept for May release. By August, the first to go are the opossums, then the raccoons, skunks, and foxes. To date, Don Cote and his volunteers have released nine of last year’s fawns, over a dozen opossums, six skunks, 13 red foxes, and one gray fox. Several squirrels, skunks, and 16 coons were transferred to another rehabber, the latter of which had been fully inoculated against the parvo virus when they left the Duck Pond Center. Unfortunately, the other rehab facility did lose quite a few raccoons to parvo, but we hope our transfers were protected from this highly contagious disease.

There are still 25-35 Canada geese and ducks on site, nine tiny fawns, the three bobcat kittens I wrote of in August, an opossum which needs vet evaluation to determine if its vision is compromised, and several gray squirrels. I asked Don if he would release the kittens together or separately. He explained they’ll be released individually and in different locations for several reasons: 1) they need to establish their own territories; 2) food resources need to be considered; and 3) bobcats don’t necessarily want or need companionship, even of their siblings; they tend to live solo except during mating season.

baby raccoons

I also wondered if there were special site requirements for different species and if the time of day for release mattered. Don said he looks for nearby water in all areas, whether it’s a marsh, pond, or an active brook or stream. Deer are usually turned out in the morning, foxes in the afternoon, all on empty stomachs so they won’t get sick during travel and will begin to actively seek out food in the wild.

In looking through some of Carleen Cote’s columns, I found one from October 1996: “There are events in everyone’s life that are memorable. We will never forget one release – that of our first fawn. The month of May had arrived and we looked for a site where the fawn would not be harassed nor, hopefully, hunted. We discussed many sites before choosing one, finally realizing there was no way to forever protect it from being hunted. We had given it a second chance at life; it belonged in field and forest to run and frolic. We called the people who owned the property we thought would be a good release site. “Yes,” they said, they would be thrilled to have the fawn released on their land and would watch over it to the best of their ability, notifying us if problems developed.

“Release day arrived. We loaded the deer into a specially constructed transport crate and headed out. A dirt road led to the field where the deer would be set free, but a rainy spring had turned it to mud. Despite using four-wheel drive, the wheels got stuck. The landowner and his son helped Donald slide the crate from the truck and after carrying it on foot, the deer was released into an open field. As we walked up the muddy trail to the truck, I glanced back. There, right behind us, was the deer. It followed us right back to the farm house! The landowners later reported the deer visited them on a daily basis and had become quite fond of Fruit Loops!”

A reader recently asked what type of items she could donate to the Center. The “Wish List” always includes bleach, cleaning supplies, heavy duty garbage bags, towels, dry dog and cat food (no dye), canned dog and cat food (no dye), paper towels, frozen berries (no syrup), birdseed, and even apples (not from recently sprayed trees). Please be advised that leftover, torn or opened bags of pet food cannot be accepted.

The Wildlife Care Center greatly appreciates the continuing assistance from other rehabbers to help while Don and his long-time volunteer, Amy, deal with health issues. We ask that you check these websites to see if there is a rehabber closer to you to help make critter care at Duck Pond more manageable: https://www.mainevetmed.org/wildlife-rehabilitation or https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fish-wildlife/wildlife/living-with-wildlife/orphaned-injured-wildlife/rehabilitation.html.

Donald Cote operates Duck Pond Wildlife Care Center, on Rte. 3, in Vassalboro. It is a nonprofit state permitted rehab facility supported by his own resources & outside donations. Mailing address: 1787 North Belfast Ave., Vassalboro ME 04989; TEL: (207) 445-4326. EMAIL: thewildlifecarecenter@gmail.com.

SCORES & OUTDOORS: Photographs are probably wolves in Maine’s north woods

/8 Comments/in /by

Trail cameras set up by MWC captured these images. (photos courtesy of John Glowa)

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

This week, I’m going to give up my space to a China resident. In the past we have done articles on wolves in Maine with mixed reactions. Some people believing there are wolves in Maine, and some others saying no.

John Glowa, of China, is a member of the Maine Wolf Coalition, Inc., and has advocated for wolves in the past. The following is a press release from Glowa:

In 1993, a young female wolf was killed by a bear hunter north of Moosehead Lake. In 1996, a second wolf was killed by a trapper east of Bangor. Since then, there have been many sightings of possible wolves in Maine.

In 2019, in response to the failure/refusal of the state and federal governments to assess the status of wolves in the northeast, the Maine Wolf Coalition (MWC) began a search for wolves in Maine. Due to the proximity of wolves in Canada, and the abundant habitat and prey in the northeast U.S., wolves are attempting to recolonize the northeast. Unfortunately, widespread killing of large canids by hunters and trappers in the U.S. and Canada is likely preventing or hindering their natural recovery in Maine.

Trail cameras set up by MWC captured these images. (photos courtesy of John Glowa)

In 2019, MWC documented the first live Eastern wolf in Maine through its scat. In 2021, MWC set out trail cameras to attempt to photograph wolves. Two of the cameras were placed where the wolf scat was found. These two cameras photographed at least two adult animals. A third was placed in another area where we previously found large canid scat which could not be analyzed. This camera photographed a litter of up to seven canid pups.

Here is a link to the video which is a compilation of photos. They show at least two wolf-like adults. They are very different in appearance, possibly owing to the fact that Maine may have both gray and Eastern wolves and hybrids of both. The morphology of these animals shows the wide variation in wolves and wolflike canids. Wolves in Maine may range in size from less than 50 pounds to more than 100 pounds and they may vary in color from white to black and various shades of brown and gray.

We continue to maintain trail cameras and collect canid scat in Maine’s north woods. Given the information we have gathered to date, we would like to see the state and federal governments and universities/colleges conduct similar research to further assess the status of wolves in Maine including whether or not there is a breeding population. Unfortunately, the federal government recently removed federal protection for wolves in Maine and elsewhere, in part due to their unfounded claims that Maine has no wolves. In addition, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife refused to close a relatively small portion of Maine’s woods to coyote trapping to protect possible wolves and the Province of Québec allows wolves to be killed legally to the Maine border.

The Maine Wolf Coalition, Inc. is a non-profit 501c3 Maine corporation dedicated to wolf recovery in Maine through research, education and protection. For more information, contact John Glowa at 207-660-3801 or at jglowa@roadrunner.com.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

What manager led the Boston Red Sox to their first championship in 86 years in 2004?

Answer can be found here.

Give Us Your Best Shot! for Thursday, September 30, 2021

/0 Comments/in /by

To submit a photo for this section, please visit our contact page or email us at townline@townline.org!

CHECKING OUT THE SCENERY: Joan Chaffee, of Clinton, photographed these cows checking out her sunflowers.

GRACKLEMANIA: Emily Poulin snapped this photo of three grackles who seem to be having a disagreement at the feeder.

FOR YOUR HEALTH: Dental Sealants Can Cut Kids’ Cavity Risk 80 Percent

/0 Comments/in /by

Smile: Sealants may mean kids can avoid getting cavities and their parents can avoid paying for them.

(NAPSI)—Parents can help their children practically eliminate their chance of getting cavities, often at no cost—yet they don’t. Here’s a closer look at this conundrum:

Be Smart About Sealants

Beyond daily brushing and flossing, dental sealants have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of cavities in kids—yet the clear protective coatings, which work by filling the deep grooves where bacteria can accumulate—remain largely underused.

The thin, slippery coating applied to the chewing surfaces of back teeth (molars) makes it difficult for plaque to adhere, which prevents decay from sticking to the pits and grooves of molars. By blocking germs and food, sealants provide protection against tooth decay by nearly 80 percent in molars for two years and they continue to protect against 50 percent of cavities for up to four years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Children without dental sealants are three times more likely to develop cavities,” says Nadia Fugate, DMD, who serves as a Delta Dental of Washington dental consultant. “Sealants are one of the most effective ways to reduce cavities among children 5 to 15 years old.”

Dr. Fugate adds that dental sealants are safe, require no drilling, and are less expensive and easier to apply than fillings. Sealants last five to 10 years and are applied in a simple three-step process performed by the dentist or a dental hygienist:

•Teeth are cleaned with a special toothpaste

•A cleansing liquid is applied gently with a small piece of cotton and rinsed off

•The sealant is “painted” onto the tooth, requiring about a minute to form a protective shield

Sealants and Insurance

Dental sealants are completely covered by most employer-sponsored dental plans, with little or no out-of-pocket expense to parents; for those with individual and family plans, insurers such as Delta Dental offer a free online estimator which calculates any out-of-pocket cost based on the child’s specific benefits and the dentist. In addition, many schools offer a school sealant ­program—ask your school nurse if your child’s school participates.

Learn More

For further information about dental sealants, visit Delta Dental of Washington’s blog at www.DeltaDentalWA.com/blog.

I’M JUST CURIOUS: Hints for a better life

/0 Comments/in /by
by Debbie Walker

There is so much nastiness and cruelty in the world today that whenever I see something promoting a more pleasant life, I want to use it. The writing I saw this week didn’t have a title or an author just hints to a better life.

1. Compliment three people every day. (I do enjoy complimenting people. I like seeing the look of surprise on their face and I know I added at least a couple of smiles for them. One smile when I complimented them and one, they will experience as they compliment another.)

2. Watch a sunrise at least once a year. (This one I don’t do so well at. I am better at sunsets.)

3. Be the first to say, “Hello”. (I have found people enjoy it when I greet them with a smile and “Good Morning”. The whole thing kind of catches folks off guard!)

4. Live beneath your means. (I do struggle with this one.)

5. Treat everyone like you want to be treated. (Some days this is a little easier said than done. But if we all continued to try wouldn’t this be so much more pleasant way to live.)

6. Never give up on anybody, miracles do happen. Another idea I discovered a long time ago is, “As Long as There is Breath There is Hope.”

7. Forget the Joneses. (If you don’t know who the Joneses are, ask someone older). Concentrate on you. Make your wishes simple, you don’t have to participate in the rat race.

8. Never deprive of someone of hope. It may be all they have.

9. Pray not for things, but for wisdom and courage

10.. Be tough-minded but tender hearted.

11. Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

12. Keep your promise. Don’t make a promise if there is the slightest doubt.

13. Learn to show cheerfulness, even when you don’t feel like it. We always referred to “fake it till you make it.”

14. Remember that overnight success usually takes 15 years.

15. Leave everything better than you found it.

16. Remember that winners do what losers don’t want to do.

17. When you arrive at your job in the morning, let the first thing you say brighten everyone’s day.

18. Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

19. Watch a movie chosen by a new friend. It may not be a movie you would have chosen but, you may learn a lot with an open mind.

20. Stranger is just a friend you hadn’t met yet. That is what my grandfather always said.

Fall Bird Questions: from Farmer’s Almanac 2022:

1 No, birds do not become dependent on your feeders.

2 No, feeding birds in the fall will not stop them from migrating. Somewhere I read that red pepper flakes sprinkled in bird seed will keep the birds happy but really mess with the squirrel happiness.

3 Birds need water year-round.

4 Only 40 percent of birds are migrating birds.

I am just curious if you will find any of this helpful. Hope so. Contact me at DebbieWalker@townline.org. with questions or comments. Thanks for reading and have a great week.

REVIEW POTPOURRI – Author: Larry McMurtry; TV Show: Elementary; Composer: Gustav Mahler

/0 Comments/in /by

Larry McMurtry

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Larry McMurtry

Novelist Larry McMurtry (1936-2021) was perhaps most well known for Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment, and The Last Picture Show. His 2008 books: A Memoir is an account of his adventures as a voracious reader, book collector (he would eventually amass a personal library of 28,000 books) and dealer in rare and-not-so-rare books.

He describes growing up on a ranch in the vast West Texas spaces, at least 18 miles from the nearest town and his family being plentifully self-sufficient with raising cattle, hogs and chickens and growing vegetables for their food supply during the depression.
However, books were another matter:

“Of books there were none….it puzzles me how totally bookless our ranch house was. There must have been a Bible, but I don’t remember ever seeing it. My father did read the range cattle books of J. Frank Dobie, but the only one I remember seeing in our house…was The Longhorns, which I borrowed for my father from Mr. Will Taylor, a wealthy and elderly oilman who lived in a great mansion just south of our hay field.”

McMurtry later bought the mansion and used it to house his library.

Highly recommended for those who love, read and collect books.

Elementary

I have been bingeing on Elementary, another take on Sherlock Holmes, with the very consummate starring roles of Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes, Lucy Liu as Dr. Joan Watson, Aidan Quinn as a chief of detectives Captain Thomas Gregson (Quinn was in Waterville during the filming of Empire Falls and portrayed David Roby, one of the two sons of Paul Newman’s character), and Jon Michael Hill as Detective Marcus Bell.

The setting is the 21st century New York City and depicts Holmes and Watson’s roles as consultants for the Manhattan Police department and Sherlock’s super-human intuition for solving the continually odious murders in each of its seven seasons from 2012 to 2019 on CBS and now available on Hulu.

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Depending on my mood, I shift back and forth between the 3rd and 5th Symphonies of the ten that Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) left us. YouTube has quite a number of performances of the 3rd which I have lately been enjoying. Recently the Bucharest, Romania, Enescu Festival 2021 hosted a very exciting Mahler 3rd with Paavo Jarvi conducting the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, chorus and the very good contralto Wiebke Lehmkuhl.

Unfortunately that one is not available yet on YouTube but a video broadcast of Paavo from 2008 can be seen.

Here at the house are over 40 different Mahler 3rds, including two different ones of Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Haitink, Klaus Tennstedt, Jascha Horenstein, Erich Leinsdorf, Dimitri Mitropoulos, and Rafael Kubelik plus single ones of Heinz Rogner, Herbert Kegel, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa Pekka Salonen, Semyon Bychkov, Michael Gielen, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado, Vaclav Jiracek, Benjamin Zander, Pierre Boulez, Richard Burgin, Carl Schuricht, Antoni Wit, Maurice Abravanel, James Levine, Andrew Litton, Armin Jordan, Jesus Lopez-Cobos etcs. Each one scores points and I hope that this list of Maestros might instigate curiosity about the 3rd and other compositions.

Continuing with Robert PT Coffin’s essay Kennebec Crystals:

“The geese were coming back early, up along Merrymeeting, that same spring, before the middle of April. And in late April that best day of all the spring on the Kennebec came, when the first boat arrived, the Boston steamer, with the star on her smokestack and her whistle tied down all the way from Swan Island to the Cobbosseecontee, waking the dead and the hills with her news of spring at last. There was not a church bell in the five towns that wasn’t ringing. Women in bombazine waved handkerchiefs. School was let out for the day and the hills were alive with children.”

More next week.

FINANCIAL FOCUS: Plan ahead before joining the Great Resignation

/0 Comments/in /by
by Sasha Fitzpatrick

It’s been called the “Great Resignation” – the large number of Americans voluntarily leaving their jobs. If you plan to be part of it (ideally with another source of employment lined up), you’ll need to make the financial moves necessary to keep making progress toward your long-term goals.

Here’s some background: After a year in which the pandemic caused so many people to lose their jobs, the economy is opening back up, but the “quit rate” – the number of jobs people have voluntarily left – has been breaking records. Some economists say this high quit rate is because people are confident of getting better jobs, with higher pay and more flexibility to work at home, or because they are preparing to start their own business or join the gig economy.

If you’re thinking of joining this temporary migration from the workforce, how can you help ensure that you’ll be financially stable and can continue to make progress toward your long-term goals?

Your first move is to look clearly at your financial situation. As mentioned above, it’s best to have new employment in hand before you quit your job. Alternatively, perhaps you have a spouse or life partner who earns enough to sustain the two of you, or you’ve built up an emergency fund that gives you a cushion.

However, if your short-term income is less than you previously earned or you need to go without a paycheck for a while, could you still pay your bills? If you are strapped for cash, you might be tempted to tap into your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan. But this move will generally result in taxes and, if you are younger than 59 ½, a 10 percent penalty as well. Because of this, and because your retirement accounts are designed to be a financial resource after you retire, think twice before dipping into these funds if you leave your current employer.

If your employer allows it, you can leave your money in the 401(k) so you’ll still be accumulating resources for retirement. You also have the option to roll those funds into an individual retirement account (IRA) or a new employer’s retirement plan.

And if you plan to work for yourself as a freelancer, consultant or business owner, you’ll still want to save toward retirement. Possible retirement plans for the self-employed include an “owner-only” 401(k), a SEP-IRA or a SIMPLE IRA, all of which may be relatively easy to establish and offer tax benefits. A financial advisor can help you find a retirement plan that’s appropriate for your needs.

Here’s something else to keep in mind – an emergency fund. As mentioned above, if you already have one, you’ll have some breathing room if you’re thinking of leaving your job and might have a temporary gap in income. But as the name suggests, an emergency fund is there to help cover unexpected costs, such as a major home repair, without forcing you to take out a loan, or cash out part of your longer-term investments. So, if you are planning to tap your emergency fund, work to restock it as soon as possible.

If you’re participating in the “Great Resignation,” it means you’re feeling positive about your future employment prospects, which is great. But you’ll want to support that optimism with a strong financial foundation.

Sasha Fitzpatrick can be contacted at EdwardJones Financial Advisor, 22 Common St., Waterville, ME 04901, or at sasha.fitzpatrick@edwardjones.com.

SOLON & BEYOND: A few words from the Carney Brook Chronicle

/0 Comments/in /by
Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

This week I am starting out with a few words from an old July 14, 1997, The Carney Brook Chronicle. It begins: I promised you there would be a sequel to my last column’s wild woodchuck story, but it’s just like one of those movies where you have to guess at the ending. I have not seen that vicious varmint since. (The day that I wrote the column I wanted to use the word “varmint” as an apt description of the woodchuck . I just hope the I just hope the animal didn’t have rabies and crawled off and died. When I called the warden service they thought that was odd behavior for a woodchuck. Animals always tend to like me but there is a question with some people. Those of us who “tell it like it is” aren’t as popular as those with numerous faces.

The following words are from another Carney Brook Chronicle on September 26, 1997 paper. Talk about an early start, here I sit at my typewriter at 2:30 a.m., on Tuesday morning! This is the first for me, but I turned and twisted since midnight so I decided to start the day early. I laid in bed thinking, what shall I write and how shall I write it? so here goes…! I received the official notification from the selectmen last evening that the “Welcome to Solon” signs that they had painted would be unveiled on Monday morning, September 29. I was told that the selectmen were going to have signs made several weeks ago and had tried to convince them that they should let the people vote on what would like to say on the signs since we’re having a special town meeting, and these signs were to represent the town. When I had been told about these welcome signs I asked how much they would cost and was told $400, and when I asked what account that sum would be taken from, Smiley said, “Scrap metal”. Since I am a firm believer in democracy and the right of the people to vote, if given a chance, this entire matter has disturbed me greatly. But it has also proved to me beyond a reasonable doubt why apathy abounds in our country today. At this point some of you are probably saying, ” Why doesn’t she go back to bed? I had, and as I laid there thinking, why can’t I go with the flow and not care, as is the tendency these days. I think the question was answered by a quote from Thomas Jefferson. “In matters of principle, stand like a rock, in matters of taste, swim with the current.”

And now for one more bit of information about a really good friend of mine. This in the December 5, 1997, Carney Brook Chronicle. On November 10 Benjamin Safford was presented with the Boston Post Gold Cane by Solon Selectmen Charles Johnson, Robin Robinson, , and John Sillars Jr.’ as Solon’s oldest resident. The cane was presented to him at his home on York Street where he has lived for the last 25 years. Two of his daughters, Glennis Rogers and Gladys Rogers, and his granddaughter, Linda French were present.

Ben was born in North New Portland on April 29,1904, the son of Russell and Emma Jackson Safford. He went to school in Dead River, then to Anson Academy for one and a half years, and Kingfield High School for one and a half years. He married Methy Morris on September 30,1922, and they had four daughters: Glennis Rogers, and Gladys Rogers, both of Solon, Betty Wyman, of Stratton, and Elsie Laughin, of Raymond. Ben worked as a watchman on Mt. Bigelow from 1922 until 1930, brought a truck and worked on the roads in Dead River. While working as a watchman he took courses in drafting, blueprint reading, and surveying from the international Correspondence School. He worked for Glen Viles building a cookroom, dining camp, and guide camp at West Carry Pond. Ben also trapped and had a Maine guide license. He was a very busy man and had several other jobs as well. After he retired, Ben wrote a book, Some History of the Dead River Valley, which sold over 290 copies. He joined the Mason and OES at the age of 21 and has been an active member ever since. My love and best wishes go out to Ben.

And now for Percy’s memoir: Life’s Rainbows: Oh, I wish I had a rainbow, I am waiting for a sign, To brighten things around me, Leave the shadows all behind. Then I put aside the wishing, And the waiting time is gone, Now it’s time to make things brighter With some rainbows of my own. (Mildred H. H. Bell)