SOLON & BEYOND: There’s a new business in town

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photo: Simply Rustic Facebook page

Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

I am so excited and happy to tell you about a wonderful, new shop that has opened in Solon. It is named Simply Rustic, at 1654 River Road, on Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. The phone number is 431-0028.

I was very impressed with all the many items for sale in the house where Gary and Cindy Rogers and their family lived in years ago. It was very welcoming as I went in the door, and I immediately spied something I couldn’t live without! Here is a list of some of her wares: Lamps, small furniture, signs, candles, jewelry, pip berry garlands, Boot jacks, jams, jellies, pickles, dilly Beans, New and used wraths by Wanda Blanchett.

Much USA-made large wooden sunflowers for outside, granite cheese boards, local honey, local maple syrup, stands from live edge wood, and Goats milk soaps and lotions.

Hope you will all support Cindy with her new and unusual shop!

I received an e-mail from Happy Knits in Skowhegan that says Happyknits is now open on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., for phone orders and curbside pickup. Whether its yarn, needles, accessories or patterns, they will be happy to bag it up or mail it out to you. Give them a call, or contact us by email or on Facebook.

Came across an old The Carney Brook Chronicle, dated April 17, 1998, paper that I wrote for back in those days, when I was looking for things to write about now, in a world that has changed. That paper was owned by Terry Drummond and he was very good about putting in whatever I wrote.

That week it happened to be, Memories of a Lost Art, by Marilyn Rogers. The end of an era took place 22 years ago and log driving has become a lost art. It is my belief that history should be remembered as it was before progress set in with the constant rumble and roar of the big trucks now on our highways. Twelve years later I wrote a similar article for the Somerset Reporter. Perhaps there aren’t too many log drivers left in this area that will recall fond memories from these words, but it is my hope that some in the younger generation will find it interesting. The words of the wonderful book Salt say it so well: “If somebody don’t go after things like that – it’s an art that will be lost forever. There will be no remaking of it.

This story will center on river driving in the Dead River area. It started every year as soon as the ice was out, usually in late April. The drive would start on the south branch of the Dead River and it took about two weeks to put in a landing. Large cranes were used to pile the river banks high with pulp, which often extended out into the stream where the pulp wood froze together.

There were two boatmen and a dynamite man to each bateau, a small boat used in river drives, and they would have to open the stream so the pulp could begin its only one journey to the mills drown stream. This was done by poling the bateau upstream where the dynamite man would place charges of dynamite on a long pole, light the fuse and place it under the pile of wood and then get down stream quickly before it blew. It usually took two days of using dynamite before the stream was clear and what was left on land was bulldozed into the stream and then the “rear” started.

Men in the bateaus picked off the center jams and others waded in the cold water clearing pulp from the bushes along the banks . It took about three weeks to drive the south branch – this was eleven hours a day, seven days a week. The men had to work while they had water.

The south branch was all rapids with one set of rips after another except for five miles of quick, deep water and then more rapids. The north branch was also driven but it didn’t have as many rapids. Different companies did each drive. For many years there wasn’t any drive on big Spencer Stream but in the years 1957 through 1959 it was driven again. Ten thousand cords of pulp was taken out each year and two men worked every day breaking up jams when the water was low. I interviewed my stepfather, Clarence Jones, for the information in this story. (Will continue the story next week, but must leave enough room for Percy’s memoir, and here it is…:

“The more you read, the more you know, The more you know, the smarter you grow. The smarter you grow the stronger your voice, when speaking your mind or making your choice.”

I’M JUST CURIOUS: What has happened to us?

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by Debbie Walker

This is another one of those columns I must ask you to not blame The Town Line editor. This is just my thoughts on a subject and my curiosity how you would want to react. And I said ‘would want to react’ because there are situations we might want to say or do __whatever________ but we maybe we are shy or, whatever.

You are on a flight home and you notice a uniformed soldier on board. You become aware he is escorting a fellow soldier who is in a casket in the cargo hold of the plane. You have just been informed the soldier will be the first to debark the plane, he will go below and march with the Honor Guard as they bring a fellow soldier off to present to his family. You are asked to “remain in your seat and quiet, please.”

Our traveling widow of a 20-year Navy doctor is on this flight. She had a thought and went to each person (before the plane began descending). She wondered ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we sang the national anthem as the procession begins?’ Most of the traveler’s thought this was a wonderful idea and there were a few who said they did not care to. Okay, so they just do not participate.

Just before landing the flight attendant comes to you and says it is against company policy to do the singing and wants you to tell the others. She said there were a few people who were not comfortable with the idea. The Navy widow decided to not co-operate. But the attendant got on the PA system again with the instructions to please stay seated and observe the request for quiet.

The Navy widow saw the singing as respectful. She felt so bad that she was not brave enough to go through with it because she was afraid of repercussions with the airlines. She was hurt thinking what her husband would say about that. She felt she let him down.

Imagine, the plane lands on American soil (last I knew Atlanta was part of the United States), they wanted to honor the American soldiers on American soil, with an American-based airline. They were instructed to not sing the National Anthem.

I want to write this for another reason besides the injustice heaped on this woman and the others. Please understand I am, of course, curious; how did we ever get to this point? An American soldier, escorting a deceased American soldier, lands on American soil and because of a couple of people were unhappy about it Americans could not sing our national anthem. What has happened to us? When? There have always been people who did not want to be ‘part of …….’ However, these days that is all it takes. What about our rights? I do not buy the line that “we don’t want to offend”. A friend of mine has a saying, heifer dust!

I understand our lady received a letter of an apology from the airline and they assured her that the attendant was wrong, they had no such policy. Oh well folks, the damage was already done.

Okay enough of that. You know what I am curious about this time. But I also want to share a wonderful event! I became a great-grandmother today to a beautiful little girl. Addison Grace came on May 6, 2020, and, of course, I am in love! We all are here! I cannot wait to see her and rock her; it’s one of my favorite things about having a baby to spoil! Rocking and reading to them.

Have a great week! Thanks again, for reading.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: American Country Classics & Henry Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

American Country Classics

A Columbia Musical Treasury
6P 7157, six LPs, released 1980.

Columbia Musical Treasury was an offshoot of the Columbia Record Club, later known as Columbia House, and it released numerous, moderately-priced record sets of best-selling artists, such as Percy Faith, Dionne Warwick, and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, or musical genres like classical, easy listening, gospel, big band and country and western, the last category fitting the above title in a truly authentic manner.

American Country Classics contains 60 selections that span from Roy Acuff’s 1936 hit, Wabash Cannonball to harmonica virtuoso Charlie McCoy’s 1972 Orange Blossom Special (McCoy is the only one of all the contributing artists still living, at 79.). It includes the Carter Family’s Wildwood Flower, Red Foley’s Old Shep, Hank Thompson’s Wild Side of Life, with Kitty Wells’s rebuttal, It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, Margaret Whiting’s and Jimmy Wakely’s Slipping Around, and Jean Shepherd’s A Satisfied Mind.

There are several gems that may have been hits in their day but I was hearing them for the first time. The lesser known covers of certain classic songs stick out: Bob Atcher’s I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes, Jenny Lou Carson’s Jealous Heart, the Pinetoppers Mockin’ Bird Hill, and Slim Whitman’s Indian Love Call, which is light years different from Nelson Eddy and Jeannette Macdonald’s old Victor 78. And selected first timers such as the Flatt and Scruggs Cabin on the Hill, Merle Travis’s So Round So Firm So Fully Packed, and Carson J. Robison’s Life Just Gets Tee-Jus, Don’t It? worked their spell.

This collection and the Smithsonian one of Classic Country Recordings both filled huge gaps in documenting an important musical legacy of our nation’s history.

Country legend Hank Williams (1923-1953) made an astute comment about Roy Acuff (1903-1992), whom Williams and many others considered the father of country music, during a 1952 interview: “He’s the biggest singer this music ever knew. You booked him and you didn’t worry about crowds. For drawing power in the South, it was Roy Acuff, then God.”

* * * * * * * * ** *

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), of Walden fame, wrote the following passage about his hike through the Maine wilderness during the 1840s:

“Perhaps I most fully realized that this was primeval, untamed, and forever untamable ‘Nature’, or whatever else men called it, while coming down this part of the mountain. We were passing over ‘Burnt Lands,’ burnt by lightning, perchance, though they showed no recent marks of fire, hardly so much as a charred stump ……When I reflected what man, what brother or sister or kinsman of our race made it and claimed it, I expected the proprietor to rise up and dispute my passage. It is difficult to conceive of a region uninhabited by man. We habitually presume his presence and influence everywhere. And yet we have not seen pure Nature, unless we have seen her thus vast and drear and unhuman, though in the midst of cities. Nature was here something savage and awful, though beautiful. I looked with awe at the ground I trod on, to see what the Powers had made there…. This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night…..Man was not to be associated with it. It was Matter, vast, terrific- not this Mother Earth that we have heard of.”

FOR YOUR HEALTH – The Safety of Mushrooms: From Harvest to Home

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Mushrooms, that tasty, versatile superfood, are harvested very carefully, with both worker and consumer health and safety in mind.

(NAPSI)—With new procedures and protocols from the impact of COVID-19, mushroom farms around the country are building on their strong foundations of safety.

Consider Maria. Before she begins her shift at the local mushroom farm’s packing facility, she pulls essential items from her locker: facemask, hairnet, gloves and a smock. Now in “uniform,” she takes her place on the processing line, 6 feet apart from colleagues, where she fills tills of the mushrooms that find their way to your grocery store. What may surprise many people to learn is that the items Maria puts on before each shift are nothing new—they have been part of Maria’s uniform since she began packing eight years ago.

With the advent of COVID-19, all segments of agriculture have had to adapt their business practices. For mushroom farms, that means leaning in and building on their strong foundations of safety, quality and excellence to continue to provide this nutritious “superfood” to the public.

Mushroom farms and their packing houses, like other commodities, comply strictly, every hour of every day, to food safety and worker protection laws under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other federal, state and local regulators. Farms are inspected routinely, often unannounced. So, for Maria, learning new guidelines wasn’t difficult. She was glad to find there’s no connection between the spread of the Coronavirus and the food supply chain—you can’t catch COVID-19 from food.

With a myriad of safety procedures already in place, mushroom operations quickly incorporated COVID-19 guidelines—including requiring harvesters, packers and shippers to social distance, increase handwashing and increase the frequency of sanitizing processes, among other protocols. While public attention on farm and food worker safety has heightened, today and every day, facilities that grow, harvest and pack mushrooms are continually and steadfastly making the safety of both their workers and their products their top priority.

That’s good when you think about all the benefits mushrooms bring to consumers. Mushrooms have long been celebrated for their gluten-free, powerful nutrients and low calories, sodium, fat and cholesterol.

Your immune system is made up of a network of cells, tissues and organs that work together to protect you from infection and maintain your overall health. Mushrooms have unique levels of selenium and vitamins D and B that support immune systems.

So, the next time you’re social distancing in the grocery store, you may want to pick up a till of mushrooms and use them in your favorite dishes. Who knows, maybe they will have been packed by Maria.

GARDEN WORKS: How to plant a garden when seed companies are out-of-stock

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Luscious tomatoes. (photo courtesy of Old Farmers Almanac)

Emily Catesby Emily Cates

Are you just itching to plant a garden this year? For many, this is the year, no doubt about it! Faced with COVID-19 uncertainty, droves of folks are inundating seed companies with orders, creating backorders and out-of-stocks to the moon and back. So what’s a gardener-in-waiting to do? Well, read on for a few suggestions. Don’t worry, there’s still hope: The answer might already be in your pantry! Yes, let’s look at some seedy characters in the cupboard that just might help us.

Do you have organic potatoes, dry beans, fresh tomatoes, winter squashes, carrots, or bulbs of garlic and onions kicking around? If so, you could have the start of a garden without even knowing it.

While most commercially-cultivated varieties of garden vegetables like tomatoes are bred for uniformity and keeping qualities as opposed to flavor, it’s still possible to grow something from them — even if the results are not as good as their parent plant. Oftentimes seed saved from a hybrid cultivar will produce inferior offspring, but this can be avoided if the parent plant is an open-pollinated variety that didn’t cross with another cultivar.

The chances of having seeds that are open pollinated, true-to-type, and adapted for our area are increased if the veggie was locally grown. That squash you bought from the farmers’ market last fall? It might be kinda mushy now, but you can try planting the seeds after the frost in nice rich soil, or in a compost or manure pile. If the farmer and her neighbors only grew buttercup squash, for example, then the seeds should grow up into delicious buttercups.

The problems with hybrids and cross-pollination are nonexistent with clones. Clones, by this definition, are plants propagated by separating and planting individual pieces of plant material that grow up into individual plants. Think garlic. Or potato, where you can just go ahead and plant a whole tuber that will grow up into a potato plant which produces several potatoes. I like to plant my spuds this way, especially the small ones. Large potatoes with lots of eyes can be divided into pieces with a few eyes per section. Ones that have begun to sprout are desirable, and green areas are fine. Just make sure they look healthy and aren’t treated with sprout-inhibitors notoriously applied to supermarket spuds.

I have heard of folks replanting carrot and other root tops to start a new plant, but honestly, I’ve never tried this. It would be a good way to promote flowering of the plant and produce seeds for saving, provided the guidelines for open pollination and true-to-types are followed.

We’ve all had the fortune of onions deciding to sprout behind our backs. Instead of chucking them, why not plant them and harvest their “scallions” from the garden?

What about beans? Surely you have a jar of dried beans lurking somewhere, waiting patiently for an apocalypse to compel someone to notice them. Now is the time!

Also, those organic wheat berries you planned on sprouting can also be sowed, exponentially increasing their amount as their plants mature and produce grains. Wheat straw is a good mulch—bonus!

If there’s any doubt of the viability of the seed, a few seeds can be folded into a wet paper towel and kept warm and moist for several days up to a couple of weeks and watched for signs of sprouting.

Well, I hope these ideas are helpful. If you have any you’d like to share, we would love to hear from you! Thanks for reading, enjoy your garden.

Emily Cates is a master gardener living in China and can be reached by email at EmilyCates@townline.org.

SOLON & BEYOND: MCS Library newsletter ready for viewing

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Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percyby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
grams29@tds.net
Solon, Maine 04979

Good morning, dear friends. Don’t worry, be happy!

This morning I have some e-mails to share with you, and as always, I thank the people who send me some news.

The following is from Angie Stockwell;

Dear Readers: COVID-19 has not stopped the presses from running nationally, locally, or at the Margaret Chase Smith Library. The May newsletter is ready for viewing. Most all activity here has been done virtually and it seems that may be the “new normal” for awhile yet. Featured are the Essay Contest winners; National History Day updates; Harley Rogers’ update; links for educational resources; and the 50″ anniversary of Senator Smith’s Second Declaration of Conscience. Here’s the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oNy-DoaMUHITci_uXtAV6wlabIoJjd3h/view.

Stay safe, social distance, and be well, Enjoy!

The other e-mail I received last Friday is from Happyknits store, in Skowhegan, and it starts: Good Morning, Yarn Friends! We’re trying a few new things as we adapt to the world around us. One of those new things is a weekly newsletter offering some ideas of how to keep our collective spirits up until we can see each other face-to-face again. Another “new” thing is that we will be in the store on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., to provide you with curbside service or phone help. We can also pack things up and put them in the mail for you. We’ll be featuring some kits and yarn, and starting a knit-along on Ravelry.

By their very nature, knitters are people that look forward to what is still to come. We think Casapinka’s Breathe and Hope shawl is the perfect project for knitting optimism into your day. We will be starting our own Breathe and Hope Knit-Along on our Happyknits Ravelry Group which began May 8, and we hope you will connect with us and your Happyknits friends by joining the group. We’ve got some kit options available here at the store or we can put something together for you if you have a special request.

Have been trying to organize all the items I have saved during my many years of writing for different papers and came across some more clippings that I had cut out. I also took the pictures for some of the articles. Don’t know which paper this one was in; but the headline caught my attention … Solon couple saves Canadian! By Marilyn Rogers, Solon Correspondent. Solon: Late Friday night, Nov. 30, Larry and Wanda Blanchet were returning home and met a large Canadian truck on the bridge in Solon. Larry glanced in his rear view mirror after they passed and saw fire and sparks coming out from under the truck.

Thinking of the safety of the driver, he hurriedly drove to the Solon Superette and turned around, then raced back through town trying to catch the truck. The truck was rolling right along but the Blanchets caught up with it the other side of River Road and by flashing his lights Larry got the Canadian driver to stop.

Larry was able to converse and got it across that the guy’s truck was on fire. They got the fire extinguisher from the truck and used that all up and the fire still persisted, so Larry went to the home of Gary Davis nearby and got water, finally extinguishing the blaze.

A wheel bearing had caught on fire and oil kept the blaze going: it got so hot the tire exploded.

The Blanchets brought the Canadian back to the home of Wanda’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clayton Adams, where he called his boss in Québec. There was a picture of the couple who had helped the Canadian with that awful situation, and thankfully no one was hurt.

And now for Percy’s memoir; Think on this a bit this week; How to live a hundred years happily: Do not be on the outlook for ill health. Keep usefully at work. Have a hobby. Learn to be satisfied. Keep on liking people. Meet adversity valiantly. Meet the problems of life with decision. Above all, maintain a good sense of humor, best done by saying something pleasant every time you get a chance. Live and make the present hour pleasant and cheerful. Keep your mind out of the past, and keep it out of the future. Hope you have a wonderful week.

INside the OUTside: The passing of a Maine ski legend

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Natalie Terry was still skiing at 95 years old. (The Town Line file photo)

Dan Cassidyby Dan Cassidy

Natalie Terry, a local ski legend at Sugarloaf Mountain, died Wednesday, April 22, 2020, at her home, in Waterville, of natural causes, at the age of 96.  She was born in Portland, on July 14, 1923.

According to a published obituary, the family moved to Waterville in the early 1930s, where Natalie and her twin brother Don graduated from Waterville High School in 1941. She continued her education attending Thomas College and later worked at Keyes Fiber Company.

I first met Natalie in the early 1960s at Sugarloaf. She was a special person to watch her glide down the trails. It was an honor to be on the Maine Ski Hall of Fame Board when Natalie was inducted into the 2012 Maine Ski Hall of Fame.

She was a natural athlete and took part in several sports including figure skating, diving and golf during her early youth. Natalie was one of the original skiers at Sugarloaf Mountain where she would skin up the only trail on the mountain with Amos Winter and several other local skiers.

In one of my last conversations with Natalie in the latter part of the 1999 ski season, she told me that this would be her last year as an instructor. “I’m 95, but I still plan to ski,” she said.

Sugarloafer from the beginning

Natalie began her long skiing career at Sugarloaf around 1951.  “I was extremely honored at being recognized by the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in the Class of 2012,” she said.  She has worked with seven directors at Sugarloaf, Harry Baxter, Patrick Molignier, Russ Morey, Art and Cindy Hammond, Ken Everett, Paul Brown and Bob Matarese.

During the last 10 seasons teaching at the mountain, she consistently received the highest number of requested private and group lessons of any staff member.  When she was in her late 80s, she showed no signs of letting up.

Natalie said that she and her late husband Tim Terry, a Waterville businessman, along with friends at Sugarloaf climbed the mountain before there were any lifts.  “We used seal skins to hike up and then put them in packs as we skied down the Old Winter’s Way.”

An Austrian named Werner Rothbacher ran the Sugarloaf Ski School. Natalie and Tim had a camp near the ski area and Natalie often skied with friends in the ski school. In the spring they wore blue sweaters with gray stripes. It was the season of 1969-70 when Natalie officially joined the Sugarloaf Ski School. The school was under the direction of Harry Baxter, who later went on to manage Sugarloaf before moving to Jackson Hole. She remembers skiing on Tony Sailer skis during the first season with the school. Four seasons later she became fully certified.

“Being part of Sugarloaf for so many years has not only impacted my life, but my whole family’s life as well,” adding, “My soul is on that mountain.”

Here are a few excerpts from some of her family and colleagues …

Sarah Carlson – daughter…

“I don’t remember not knowing how to ski, having learned when I was three,” said Sarah Carlson, Natalie’s daughter. “I do remember how happy I would feel at the end of a school day Friday, knowing that we were going to pack up the family station wagon and head to Brookside Cabin in Bigelow Village shortly after I got home. We would fire up the woodstove, chop a hole in the brook for water, read by gaslight lantern and go to bed early to be up and ready to head to the mountain.”

“In those days Sugarloaf was much like Titcomb Mountain, where I raised my family and where we live now. Everyone knew everyone else and my brother Geof and I were pretty free to roam the mountain with our friends. There was a little red lodge and only T-Bars to ride. My father actually started teaching before my mom. I remember her saying, “Mmmm, I taught you to ski, so maybe I should try teaching, too!” And the rest, as they say, is history.

During the Christmas blizzard of 1968, my mother, brother, and I were having a blast skiing powder that was getting ever deeper. Every time we came down for a run the lift operator, who knew us well, mentioned that we should probably get on the road. Eventually, we tore ourselves away from the mountain, but only made it to Kingfield where we did our traditional stop at Harvey Boynton’s to say hello. My father, who was in Waterville, had been calling up and down the valley trying to tell us to stay put. The roads were closed by that time, so we spent Christmas Eve at the Herbert [Hotel, in Kingfield] with many other stranded families.

My father did a solo week away in the winter of 1971. When we arrived on Friday evening he announced that he had been doing some research and he thought that buying a condominium was a good idea. We all replied with, “A condo… what?” having never heard the word before.

My mother was not so sure this condo thing was a very good idea, but once she saw it that next winter she fell in love with, particularly the view of the Bigelow’s. It was supposed to be a rental property, but after I started participating in the Sugarloaf Tutorial Program (which eventually became CVA – Carrabassett Valley Academy), she decided to move up to the valley in the winter and teach full time.

The story of my mother, being one of the early skiers of Sugarloaf became deeply entwined in family lore. My brother and I heard it often and skied the old Winter’s Way with pride. I told it to my own children over the years and they know it well, too. The teaching of skiing also spans generations as I taught and coached alpine ski racing at Saddleback, Sugarloaf, and Titcomb. My son, Jence, taught in the Bubblecuffer’s Program while at UMF, and also coached ski racing at Titcomb. My daughter, Emma, teaches at King Pine, in New Hampshire. Their grandmother took great pride in the way the thread of the enjoyment of the sport and the teaching/coaching of it wove through the generations. A few years ago, we were actually able to take some runs on what is now known as Natalie’s Birches with a fourth generation. My brother’s son Carter and his daughter Alice took to the mountain for some very special family time. Gran/Mom/Natalie was thrilled by those moments.

Ethan Austin…

“Her skiing instructing career at Sugarloaf spanned roughly 50 years,” said Ethan Austin, Director of Marketing and Communications Sugarloaf.

Megan Roberts… 

“When they talk about skiing being a lifelong sport, Natalie was the example. She was skiing at Titcomb, in Farmington, before Sugarloaf was open,” said Megan Roberts who has spent years in the ski industry and as a ski historian.  “So, she was already more advanced than shoes just learning at Sugarloaf when it did open. In her last years, walking, especially with ski boots on, was difficult for her. But as soon as she was on her skis, her grace and flowing freedom returned. Her love for skiing and sharing the joys and benefits of it was her lifelong passion.”

Greg Sweetser… 

Natalie was known on a first name basis by many of her peers. “I saw her on a regular basis whenever I was at Sugarloaf,” said Greg Sweetser, executive director of Ski Maine Association. “We never worked together, but she was surely an icon in the ski instructor world.

“One thing that really stood out about Natalie was her incredible work ethic, and love of teaching people how to ski and how to improve their skiing. She had a knack of communicating with skiers and bringing out their confidence to perform to their ability, and then take a step forward in building new skills.”

Sweetser continued, “Natalie was there every day, no matter what the weather. She loved the mountain and she loved all her friends throughout the Sugarloaf community. She set a great example for untold younger instructors at the mountain.”

Natalie’s affiliation spent here career teaching skiing which she was passionate about. She was a Level III certified instructor with the Professional Ski Instructors of America, was recognized by Ski Magazine as one of the top 100 ski instructors in America.

She was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in October 2012. A few years ago, the Birches trail, at Sugarloaf, was renamed “Natalie’s Birches.”

Her last year of teaching was the season of 2018-2019 at the age of 95. Natalie will be missed by all who knew her. She was also a hiker and at the age of 90 took her first snowmobile trek.

Tom Butler…

“Nat was an amazing woman to put it mildly,” said Tom Butler, director of Ski Services.“I have known Natalie since the day I was hired as a ski instructor at Sugarloaf in 1992. At that stage she was nearly 25 years into her ski teaching career which began in 1969 and continued through 2019. A 50-year career in the same job, for the same employer is an impressive accomplishment. The fact that she started her tenure at Sugarloaf when she was 46 years old is mind boggling. One can think of the numbers of students she’s taught but I like to think about the generations of students that have had the pleasure of learning from her. Grandparents, parents and children of the same families all learned from Natalie. Her expertise and knowledge were literally passed down from one generation to another. Her influence on these skiers is hard to calculate but her legacy is easily felt all around us.

Natalie was a beautiful skier, smooth and elegant and I would sneak in behind her every now and again to follow, and watch her as she skied down a slope to try and mimic the grace and flow that she exhibited. What sometimes gets overlooked though is how rugged she was. Natalie was physically and mentally tough and would not let weather or conditions dampen her enthusiasm for the sport or her guests. I remember when she was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame, a guest at the banquet commented to her that she reminded him of his mother in that, even at an advanced age his mother wouldn’t think twice about climbing a ladder to paint the house. Natalie looked at him with a quizzical look and without any pretense said, “Well, the house wasn’t going to just go paint itself.”

That’s how she lived her life, completely on her terms with no excuses and pure grace and determination. We’re going to miss her something fierce,” he said.

I’M JUST CURIOUS: The many uses for mineral oil

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by Debbie Walker

When I have questions there seems to always be someone there with the answers. We have a wonderful reader who knows I am interested in older ways. To me, mineral oil is one of those things. I don’t remember seeing it in our house when I was growing up but my great-grandmother had a bottle on her kitchen counter, along with her witch hazel. Our reader emailed about the different uses and here we are, using them to inform you, too. Thank you, Doc.

Doc tells me when he was a pharmacist in the ‘60s mineral oil was widely used, primarily as a laxative, orally as well as an enema. In fact, it is still used today. (Now, I just know you are thrilled with that little piece of info.) It is used mainly as a lubricant – for the skin – cosmetics (it doesn’t clog pores) – preserving wood products – etc. You will be surprised as you read on:

Common in many cosmetics and lotions:

Use as a fragrance-free baby oil. Baby oil is mineral oil with fragrance. You can use mineral oil in place of baby oil but not use baby oil as mineral oil. The fragrance is the difference.

Remove oil-based makeup, even theatrical makeup. Can be used as moisturizer for Moisturizer: Contrary to popular belief, mineral oil does not cause acne or blackheads. “It’s molecular structure is too large to penetrate pores, so it moisturizes by creating a barrier on top of the skin that keeps moisture in. Soften cracked heels.

Can be used in preserving wood products especially in the kitchen, cutting boards and utensils. It’s more hygienic. And unlike olive or veggie oil, it won’t go rancid.

Plain old mineral oil will give your wood the exact same look as commercial products, without the smell and the cost.

Condition wood furniture.

Poor a bit on a wood floor or stairs to prevent wood creaking. (my house in Maine had that problem). And silence a creaky door.

Shine appliances, remove stickers, cleans rusted garden tools, remove oil-based and latex paints from skin, honing and polishing oil, has also been used for brake fluid, just like the man said, the list of uses just goes on. In fact, it bounces right over to treating mites in dog’s ears, kill aphids and other plant pests.

One thing that I was interested in was the use to protect skin in freezing weather. “Old time arctic explorers went out of their way to avoid washing their faces to preserve the protective layer of natural skin oil to prevent chapping. Because it provides such a good barrier against the elements, mineral oil is a great product to protect exposed skin in cold climates.” It makes me remember back to when Deana used to run inside from the snow, cold and her little face so cold and red, maybe…

I can only guess that many of us never knew the many uses for mineral oil and its effectiveness and cost-effective uses without all the other added ingredients of today’s products. It’s funny how in looking back to products of the past many of us are really wondering, where is the real improvement. It’s certainly not in the costs, and I am wondering, do we really need all those added chemicals. Talk to some of your elders and see what you find out and please let me know.

Mineral oil can be found in the pharmacy department at your local grocery store, at a pharmacy or at Wal-Mart.

I’m just curious what we will find. I am at debbiewalker@townline.org. thanks for reading and have a great week! Thanks again, Doc!

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Beethoven’s Symphony #7

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Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Beethoven

Symphony # 7
Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra; Columbia, M-557, five 12- inch 78s, Recorded 1944.

Eugene Ormandy

Back during the 78 rpm days, lasting the first half of the 20th century, the record sides were three to five minutes in duration; when longer classical works were recorded, the scores were marked at certain notes to indicate when a red light in the studio would go off overhead, signalling everybody to stop. These limitations created a hectic rushed tension in trying to meet the deadline.

Thus, when the long playing records were released to the public in 1948 with 20 to 30 minutes of playing time, conductors and players could relax more. And performance practices were influenced by recording technology as much as musical considerations.

Eugene Ormandy commented on these pressures during an interview in the late ‘60s. He often felt inhibited by the limited time of conducting for the shorter 78 record sides and welcomed the LP days because he said he and the players could really let themselves go as musicians with longer takes.

Interestingly, after listening for decades to Ormandy’s recordings, I have found that a number of earlier 78 sets of certain works he re-recorded later had more of an uninhibited excitement than the later stereo ones. A case in point is the Beethoven Seventh Symphony from 1944 and his 1966 one from 18 years after the LP era began.

The Symphony itself is a masterpiece in its dance rhythms and wonderful beauty in each of the four movements. The opening movement has two distinct sections – the beginning Poco Sostenuto with its grand procession of leisurely pacing and the sprightly intense Vivace building to one of the greatest musical crescendos in all of Beethoven’s writing.

The second movement Allegretto is akin to a sweet embracing waltz of elegance in the writing for strings.

The third movement Presto has rambunctious, slam bang high spirits while the final fourth movement Allegro con brio is fast moving, headstrong jubilation at a genius level.

Ormandy gave a performance on these old 78s that might be seen as driven and hectic in places but he conveyed joy and conviction in every note and bar.

This performance can also be heard on YouTube and is an enriching listening experience, highly recommended.

Footnote: the individual who wrote program notes for this Symphony’s first performance in December 1813, commented that Beethoven was depicting a social revolution in the music itself and was verbally murdered by the composer for misreading its meaning.

THE MONEY MINUTE: A dose of positivity goes a long way

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by Jac M. Arbour CFP®, ChFC®
President, J.M. Arbour Wealth Management

What a world, huh? One day we are cranking along, humming and whistling, and the next, the brakes are screeching and seemingly everything comes to a halt. Life can change quickly.

We have all faced adversity at some point and when we do, it is important to check in with ourselves and examine the lens through which we are viewing life and the experiences we encounter.

In China, the symbol for crisis has duality; it means both danger and opportunity. My good friend and mentor, Harvey Mackay, says that when adversity strikes and “cool heads prevail, opportunity wins most of the time.” Furthermore, it has been said by many writers that opportunity is often times disguised in rags and looks like work.

Around three thousand years ago, Homer wrote that “adversity has the effects of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant.” Today, we see this remains true. Just look at what is happening around you within Maine manufacturing companies.

Companies who make industrial flooring installation kneepads are utilizing their stock materials to make face shields to protect medical personnel. The shields were designed, prototyped, and on the assembly line within weeks of the initial idea.

A company that makes tongue suppressors was asked by the U.S. government to make up to 50 million swabs for medical America. And they are chipping away at it.

Manufacturing plants that use to make “A” are now making “Z” upon the desire to jump in with both feet and do their part to help those in need. From helping supply food to hungry children, to converting their industrial spaces to manufacture face masks, Mainers are stepping up in a very big way.

Mother Theresa once said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.” The same is true for all of us. We are extremely resilient beings and are capable of anything to which we dedicate our minds, hearts, and spirits.

As the pandemic continues, I choose to view life through a lens that looks at how people are positively responding to the crisis around them. People have a ton of beauty within them and as my wonderful mother always says, it is essential to look for the beauty within people.

Here is what I promise: When you look for the beauty within people, you will be rejuvenated by the positivity you see. Take a dose. It goes a long way.

See you all next month.

Jac Arbour CFP®, ChFC®

Jac Arbour is the President of J.M. Arbour Wealth Management. He can be reached at 207-248-6767.

Investment advisory services are offered through Foundations Investment Advisors, LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser.