SMALL SPACE GARDENING: Forcing spring flowering bulbs into bloom

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A pot of tulips that were forced into bloom. (photo courtesy of MelindaMyers.com)

by Melinda Myers

Brighten your indoor décor, patio, deck, or balcony by forcing a few spring flowering bulbs into bloom. Just plant, give them a chill and enjoy a few extra daffodils, hyacinths, tulips, crocus and grape hyacinths this winter and spring.

All you need is a suitable container, some well-drained potting mix, the bulbs and a place to give the bulbs the chill necessary to force them to bloom. Select a container with drainage holes that is deep enough to accommodate the largest bulbs. Cover the bottom few inches of the container with a well-drained potting mix. Place larger and taller bulbs like tulips, daffodils and hyacinths in the center surrounded by shorter varieties. They can be planted close together, about one half the bulb width apart with the neck of larger bulbs at or just below the soil surface. Set tulips with the flat side of the bulb facing the pot for a better display.

If you are using a deep container, plant layers of bulbs for a more robust and longer-lasting display. Set the largest bulbs on the potting mix near the bottom of the container. Cover these bulbs with soil and add the smaller bulbs like grape hyacinths and crocus on the next level. Plant these bulbs close to each other, covering the surface, for greater impact. Cover this layer with at least an inch of soil. Water thoroughly so the excess water drains out the bottom of the pot.

Move the bulb-filled container to a cool location where temperatures remain above freezing and between 35 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 to 15 weeks. A spare refrigerator works well for this. Just avoid storing the bulbs in a refrigerator with fruit like apples and pears that emit ethylene gas that can negatively impact flowering. If refrigerator space is limited, you can store the unplanted bulbs in a paper bag, so they take up less space in the fridge for the needed chill before planting.

Those gardening in colder climates can also store the pots in an unheated garage. Just water the containers whenever the soil is thawed and dry. Or sink the container into a vacant garden space in your landscape. Mulch the soil once the ground starts to freeze with evergreen boughs. The winter mulch makes retrieving the container easier in winter or spring.

Once the 12- to 15-week cold period is complete, you can begin moving the pots indoors. Remove a few pots every week to extend the bloom time and your enjoyment. Place the pot in a cool bright location to encourage more compact growth. Water thoroughly when the top few inches of soil begin to dry. Soon the leaves will begin to sprout and flowers will appear in about four weeks.

Provide ongoing care if you plan on moving the bulbs into the garden. Remove the faded flowers and place the leafy plants in a sunny window and water thoroughly whenever the top inch of soil is dry. Fertilize with a dilute solution of any flowering houseplant fertilizer.

When the danger of frost has passed, you can move these plants into the garden if they are suited to your growing conditions. These plants may not bloom the following spring but usually do the next year and for several beyond.

Or you can toss the forced bulbs into the compost pile so they can return to your garden as wonderful compost.

Investing time forcing a few spring flowering bulbs into bloom is sure to boost your spirits this winter. Consider planting a few extra pots of bulbs to do the same for friends and family.

Melinda Myers has written more than 20 gardening books, including the recently released Midwest Gardener’s Handbook, 2nd Edition and Small Space Gardening. She hosts The Great Courses “How to Grow Anything” instant video and DVD series and the nationally syndicated Melinda’s Garden Moment TV & radio program. Myers is a columnist and contributing editor for Birds & Blooms magazine and her website is www.MelindaMyers.com.

I’M JUST CURIOUS: What to do with orphan socks

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A lonely sock, looking for its missing pair.

by Debbie Walker

Is your washing machine like mine? Well, it’s either the washer or the dryer. One or both of them eat socks. I even remember my mother had the same problem, so I know it’s not just mine. Well anyway, I am including some uses for the sock that’s left. I found these in my First magazine. I love this stuff!

One use for the lonely sock is to put rice in it, sew it shut. You can put these in the freezer for what my great-granddaughter calls a “cooly” for boo-boos that need the cold treatment. You could use it as a heated treatment by popping it in the microwave for about a minute. They are handy to have around. I made some for all my family.

Another use for an orphan sock is one I will have to use soon. You take kitchen tongs and put an orphan sock on each end. You spray each sock with your favorite cleaner. You use this to clean dusty window blinds.

Do you throw away those slivers of bar soap usually ignored by all. Put them in an orphan sock, tie it up and use it like a loofah. I am going to take some of those little motel bars of soaps and put in a sock. Nice and soapy.

You can also use an orphan sock, even one with a hole in the heel, for packing breakable decorations. The little extra cushion it will provide might mean a positive outcome when you decorate again.

This has nothing to do with orphan socks, but I thought it could be helpful this spring. If you have screens in your windows that look like someone cut it, you can put a couple coats of clear nail polish on the tear. Keep those Maine big winged mosquitoes outside!

Did you know that ants have a “smeller”(I like my new word)? Evidently, because I just read they don’t like lemon juice. Save your money, buy some cotton balls instead of those expensive cleaners. Soak them with lemon juice and leave them where you see their activity. It works!

If you water your plants and you see the water rolling out from the bottom of the pot, do a little fixing. You can take the plant and dirt out and replace with an old nylon, and then put all together again. It will save some of the water and won’t let any of the dirt escape from the pot.

Mud season must be coming up soon, if it’s not already there. If you want to clean mud from your clothes, let the stain dry and brush the remainder of mud off. Got any baby shampoo? Use a few drops on the stain and toss in the wash.

Baby shampoo. Have you ever made a homemade slip-slide for the children in your life. Putting baby shampoo on the running water from the hose to the tarp (that was what we used) and the kids will have a ball and no burning the eyes from any soap, no tears!

I’m just curious what ideas you might have. Share? Send any questions or comments to DebbieWalker@townline.org. I’ll be waiting. Have a great week.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: A few vintage films

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Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Adam Had Four Sons

Ingrid Bergman

Amazon Prime has a large array of vintage films that I have been lately bingeing on and I recently viewed a few choice ones:

1941’s Adam Had Four Sons starred Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982), Warner Baxter (1888-1951), Fay Wray (1907-2004), Richard Denning (1914-1998), and Susan Hayward (1917-1975).

The story begins during the early 1900s and ends just after the end of World War I, depicting the lives of a wealthy stockbroker Adam Stoddard (portrayed with professionally honed suavity by Warner Baxter), his ailing and very nurturing wife (Fay Wray, best known as the young woman in a night dress being carried by King Kong in his hand as he clambers up the Empire State Building in the 1933 film classic), and their four sons from when they are young boys to full adulthood and military service in 1917-18 France.

Richard Denning, who was perhaps best known for the 1950s TV show Michael Shayne, portrayed the eldest son Jack with commendable skill; fans of Jack Lord’s Hawaii Five-O may remember his calming authoritative presence as the governor for the first few seasons.

A central presence was Ingrid Bergmann as the governess. She was captivating but I found her much more so with Humphrey Bogart in the following year’s Casablanca and in 1947’s Bells of Saint Mary’s with Bing Crosby.

The venomous character in the film was the gold digger Hester who charms one of the younger brothers into marrying her and then starts playing everyone else against each other.

A commendably entertaining love story/soap opera combination.

My Foolish Heart

Susan Hayward

1949’s My Foolish Heart has Susan Hayward portraying a much more sympathetic woman struggling with alcoholism and an unhappy marriage; we find out why with flashbacks to when she falls in love with a young officer before he goes off to World War II (and featuring the consistently reliable Dana Andrews, 1912-1992). I used to find Hayward’s characters much too abrasive but here she completely drew me into the story. Critics trashed it but the public loved it. Highly recommended.

Behind Green Lights

William Gargan

Two suspenseful film noirs – 1946’s Behind Green Lights is an engaging account of the chaotic activities inside a big city police station among the front desk cops, the detectives, the newspaper reporters, the morgue attendants and the ordinary citizens who drop in voluntarily or under involuntary duress.

The plot begins thickening when a driverless car jumps up on the sidewalk with a dead body inside.

William Gargan (1905-1979) portrays the police commissioner in charge of the investigation and the interrogation of a lady who was last seen in the victim’s apartment before he was thrown in the car (the lady was very convincingly and compassionately portrayed by Carole Landis (1919-1948) who very sadly committed suicide two years after the film’s release at the age of 29 by overdosing on barbiturates.)

Gargan had a successful career in movies and television until 1958 when, as a chain smoker, he contracted lung cancer and had his larynx removed; afterwards he had to speak into a voice box and became celebrated as a zealous campaigner against the perils of cigarettes for the remaining 20 years of his life.

Please Murder Me

Raymond Burr

1956’s Please Murder Me has Raymond Burr (1917-1993) as a defense attorney with a different name from the one he portrayed for nine years on CBS’s Perry Mason beginning in 1957 , only a year after this film’s release.

He defends a woman who has been charged with murdering her husband and, convinced of her innocence, gets her acquitted, only to find out she’s guilty. The client’s manipulative malevolence was very persuasively conveyed by the brilliant young Angela Lansbury (1927-2022).

 

 

 

 

LIFE ON THE PLAINS: Main St., revisited

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A postcard showing Main St., in Waterville, after an ice storm with iced lines and plowed Waterville, Fairfield & Oakland trolley tracks running the middle of the street, on March 10, 1906.

by Roland D. Hallee

A couple of weeks ago we took a stroll down the west side of Main St., in Waterville, and I fore warned you there maybe a few gaps along the way I didn’t remember. Well, thanks to some readers, who obviously have a better memory than I, gave me calls to fill some of those spaces.

So, here we go again, up the west side of Main St.

There were a few stores missing after we passed Barlow’s Shoe Store, and A. W. Larsen Co., around the same area with Emery Brown Dept. Store and Dunham’s of Maine. There was Butler’s Dept. Store, more geared toward the ladies. Also in that area was Squire’s Store – don’t quite remember to whom they catered. Also in there were two specialty stores, Richard’s Women’s Clothing Store, and France’s Clothing Store, with a theme more toward teenage girls and young women.

But, the one glaring omission on my part, since this landmark enterprise has been in existence a long time, and only recently closed, is Tardif’s Jewelers. That one I can’t figure how I forgot about it since I went to school with the brother and sister who inherited the store following the death of their parents. The son, Lionel, ran the store since his sister Anne Marie, married and moved out of state.

Also, along that stretch was Dexter’s Drug Store. That one I definitely don’t remember, and I’m wondering if it was the original site of the Dex­ter’s Drug Store that moved across the Ticonic Bridge, in Winslow, near the railroad tracks? They had the same name, so it’s only an assumption.

Further down at the corner where Key Bank drive through is now, was an Army-Navy Store named Kilroy’s, which I remembered was there but couldn’t recall the name. But prior to that, it was Corey’s Music Store, before they moved across the street and a little further south on the east side of Main St.

On the opposite corner, before Diambri’s Restaurant, was Bea’s Candy Store, which featured Fanny Farmer chocolates.

Off on a side street, Silver St., actually, once you got by Atkins Printing, there was a pool hall, and then the State Theater – now Cancun’s Restaurant. Next was the “Green Front” store – another name for the state liquor store, and that was followed by the Majestic Restaurant. The last store before the Jinjine Hill was Farrar’s, which was an industrial parts store.

Across the street, on the north side of Silver St., was the Morning Sentinal Building. Now walking toward Main St., you had a bakery, a hardware store, don’t recall the names, and then Spaulding’s Bar, and another store before you were back in front of Barlow’s Shoe Store.

Lots of activity in the Main St. area in those days.

I’M JUST CURIOUS: January and Garnet

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Birthstones

by Debbie Walker

A while ago I wrote about the history of the Pom-poms on hats and how at one time, they designated a person’s rank or level of power by their color.

Recently I was reading about the origin of birthstones back to Bible times in the book of Exodus. They have been traced back to the 12 unique stones that represented the 12 tribes of Israel. Once again, this history has to do with symbolism of representation.

(It’s interesting to me to look things up with Google on the internet. Once you get there you can be led in so many different sites with yet more information. Sometimes it’s basically the same information researched and written by others.)

The Origins of Birthstones on Google tells you the birthstones are typically gifted for birthdays and anniversaries. They are rooted in history, each birthstone possesses unique properties and according to some experts , specific powers.

My birthstone is garnet for the month of January, and I am still waiting for my powers!

In 1912 the National Associations of Jewelers defined the modern-day lists of birthstones, and the list has remained unchanged. Today we have three separate lists of stones for each month, ancient, traditional, and modern.

Have you ever wondered about your birthstone? January is my month and garnet is my stone. I used the Farmer’s Almanac to look up info on this subject and as usual I found what I needed.

Garnet is known for its deep red hue (the color is like in the pomegranate). It has a history of it’s healing properties and folk lore.

I didn’t know until now that the garnet can come in other colors and even blues. I haven’t seen the blue one, as far as I know. I am happy with the garnet stone.

There are many websites on the computer about the garnet, as is with all the other birthstones. I will try to follow the column with more birthstone information.

Spring has sprung and here in Florida that just means the seven or eight months of hot have arrived. One of our avid Maine readers just moved to Florida and has to adjust to it all because the heat is here! When I moved here it was at the end of a New England summer, heat there and heat here wasn’t very different. Essentially the summer just all blended together. Naturally, as soon as he arrived here his air conditioner died on his truck, and he is not liking that. I keep telling him to just think snow, it will make the adjusting easier. In the mean time he has an appointment to remedy that problem.

Recently, I figured out an answer to the spring house cleaning projects. I realized whenever I moved I seemed to have avoided a spring cleaning project of my own. This year will be no exception. By the time you are reading this I will have moved again. Maybe I just like buying or making new curtains and other fabric projects. I am not much of a Harriet Housewife for the cleaning, BUT I do enjoy sewing.

Sorry it took so long to get back. I am just curious if I will be remembered! It has been a while. Please contact me with any questions or comments at DebbieWalker@townline.org. Have a great week!

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Theodore Roosevelt

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Theodore Roosevelt

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Theodore Roosevelt

As the 25th former President William McKinley was slowly dying in a bed chamber, in Buffalo, New York, of a gangrenous infection from Leon Czolgosz’s bullet, Vice-President Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) was still vacationing with his family high up in the Adirondacks 400 miles due northeast in the Empire State, but felt the increasing urgency necessitated that he hurry to Buffalo.

The first seven hours of descent down the steep, slippery, curving trails to the trains were via horse and buggy, the driver instructed by his lone passenger to proceed at full speed.

This incident conveys the frequently much too brash boldness with which the first President Roosevelt proceeded through life. He was a total believer in the active strenuous life, both physically and intellectually.

Roosevelt could box, wrestle, hunt wild game and rope steers with expertise. He also mastered languages, speedred two or three books a day and wrote several highly acclaimed volumes of history.

I wrote in an earlier column of how McKinley and Roosevelt had a very wary relationship. Basically, it boiled down to McKinley having serious misgivings about Roosevelt’s much too brash boldness versus his own circumspect caution and consummate diplomacy in his career as a public servant; to the credit of both men, each believed in doing what was right.

There is a fascinating photo of President McKinley and Vice-President Roosevelt sitting together on the White House porch but neither one is smiling. Supposedly, McKinley, who had seen a lot of bloodshed as a Major in Civil War battles, was turned off by Roosevelt’s Rough Rider enthusiasm in seeing duty in the Spanish-American War while Roosevelt considered McKinley, according to biographer Edmund Morris, “a cold-blooded politician.”

President McKinley and Vice-President Roosevelt

I admit to a bias towards McKinley as a more decent human being the more I read about him, whereas Roosevelt has increasingly struck me as a combination of the bull in a china shop, personally enjoying upper class luxury and hobnobbing with his rich and famous friends while maybe pretending to have sympathy for the common man and being one himself.

But Roosevelt’s presidency did achieve much in the government trust busting and other such crusades. Health and safety standards in industry were enforced . Roosevelt fought for preservation of wilderness park lands, spearheaded the building of the Panama Canal, and mediated peace talks to end the 1905 war between Russia and Japan.

There have been hundreds of books written about Roosevelt. Years ago, I read Hermann Hagedorn’s 1954 The Roosevelt Family of Sagamore Hill, the author having been a close friend of TR and the family, and having access to droves of letters, journals and other archived materials. The book recounted much first hand knowledge about Roosevelt’s personality with his family and friends at home – Sagamore Hill being the mansion in Oyster Bay on the northernmost end of Long Island, New York, where he resided most of his adult years.

Alice Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s first wife Alice Lee (1861-1884) died two days after giving birth to a baby girl named Alice. She also died the same night as Roose­velt’s mother, a double tragedy that traumatized Roosevelt so much that he left his daughter in the care of his sister Anna and moved out west to the Dakota badlands to be a rancher for two years.

Edith Roosevelt

In 1886, he returned East and married Edith Carow (1861-1948) who gave birth to five children. She epitomized classy poise and dignity, displayed phenomenal gifts at managing five very rambunctious children and yet would join her husband and kids on horseback rides through the woods surrounding the Sagamore Hill estate.

She and stepdaughter Alice had a contentious relationship; she had known Alice’s mother and made a hurtful comment that, if her mother had lived, she would have eventually bored her father with her insipid personality.

However, daughter Alice could hold her own with the sharp tongue; she once summed up her father’s ego-driven need to be the center of attention everywhere: “He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral and the baby at every christening.”

After leaving the White House in 1909, Roosevelt remained active in both public and private life. He hoped that his like-minded friend Howard Taft, whom he helped win the Republican nomination and presidency, would continue his policies but Taft became his own man.

In 1912, Roosevelt ran as an independent Bull Moose candidate against Taft, splitting the vote and giving the White House to Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson.

All four Roosevelt sons served in World War I, inspiring much pride in their father but tragedy struck in mid-1918 when youngest son Quentin was killed in France at the age of 21.

After that Roosevelt basically lost his own will to live and died on January 6, 1919, of a heart ailment, at the age of 60.

SCORES & OUTDOORS: The excitement of the first robin sighting of the season

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American robin

Roland D. Halleeby Roland D. Hallee

What is more inspiring than seeing that first robin of the spring?

The American robin, Turdus migratorius, is a member of the thrush family. It is named after the European robin because of its reddish-orange breast, though the two species are not closely related, with the European robin belonging to the flycatcher family.

A migrator, the robins winter south of Canada from Florida to central Mexico and along the Pacific Coast. It is the state bird of Connecticut, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The American robin is active mostly during the day and assembles in large flocks at night. Its diet consists of invertebrates such as beetle grubs and caterpillars, fruits and berries. It is one of the earliest bird species to lay eggs, beginning to breed shortly after returning from its winter range. Its nest consists of long coarse grass, twigs, paper, and feathers, and is smeared with mud and often cushioned with grass or other soft materials. The robin is among the first birds to sing at dawn.

Predators include hawks, cats and larger snakes, but when feeding in flocks, it is able to be vigilant and watch other birds for reactions to predators. Brown-headed cowbirds lay eggs in robin nests, but robins usually reject the cowbird eggs.

Both sexes of the robins look alike, except the female tends to be duller than the male. However, some birds cannot be safely sexed on plumage alone. The juvenile is paler in color than the adult male and has dark spots on its breast, and whitish wing coverts. First-year birds are not easily distinguishable from adults, but they tend to be duller, and a small percentage retains a few junvenile wing coverts or other feathers.

The American robin has an extensive range, estimated at upwards of 6 million square miles, with a population of about 320 million individuals. It is listed as “least concern” on the endangered list. At one point, the bird was killed for its meat, but is now protected throughout its range in the United States by the Migratory Bird Act.

The American robin is a known carrier of West Nile virus. While crows and jays are often the first noticed deaths in an area with West Nile virus, the American robin is suspected to be a key host, and holds a larger responsibility for the transmission of the virus to humans. This is because while crows and jays die quickly from the virus, the American robin survives the virus longer, hence spreading it to more mosquitoes, which then transmit the virus to humans and other species.

The American robin is frequently seen running across lawns, picking up earthworms by sight, and its running and stopping behavior is a distinguishing characteristic. It hunts visually, not by hearing.

The robin also has a place in human culture. the Tlingit people of Northwestern North America held it to be a culture hero created by Raven to please the people with its song. One of the Houses of the Raven Tribe from the Nisga’a Nation holds the robin as a House Crest.

The robin is considered a symbol of spring. A well-known example is a poem by Emily Dickinson, I Dreaded That First Robin So. Among other 19th century poems about the first robin of spring is The First Robin, by Dr. William H. Drummond, which, according to the author’s wife, is based on a Québec superstition that whoever sees the first robin of spring will have good luck.

Although the comic book superhero Robin was inspired by an N. C. Wyeth illustration of Robin Hood, a later version had his mother nicknaming him Robin because he was born on the first day of spring. His red shirt suggests the bird’s red breast.

But, unlike Emily Dickinson’s poem, I don’t dread that first robin, I embrace it.

Roland’s trivia question of the week:

When Dale Earnhardt was killed on the final lap of NASCAR’s 2001 Daytona 500, who was crossing the finish line as the winner?

Answer can be found here.

Give Us Your Best Shot! for Thursday, April 13, 2023

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

DRAGON ON: Emily Poulin, of South China, photographed this dragonfly last summer.

WHY DON’T I MIGRATE SOUTH?: Joan Chaffee, of Clinton, snapped this blue jay trying to stay warm this past winter.

JUST GLIDING ALONG: Lindy Sklover, of Vassalboro, captured these ducks swimming past a dock last fall.

THE BEST VIEW: “And then –”

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by Norma Best Boucher

I just spent one of the best mornings I could want. I didn’t set out to do that. I don’t think that life works that way. I do try to start every day with a positive attitude, but this morning God just pointed me in a direction and said, “Enjoy!”

The weather was cool for Florida, a beautiful winter morning, when I took my early morning walk just as the sun came up. I usually walk with my neighbor’s Yorkie, Scooter, but today I was especially early and just took off alone. I didn’t realize that I usually look down or at eye level when Scooter is with me. I have to be careful that he doesn’t step on fire ant hills or disturb any snakes. Today I looked everywhere and discovered a leafless deciduous tree silhouetted against the morning sky. Suddenly, my mind was back home in Waterville, Maine, walking on Elm Court and School Street on a beautiful cool day.

Florida is filled with beautiful full-leaf and flowered trees that thrive in the winter, but at that Maine memory moment the leafless branches on that tree were more beautiful than all of the other trees combined. Right next to it was a smaller palm tree. The two trees together seemed to epitomize my own life – the majority of my years spent in Maine and the last of my years spent in Florida. The larger tree had the deepest and best root system just like my own life in Maine.

And then – My cat Olivia and I were sitting on the screened-in porch when a beautiful hawk landed a few feet from us. She saw him first. I saw her body stiffen and followed her gaze. The hawk was perched on the roof in a majestic pose. As his head turned, I saw the downward curve of his sharp beak and his proverbial “hawk eyes” sizing up the backyard. Olivia did not move. Neither did I. He was even more beautiful when he took flight and flew past us.

And then – I went for my daily ride along Indian River. The morning was still young. There was a very light rain that appeared on my windshield but was too light to disturb the mirror surface of the river. Hundreds of seagulls were perched on the long river docks, much, I imagine, to the chagrin of the owners. One lady was taking pictures of them. I stopped my car and saw several files of “ducks in a row” at varying distances in the river. All were paddling north.

And then – I saw them, three dolphins. Indian River is quite shallow, so I could see them intermittently breaking the water. They, too, were going north. I don’t know whether they were feeding or just playing, but I never tire of watching them just living their lives for all of us to enjoy.

The first time I saw mammals swimming in a river was when I was seven years old in 1954. My father drove my mother and me from Waterville to Bangor, their hometown, to see the two white whales that had swum to Bangor up the Penobscot River. We drove in my father’s 1948 Studebaker. There was no Interstate 95 highway then, so the trip took two hours up and two hours back. We could go no faster than 45 miles an hour because the car shook at faster speeds. Seeing the whales was quite a thrill. Seeing the dolphins brought back to me another cherished Maine memory.

As I left the River Road area, I stopped at a stop sign and saw perched on a tree limb a different but still beautiful lighter colored hawk. He was watching me as intently as Olivia and I had watched the earlier hawk.

And then – I left the serenity of the scenic river ride to go to a gas station to pump gas into my vehicle. The prices had dropped. Another Maine memory came to mind. Again, my father had driven my mother and me to Bangor to see the gas war.

“Norma,” I remember him saying. “Remember this day. Gas is 18 cents a gallon.” I watched as a man filled the gas tank. We turned around and left Bangor for the long two-hour ride home.

Today, I paid more for my gas than 18 cents a gallon, but who cares? I enjoyed a million-dollar morning and Maine memories.

REVIEW POTPOURRI: Elisabeth Ogilvie

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Elisabeth Ogilvie

Peter Catesby Peter Cates

Elisabeth Ogilvie

The consistently intriguing Maine Speaks anthology contains a short story, Scobie, by Elisabeth Ogilvie (1917-2006), which was first published in the August, 1951, issue of Woman’s Day magazine.

The story is set in a fishing village along the Maine coast and is recounted from the point of view of a first person unnamed narrator who is living presently in the early 1950s and, in visiting with a childhood friend, Rhoda, is recalling memories of those 1920s or ’30s yesteryears when the village only had “a general store, a filling station, a sardine factory, a fish-and-lobster buyer, and a fifteen-room hotel that catered for three summer months to artists and elderly people….” and in particular of an eccentric named Scobie who lived for a year on the very edge of the village in a “pinkie” or discarded boat with his well-trained pet baby pig, Barnaby.

The story has a very commendably achieved sense of time and place in its details of local color but the main plot in its depiction of the girls interactions with Scobie when they visited him a few times (and without their parents’ permission) was unfortunately a bit wooden and desultory.

Still, one paragraph stood out in its vividness, when the narrator is describing her father’s job as a warden of the village “fisheries”:

“At the far curve of the harbor, away from the sardine factory and the big wharves, there was a regular settlement of lobstermen, who preferred to live in sight of the harbor and the moorings rather than in the town. Their houses, with neat white clapboards or silvery shingles, were sheltered by the spruce woods behind; the grassy ground sloped down to the shore, where their boats were hauled up for painting; and their traps were stacked against wildrose bushes and blackberry vines. My father spent a lot of time over there.”

The potential for further reader interest in the lives of these inhabitants in a separate universe from the other villagers may have been a lost opportunity.

Ogilvie was a Massachusetts native but, in 1944, she moved into a 33-acre farm, on Gay’s Island, in Cushing, where she died from a stroke in 2006. She published more than 40 novels, mostly based on life in the islands along the Maine coast; along with an autobiography.

Rachmaninoff

Rachmaninoff

April 1 was the 150th birthday anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). YouTube contains a highly recommended recording of his ever justly popular 2nd Piano Concerto, which he composed in 1901, after recovering from a deep depression through the help of hypnosis from a Doctor Dahl. The performance is a 1960 Columbia Masterworks collaboration between pianist Philippe Entremont and the late Leonard Bernstein, with the New York Philharmonic.

It was the first LP I ever owned of the work and its power and poetry had a uniquely gripping eloquence of its own. The second movement was slowly paced and milked for maximum sentiment while the concluding 3rd movement was paced with lightning speed until the magnificent concluding three minutes when, with slower tempos, the music exploded with beauty.