by Norma Best Boucher

The best teacher I ever had was not a teacher in the conventional sense. He wasn’t in a classroom with chalkboards and books. His domain was the Morning Sentinel editorial room with ringing phones, noisy teletypes, and two-fingered typists pounding out stories on antiquated manual typewriters.

I was only 17 years old when I first met Robert Drake, managing editor. Determined to be a journalist, I applied for a job for experience. I was to learn later that I was only one of many young people he had helped over a period of many years, and as school teachers follow their students’ futures, he would follow ours.

I learned more about journalism during my four summers under his direction that I ever learned from any textbook or college professor. Each summer he guided me from obituaries and weddings to interviews and urban renewal feature stories.

I vividly remember the large open editorial room with abutting desks where a lowly beginner such as I was allowed to learn from such professionals as Clayton LaVerdiere, Ken Morton, Harland Durrell, Cy McMullen, Bess Carter and Lee Allen. Little did they know the pride and excitement I felt just working among them.

I smile when I remember such times as when photographer Dick Maxwell and I rushed to the Waterville airport to see Frank Sinatra, only to find his wife Mia Farrow whisking off in a private jet.

Or when expensively dressed, brusque-mannered national newsmen swarmed the editor’s office requesting the newspaper’s files on a very popular Sen. Edmund Muskie, Democratic nominee for the Vice-Presidency.

I especially remember writing a short Christmas story that Mr. Drake published on the editorial page. I found the clipping, yellowed and tattered, in my father’s wallet, and I realized that he had carried it with him until the day he died.

I learned a great deal more than writing from Mr. Drake. By his example, I learned that integrity is synonymous with journalists, and that the absence of my by-line still means no less than my best.

I learned that sometimes the good old days aren’t always that long ago and that special people and special times should never be forgotten.

I will remember Bob Drake always with respect, with gratitude, and with affection.

I only regret that I waited 25 years to thank him.

by Norma Best Boucher

“Where is it?” I say to myself, checking out the beef department cooler at the large grocery store.

I’m making spaghetti tonight for supper. I make pretty good spaghetti, but I am sick of making spaghetti and even sicker of eating spaghetti. Just how many times HAVE I made spaghetti in the last 56 years I’ve been married? I don’t want to think about it.

In the early years of my cooking, I had a backyard garden and grew my own vegetables. Spaghetti sauces were absolutely delicious cooked with my own home grown tomatoes. Since then, I have made do with pre-made sauces. For my mediocre spaghetti I have no one else to blame but myself and maybe Chef Boyardee.

I grab a 1.07 pound package of ground chuck, put it into my hand basket, and head towards the check out.

I find an aisle with only one shopper and saunter down.

“Are you having a good day today?” a woman of about age 40 asks me.

Slightly taken aback, I tell her, “I’m having a wonderful day. I only have one item to buy, so I am taking my time.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. “Grocery shopping is the only time I get to go out without my kids, so I am taking my time, too.”

I realize that I must have had a bad expression on my face when I walked by her. She is trying to do a good deed by asking me about my day.

“I am not completely happy, though,” I add, “because I have to make spaghetti tonight for supper. After 56 years I am tired of making spaghetti.”

“I love to cook,’ the woman adds.

I smile at her. I want to say, “Meet me here in 56 years and tell me you feel the same way,” but she is too nice for me to be rude.

She realizes that I really am having a good day, so we say our good byes and a “Have a nice day.”

I used to be a very good cook years ago when I followed recipes and before my cooking show addiction. I even adopted their mantra: “Just add this and that to make your masterpiece. YOU can do it!”

Since adopting this strategy I have had to come up with a new filing system for my recipes. Instead of words like “Chicken Casserole” and “Frittata,” I have subcategories with recipe names like Beef – Make again only if you’re starving, Chicken – What was I thinking? and Healthy – Code word for add more wine.

Something has to change.

When I was a little girl, I used to go to the hairdressers with my mother. She and all of the other ladies dressed to the nines to have their hair done. I asked my mother once why she dressed up so much just to have her hair fixed.

“It’s like this, Norma. I may go into the beautician’s looking ordinary, but when I leave that salon, I feel beautiful. I have to dress the part.”

Although she was always beautiful to me, I have remembered her words.

Armed with my mother’s wisdom, I decide to take a different attitude about shopping. If cooking isn’t inspiring, at least I can make the grocery shopping a more positive experience.

Once a month I travel to another city to shop at a national franchised organic food store. Usually, when I grocery shop, I wear clothes that announce, “This is just another day to complete my weekly boring grocery-buying chores.”

I HAVE noticed, though, during my past trips to that store that the customers are happy and well-dressed. Either they are happy from eating all of that organic food or they consider shopping at this store a very positive experience. The answer is probably both, but I am taking the second reason to heart for my purposes.

Sale day is here. I am prepared to follow my mother’s “positive attitude” and the Food Channel’s “YOU can do it!” advice. I dress in my best pink outfit. I am so pink – top, pants, even shoes – that, as I walk into the store and stride through the floral department, I am one with the flowers.

A non-floral aroma accosts my nostrils. COFFEE! I turn to my left and nonchalantly head towards the free coffee table. I read over the names of the exotic blends: Chocolate Hazelnut, Brazilian, and Deep Roasted House Blend.

I decide that I am going to go full force into this experience. I choose Deep Roasted House Blend and stir in as much sugar as I think will actually dissolve in that very small sample cup. I take two sips of the hot, caffeinated coffee.

“Whoa!” Immediately inspiration hits me. “CHINESE!”

I decide that this must be inspirational because I have never cooked anything Chinese in my life and truly I have hardly ever eaten Chinese food.

I immediately go to the vegetable aisle. Broccoli, carrots and green beans are on sale. Then I buy the pork, the only meat NOT on sale today. One cannot skimp on a masterpiece. I browse attentively through every aisle. Angel Hair, the only pasta I do not have in my pantry, will be my noodles, and where is that secret ingredient? There it is – Teriyaki.

There is only one more experience left to enjoy – Wine tasting.

I get in line with the other retirees, who like me are on medication that doesn’t allow the consumption of alcohol. We are all of the same mind, though—surely a couple of sips of wine will not kill us. I copy the others. I sniff the sweet wine sample, swirl it gently in the tiny paper cup, drink and say, “Ahhh…”

We do the same with the sample of dry wine. Our palates sated, we thank the sales lady and leave en masse without purchasing.

At home I don an apron to protect my pink ensemble and cook madly before the “success” mood wanes.

Never one to limit my creativity, I use a different pan for everything: sauté pork in a frying pan, roast broccoli and carrots on an oven sheet pan, steam the remaining green beans in a steamer pan, and add angel hair noodles to the last pan.

Then I put everything together in the frying pan and add Teriyaki. “Voila” – my masterpiece.”

Our condo has a living room/ kitchen open floor plan, so while watching television, my husband can also see me cooking. Since he can’t cook, he eats whatever I make with no complaints. We usually both agree when one of my creations should not be repeated.

“What’s for supper?” he asks from his comfortable recliner in the adjoining room.

I look down at my latest foodie concoction. Not Chinese, definitely NOT Chinese. It’s…I don’t know…American. That’s what it is, but American what? I ask myself.

“What’s for supper?” my husband asks again thinking that I didn’t hear him the first time.

Well,” I answer. “There’s pork.”

“Okay.” He sounds interested.

“There are your favorite vegetables.” I add.

“Good,” he says seemingly encouraged.

“There’s angel hair pasta,” I am quick to add.

“That all sounds good, but what is it?” he asks with a little wonder.

“I don’t know,” I answer.

“You have spent the last hour in the kitchen chopping, cooking, mixing everything together, and now actually tasting,” he points out. With heightened curiosity he asks, “What do you mean you don’t know what’s for supper?”

Looking down one more time at my latest “This and That” creation, I try to summon up some explanation for my stupor.

“I just don’t know,” I finally answer—”I haven’t named it yet.”

by Norma Best Boucher

“I’d say you have another 10 years,” the doctor said casually.

He stared at his computer. I stared at him. His facial expression never changed, but my mouth opened into a big O-shape, and my eyes opened extra wide.

His “You’ve got a lot of life left in you.” was my “OMG! I have an expiration date!”

The rest of the visit was a blur with his telling me to see him again in six months. I made the next appointment but completely forgot to get the paperwork for my next cholesterol test which is the real reason for these biannual visits.

I walked to my car, got in, locked the doors and just sat there.

I imagined every scenario. Will I sour like milk? Will I harden like brown sugar? Will I melt, reform, and turn white like a sun heated chocolate bar? I already had white hair. What was the next stage?

My good health results had turned into a Pandora’s Box of unknowns. Instead of my life passing before my eyes, I saw flashes of myself turning this way and that to avoid the unavoidable.

To say I was overwhelmed at that point is an understatement. It seemed like only yesterday I was young.

I closed my eyes and relaxed a little.

Wait a minute. What was going on here?

I was the same person walking out of that office as I had been walking into that office. Nothing had changed. Nothing except my attitude, that is.

Memories started to break through the negativity. When I was 11 years old, my father had the first of his many heart attacks. He was only 43 years old at the time. Doctors gave him five years to live. He defied them all and lived 15 additional good years.

My maternal uncle retired to Cornville, ME at age 65. He grew and ate his own vegetables and fished every day that it was legal to fish. He outlived all other family members in his generation and passed at age 94.

I have a photograph of my paternal great-grandfather with his four adult children standing in front of their farm in Ontario, Canada. He was 101 at the time and still working on the farm. To repeat the family’s cliché definition of him, “He was still sharp as a tack and fit as a fiddle.”

What a healthy gene pool I have inherited. What positive lives I have to follow. What great attitudes I have to emulate.

My initial shock was wearing off.

I re-adjusted my attitude and stopped the wild thinking.

Reality tells me that although death is inevitable, expiration dates belong in the refrigerator.

I took a deep breath, started my car, and drove head on into my future.

There was no time to waste.

by Norma Best Boucher

I remember the day; I remember the hour; I even remember the skipped heartbeat when I first heard my six-year-old son Alan’s words: “I want to be a hockey player.”

Translation – You can be my hockey mom.

* * * * * *

“I have to teach him to skate?” I asked my husband. “You’re the athlete in the family—you teach him to skate.”

“You teach him to skate,” he said, “and I’ll teach him to play hockey.”

“Why me? Remember, I’m the one who took dancing lessons because I was so clumsy and at age five sat on my thumb and broke it and couldn’t be in the recital.”

“So?” he answered. “You were a cheerleader.”

“But I only did that to get into the games for free.”

“Skating is great exercise,” he added.

“This was my last rational plea. “But I’m Mrs. Couch Potato!”

Smiling, he answered, “I rest my case.”

* * * * * *

“My, God, he skates just like you.”

I had warned him, right? Hadn’t I warned him?

One year of intensive training, a frostbitten nose, frostbitten toes, a thousand miles on the car and another five thousand miles on my ice skates, not to mention the wear and tear on my body and all he could say was, “My, God, he skates just like you.”

What did I learn from this experience? I learned two things: one, once a couch potato always a couch potato and two, when you sit on your thumb at age five, it takes only six weeks to heal, but when you sit on our thumb at age 30, it takes six months to heal.

* * * * * *

“Hey, Mom, I’m on a hockey team. I’m number 6.”

Translation – He can now skate up and down the ice using a cutoff $20 hockey stick as a lethal weapon, and he can now legally crush against the boards any player who dares to touch that puck.

As the weeks went by, I learned hockey lingo.

Faceoff – This is when ten players line up with sticks to kill the puck to win or to kill each other – if they lose.

Off-sides – Technically this means a player went over his own blue line before the puck. The result is a face-off in front of his team’s goalie. Realistically this means if your son does this more than once or if a goal is scored, the mother of your team’s goalie will attack you because you are sitting closer to her than your son.

Checking – This is the legal crushing of bodies against the boards.

Charging – This is checking with the intent to kill but failing.

Major Penalty—This is checking with the intent to kill and succeeding.

“Get His Number!” – This is yelled by the mother of the player who was charged and still lives for revenge.

Burn – This is when a forward from one team skates past the defensemen of the other team and scores a goal. All the mothers then yell, “Get his number!” and the entire opposing team charges after the scorer.

(Note: If this player is your son, this is not a pretty picture.)

* * * * * *

“Hey, Mom, we’re going to play in a Squirt Tournament.”

Translation – I can now watch my seven-year-old kill or be killed in an arena with hundreds of frenzied mothers screaming, “Get his number!”

* * * * * *

Our team skated out. The nine-year-olds who could skate forward, backward and stop were line one, the Midgets. The eight-year-olds who could only skate forward and stop were line two, the Pipsqueaks. The seven-year-olds who could neither skate backward nor stop were line three, the Smurfs.

Not being able to skate backward was only a minor problem. The Smurfs just skated forward all the time. Not being able to stop was another story. Most hockey players do the snowplow where they stop sharply, turning their skates to the left or right and spraying a little loose, scraped ice to the side. Unable to do the snowplow, the Smurfs had developed a variety of methods for stopping. Some players dragged the toe of one skate; some skated into the boards; some skated into other players; and others did a pirouette-like whirl where they turned around on their toes in one spot.

The warmup started. Everyone was excited. Even I, who’d had nightmares about sending my lamb to the slaughter, was excited.

That was before I saw the opposing team’s players.

That’s our Rambo line,” volunteered the woman next to me. They’re our seven-year-olds.”

Just then five Rambo line players raced across the arena and snowplowed ice up onto the Plexiglas in front of us. At that precise moment I knew we were in trouble.

“Here comes our Commando line. They’re our eight-year-olds.”

Each of the Commando line players lined up on their blue line and took slap shots, one after another. Each puck sped past their goalie and into the net.

I wanted to stand up and yell “Help!” but all I could do was stare.

“And here are our nine-year-olds. We call them the Terminators.”

Dare I look?

In a gust of wind five giants skated past us. The top of my son’s helmet reached only to their shoulders.

Our goalie’s mother jumped up and screamed hysterically, “My, God, he shaves,” but all I could do was slouch in my seat, mumble incoherently, and pray, “Let Alan live, God, just let him live.”

“Which kid is yours?” the woman asked.

Alan’s over there, number 6. He plays center.”

“The one with the toothy grin and dimples?”

“Yes.”

“A shrimp, huh?”

“No, Smurf.”

“That’s my kid over there. Hey, Butch!” she yelled. “He’s the number one Terminator, the captain.”

As she said this, Attila the Hun with five o’clock shadow skated by and smiled.

“What happened to his front teeth?” I asked.

“Lost them in the last game.”

I stared in horror.

“You should have seen the other guy,” she boasted.

“Not my son, God, please, not mine.”

Throughout the game our coach played the Midget and Pipsqueak lines as much as possible. Everyone said he played them to keep the score at a respectable 15-0. Personally, I think he played them to keep the Smurfs alive, and I was grateful.

During the game Mrs. Terminator, as I had begun to call her, gave me a synopsis of her team’s successes.

“We’re undefeated, you know.”

Somehow that didn’t surprise me.

“In fact, no team has ever scored one goal against us.”

Somehow that fact didn’t surprise me either.

“Butch is the top scorer. If he scores one more goal in this game, he’ll have a triple hat trick, nine goals in the same game, and that will be a team record.”

She was praying for records, and I was praying for lives.

“You know, you get what you pay for,” she offered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, I paid $250 for my kid to play on this team. They practice Monday through Friday and play games on Saturday and Sunday.

“I only paid $75 for Alan to play.”

“Ha!” she laughed. You wasted your money. Looks as if you paid $75 for a seat on the bench.”

She was definitely beginning to annoy me.

Just then one of the Pipsqueaks changed up lines, but the door was closed. In an attempt to get off the ice, he tried to put his leg over the boards. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Butch skated by, and with a motion of his hand he flipped the Pipsqueak over the boards and onto his head.

The rest, as they say, is history. That Pipsqueak was followed by other Pipsqueaks, and they were followed by Midgets. Relentlessly, Butch skated our players into exhaustion, into fear, and just plain into the boards.

“I told you,” Mrs. Terminator repeated. “Two hundred fifty dollars makes a winner.”

Suddenly, my heart was in my throat. The Smurfs were going out. There were five little cherub-faced seven-year-olds carrying $20 hockey sticks cut in half to reach their chins. Some skated into the boards; some skated into each other, one dragged a toe; and all pirouetted from blue line to blue line.

“This is a three-ring circus,” Mrs. Terminator laughed. “It’s worth my $250 just to see this.”

Right then I was beginning to imagine what she’d look like without her front teeth.

Butch had two minutes left to score his triple hat trick goal, and he was determined to succeed. The Smurfs gave up chasing and lined up for the attack. The next 30 seconds, a scene from a Marx Brothers movie, were the longest 30 seconds of my life.

Butch skated around his cage with the puck and headed straight for our zone. The only obstacle blocking his way was Alan. I covered my face, and that’s when I heard the hit.

I peered through my fingers, and there was my Smurf literally plastered chest-to-chest with Butch. Alan lost his grip and slid to grab Butch’s waist – and Butch skated on. Holding on for dear life, Alan then slipped down to Butch’s legs – and Butch skated on. Suddenly, Alan lost his grip and with stick and body flat on the ice he hooked butch’s skate with the curve of his cutoff $20 hockey stick – and Butch still skated on, dragging Alan and his stick behind him.

Everyone just watched. This was going to be the record-breaking hat trick goal and another shut out for the Terminators.

Butch wound up, and the shot echoed in the silence. The puck headed straight for the left-hand bottom corner of the cage. But wait! The puck hit the pipe, and the ringing shook the crowd.

The puck then deflected off Alan’s stick and shot into open ice. Smurf defenseman number 14 was doing a pirouette on the blue line, and with pinball precision he accidently slapped the puck into the opposing team’s zone and toward their net. The goalie dropped to his knees – going, going and through his legs – Score!

No triple hat trick goal and a score against the shutout champs.

Our entire bench jumped on Smurf number 14 in ecstasy. Butch jumped on Alan in rage.

At that point everything went black for me. The next thing I remember was Butch in the home penalty box, a two-minute penalty for roughing. Through his face mask I saw his glaring eyes and clenched toothless jaw.

Alan was in the guest penalty box, a two-minute penalty for holding. Through his face mask I saw his dimples and toothy grin.

My Smurf was now a full-fledged hockey player. He had scored his first assist, gotten his first penalty, and was still alive to brag about it.

Mrs. Terminator was on her feet shaking a clenched fist, “Hey, Ref,” she screamed. “I didn’t pay $250 for my kid to sit the bench.”

I just smiled.

At this point, Mrs. Terminator saw me and yelled, “What are you grinning about, Lady? Your kid’s on the bench, too.”

I turned to face her, eye to eye, hockey mom to hockey mom.

“I know,” I quipped smartly, “but I only had to pay 75 bucks for my kid’s seat.”

(I had the privilege of watching these seven-year-old Smurf hockey players grow up and win the Maine 1991 Class A State Hockey Championship. Also, the editor of The Town Line, Roland Hallee, was the assistant coach of that team.)