I’m Just Curious, Week of June 23, 2016

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by Debbie Walker

My dad and I had a very important conversation when I was about 14 years old. You see dad was not my biological father, very few people ever knew it. It wasn’t an issue to him. It was from him that I learned “Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a dad”.

In our house it was never kept a secret, however, it didn’t enter into our family life. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe my brother, Pete, even realized it until he was about 15 years old. When I tell you it was truly never an issue in our family, it’s an understatement.

I can honestly tell you that despite all the gray hairs I gave him starting at my earliest years right up through all the years, that man never once commented that I was not his biological child. To dad’s way of thinking I was his through and through.

The qualities and values that make me who I am today I give full credit to mom and dad and I am proud of them all.

When I got older and I learned about my sisters, daughters who were born to my biological father, dad actually encouraged our getting together, and he and mom welcomed each one in our home. At one time or another my whole family amazed each girl with their acceptance and their interest in their lives.

There are many fathers who are also wonderful dads, I know that. As for step-dads they do sometimes have a different role even if they came into the child’s life at a young age. Children know how to push buttons and they are very good at a young age as manipulators. Think about it, they learn if I cry I’ll be fed or changed or held, whatever it is they want. They continue to hone those skills right up through the years. That’s where all the gray hairs come from!

One of the most remarkable things about dad I never truly realized until I was an adult. In my entire life with dad I can honestly say he never, ever brought up the fact that I wasn’t “his child.” No matter what I did to frustrate him, that man never once, to my mother or me, made a reference to my not being “his.” I believe in his heart and soul I was his child in every way. I also learned over the years that he is one of a very few dads that would be able to swear to that claim and not be struck by lightning by doing so.

Since there are no perfect people there are no perfect parents, mom’s or dad’s, and we know that certainly applies to children! Being a parent is a difficult job, always has been, always will be. We have more single parents now trying to do the job of what should be a partnership. We also have a great many grandparents who are finding themselves “parenting” again.

All of that brings me to my other thought. You might wonder why I waited until after Fathers Day to write this column and I’m about to cover that too. I don’t like Mothers and Fathers Day.

It’s just another “Hallmark Holiday” as far as I’m concerned. Too many people ignore their parents until the day. I believe we should be honoring our parents all the year through, let them know they are appreciated and include them in our daily lives. Sending flowers, candy, whatever, one day a year just doesn’t cut it as far as I’m concerned.

The statement, “Any man can be a father but it takes someone special to be a Dad,” has a special meaning to me. Some of these guys aren’t much more than sperm donors to put it quite bluntly.

So for all of you who have “dad’s” please honor them everyday, not just one day a year. Keep in touch with love.

Contact me at dwdaffy@yahoo.com , subject line: Dad’s and Mom’s.  Thanks for reading!

REVIEW POTPOURRI: A Film and a Book

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by  Peter Cates

page9pict1A wonderful film.

Miss Potter: starring Renee Zellewgher, Evan McGregor, etc.; directed by Richard Maltby, Jr., Weinstein Films, 2006.

This film centers on the beginnings of Beatrix Potter’s career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books. One family firm run by two brothers condescendingly accepts a manuscript to give a newly-hired younger brother, Norman, something to do. He then becomes so involved with the book that Potter grows to trust him fully and later to fall in love.

The book and subsequent volumes sell in the millions. Unfortunately, after the couple becomes engaged, Norman develops leukemia and dies. After a lengthy grieving period, she returns to her writing, buys a large farm in England’s lovely lake district and eventually gets married to her lawyer. The story, the acting and the on-location scenery, especially in the English Lakes Countryside, are first class.

A 1976 account of wealth, corruption and murder in Houston.

Blood and Money: by Thomas Thompson; Doubleday, 474 pages.

A Texas oil buccaneer, Ash Robinson, has one  most beautiful, multi-talented and poised  daughter, Joan, who will marry a very brilliant plastic surgeon, Dr. John Hill, one main reason being that he is the very nice man that she wants for a husband and is certain will please her most domineering, yet loving control freak of a father.page9pict2

They wed in 1957 but have a basically unhappy marriage, involving stress and desperation on the wife’s part and much adultery and deceit on the doctor’s. Finally she dies from a mysterious, all too poisonous illness in 1969; John Hill is indicted for murder but it doesn’t stick. He remarries, divorces number two and is enjoying his third marriage, all events within the space of three years before he is mysteriously murdered in 1972.

The book is one compelling tale of real people, places and events and the interconnecting patterns blessing, cursing and binding them all. The participants are all shades of gray between decency and nobility; and the nastiest levels of cold-blooded, depraved expediency. Having been one of Life Magazine’s top writers for 12 years, Thomas Thompson possessed consummate mastery of narrative and kept me enthralled for its duration.

Being a powerful force of nature more on the level of Thor than Lear, this quality of Ash Robinson is touched upon, as he observes his daughter’s wedding with his own unrevealed plans for the couple’s “happiness:”

“Ash Robinson was a most cheerful father of the bride. In later years he would say that he knew from the beginning that the marriage was ill fated. But on this afternoon so fraught with undercurrents, he was paterfamilias, courtly and benevolent. And why shouldn’t he have been? He well knew that after the honeymoon, for which he was paying, he would have his daughter living just upstairs with this latest son-in-law. He could keep an eye on them both. And he would always be there with money if they needed it, rather like a chain to keep errant pets in the yard, out of the street.”

This book sold in the millions 40 years ago; therefore it should be easy to find at local used book outlets, thrift stores, etc.

Blaisdell named to president’s list

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Benjamin Blaisdell has been named to the president’s list at Western New England University, in Springfield, Massachusetts, for spring semester of 2016. Blaisdell is working toward a degree in marketing.

SOLON & BEYOND, Week of June 23, 2016

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Solon and Beyondby Marilyn Rogers-Bull & Percy
643-5805
grams29@tds.net
390 South Solon Rd.,
Solon, Maine 04979

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

Received the following e-mail about the 4th of July parade from Alicia Golden: Please join us for a patriotic celebration at Solon’s 5th annual 4th of July parade. The parade will begin at 11 a.m., at Griswold’s store and will continue up Route 201 North and end at the Keystone Masonic Hall, on Falls Road.

Any individual group or organization that wishes to participate should contact Alicia Golden at 207-431-1506 or bulldogz76@yahoo.com. I would like to personally thank Alicia for her dedication to this worthy and welcome effort on her part, every year.

Received the Solon School News so I have a lot of great news to share. Always a great day when I see the envelope in the mail!

The students attended a Step-Up Day activity at CCS on June 6 with the other fifth graders from across the district. They met their teachers, saw the school, and did some team-building activities run by the high school’s JMG students.

Good-bye and good luck to Laci Dickey, Brian Evans, Abigail Gilbert, Elijah Grunder, Lindsay Hamilton, Bobby Lindblom, Isaac Morrill, Conner Peabody, Hunter Sousa, Sumner Taylor, Faith Willette and Josiah Wyman.

The third quarter Honor Roll, All A’s Jayden Cates, Laci Dickey, Brian Evans, Courtney Grunder, Lindsay Hamilton, Zachary Hemond, Robert Lindblom,Ciara Myers-Sleeper and Desmond Robinson. All A’s and B’s: Emily Baker, Aiden Burgess, Cooper Dellarma, Sascha Evans, Abigail Gilbert, Charlie Golden, Reid Golden, Elijah Grunder, William Lawrence, Isaac Morrill, Conner Peabody, Allison Pinkham, Cailin Priest, Paige Reichert, Gerald Rollins, Alyssa Schinzel, Brooks Sousa, Hinter Sousa, Lucas Vicneire, Braden Wheeler, Ciarrah Whittemore, Faith Willette, Hailey Wyman and Dystany Young.

The following is what was in this Solon School News about the “Bikes for Books” Program. The Solon Masons sponsored the first “Bikes for Books” program in our school this spring. This program promoted reading among our K-5 students.

The program kicked off on April 4. Students read books and filled out a form on each book they read, putting the forms in large envelopes in their classrooms. On May 31, they held an assembly to do a drawing for a boy and a girl from each class. Each of those students won a new bike, helmet, and T-shirt provided by the Masons.

I had put in the winners of the bikes last week and thank you so much to The Town Line’s managing editor Roland, for putting in the picture of them. It is truly a great program and many thanks go out to the Masons for sponsoring it.

On Wednesday, some members of the FCAM club were flying their planes on Lily Pond. It was a perfectly beautiful day, just right for flying the model planes. I just happened to go up the back way to Bingham when it was getting close to lunch time, (Lief had gone up to fly his planes there so I knew they would be having a BBQ). I stopped to watch the planes soaring up high in a cloudless sky, and then landing and taking off again from the glass like water. It was truly a pleasure, and very relaxing. Anyway, I didn’t protest too much when I got an invitation to stay for lunch! Hot dogs cooked to perfection, with onions to die for, Wayne is a great cook!

Percy’s memoir: from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”

If Walls Could Talk, Week of June 23, 2016

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Katie Ouiletteby Katie Ouilette

WALLS, I’ve got a secret that I want to share with our faithful readers.  Do you remember my telling you all that Vi Kyes had returned to Skowhegan a few weeks ago?  Also, do you remember that she had given me the entire history of the Skowhegan Tourist Hospitality Association, which was, at the time, part of the Skowhegan Area Chamber of Commerce?  Well, included in that notebook was a photo of the STHA’s Guests of the week from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. whom you quoted, WALLS, that their being guests was a lifetime experience and cancelled their continuing on to Montreal, in order to remain here and ‘Montreal would have to wait”.

Y’know, faithful readers, the Skowhegan Hospitality Association’s Guest of the Week project that WALLS is telling you about here was dated 1964. Who were our guests that year?Well, there were nine weeks of great hospitality, for guests from Brisbane, California; Webster, New York; Sillery, Québec; Milburn, New Jersey; Warwick, Rhode Island; Laverock, Pennsylvania; Canton, Massachusetts; and Sarasota, Florida.  The thank cards and notes of appreciation are the best, as places that extended the best-of-the-best hospitality that con-tributing stores, motels, restau-rants, florists and, of course, Lakewood Theatre, gave mean-ing to the words Maine Vacationland.

Actually, faithful readers, little do we realize how much our guest of the week project meant to our guests and those who host-ed them.  Yes, many of the stores and places we of Skowhegan once boasted are no longer a part of our tourism scene, but our guests have memories lingering on through the years.  One of the truly great happenings, over the years, has been the newspaper write-ups about people who were our guests in their local newspa-pers.  Ah, Skowhegan is that shining star that reached into Canada and across our own U.S.A.

WALLS, throughout the years that Skowhegan was the center of Maine hospitality, maybe you are ready to tell folks about Barbara Bailey’s working toward making the ‘hospitality dream’ come true for Fairfield Center. Remember, everyone….Our Maine historian Earle Shettleworth, is scheduled to highlight that community when he speaks at the Fairfield Grange on July 7.

A recent Somerset Economic Development meeting, of which Heather Johnson is now execu-tive director, was held at Outdoors at The Forks.  Our host was owner Russell Walters, who spoke, plus Donna Moreland, of Maine Tourism, and Larry Warren, owner of Huts and Trails.  On the scene, too, was Joe Kruse, owner of Lake Parlin Lodge and the Ouilette family can attest to the hospitality there…..the favorite fishing grounds for their annual fishing trip, which was worth coming from Bellingham, Washington for.

Yes, faithful readers, the entire length of U.S. Route 201, from Fairfield Center to Jackman has so much for your honey-do list this summer, from White Water Rafting to Fishing and lots of his-tory, including Coburn Mountain!