SOLON & BEYOND: Back when I did the community cookbook

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

Have been going through some of my old columns to find something to write about, and found some about when I was visiting people to get their picture to put in the paper. Found some interesting ones in the year 2004. (This was before Percy!) It was when I was visiting people to get their pictures and a recipe to put in this column. Back then my column was called “The Community Cookbook,” by Marilyn Rogers, and the first one states”Catching Up With Dale”. It was hard to catch up with Dale Redmond – she is a very busy person — but we finally connected at the Solon Congregational Church one cold day recently.  (The following article was on February 7, 2004.)

Dale was born in Jackman and graduated from high school there, then went on to get an associate’s degree in animal medical technology from the University of Maine at Orono in 1975. She has lived and worked in many places: She resided in Weld for 10 years. She worked for UNUM, in Portland, and then returned to college at the University of Maine, Presque Isle, where she received a lab technician degree. From Presque Isle she went to Greenville and worked at the Goodwill Veterinary Clinic, until she became ill and had to quit working.

She then moved back to Jackman to be near her parents and in August 1991 she received a liver transplant at New England Medical Center, in Boston. She was in the hospital for six weeks following the surgery and stayed in the area for a while for check ups, etc.

She returned to Jackman until 1995, when she moved to Solon, and Dale has been with Dana Hall ever since. Dale loves to cook and, in the past, has done lots of catering. She She now works at Williams General Store, in Bingham. She is very active in the Solon Congregational Church and serves as treasurer. She is a past Hospice worker and is still very interested in that work.
Dale enjoys oil painting, gardening, and has a passion for reading.

She shared her recipe for Dump Cake. Ingredients: Grease a 13 – x 9 inch pan, dump one can of sweetened applesauce into it. Dump one can of crushed pineapple on top of that. Spread one package of dry yellow cake mix over that. Melt one cup of butter or margarine and pour over the top of the cake mix. Sprinke 1-1/2 cups chopped nuts over all. Do not stir. Bake at 350° F for one hour. Top with whipped cream to serve.

Will now finish with these words from Percy who had done a column in January 2008. while I was in Florida. I am thrilled beyond belief that she is letting me write this column again, since so many of you have told her that you prefer my writing instead of hers. Since I don’t have any real news to share, I have been reflecting on what subject to write about. I think perhaps Happiness might be a good topic to delve into. Our bi-line each week being “Don’t Worry be Happy,” and she’s been using it for years, before I started here. Does that make you stop and think just how happy you really are ? Some quotes I can think of are, “Cheerfulness greases the axles of the world, “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” “True happiness consists in making others happy.” But the one I like the best is, “There are two essentials to happiness: something to do, and someone to love.” It gives me great pleasure to behold the sappy look on my human’s face when I lavish her with love, (I curl up in her lap and put my paw as far around her neck as I can and sing at the top of my lungs!) That is pure ecstasy, and makes me happy also.

And now for a few quotes from some famous people , Benjamin Franklin once said, “The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.”

And now for Percy’s memoir, Old gardeners never die, they just lose their bloomers!