SOLON & BEYOND: Percy’s words of wisdom remembered

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

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

The Solon Pine Tree 4-H Club met on Saturday, May 12th at the Solon Fire Station with Cooper Dellarma presiding.

Several members and four leaders helped at the Luck of the Draw on May 5.

On Mothers Day four members and one guest passed out flowers at the Solon Congregational Church.

Seven members are planning to attend Fun Day at Lake George on Wednesday, June 20.

After the meeting Logan Miller showed the members how to make key chains and dog leashes.

The next meeting will be on Saturday, June 9, at the Solon Fire Station. After the meeting the members will be going on an educational tour to the Buffalo Farm in South Solon.
My apologies that I don’t have anything else for real news this week. Since it is Memorial Day as I sit here at my computer, I am going to print this letter I wrote, (probably in 2005) in memory of Percy.

Dear Friends, Percy and I have missed you. He took it really hard when his picture and advice were no longer in this paper. In fact, he was down right impossible to live with! He needed more cuddling than I really had time for as I was trying to get things made for a craft fair I was doing. My patience ran thin on days when he wouldn’t let me knit. He would climb up in my lap and I would insist that that he lay across my legs so I could still maneuver the knitting needles. He would keep trying to get his face closer to mine and the knitting needles would hit him on his nose, he would get this martyred look on his face, and I would give up and put the knitting aside and cuddle with him.

My heart has swelled to its capacity from all the nice things that have been said and written to me about how much you have missed Percy’s and my column in this paper. As I stressed several times at meetings in South China, my goal in writing all these years has been to bring love and laughter to you, my old and new friends. And so it is with great appreciation and love and many thanks for your kind words, that I write this letter to you.

Percy and I also appreciate all the calls we received, asking if his bowels had moved yet. There were even more calls than I received before the election when all the campaigning was going on! Percy is a famous and special cat from all the good advice he has given out.

I checked, and he would like to end this letter with the best advice yet; “Live well, Laugh often, Love much (even if it hurts at times).” With love, from Marilyn and Percy.

For those of you who don’t know, Percy died two years ago in November. We still miss him immensely, he was truly a very special animal!

And now for Percy’s memoir: “Money will buy a bed but not sleep, books but not brains, food but not appetite, finery but not beauty, a house but not a home, medicine but not health, luxuries but not culture, amusement but not happiness, religion but not salvation, a passport to everywhere but heaven.”

Also came across a memory from 2004 from Walter Jones, who lived in Solon. It was a short e-mail: Marilyn, I was so happy and surprised to get The Town Line I read it and re-read it again, that was my first issue. I felt like I was back in Solon. I know my folks get it, Richard and Jean LaCasce, and I know they didn’t want me to be left out. Now I look for it. We don’t get much news here. Sometimes we can get on the internet and find out what is happening in our back yard and around the world but I really enjoy The Town Line. It makes my days go so much faster. Keep sending it to my unit in Iraq. Thanks.

(I had forgotten how far this little paper has traveled over these many years. So glad I had saved this precious scrap of paper with its heartfelt memory.)