SOLON & BEYOND: Remembering our class trip to Washington DC

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

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

Please forgive me, but….I’m going to go way back in ‘Beyond’ in this week’s column. In fact, this column starts out way back in the year of 1947, when I graduated from Flagstaff High School. There were five of us graduating: Joanne Deming, Polly Jackson, Isabelle Burbank, Vernon Bean and myself, Marilyn Houston. There wasn’t any high school in Dead River where Vernon lived so he had joined us in Flagstaff after he graduated from eighth grade.

The ones in that 1947 class had decided we would go on an exciting journey to Washington, DC, (If I remember correctly, we girls had decided on this trip before Vernon joined us. I do not remember why we decided to invite the class of two boys coming up the next year to join us, probably to keep Vernon happy. Anyway, Loen Burbank and Dickie Ames joined us on that railroad ride to Wasahington, DC!) That was quite an undertaking to raise enough money for the trip, but we succeeded, and as I look back I think they might have all agreed with me, that we all had a wonderful time!

One of the reasons why my thoughts went back so far this week is that Lief and I went up to the Flagstaff Memorial Chapel, Old Home Days, last weekend. We stayed at the Mountain View Cabins outside of Stratton Saturday night. When he got to Stratton Saturday morning, we attended the Old Home days at the Stratton Community Building and then went to the Dead River Area Historical Society Building, in Stratton, in the afternoon where the focus was on Clarence Jones, who served in World War 11 and made a name for himself on the River Drives throughout the years.

The members of his family who were present to meet and greet at that place were his sons, Steven Jones, of Bingham, Tom Jones, of Farmington, and Larry Jones, of Limington, and me as his step-daughter. There were lots of interested people who attended that event that afternoon.

On Sunday morning Lief and I attended the Old Home Sunday Worship Service at the Flagstaff Memorial Chapel where there weren’t too many in attendance; only three who had ever lived in Flagstaff, Isabelle Burbank, Loen Burbank and myself. It is sad but true, time marches on.

This was the 69th Flagstaff Memorial Chapel Old Home Days Sunday Gathering held at the little building in Eustis that holds the beautiful old memorial windows of the little chapel that it represents from the Flagstaff Congregational Church, in Flagstaff.

Received an e-mail from Happyknits: Speaking of relaxing, Happyknits is joining forces again with CrabApple Whitewater in the Forks for our second annual Confluence Retreat, a fall fiber and foliage get-away. Join us there from October 11-14, for a laid-back four days of knitting and crocheting, and let the good folks at CrabApple take care of your every need. We’ll be offering a few workshops, but the focus will be on having fun and being with friends. We’ve had so much fun this summer meeting folks from all over the state of Maine (and beyond) who have joined the Maine Yarn Cruise. They’ve come from big cities and small towns, from nearby and far away. But they all share what we share – a love of yarn. Each person who visits us becomes part of our Happyknits community, if even for just a few minutes. This was signed by Sarah, MaryLou and Karla.

And so now for Percy’s memoir: If you hear a kind word spoken Of some worthy soul you know, It may fill his heart with sunshine If you only tell him so! If a deed , however humble, Helps you on your way to go’ Seek the one whose hand has helped you, Seek him out and tell him so! If your heart is touched and tender Toward a sinner, lost and low, It might help him to do better If you only tell him so! Oh my sisters, oh, my brothers, As over life’s rough path you go, If God’s love has saved and kept you, Do not fail to tell men so! (No name was listed under the above words.)