SOLON & BEYOND: Revisiting a past interview

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

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

Baker Mountain Ski Tow, in Moscow, had a great ski season with all the wonderful snow. Thank you to all the volunteers who made that possible. On March 24 they held age-category and male/female races and a BBQ. Winners of the races included snowboarders: (kids) first place winners, Levi Hills; (age 13-17) Drake Whittemore, Jada Ward, and Alvaro Martin; second, Nikk Dube; (adults) first place, Dennis O’Connor and Kelly Vicneire. Ski winners included: first place, Hunter Tewksbury, Cylee Pratt, Tian Jacques, Tyler Jacques; second, Fisher Tewksbury, Hallam Singer, Ethan Wyman, and third, Xavier Belanger, (adults) first, Damian Belanger and Maria Cirelli; second, Tanya Langly; third, Rachel Tremblay.

The above e-mail was sent to me by Judy Belanger.

And….sad but true, that is all the local news that I have received for this weeks column. By now you know that I have been going through old papers from times gone by. They all had long columns of what people had been doing, who had been visiting who, etc… the times, they have changed in these modern days.

I am sad to tell you of the death of my brother-in-law, Howard Rogers, of Solon, who died last week at the age of 97. He had just recently received the Boston Post Cane as Solon’s oldest resident.

Howard and his wife Peggy moved from Flagstaff to Solon back when we were flooded out and had to move. I always enjoyed talking with him about the friends we had there, and the good old days. I’m afraid that I’ll be the only one left soon that remembers way back then.

The other day I came across a, issue of The Town Line paper printed on September 18, 2008, with Percy’s and my picture on the front page. Under the picture, these words were printed: Marilyn Rogers discusses Percy’s philosophical contributions for her weekly column, Solon and Beyond. The article was written by Lyn Rowden , and the picture was of Percy and me laying on the floor, ( and it did look as if we were discussing something!) Lyn also took the picture.

The following is some of what Lyn wrote about Percy and me: “I like to write , I have no formal training but I like to record history, and have it to go back to,” she said. For nearly 25 years she has been doing just that, writing of local events for local papers. She had a weekly column in the Morning Sentinel. She wrote for the Skowhegan Reporter which became the Somerset Reporter and later the Somerset Gazette. She also contributed articles to the Carney Brook Chronicle of Bingham and the Chronicle of Jackman. She had her first front page in 1986 with the Somerset Reporter. In that paper she liked to add old photos and write about historical events such as log drives, which ceased in 1976. “My step-father was on the drive: I wish he would write it all down, she said, noting that it is important to record these happenings while people are still here who remember them. Then, I just had to admire her spunk when she put aside her documentarian side and added, ‘I don’t write about political things anymore, but I can get controversial if something doesn’t seem right to me. Even if sometimes people don’t like it. I stand up for what I believe in,’ she avows, a true believer in the freedom and power of the press. (It was a wonderful long column, with lots of other complements to Percy and me, and our writing, on a blustery, cold, snowy day recently, it really lifted my spirits!

Lyn ended her column that day with these words about Percy: Percy was adopted as a stray kitten nine years ago and has made himself at home. I would say his philosophy is like Marilyn’s: he adopted a home and embraces it as she does Solon.; “he’s a different animal,” she says, and she’s a positively uncommon soul too; he is beautiful, talented, sharp-witted, playful, a great and loving companion and “a good judge of character,” and full of the very words Marilyn would use if Percy didn’t come up with them first.

I asked Percy if he could come up with some lines to pay tribute to Marilyn at the end of my article, and he obliged saying:”To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived; This is to have succeeded.” Marilyn, you have succeeded; Solon and way, way beyond love you!”