These archival articles are presented “as is.” Except for minor corrections or clarifications, most have not been updated since they appeared in print. Thus, some details may be out of date, and some hyperlinks may no longer work.
Let the Leisure Seize Ya
by Esther J. Perne
The season of leisure is here! Summer enrichment activities, opportunities and options are setting in. Every day of the week, there will be free outdoor music floating through the air. Every weekend there will be an art or photography or craft exhibit, also usually free. Most evenings there will be theater performances. Most any time there will be jam sessions and poetry readings and classes and workshops on arts and crafts and creativity. And always there will be museums and libraries and historic sites and studios open longer hours or summer-only hours with a lot of special exhibits during this season of the year.
This summer grow rich! Put some culture in the mind bank, some classes, some craft know-how. Put some music in the memories, some artwork, some theater, some living history.
Invest in a small way in attending everything that has no admission fee, in admiring in passing a roadside artist, a solo sidewalk entertainer, a birder with binoculars standing silently across from a picturesque marshland. Invest in a large way with a season-long theater or museum pass, a music or film festival pass, a ticket to special seating or VIP benefits. Thrive either way in the balance of summer’s natural settings and the season’s unique artistic and cultural opportunities.
This summer get involved in enrichment. Volunteer, sponsor, fundraise, promote. Attend a dance workshop, join a rural stage production. This summer share. Take the children, the guests, even the dog to an outdoor concert. This summer venture out to an event or presentation in a neighboring town, a new-to-you waterfront. This summer let the leisure of the season set in.
Back to Great Pond. It’s usually around Memorial Day when we return for the summer. As always, I’m drawn to the little cemetery on Watson Pond Road — to visit Ezra Willard’s grave. My first encounter with Ezra was in 2007. My husband and I were hiking in the Kennebec Highlands — a three-mile loop — and somehow wandered off trail. Eventually we found a path and reached the parking lot — but it wasn’t the lot where our car was parked. As we headed down the road we came upon a little graveyard tucked up against the woods. A shady, undisturbed spot to have our sandwiches. So we ate our lunch among the souls from the 1800s.
The stones tell stories, though many of the etchings are wearing away and impossible to read. But there in the middle of the serene little hill, a small American flag was waving, next to a stone that says:
EZRA WILLARD A Soldier of the Revolution DIED May 6, 1851. Æ 90.
This peaceful little place had an effect on me, and every year I make this little pilgrimage on Memorial Day. For me, it’s a time to remember all the Ezras who risked their young lives to make our nation a reality. It’s a time to think about war. And it’s easy to get a bit teary-eyed and feel melancholy. But Memorial Day is a time to reflect, so I visit Rome’s Revolutionary War soldier, and I tell him, “You were there fighting for our independence. We honor you on Memorial Day and celebrate again, lighting up the skies with fireworks, on the 4th of July. Thank you for your service, Ezra.”
Author’s Note: Rome, ME sent 103 to the War of Rebellion. Forty died. Ezra was 90 years old when he died. Next to Ezra in the cemetery is Elizabeth, who died at age 10; and further down is Jonathon Trask’s beloved wife, a woman in her early 20s.
Editor’s Note: In the inscription above, “Æ” stands for the Latin word “ætatis,” meaning “of the age.” With the number that follows, it indicates the age of the deceased at the time of death, in this case, 90 years.
Which is it going to be tonight? That’s the question that we few village kids would toss around when it was time to go in our respective homes for supper, knowing that we would regather after.
In the 1950s village families all ate at pretty much 5 p.m. sharp, and we kids were expected to be at the table with washed hands and combed hair. The usual question, “Got any homework?” came from mother as we gulped down our food and asked to be excused. After the usual minor interrogation as to what the day was like and our saying, “We had no homework,” we’d get the o.k. to get up then bolt for the door.
Regardless of time of year or weather conditions, some regathering of 4 to 6 village kids would take place, and we’d decide on what to do for an hour or two before our parents’ 7 p.m. curfew arrived. Some of our nightly indulgences included riding bikes, skating, building snow forts, playing baseball on the old hotel golf course, or ping pong in the cellar. When we needed a change someone would suggest playing kick-the-can or put-out-the-tire.
In pondering this story and my memories of the above list, I realize that sometimes we weren’t exactly goodie two-shoes kids and did sometimes add a little extra pizazz to what we called fun.
The bike riding for instance, included riding bikes through a pile of burning leaves beside the road. In those days, burning leaves was not only acceptable but expected, it’s what you did with leaves, period. Going in the house with black sooty pants was commonplace in the fall season, complete with a verbal scolding for riding through the fire.
Building snow forts became competitive for a few winters. As the snow banks grew from the plows winging back during large storms, we built multi-room caves in the banks. The mischievous part came from making snow balls to stockpile in the caves, only to pepper vehicles as they passed by on occasion, then hiding deep in the caves if the driver stopped to give us hell.
Kick-the-can was pretty straight forward as I recall, and it was really for the younger years. As we aged into young teens a fun/devious game we called “putting out the tire” became the craze.
In those days, new tires were wrapped in brown paper. We wrapped an old tire and placed it along the roadside after dark, with enough showing that drivers would spot it in their head lights. Probably one in ten drivers would pull over to pick up what they thought was a new tire that had fallen off a delivery truck. Just as the driver bent over to pick up the tire, we would pull the 50-foot rope we had tied to it while hiding in the nearby woods.
The vocal response from the duped driver was interesting and may have been where we learned many new swear words. We had a couple chase us into the woods but we were never caught. One guy shot his shotgun into the air and scared the daylights out of us and we quit that gig for a few weeks.
I hope this little story may bring back some memories for you, especially if you were a little on the naughty side!
Brian Alexander, Toni Pied, and Roy Bouchard land a boatload of cedar planks on Fogg Island.
by Pete Kallin
Summer seems to be in full swing, with long lines at Day’s Store and more out-of-state license plates than Maine plates on the cars parked in the village. The BRCA Courtesy Boat Inspectors (CBIs) have been on duty for over a week already at the seven public boat launches in the Belgrades, doing their part to prevent the spread of invasive plants into our lakes. Last year, these CBIs inspected 13,000 boats between Memorial Day and Labor Day and made multiple “saves” of invasives entering our lakes.
This past week has seen a mixture of weather, some hot, some cool, some wind and off and on rain and thunderstorms. I have gotten a little bit of hiking in and have been rewarded with some beautiful flowers such as trillium and lady slippers. The BRCA Stewardship Committee began another project at their Fogg Island Preserve on lower Long Pond in Mount Vernon. Toni Pied, Roy Bouchard, Brian Alexander and I ferried four loads of hemlock planks from the Castle Island boat launch to Cedar Beach on Fogg Island where the lumber will be used to build a Maine Department of Environmental Protection-permitted bog bridge through a cedar bog to extend a trail to the island.
A ladyslipper on The Mountain.
As the weather has warmed, the trout and salmon have headed for deeper, cooler water while the bass, sunfish, and landlocked alewives have headed for shallower, warmer water. The pike have finished their early spring spawning and are hungrily chasing whatever fish they can catch. I have caught several on my 9-weight flyrod, which is a real battle. Teenager Joe Ardito recently landed a nice nine-pound pike while fishing with his dad, Mark, behind their house on lower Long Pond, across from BRCA’s Fogg Island Preserve. That is the kind of experience that creates strong father-son bonds and creates memories that will last a lifetime.
Joe Ardito holds a nine-pound pike he caught in Long Pond.
While I was fishing on Long Pond recently a bald eagle flew overhead toward a nearby wetland. Suddenly a red-wing blackbird flew straight at the eagle trying to chase it away from its nesting area. The little bird landed right on the eagle’s back, right between the shoulder blades! The eagle dipped and turned to shed the blackbird. The blackbird once again flew above the eagle and landed on its back again, successfully driving the eagle off. It happened so quickly I couldn’t get a picture but I now have a permanent memory of the event. It was more exciting than watching Maverick drive off the bogeys in the movie, Top Gun.
This area offers some great outdoor recreation, whether you like to hike, bike, birdwatch, fish, sail, or paddle a canoe or kayak. Pick up a map of the local trails at Day’s Store or from the BRCA at the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC). Get out and explore! Sign your kids up to learn to sail through the Great Pond Yacht Club. And make sure you take a kid along on your next outdoor adventure.
Recently Public TV had a series on the secret life of plants and “What Plants Talk About.” Well, I’m focusing this week on “bad plants,” especially terrestrial plants and particularly on "terrestrial invasive plants".
Over the past few years there has been an increase in terrestrial invasives. Local land owners, foresters, land trust managers and State of Maine officials are taking notice. An invasive plant is defined as a plant that
Is not native to a particular ecosystem,
Whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic damage or environmental harm, or
May cause harm to human health.
Approximately one third of Maine’s plant species are not native. Only a small fraction of those are considered “invasive.” These have the potential to cause great harm to our landscape. Check the Maine Natural Areas Program list of fact sheets to determine if a particular species is considered invasive in Maine. The MNAP is the “go to” State agency in Maine for answering questions and getting information about invasive plants.
There is also a generic State website for all types of invasives i.e. animals, forest pests, aquatic plants, and terrestrial plants. These websites have "gallery views," which provide good photos to use in identification.
We need to come to grips with the invasive plants that are doing damage to our natural areas and native plants. In the Belgrades most people are fully aware of the problem caused by waterbased invasives like Milfoil and Hydrilla. Hours of time and thousands of dollars are spent trying to control their spread. But 70-80,000 acres of the Belgrade area is land. There is a great deal more land that is being invaded than the shoreline waters.
The culprits? In recent years the spread of multi flora rose, barberry and autumn olive seem particularly robust. Asiatic bittersweet vine and common buckthorn are beginning to appear. Japanese knotweed frequently gets established when fill is added at a construction site or as we do landscaping. Your back yards are feeling the pressure of these invasive plants. You can also get printed handouts at the Maine Lakes Resource Center, your local Cooperative Extension, or our office.
The first line of defense is to accurately identify the plant. Usually trying to control their spread is the only choice. They will eventually appear. Recognize that there is a problem. That occasional plant out back with interesting foliage and a pretty flower might become a thick bank of vegetation if you leave it be. Look along the edge of the woods on your property and note the occasional spring clusters of white flowers which indicate multi flora rose. Next year that small patch of white flowers will be joined by additional mounds of nasty thorn covered plants. At that point removal is much more difficult. That area can become a breeding ground of fruit and seeds which get spread to neighboring properties.
Our natural landscape is part of what Maine is all about. Its future depends on the choices we make:
When buying plants or moving them from place to place, consider whether the plants are likely to escape. Plants advertised as fast growing, prolific, and soil tolerant are often the ones that become invasive. Maine just won’t be Maine if the plants dominating our landscape are all from away. As Harry Potter’s professor, Mad Eye Moody, would say, “constant vigilance.”
Replace invasive plants in your garden with noninvasive alternatives.
DO NOT attack the problem with indiscriminant herbicides. They may have a place in your management plan but they are NOT a magic bullet. Be careful with their use.
With so many Maine authors to read (Richard Russo, Monica Woods, Kathy Swegar right here in Rome, etc.), what should I borrow from our Belgrade public library? The 2017 thoroughly researched story of Christopher Knight and his 27 years of survival in our local North Pond Maine woods. New York author and journalist Michael Finkel established a correspondence with “The Hermit” while he served his time in jail. Meeting and talking to him regularly proved revealing.
I found the story dumbfounding in many ways. How could he survive those twenty below zero winter nights without a fire? Christopher prized his need for solitude in the woods so highly that he faced death every winter of those 27 years. Only three minutes from a North Pond camp, how could his well established camp site be so well hidden?
His repeated invasions of The Pine Tree Camp was where he was finally caught.
We buy our annual Christmas cards from Pine Tree Camp, so I found this connection very personal. Also the news coverage locally of so many North Pond burglaries was the talk for many summers. Knight’s stolen goods were rather small and he always carefully replaced screens and windows when he left … very neat and meticulous burglar.
The prosecution for only the last two years of burglaries was the legal evidence presented in court. Minor amounts of often less than twenty dollars of goods carried away by the hermit.
The author not only investigates Knight, but he covers solitary confinement victims and hermits around the globe. The history lessons are many. I found his John McCain experience of solitary interesting, because choosing to be a hermit is quite different from punishment imposed in prison.
The Albion family who welcomed their missing family member back home is quite moving. Every aspect of this story in our own backyard has so many ramifications. The camps on North Pond dealt both generously, by leaving bags of books on their exterior doors for him, and also judgmentally as well. Their privacy had been repeatedly invaded and clothes, food, and propane tanks stolen. Batteries were another important item taken.
His wellbeing today is one that may still seem precarious, even though his family has helped Christopher to meet all the court’s demands, including weekly tests for drugs and alcohol, etc. when he never abused drugs. Knight works alone in the barn on his mother’s forty-acre farm, repairing metal machinery for his brother’s business. He still longs for the quiet of the woods even though he could hear the summer sounds of motor boating on North Pond while hiding for almost three decades.
Not many humans have achieved what Christopher Knight accomplished and yet remained sensitive and responsive in mind and spirit to tell the tale. Tears were shared between Knight and Finkel. Knight told Finkel to go home to his wife and children in Montana more than once! “The Hermit” loved the photos of the author’s family, calling the two children “the cowboys,…” He just does not sound like a 20-year hermit to me…
The author expresses gratitude to Christopher Knight “for responding with elegance and intelligence” at the end of the book. How many people have retained their sanity after years of solitude? Not many, according to Finkel’s research. Reading books is a big part of Christopher Knight’s life, so North Pond owners began leaving bags of books outside for him to take so that he would not have to break in! Yes, they even left food donations….
Michael Finkel also went camping often near the hermit’s locale — now it has been cleaned up by a team and little evidence remains — it still is difficult for Finkel to find, no matter how many times he returns to camp and experience the silence and sounds of the woods that Knight sought. Years of propane tanks were buried and the “hermit home” was clean and neat when finally found, just as he was shaved and well dressed when captured at Pine Tree Camp in the middle of the night. His burglaries were at night and often he canoed around North Pond to the hundreds of camps. Knight’s sense of hearing was extraordinary and helped him hide. He and his brothers all have a very graceful way of moving, which helped him glide through the woods unnoticed, between boulders and the elusive elephant rock entrance.
It was 1953 (or 4), when at age 5 or 6, my now husband Rod Johnson secretly (he thought) snuck into old Bill Pulsifer’s boathouse to try and catch a perch. An old outboard stood in the corner closet, covered with a film of oil, spider dung, and dirt. None the less, the intrigue began right there.
After being “caught red-handed” by the old man Bill P., he was asked if he would like to use the motor, if it would run. Things were never the same again. The 4-horsepower Champion plied the waters of Mill Stream and Great Pond for a couple of years until more horsepower seemed interesting.
Every year or two, a “new” motor (actually a tinkered-up clunker) would appear. Teenage life brought a racing skiff with a hopped-up Chris Craft outboard, then young married family life sported the cat’s meow, a wooden 21-foot Grady White with an 80 horse Evinrude. Evening barbeques on the boat were the in thing for the locals and often we’d overload the boat with as many as a dozen folks at once. Working at Day’s Marina offered many opportunities to acquire trade-ins from the summer crowd, thanks to bosses Darryl and Linda Day.
During mid-life, carpentry had to take over as employment, and sailing began the new intrigue. After 15 years of Morgans and Mainships, the time has come to scale it back to where it started.
The collection of 38 antique outboards has been ongoing for several years, with many donated and some purchased. They have been paraded through town on the 4th of July, but now it’s time to let them rest in their new home, our basement museum. This spring after returning from Florida, Rod told me he would like to build an outboard museum, and add a display of ice harvesting tools from days gone by. I thought it was a wonderful idea and we immediately made a rough plan.
The next morning, we were off to Tukey Lumber for some wide green hemlock boards to make our display walls. After working many hours over the last month, the Antique Outboard Museum is ready to show off the motors, the old boathouse office and desk, a torn-down motor in the workshop and the ice tools — and a few grand old pictures.
On June 28 limited hours will begin each week on Wednesdays 1-6 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m.-noon, through Labor Day. Admission is by donation, funds being shared with the Museum’s overhead costs, GPYC kid’s sailing program and Belgrade Historical Society’s Town House Renovation Fund. Cellar stairs have to be used to access the museum. For questions, call Rod or Doris at 495‑3302.
Antique Outboards of Belgrade is located at 51 Dry Point Drive, one eighth of a mile past the former Wings Hill Inn, in Rome.
