Heroes Against Hunger

by Esther J. Perne

If it's Tuesday, a door opens in Belgrade; if it's Wednesday, Sidney; Thursday, Oakland. Almost every day of the week in some town in Central Maine, food pantry volunteers are helping give out food to residents who simply cannot afford enough food to keep away hunger or stave off the feelings of food insecurity.

Almost daily during summer vacation, at schools, churches, rec programs children in Central Maine as part of the USDA Summer Food Service Program receive breakfast, lunch, snacks served by food service workers and volunteers.

Almost weekly there is a food drive in progress, a small one at a place of work, a clever one at a library that will accept cans of food in lieu of late fees, an unexpected one when a young birthday boy or girl requests food donations instead of gifts and a large one like the recent collection of over 1,000 pounds of food and over $1,050 of essential items by Elanco Animal Health in Winslow in just the month of June.

The statistics are saddening. According to the USDA's estimate more than one in five people or one in four children in Maine are food insecure. The Belgrade/Rome Food Pantry points out that 23% of seniors — a harder group to reach experience food insecurity.

Nationally, Maine ranks third among states for the rate of hunger according to an industry study conducted in 2017, with more than 16% of its households, more than 200,000 people unable to afford enough food throughout the year.

Unfortunately, many of these people do not qualify for formal assistance. United Way of Mid-Maine reports that about 30% of the people who are food insecure, make too much money to qualify for assistance programs but not enough money to feed their families. Therefore they depend on charitable efforts such as food pantries and soup kitchens.

As the need for feeding the hungry in Maine increases and the availability of government aid decreases (for example Kennebec County will not be receiving any Emergency Food and Shelter money this year) Food pantries will rely more and more on private contributions and donations.

For summer visitors, in particular, please remember food pantries when leaving Maine at the end of your stay. When you are emptying your cupboards remember there are collection boxes at town offices and post offices. There are bottle redemption boxes roadside and at transfer stations. Financial donations may be sent to the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn, Maine, or checks may be given directly to local Food Pantries.

But actual contributions of food are best, from everyone. Be a hero against hunger.

Define Your Pathways

by Sabine Fontaine

Another way to save your lake is to define your foot pathways. Trees, shrubs, and plants act as a shield between the lake and groundwater runoff. Plants catch rainwater, slow it down, and filter out the unwanted chemicals. But plants can only grow if they don't get trampled, and a pathway tells humans how to walk around them. Paths are ideally 3-4' wide and can be defined with undyed mulch, crushed stone or even pine needles. You can border them with rocks, logs, branches, or nothing at all. They should bend in way to deter water from travelling straight down them into the lake.

Once you define your path you have two ways to vegetate in the other areas. You can landscape the garden with native and native friendly plants like blueberries, juniper, hostas and daylilies. If you put mulch down, make sure it is undyed so those chemicals can't leach into the lake. If you are not interested in a "highly civilized" landscape, you can let it vegetate naturally with whatever is naturally growing. You will be surprised at how much stuff grows when you stop walking on it!

All Ponds Still Doing Great

by Dick Greenan

Summer is most certainly here and, low and behold, our lake levels are still holding their own. Great Pond is actually 1″ above full pond with both gates shut tight. In other words, Great Pond is just barely breaking over the spillway at the Village dam. Full pond is when the water has not quite crested over a spillway. Long Pond is now 0.72″ below full pond with both gates still completely covered with cobwebs closed. Salmon/McGrath is now feeling the summer heat and is down 3″ below full with its one gate still opened the mandated 1 turn or 1 cfs. Overall for this point in the summer, all of our ponds are doing great.

A lot of folks wonder, or more accurately question our numbers particularly when their favorite measuring rock is now exposed and we are reporting such and such. There is a lot that goes into it but the bottom line is that our daily measurements are calculated every 15 minutes 24/7 by computerized data logger systems at both the Long and Great Pond dams and of course are calibrated periodically when we see something amiss.

Of course if your shore has been experiencing southerly winds for a few days, your water level will be higher and conversely if the winds change direction. Rain events also rain havoc on stability of our measurements especially with Long Pond where it takes new rain water up to 3 days to reach the dam at Wings Mill.

Breaking News! We just got word this morning that our Tier 3 Application for a permanent remediation of the Wings Mill Dam was just approved by Maine's DEP. Great News!! We are now able to start this two year project this coming fall.

Enjoy the family, your vacation, and this beautiful weather!

A Secret Gift

by Martha F. Barkley

Take a beautiful coastal drive from the author Ted Gup's small cabin in the woods near Bucksport to visit his mother near Kennebunk for Virginia's surprise 80^th…What would mother give him this trip? Something from the attic, of course! Even the author's son Matt could not imagine what would come from this surprise birthday party at Grandma's.

As in most families, we know each other's needs and interests. Virginia knew her author son loved family history, so she insisted he take the old, dusty suitcase on the floor. It contained some "old papers." More junk to help Grandma in her downsizing to smaller and smaller living spaces. Continued clean-up from her own mother's death just three years ago. Moving is always monumental and death of a loved one requires too much sorting and too much "junk."

Not even opening the suitcase, Ted Gup and his son Matt packed it the next day in their car before returning to Bucksport. "It was too big to be a briefcase, too small to be of much use as luggage." On the outside his mother had written a label "Memoires: Minna's Baby Book, Wedding Book, Family Misc." Can you imagine having your great grandmother's treasures still in tact? Matt was a lucky great grandchild and his dad the author had the beginnings of family history worth writing in a book.

Canton, Ohio was where the family tale began in 1933, during the Great Depression. This caught my eye, because my grandmother and cousins lived in Canton and we visited them often with such wonderful family get togethers. Not in 1933, but in 1948…still, the railroad town of Canton, where hoboes knocked on my grandmother's door looking for work, years after this 1933 story. My grandmother often fed these transients her delicious cooking and I fondly remember her generosity.

So, too, the amazing front page story in the Sunday, December 17, 1933 Canton Repository headlined, "Man Who Felt Depression's Sting to Help 75 Unfortunate Families…Anonymous Giver, Known Only as 'B. Virdot,' Posts $750 to Spread Christmas Cheer."

The ad within the paper was very brief and simple. Thank goodness journalists noticed and expanded the news on the front page. How often do we see good news written up? "In writing, please familiarize me with your true circumstances and financial aid will be promptly sent."

True to the ad's claim, families all over Canton began receiving $5 or $10 before Christmas. The town reveled with happiness in knowing that someone in their community was so very generous to the needy. The individual stories of how the money was spent is documented in this fine family history.

The distant relative of author Ted Gup is really not so distant. "They had learned during the Great Depression that they were all in this together — rich and poor, black and white, Jew and Gentile — and that only by acting in concert could they prevail. B. Virdot had sent them five dollars. They repaid his faith in them ten thousand fold."

"But even today, B. Virdot's gift enjoys a half-life in Canton. At Christmas 2008, following my discovery of the suitcase, the Repository ran an editorial citing Sam Stone (a.k.a. Mr. B. Virdot) and his generosity."

"…There is no better role model than Samuel J. Stone." Receivers of the Christmas money wrote letters of gratitude to their anonymous benefactor. That is how author Ted Gup could tell the rest of the story in A Secret Gift.

Small beginnings with only five dollars shows how families could turn around their poverty, thanks to these many Christmas gifts by Ted Gup's relative. Not until this book was published in 2010 did Canton, Ohio residents find out about our Maine-related hero incognito, the best kind, after all!

Both Meyers Lake Amusement Park and the Palace Theater are mentioned several times in this history of Great Depression in Canton, Ohio. Young folks were determined to have fun on weekends even though money was short. A world's record was hailed in 1933 for dancers in the Moonlight Ballroom: 3,450 hours — some 144 days.

It was so very straining on the dancers and the watchers (who paid to observe, even in the middle of the night!), that it was discontinued for health reasons. The desperation for fun and winning money was blatant with 77 couples entering June 7, and the three couples hanging on desperately to the torturous end. Mayor James Seccombe of Canton handed out the much-sought-for prize money to Bob "Popeye" Everhard and partner etc. "It was the last marathon dance held in the Moonlight Ballroom."

Even in 1948, I could see the Ferris wheel over Meyers Lake when I visited Aunt Bessie and my two great grandparents who lived near the lake. My cousins in Canton also took my sister and me to see a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy movie at the old Palace Theater, still in operation. We laughed so hard together at those two comedians…

"Stone himself was not a wealthy man…He also had experienced the loss of business and had benefited from the help of others in getting back on his feet…Five dollars was so little and yet so much."

Sandie Kaiser, who died last Saturday in Beaufort, SC, gave me this book last summer in Belgrade Village. Jim Kaiser ran the Selah pontoon rides on Great Pond and baked at 5 a.m. for Day's Store. Publish this book review, dedicated to Sandie's love of reading and her Book Group at Belgrade Public Library that she started with [former librarian] Marcia Haigh's guidance…so many memories…

For more information, visit the author's website.

Crepuscular Fishing

by Pete Kallin

The past week has been hot and humid with some rain. Early in the week we got a brief visit from our granddaughter Maddy, when her parents dropped her off on the way to delivering her older brother to Jazz Camp at UMaine Farmington. While she was here, we spent a lot of time cooling off in the water, including swimming and jumping off the diving platform on my neighbor's swim float. After supper, we got in the boat to check out the new loon chicks in our cove and cruise down to Day's for a visit to Lakeside Scoops for some ice cream.

Afterwards we headed out for bit of crepuscular (twilight) fishing. We took a few casts near the spillway area and then took a "three-sunset trolling cruise." If you troll north along the western shore of Long Pond, you can get three sunsets if you time it right. The sun sets first behind Blueberry Hill, then briefly appears to rise again before setting behind Roundtop Mountain, and then rising and finally setting behind Vienna Mountain. Along the way we caught quite a few small- to medium-size smallmouth bass, none quite worthy of a photo. Finally, she hooked a nice one of about 3 lbs. or so and began to reel it in. As it got closer to the boat, I reached for the net to get ready to help land the fish. Suddenly there was a big splash and Maddy said her fish "jumped up and flopped off." The next day, Maddy went shopping and to a movie with Nana before getting dropped off at home in time to attend a theater event.

The warm rains have kick started the mushroom foraging season and I spent a couple of days searching for edible mushrooms and wild strawberries at various 7-Lakes Alliance properties. I picked some yellow chanterelles on The Mountain and met a lot of people hiking with kids, which always warms my heart. I ran into several relatives of my old friend, Alan Charles, who died last summer. Alan was a stalwart volunteer for both the BRCA and the BLA and I know he would be pleased to see his daughter, Kymberlie, daughter-in-law, Allison, and grandson, Campbell, hiking the Mountain Trail overlooking his old camp. I also met Dan LaFave, who teaches economics at Colby College, out hiking with his daughters, Nora and Maggie, and his dogs, Wrigley and Fenway, named for his favorite baseball parks.

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 7 Lakes Alliance at the Maine Lakes Resource Center. Also, please check the 7-LA Facebook page for details on some interesting events scheduled this summer. Check the website and keep an eye on the sign out front. And make sure you take a kid along on your next outdoor adventure.