Loosen the belt, put away the Zumba fitness CD. It was not just the Pilgrims who sampled quite the feast put on by the native first settlers. Maine food dishes prepared with local ingredients taste so much better too after being outside in the fresh crisp air too. Whether working on a farm, tramping the woods while hunting looking for game or splitting, stacking firewood.
Mountain Ash Berries Wrapped In Ice On A Maine Lake Today.
So Thanksgiving dinner, what to serve up for the gathering around your table? Traditions for Thanksgiving mean much of what you create in the kitchen or ask others to contribute is from memories of what you remember growing up. Everyone likes green bean casserole with the onions on top and the yummy sauce right? But what is the best recipe for green bean casserole? Do you want it crunchy, cheesy, jazzy?
On our farm table growing up Maine potatoes were a given. When you grow them, you are exposed to many ways to enjoy spuds. Whipped potatoes seemed to be the choice by my mom. The pearled onions, the squash, sweet potato all steaming in bowls escorted from the pantry to the formal dining room table used on special occasions. Cinnamon rolls like any breads take a special touch I have been told. And growing up, whenever my Mom asked what should she bring to a family or social dinner, it was hand’s down always her cinnamon rolls. They were to die for and akin to the nectar of the Gods.
Layered jello salads, watergate salads. Not only the sweet potatoes had marshmallow swimming in them. Never was a fan of the jello with the carrots and who knows what else mixed and chilled inside. But some likes them because they are a constant.The plate is only so large and what to fill it with in the eenie meenie miney moe of Thanksgiving food offerings.
Peas and yellow beans with cream could show up as a vegetable choice for some. Peas were a standard entry that you could bank on. Ambrosia salad with the cherries, mandarin oranges, orchard apples. pineapple, peaches, everything plucked from a fruit tree. The dinnerware not used but a handful of times a year added to the celebration remembrance. So did the decorations, the floral arrangements that were all natural, from the local seasonal surrroundings.
Turkey with the stuffing, gravy to lather the taters the standard, spiral ham could debut at Christmas. Deer meat venison. It’s what’s for Thanksgiving dinner for some.
But Delmonico steaks grilled on the charcoal outside the farmhouse porch entry could make their way to our Maine family feast. The meat not parked for days and price stickered. Not the kind clear wrapped and hoisted out of the cooler but something different. Hidden like a present in white paper, tied with string. A pencil marking the price, what was hiding inside. After a special request was made ringing the bell. to relay the order to the hunched over butcher with the red stained white frock. Who hand delivered it to you as you continued to fill the wire basket grocery cart with the one squeaky obstinate wheel.
Lots Of Public Suppers, Ones At Thanksgiving Happen In Small Maine Towns. Across The Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Brown Bread And Potato Salad Table Conversations.
Mince meat pie, pecan, coconut cream, lemon meringue or cherry were not the norm but were on the holiday menu besides your year round standards of strawberry, raspberry, apple, pumpkin or blueberry pies. Or hot about another mocca ball, a little fudge or mixed nuts for grazing before or after the feast? Squares come in so many flavors and the cookies were not the kind you buy wrapped in cellophane with elves painted on the store bought packages.
Seafood from Maine got invited to Christmas celebrations and Thanksgiving more the bounty harvested from the local farm fields. Oyster stew or crab cakes served up Christmas Eve. No reason why a Maine lobster or steamer clams or salmon could be provided table space to celebrate the guy in white fur and red velvet and roof top tap dancing reindeer’s visit right? Ho ho happy holidays.
Thanksgiving dining to give thanks, to count your blessings even it is pizza, bologna and cheese sandwiches. Being thankful to have any food, for the fellowship and a time of reflection on the past year.
Thanksgiving meant who sits where, who carves the bird. The guest list created new. To include first time diners to the table, to include the regulars still living and the lost ones in your bow your head, holding hands blessing prayers.
It’s your holiday to celebrate the best way possible. Pass the cranberry sauce, the bread and butter pickles, the many relishes please. There is no shortage of the extras like lady ashburnham or beet pickles as your eyes scanned the family table. That is like a culinary tetris game to find open table space for one more dish or platter. The buffet loaded up with the overflow, the cold drinks, coffee urns and what could not be parked on the dining room table. That would only straight jacket diners and only serve to interfere with available elbow room.
Home Made Maine Pies, What’s Your Favorite Kind?
The Thanksgiving dinner spread seemed to be more harvest gold theme because we had just put the turnip, squashes, carrots, pumpkins in the root cellar. Fiddle heads to douse with vinegar could show up at Thanksgiving or Christmas or both. Picked from along brook and river side banks back in early spring and frozen for the special occasion family dining.
What’s for dinner this Thanksgiving at your home? Have you ever worked a free Thanksgiving dinner for the public members that have no family? Whether Veterans who served, shut ins house house bound and afraid of ice when using walkers. Or folks just missing any living or close by family members, Thanksgiving should not be spent alone. I think about the truck drivers, soldiers overseas who have to adopt new family to share the time of gratitude, the holiday called Thanksgiving.
Growing up on a Maine potato farm, my three older brothers and I did not eat a lot of rice. Not so many helpings of fresh Maine blueberries either.
Local fruit like raspberries, strawberries, apples, pears were the mainstay for something sweet. To end, to round out the family table offerings at meal time. A fresh, homemade healthy sized slab of strawberry / rhubarb pie blended nicely. The two fruits were very compatible. Heated up, with a couple super sized vanilla scoops of ice cream parked high on top. Lazily melting to drizzle slowly down the sides. You get the picture, can almost smell it through the monitor speakers right?
Need A Nutritious Maine Blueberry Snack? It’s Off The Charts For Health Benefits. Not Just Marketing Hype.
Blueberries, the high bush cultivated kind are grown around Northern Maine.
You see volunteer, stray wild blueberry plants hiking up Mt Katahdin. When planting the walking stick over other hills and dale hikes. But the wild blueberry crop is something found almost exclusively in Downeast Maine. Unless working the blueberry fields under a hot sun, and sampling the crop as you rake the lanes marked with strings, this dark blue fruit is not so familiar.
So highlight time on this Maine blog post to showcase Maine wild blueberries. Where to begin? For starters, every vegetable or fruit is a super pick of the pack, best of the bunch, cream of the crop one right? Today’s marketing puts whatever is being pitched over the top. Claiming a bowl full of these fix everything. To extend your life by at least a decade. To make the quality of your short time on planet Earth jacked up a few notches. All because of weaving a little of this, a lot of that into your diet. Of whatever you put in the pie hole three times or more a day.
The Maine Blueberry Crew Field Rakers Are a Motley Bunch.
But what about these wild blueberries in Maine?
What is the down and dirty true story about Maine wild blueberries? History, let’s start with the background of the wild blueberry. The first settlers, our Native Americans used fire to start the ritual. To rid Maine fields Downeast of insects and weeds. The burning of the blueberry barrens made the fruit come back hardy and stronger.
Like the shrub or decorative bush out front your home. Some the harder you cut back and prune the more determined they respond. To the Edward Scissorhand’s treatment in the snip and clip cutting.
Like To Own, Run A Maine Blueberry Farm? Just Listed One In Northfield Maine Near Machias.
Better quality, thicker growth, higher yields, more sugar content. All that helped establish Maine as the largest producer of wild blueberries in the world. The succulent fruit is harvested from over 60,000 acres of Maine land. Wild blueberries in Maine were some of the first vegetation on the scene after glaciers did their bump and grind scrape of the landscape. Being purple blue adds to the health benefits of blueberries.
The Maine wild blueberry has been around the breakfast / lunch – dinner / supper circuit for a thousand years or more. Ever raked blueberries, been part of the hand picking and gleaning operation under the hot Maine harvest sun? Like potato picking, you never forget the lessons learned that stick with you for life.
Like most things, it takes time to go over the top. You get the best results from the hard labor. No pain, no gain. I have read it takes 50 years to establish a good wild blueberry field, that there are only about 6.5 million versions or varieties of wild Maine blueberries. And I thought there were a slug of Maine potato varieties to keep up with and match the changing habits and taste buds of spud consumers. I grew up with those discussions around the supper table because my Dad was president of the Maine potato council and testified in Washington DC hearings on the farmer’s behalf. I remember the campaigns to improve the quality of Maine potatoes. Bruisers are losers was one bumper sticker used to increase awareness of being kind in handling the Maine potato. Or is it potatoe?
So back to Maine blueberries, the wild ones or tame varieties that are domesticated and house broken.
The flavor that explodes from a fork full of blueberry pie with buttery crust, sprinkled sugar crystals. Or from simply popping a few from your hand out in the field. It is a complex mixture of flavors. All you know if you like it, you love it, you want some more of it. Sorry. Now you have that song in your head. My bad.
The Views, The Washington County Setting For The Age Old Maine Blueberry Farming Tradition.
Only one percent of the Maine blueberry crop is sold fresh and the other ninety-nine percent is frozen. Has the chance this past weekend to list a Maine blueberry farm for sale. And even though my conventional farming background helps the learning curve, and my girlfriend along who owns an organic Maine farm, we both learned much.
This blueberry farm in Maine has 71 acres of the fruit and established markets. Set in Northfield Maine population under 150 like many rural Vacationland towns. Maine has 492 towns and so many are shrinking and going the unorganized territory route. Northfield Maine is bucking the trend and holding it’s own, growing slightly. Fulton, Bogg Lakes in the small Washington County Maine town don’t hurt keeping the population steady either.
The nutrition of the wild Maine blueberry, growing up on not the best soil conditions, with lots of rocks.
We’re talking big rocks of all kinds and sizes. A rugged, hilly terrain that an Aroostook County potato or grain farmer could not plant and cultivate or harvest without machinery damage. A far cry from the level to rolling, just rich rusting orange soil with a new crop of way way smaller rocks showing up to escort to piles along the boundary lines. Maybe the rough surroundings for the blueberry plant help make it stronger, a fighter. It is reported Maine wild blueberries have the highest antioxidant capacity per serving, compared with more than 20 other fruits.
Maine Blueberries, Can You Just Taste Them From This Eye Candy Image Designed To Tempt And Tease?
When is the last time you had a blueberry flavored ice cream cone, a milkshake smoothie or planted in your morning muffin, in the pancake breakfast mix? Some sprinkled on top of your Wheaties. Maybe is is time for a healthy dose of this super fruit. Maine blueberries are a crop not planted and that only grows, spreads naturally.
Mother Nature does the heavy lifting, controls the blueberry farm crop. Man not so much. Maine blueberries are a two year cycle which helps the crop rotation and keeps the plant happy, healthy. Double the antioxidants and why not raise your hand and shout out “Maine wild blueberries please and thank you!’
One of the latest health and wellness trends is collagen peptides. Blueberries score sky high. Also, did you know thousands of beehives are brought in by Maine blueberry growers to pollinate the blueberry fields? More on wild Maine blueberries.
Maine blueberries, where do they show up in your list of fruits and healthy food preferences?
What you wear, clothe your body in Maine is a lot like the Frank Lloyd Wright reminder that “form follows function”.
Which actually Louis Sullivan was the brain child of that particular notion. That Frank took from his mentor. And ran with it. Getting all the press.
What To Wear When Driving A 90 Tine Blueberry Rake In Maine.
The Maine wardrobe clothing fits the season and chore at hand.
If you are working in a Northern Maine potato field, the spud house to process the golden nuggets. For the from the harvest farm land, out the door to fresh markets.
Or to store them away for continual winter withdrawals. For dark bin by bin siphoning, then clothing is anything goes.
That is as long as Maine clothing is not stringy, straps, loose. That can get caught in machinery. Sucking the guy or gal wearing the threads into the conveyor belt.
The Oz like wizardry of many noisy, whirling, twirling high RPM spinning cogs. That someone in a hurry sometimes forgets to replace the OSHA approved safety guards. To create an accident waiting to happen situation.
If outside, working on a Maine winter snow storm (AKA “dusting”) removal in a Maine winter. If that is the mission, something warm, layered but that breaths, wicks works best.
So the material trumps the color. Because it does the job. And cold or clammy sweating, getting chills is avoided. Not what Mainer’s put up with, struggle to add to their toil. When chasing the dollar working outside in the Maine weather elements.
Following Strings, Lanes In Maine Blueberry Fields, Raking Up A Storm.
When the mercury sits low in the tube. Wind howls, drifts. Clearing a slow, low pitch Maine home porch or camp roof. That is more like the turtle than the hare in shedding snowflakes.
Or hunkered down, with water repellent fishing gear at the helm of a diesel boat in a north east gale ocean wind.
Hauling in, hoisting up dark green clawed Maine lobsters.
Maine Blueberries, From Downeast Maine. Pick, Rake, Harvest. Clothing Optional.
During the winter months, from the ocean’s floor with locations all marked by colorful floating surface buoys. That salt water keeps from freezing in. Static frozen in still frame.
So color is less a concern in Maine for clothing. No one out to impress. No one seeking to cause any tag left on for shock value price envy.
We don’t name drop in Maine.
That game does not work here in the Pine Tree state. Because Mainers don’t play, care about name brands. We like paid for, frequent good as new, second time around Goodwill type stores. Where wool blend clothing that sets you back a couple bucks a copy works just fine.
It’s all about cool, warm, comfortable and no or low cost when talking, describing Maine clothing. Hand me downs.
The blazer with no bullet or moth holes.
That has the leather elbow patches and exotic far away name, expert tailor stitching. That the original now deceased, passed away Maine owner just left hanging in the closet unworn. Or with very few miles logged. Because his wife like it, he… well, not so much.
Maybe it was the buttoned collar and tie cutting off air to the windpipe, not the blazer. Or the fact that dressing up was just not his forte. Made him feel like a brook trout out of water. Or the center of attention, was seeking mirror mirror on the wall notice. Putting on heirs. Just not the way he, most true Mainers are wired.
Dressed For Fun, The Outdoor Application. Not Being A Clotheshorse. Or Out To Impress. Just Warm, Cool, Comfortable.
As temperatures increase and you find yourself wielding a 45 tine blueberry rake on the barrens in Downeast Maine, less clothing is more like it.
Cool is where it is at. Especially for the NASCAR nimble, skilled, quick imported laborers from Honduras. Who drive 80 to 90 tine Maine blueberry rakes.
The new to the game, less polished players wield the lower number models with small scoops. Taking longer time spent filling boxes. Like small size potato baskets fill cedar or plywood field barrels. Added production time, lower ticket results at sundown of a frosty beginning, hot as Hades tail end of the day field laboring to help an area farmer.
Clothing that works in Maine. Why do you think LL Bean is a Maine company and so successful? The guarantee money back or else helps. The fact it works first, looks rugged and appealing making a fashion statement second. Flashy is not the end all with clothing in Maine.
Save that for the polo match, Kentucky Derby, Hollywood film premier.
Looking Like Bank Robbers, But Layered For Maine Down Hill Skiing.
Neither is the color the cat’s meow for clothing. Unless you are a flagger in summer on a busy Maine highway. Then bright colors that glow in the dark work best holding the eight sided red sign to stop and go. To help the motorists caught in road construction project that happens in summer.
Where visibility at the new 75 miles per hour on Maine I-95 roadwork means dress in vibrant color brightly. Stay eyes peeled, nimble running that steam roller, paving machinery while out playing in traffic to avoid life threatening accidents. Be seen or be dead.
Where Maine traffic fines are double in the construction zones. For those who ignore the pedal to the metal reflex.
Maybe not with all the fenders the same matched color the factory sprayed on, clear coated. To get across Maine, north to south, east to west quickly. And hopefully not make a flagger, other construction worker a casualty, hood ornament. We hang onto our old cars and trucks in Maine and take good care of them liked loved ones.
Back in 1983 the big plan was to have a ball team.
I dreamed, wanted to sponsor a Houlton Maine little league team. But the slots were taken, had all the sponsors they needed. Until Shop and Save’s management adopted a policy that the players needed to raise the membership fee to sponsor a team individually. So they gave up their team. I lucked out as a proud new sponsor. What a little league team to inherit, to have fall in my lap too.
Many kids that play little league baseball are struggling with enough money to just buy a glove.
Lacking the support behind them to get to the ball diamond for games and practices. And in a small town like Houlton Maine in Aroostook County, the entire village pitches in to help each boy or girl have the experience of being on a team. The structure and discipline of what it takes to work as a team. To earn a victory, suffer through a lean building season. How to win and lose as a team. Which happens a lot in life right? Losses are lessons. Victory is sweeter when it is not a given.
Hustle, Trot, Run. Even When It’s A Walk, 4 Balls That Gets You On First Base In Little League.
To learn the skills to win little league games and improve the goal.
To lose gracefully but maybe make the playoffs. Get a second chance to come from behind as skills get honed later in the season. I have enjoyed the little league teams over the years as much as the kids running and defending the bases. My oldest daughter and two sons were on our team and had a step daughter that was fun to watch at Community Park. In all their games as pretty talented athletes. The exercise, the “good game good game” chant down the line at the end. Welcome to small town living in Houlton Maine.
The first year’s team I went all out. Investing a thousand dollars in to pin stripe uniforms that were sharp, professional. Did actually look like the New York Yankees in Red Sox Nation though. An expense account set up at the local Houlton Farms Dairy Bar for after hard fought games. Win or lose when everyone gets a treat. When you step up to the window and let the lady know what you want for a size and ice cream flavor.
Maine Little Leaguers. They Give Their All, They Hoop And Holler. Go Team!
Today the star pitcher who called me today out of the blue reminded me of the experience he went through. He was a very dedicated player, very good and tough on himself, others on the team. An inspiration but I did not know the whole story why. But heard painful bits and pieces of it that I suspected but did not know the who, what and where about of the background details.
I remember the catcher Danny Erikson saying Luke Barnard was all over him if he bobbled the pop fly, missed the cut off throw.
But Danny’s mom reminded him “Danny, Luke is no harder on you then he is himself.” She was right. Luke was playing for greater stakes than the town championship that he was able to secure for the team as the heart, soul of the “red machine”. It was more than just a Houlton Maine little league game to Luke. Not just a plastic gold trophy and being hoisted high on his team players’ shoulders for making it happen. Or the star in the parade float we pull behind our jeep each year in the 4th of July parade.
He was living in the shadow of his older brother Ryan who was equally talented, gifted. And came before him. Set the stage, records to break. Was the benchmark to meet and surpass if he could to find his own place in the sunshine of his Dad’s approval, acceptance.
Wanting his Dad’s admiration and needing to prove something to gain his love and affection. We all want to make our parents proud. But this is not a healthy application of that desire.
Coming out on top in the game was not just a try your best and you get an ice cream win or lose situation.
Luke had to win. Driven by more than sheer athletic prowess. And did one heck of a job on the mound and as a utility infielder all in one. He was everywhere on the little league ball diamond getting the plays under control to notch another win.
Play Ball. Baseball. Little League In Houlton Maine. Lucky To Be A Team Sponsor Since The Early 1980’s!
Today I got a call from the kid that was the heart and soul of my first little league team and he was looking for housing. We had the best conversation about what he went through, where he is today and he turned out to be a nice young man. And will be a heck of a Dad.
I will help Luke anyway I can and am amazed at what he shared with me. How great he became despite all the setbacks and growing up so early. Rescuing other family members in the process.
My childhood on the Maine farm was tame in comparison to the story Luke spun.
It can make you naive and blind to bad things that do happen to good people, especially kids that are not fair. Make whatever happens to you somehow allow you to land on your feet. And be better for it.
And when you hear someone crying out, that is broken, needing help, be there for them. Return the favor that someone extended you when you needed a friend or maybe did not deserve one as you worked on dark issues, hurt in your heart that made you less than a happy, grateful camper. Maine is famous for places to heal, special hidden areas to get away from people and open up your heart to improve.
Maine, get here quick as you can. Come for a day, stay a lifetime. Consider the move to become a coach and build a little league team. We need your talents and everyone contributes something in a small Maine town.
Pass The Hot Dogs And Vinegar French Fries Will Ya?
I wished my four kids had known the fun of going to the Borderland outdoor drive in movie theatre on a Maine summer evening.
Our closest one to Houlton Maine was the Borderland Drive In. There was the Cummings Theatre, an outdoor drive in in the Woodstock New Brunswick Canada are. One other one pretty handy was in Enfield, Maine. Another in Presque Isle and further north in Maine.
This Borderland outdoor drive in movie Maine theatre on the west side of the North Road, US Rt 1.
Hidden from the road by low trees so you could not see the rows of parked cars. But from the the highway you could not miss the bigger than life actors as you slowed to a crawl and drove by. Western mountain ranges, lots of horses, cattle and cactus. Sometimes a little more exotic. Not so “G” rated or family friendly now playing up on the big outdoor movie screen. Shield your eyes kids. Don’t look Ethel but it was too late. Like in the Ray Steven’s The Streak song.
And during the intermission of a double feature or before the first show started, dancing mouth watering hotdogs, candy, popcorn and happy beverage containers rotated.
Did a jig on the big silver outdoor movie screen. To entice, make you trot to the concession stand that was bathed in yellow light. For those hungry souls with a little spending money in the movie going audience.
That concession stand had two of the heaviest spring loaded outdoor screen doors closers known to mankind.
I bet you a ten dollar bill that door racked up a beefy pull snap with about an 80 pound or higher torque. Better get in quickly or lose a body part, getting grazed or caught by the swift shutting screened door. Everyone learned quickly and don’t think it was OSHA approved. The cooks and wait staff assembling your quick here you go take out food orders. They all wanted the night air flying pest to stay on the other side of that snack shack eatery screened doorways.
Houlton Maine’s Borderland Drive In Theatre Was Fun Place To Watch Summer Outdoor Movies.
The beginning drive in theatre show was preceded by the bright lights on, dancing food marching across the screen.
All designed to make you drool for fifteen minutes. For the call to action and get your butt to the concession stand before the movie reels and the arch lighting behind the film started projection started whirling. The take out food advertising highly effective to sufficiently plant the seed you really need hot dogs, hamburgers, clam baskets STAT. The local Maine potatoes sprinkled with vinegar on your home made fries and onion rings adults and kids. Work on your parents little ones. Those sitting on the wallet, with the pocketbook over their shoulder with money to buy them. If you whine convincingly long and loud enough.
The little brothers and sisters made use of the drive in theatre outdoor swings, slides and turn style rides in slippered pj’s in the night air.
It was a big deal to go to the drive in with your friends, a date. Your family depending on your age and if it was still cool or not. The end of the movie meant Lou Webber reminds you what was coming up for future film attractions. And to make sure you replaced your speaker. The tinny silver one on the end of a wire on to its matching white metal pole “saddle”.
What’s Playing This Week At the Borderland Drive In Theatre In Houlton Maine?
It seems my three older brothers did not always remember and I found quite a collection over the machine shed at the farm I grew up on.
Not exactly high fidelity. And in later years a shift to sound transmitted thru the lower radio band took over. Helped keep the mosquitos out of the car that did the limbo to one by one squeeze in by the hanger of that tinny speaker.
The Borderland Drive In Theatre had church services back in the 1980’s.
Stay in your car, roll in as you are. For worship, song, watching and listening by tuning into a low powered FM radio transmitter broadcasting the presentation this week. Maybe the Borderland will come back into operation. The drive in for future area high school graduations one by one commencement ceremonies happening outdoors in the open air. Your well wishers in their respective cars more than 6 feet apart on the rows and rows of raised mounds.
The high school graduations from Maine high schools during coronovirus sheltering in place and quarantined work arounds. Could bring outdoor drive in theatres back to life with more purpose. Than only nightly flicks thrown up on the summer night screens. Where you see no hand holding, hugging, zero fist bumps.
The graduation ceremony parties both stepping back six feet or more by those presenting and the high school senior student on the receiving end. Rolling down the incline, gravity sliding the rolled up tube or elastic wrapped curled tightly diploma. Here it comes. Launched tube for pick up at the lower exit point. Across a six foot or greater presentation sluice way. Over a squeaky clean prep table herded with a rod or broom handle.
Maybe using the “Grabber” bought on television from Ronco and they really work folks. Or a second one for half the price. Senior citizens reach for them nine to one over other brands as there favorite device the high rotation run of schedule ROS broadcast ad states. For reaching out to retrieve fallen items down so low or ones way too high up for the go go gadget arms secret power extension.
Oh look, at dusk there’s the graduating senior who everyone came to the event to see the ceremony huddled inside the Chrysler mini van or family sedan.
Get your camera ready to catch an image or two of the senior wearing that funny square hat with the gold tassel in the gown smiling ear to ear from the accomplishment. That might be the best work around during the COVID19 pandemic. Might mean putting the silver screen hibernating so so long back up and in better working repair condition. The screen “gone with the wind” from neglect lack of use and weather damage.
My real estate office secretary’s family members all connected and worked together with a little friction at the Borderland drive in outdoor theatre operation.
They started it. Talked to Brian Cole this morning out at his retirement home on Drews Lake in Linneus Maine. Brian worked at the Borderland Drive In with his brothers. He remembers people sneaking in from the B Road during Buck night. Recalls to that some people went to the outdoor movie that never ended up watching it. Not even one scene of the flick flashed up on the bigger than life screen beyond the car hood out front.
Pat Cassidy another work used to go car to car to offer to wash our windshield for free.
Usually got a quarter or more tip from those that did come to the sci-fi creature or whatever double feature. Maybe it was a big sky spaghetti Big Sky Western pair of movies or back to back James Bond shows. People who did want to watch and munch on pop corn. To eat homemade french fries with ketchup and vinegar that still has the potato peelings on them. Washing it all down with Bubble Up, their favorite flavor of local bottler Fitz’s Beverage or an adult barley pop drink.
Remember the concession stand with yellow light bulbs and wicked strong high tension door springs to keep the mosquitoes as big as robins at bay?
Double Feature Movies Show On The Big Outdoor Drive In Screen. It’s Summer Movie Time.
That little crack where the tinny sounding speaker with the long wire hung after rolling the glass almost to the top. Leaving a gap where the buzzing varmits looking for your fresh blood could squeeze into your car or pick up truck or van space.
Or you could use the coil you lit up with a match and placed on the dashboard.
The one that smelled like something sprayed over Vietnam jungles for a defoiliant or an insense stick. Something from the head shop named the “Zodiac” on Broadway in Houlton Maine owned and operated by the Moran family. You know the one next to the S&H green stamp store, Beals family restaurant near the Aroostook County jail. The green stamp store where you got your sporting goods, camping supplies. My aunt Charlene Been worked there I remember.
As a little Maine kid wanting a tennis racket or baseball glove.
To play sets back and forth up and over the net at the rec center. Or to field stitched little league leather wrapped balls at short stop or out in center field or whatever diamond location.
It took 2.25 books of green stamps to score one when money growing up on a Maine farm during a poor bleak potato year meant those sticky back currency was the only hope.
Dead River Oil Company, local grocery stores like Don’s Brewer, Sampson’s, Wilson’s Market on South Street or the C&G IGA Foodliner.
Everyone gave out the green stamps that spit out of a machine you dialed like a rotary phone. The more you spent, the greater the connected coil of green stamps showed up to fold into the grocery bill receipt and hand back with a smile and courtesy thank you very much. Everyone in my small Maine town gave out green and gold plaid stamps too as a bonus perk for your shopping patronage.
Nola a little gruff all the time on the Borderland grill flipping burgers, adding cheese slices and pushing the hot dogs around the sizzling greased surface.
Deep fried clam baskets Ruth Peabody created lots. Teamed the take out fried food fryolator hot grease corner of the busy drive in theatre concession kitchen. While the two sniped back and forth about “Get Out Of My Work Space” you old bat snipes and verbal jabs. Ralph downstairs eating candy bars after the show. As any diabetic in this blog post audience knows that’s a big no no. That you should not be munching on sweets. Later, Ralph getting a kidney transplant and struggling with a royally messed up sense of balance vertigo for the rest of his difficult adult life.
Lewis Webber, Ralph’s his dad in the projection booth always on the PA looking for his son. Harold Peabody, Lou’s brother in law handing out the upcoming movie flyer hand bills.
As vehicles with Maine and Canadian plates lined up and rolled through the Borderland Drive In ticket booth check point. To lower the glass in the passenger side door. To fork over the cash for the number of movie goers in the car unless it it was buck night. All happening around dusk, rain or shine as one by one vehicles rumbled in and drove slowly to their favorite location.
Two Movie Theatres, No Facebook, No Twitter. Houlton Maine’s Vibrant Down Town. Movies A Big Deal, Indoors Or Outdoors Later On Til The Mid 80’s.
Opens in 1949, closed for good in 1985 the end of an outdoor movie going drive in theatre era.
And 450 outdoor theatre car outdoor movie going car spaces went unused after that as the grass grew tall and unmowed. Thee buildings, big screen too all decayed slowly in hibernation. After movies, the employees all walked back and forth to comb the premises around all those raised mounds. The ones kepts mowed and tidy. Where you parked your vehicle just so to gain the best hump rock back and forth angle. To finally throw it into park or leave it in gear shutting off the engine.
Sit back, push the seat away from the steering wheel of if a T-bird push it out of the way. Away from your pot belly. To settle in for the night time movie show. The one now playing in your small Maine home town as you looked up at the big screen in front of all the vehicles in a row.
Dad would bring us back boxes of popcorn with a happy clown on the front. Some bottles or cans of soda too. But we always suspected, my three olders brothers and I hunkered down in the back seat of the family sedan wondered. That Dad appeared to have trace amounts of mustard on his cheek. I bet he was gone so long not because he got talking or ran into someone he knew. But sampling a few hurried eaten hot dogs of his own un-beknowst to the rest of the family, Mom included.
The debris and garbage after that show from overflowing way way too small garbage cans. It found its way to 55 gallon rusted refuse barrels behind the snack shack and torched.
Back when outdoor open burning was okay and the norm for garbage before recycling centers popped up to service many towns trash loads. The candy wrappers, empty beer cans, cardboard carry out food trays and napkins all rounded up to get ready for the next outdoor movie show. Families, teenagers with fresh driving licenses and Cupid’s arrow at work. Movie lovers of all ages flocked to the outdoor drive in theatre location around Maine and New Brunswick Canada my neighbor just a few miles distant. The outdoor big screen pretty special for a and outdoor presentation long before LED screens went all out for little money and indoor home theatre set ups for the movie consumption.
It was dangerous driving south on US RT 1 and looking out of the corner of your eye at the X-rated movies flashing on the Borderland Drive In screen.
The drive in party animals just a little too tee hee social were off to the left, the leave me alone crowd on the right. Everyone with families down the middle all enjoying the movie in different ways and parking locations. Kids in their pajamas with the sewn in foot protection with vinyl bottoms. So you can trot to the swings and play on the ground slides. Or spin the circular get dizzy motion ride. Or hop the teeter totter hoping for no silvers before parent hollered come back to the car. Or your big brother or sister was sent to retrieve you. While giant dancing food and candy of all types kept waltzing in mouth watering formation across the screen with flood lights on the corners. Your hunger increasing to the point of borderline border land starvation. The lighted path to you know where and reminder hurry.
You just have barely enough time as the minutes counted off lighting up the drive in theatre bright as the sun with high powered spot lights.
Before pitch black total eclipse happened and everything went darker than the inside of a cow. And then pipe down hollered to rabble rousers. As SHHHhhhh, settle in, watch the show. Or get reported and asked to start up your car and leave slowly without hitting anyone loaded up with take out food trying to find where the heck they parked. No texting your partner for help. No GPS on your cell phone during the 40’s through 80’s decade in history. It’s show time on a hot summer evening in small town rural Maine and you feel lucky.
Herman Moran, self appointed deputy sheriff want to be would be directing traffic with a moving flash light to make sure US Rt 1 was not a log jam.
Herman wielded the biggest known to man multi battery police version flashlight to shine the way to exit out onto the North Road, US RT 1 that was fast moving. Many drive in theatre patrons a little sleepy after being cooped up in the car or so long. Herman took the job serious and I don’t he was of German lineage. His heroics service night after night so everyone could get home for the night without fanfare, a big production or any delay. His civil defense training and road hazard yellow lights, all the highway motoring gear made the event seem more professional to a high school kid. Buck night and five dollar car load night meant a few extras brought in to stretch our allowances for the week too. Still a few Maine drive in outdoor movie theatres.
My Dad, John R Mooers Was A B-24 Tail Gunner On A Liberator 4 Engine WW 2 Bomber Plane.
Two 50 caliber guns, in an unpressurized cabin that is cold, smells like a latrine with a War War Two B-24 bomber plane filled with other young nervous army airmen.
My dad John R Mooers was a tail gunner in a four engine bomber airplane during the second world war. The 15th Army Air Force, the 882nd Bombardment wing and the entire country behind you raising victory gardens, sending daily mail. Praying morning, noon and night you all made it home safely after each bomb run.
Dad was stationed in Italy, lived in a tent with a heater and waited to learn if the weather was favorable for a bomb run the next day.
Morning briefings on the primary target, secondary missions and reminded what to do if shot down over enemy lines. Being outside the wire…way way outside and in the air dodging highly accurate German 88 anti aircraft guns. The smell of cordite in the air, the plane vibrating from the percussion blasts. Fear of shrapnel always on your mind.
The US Army Air Force issued each member of the B 24 flight crew a survival kit.
Filled with a chocolate bar, a map, silk thread, an ampule of morphine, a prayer and some blue seal silver certificate currency. To “buy your way out” and in case the enemy sympathizers questioned the value behind those dead presidents on the green currency you carried. Just in case. The note in the survival kit given to all the flight crew on the B-24 bomber plane called the “Dragon Wagon” was written in several languages. To get help if you had bail out, if stranded in enemy territory if you B-24 plane got shot down. And it was every man for themselves. Hoping not to land in a tree dangling unable to release from your parachute because the drop was too far and would break both legs. Praying not to end up in enemy hands in German controlled lands below.
My Dad John R Mooers Was A Tail Gunner In A B-24 Airplane.
On Memorial Day, and every day I think of how Dad squeezed back in to this very small tail gunner position B-24 compartment.
On a mission of destruction. To kill or be killed. He wanted to be a pilot but Uncle Sam had all of those fly boys it needed.
Dad was slight, skinny and wirery enough to be the perfect fit back in the tail of a B-24 bomber aircraft.
Removed from the rest of the crew of waist gunners, bombardier, ball turret, radio man, pilot and co pilot. Tied with intercom plane communications but observing radio silence at the P-51 Mustangs, your “little friends” bugged out of the escort, dog fighting to get your closer to your target. Some bomb runs were “milk runs” and routine. Others required change of mission plans due to heavy German 88 anti aircraft and squadron damage. Think about being cramped in a tight quarters for six or more hours, unheated, wearing an oxygen mask and wondering if you and the B-24 bomber flight crew will make it back to base. In one piece, or at all. Daylight bombing was very efficient but had heavy losses of life and planes.
Remember Veterans Around The World Like At The Arc de Triomphe Paris France.
As you entered the IP zone, the place where one by one the planes in your B-24 squadron, flight group would open the bomb bay doors.
Pulling the pins first on the variety of bombs to be used in today’s excercise to win the war. Stop the war. Support the troops. I think of the sacrifice my dad the B-24 tail gunner and all his flight crew made. Would you fight for your country’s freedom today and serve in the armed forces to do what had to be done for the United State’s way of life? Would you protest the war, head to Canada? How would you treat the soldiers on their return from fighting the war wherever it was on the blue and green globe?
On Memorial Day, I honor guys like my dad, his flight crew, my two brothers that were in the service and all veterans.
Dead, alive, maimed. Many gave some. Some gave all. God bless America and the freedoms we have, fought for, preserve as the greatest country on the planet. Was being a tail gunner dangerous? Dad always said the ball turret, under the plane had the worse position. Your landing gear gets shot out, the hydraulics worthless and you can not sometimes put the landing gear down manually. The life expectancy of that ball turret airman had way way lower odds of survival on his life insurance policy. Hope you enjoyed this blog post on John R Mooers, tail gunner in a B-24 bomber airplane called the “Dragon Wagon”.
