On the minds of many these days is not just mistletoe, holiday holly, slurping egg nog, sampling peanut brittle and just one more sliver piece of divinity fudge.
Hey, are those mocha balls? (Heavy sign) But health care coverage. And ho ho ho, what happened to the monthly payment to get compliant with Uncle Sam’s directives.
Healthy Fresh Air, Working The Sand As Early Masons On A Maine Beach.
You hear the conversations on the grapevine as you move around small Maine towns.
Worry about increasing taxes, the cost of living in small Maine towns. Concern about the penalty if I don’t get health care coverage. But deep anxiety spiking about coasting, creeping along on the high wire of life without a medical safety net. If I am not a card carrying, up to date bronze, silver, platinum or whatever horse of a different color level of health care coverage.
And what do the Amish do for health care coverage? Oh yeah, they don’t have to have health care compliant coverage. What about other religions, like Christian Scientists who don’t promote medical procedures as a way of life? Believing you and I are all created perfect, in God’s image and likeness. And to give into sickness, poor health is error in your thinking. So re-apply your faith states leader Mary Baker Eddy and delve into your Science and Health for guidance on the return path to perfect health. More on the religious rights debate on Obamacare, any health insurance coverage or penalties to elect out and say “pass” Chummy. I’ll just go fish for my own brand of health care thank you very much Mister Man.
So the folks out in the audience considering can I swing a $1000 a month or whatever premium for health care coverage, even with a giant gulp deductible and deciding nope. Opting out at the fork in the road into the dark woods ahead. Taking the penalty on the chin. But obtaining coverage for health care wherever they can uncover the best, most competitive plan on the globe. Just not the kind that is A-Z Obama care compliant kind.
Do you know folks that are taking that route?
Or just paying the penalty to not be under a health care umbrella of any kind. Going without medical health insurance which makes them feel anxious, sick with worry.
Affordable health care, wouldn’t it start sooner rather than later if we worked hard on the youngest in the population? Less obesity, more exercise, eating healthier food that does not clog those arteries. Keep having the Marlboro Man telling the youth early on “I miss my lung Bob” as a pair of hop a long Cassidy’s lope their horses. Into the setting sun dropping low and then out of sight in the West. The End. Roll the credits. (Fade to black).
Hiking, Dining On Food Cooked Outside. Feasting On This Kind Of Maine Scenery. Priceless.Happy Kids In Maine, It’s Black And White, Kept Simple In Rural Vacationland.
I remember wondering what the delivery, cost of the oldest daughter being brought into this World was and asking. Knowing down the road, the figure would seem so low, like peanuts because of inflation and escalating health care costs that seem out of control and picking up speed. And telling the tale.
Like I had heard about the family doctor performed the task for $35 years ago.
Back when they made house calls, carrying the black bag with the cold stethoscope. When smiling Eddie Williams doctored the entire family when laid up on the couch. Wooden tongue depressors in the arsenal. In the days when cod liver oil was big, along with coke syrup and lots of home remedies to make you fit as a fiddle. Or just plain sick and tired of being under the weather. More on old time medical remedies for whatever ails you.
The local health care insurance provider snapped, what do you care? It’s all covered. Never did find out or really get to study the line items to make sure no double billing was done. Not on purpose but by the software that might have a hiccup or stuttered. What it costs does not matter so much when you don’t pick up the tab.
Emergency room visits in an ambulance because you get better service, quicker attention when attendants wheel you in.
Seeking pain killers because the weekend is coming. Want to get high as a kite. When there is not a cost and got you covered on the back it in, turn off the sirens and wave the cover charge through the ER double doors. When across town, someone else with an ailment, that just took a spill tells themselves to remain calm. The ER’s talk, compare notes and know who the chronic abusers of services are thankfully.
Looking Like Bank Robbers, But Layered For Maine Down Hill Skiing.
Stay put. Hold the phone. Park it.
See if it still hurts as bad in a few days. Or going online to scan the computer screen page fulls. Of the Web MD eerie monitor green glow radiation. To glean knowledge to apply to their own symptoms on what they can from the forums. Or considering maybe it would be cheaper to see a veterinarian. A simple distemper shot and some bag balm, a flea collar could save the day. Woof.
Staying healthy, getting off the couch and yanking the power cord to the the boob tube. It does a body, mind, and mood good. To get outside, filling the lungs with fresh air, the eyes with all this pure, all natural Maine eye candy that elevates the spirits. And fueled by the exercise high of climbing, skiing, hiking, biking, kayking, swimming or just plain old hoofing it.
The deadline for health care coverage lock in looms closer.
Have you got it all figured out? Coasting until retirement or waiting for some legislative change to re-shuffle the medical costs cards. The health care cost debate and how to tweak it was strongly debated during the recent Presidential campaign.
As I see my own monthly coverage take a hike from below $400 with a big hefty deductible, to approaching $1000, I take comfort in one son who pays $45 a month health insurance premium. That he fears is going up but when you average it all out, it works. And if more are put on the ranks paying in, and we all work to make sure we are getting our money’s worth for any and all health care procedures. Plus focusing more on personal health in our daily lives, that combination has to yield good fruit.
When the temperature in late November, early December is too warm, the Maine lawn and field grass stays green.
Too seasonally warm high temperatures of weather messes up the Christmas tree cutting too. That starts even earlier around Halloween. Too high temps out in the Christmas tree plantation when the cutting is done means lots of early spills. And the old spruce, fir or pine tree plastered with lights, garland, all those decorations peters out early.
Plays out long before the egg nog, divinity white fudge, coconut mocca balls and peanut brittle is finished up. When it’s time to pack up the ornaments, check off another December 25th sliding down the chimney surprise and that’s all she wrote for another ending year on the kitchen calendar.
Maine Is Real, Peaceful, Not Crowded.
Cold hardened Christmas trees keep better after harvest, and better withstand exposure to low temperatures.
No snow and dodging the weather dip in temperatures to cause it in Maine. Means no kick in the pants. To get those last fallen leaves raked or mulched or burned annual drill that is put off too.
Fall hangs on as trips to deer hunting camps in Maine stop. And the snow sleds, Jiffy ice auger for lake fishing and bags of rock salt get put in entry ways, on enclosed Maine home porches. To sprinkle and melt your walk ways, around your yard. Once the blanket of snow arrives one flake at a time and slip and slid ice ice baby is part of the outdoor winter maintenance.
Plowing that snow is debated the first storm in Maine when it is wet, the ground not yet frozen. Sometimes just let it be like the Beatles song suggests. Leave it alone, let there be a first level snow base to pack down, build on to protect the terra firma underneath. Unless your back enjoys more spring lawn yard work with the steel rake and wheel barrow. To collect, replant the torn up sod way over here that needs to be trotted back to the bald spot on the lot for the re-plugging like a divot up here.
Often there is not a need to mess with a couple inches because the ground is warm, the temperature often spikes up enough to have all the new snow melt away in a day or so. Problem solved.
False starts and stops like labor for a child happen with Maine winter snow handling. Until snow that finally lasts actually sticks around in Maine. But if you don’t plow the new wet snow and like farming judge the Maine weather patterns ahead wrong, bad things happen. Solid ice, concrete hard snow formations can make things difficult to clear and wing back to leave space for more snow to come. It becomes like moving rocks and boulders.
Walk Slowly When Ice Covers The Rockland Lighthouse Boulder Path. Especially When Wind Adds To The Challenge Pushing You Along.
Either way, wet heavy snow or solid glued, welded to the ground and one giant piece snow banks. Those are hard on whatever you use to plow or snow blow the early Christmas gift from the heavens.
Half frozen slushy watery snow. Great for snow ball fights. But the problem with early snow before frost starts to toughen up the landscape is the digging into the soil.
Depositing the scraped lawn and soil “shavings” into the roll over of snow with the angled plow. The plow truck operator can hoist the blade a little to try to easy does it push the snow in the driveway out over the soft lawn.
Cat Nap In Maine. The Snippets, Moments Are A String Of Magic.
But you need enough momentum to keep the heavy wet snow moving like little doggies being herded. In the direction you want off to both sides of a clogged Maine home driveway.
And that is where no matter how much you try, how careful you are, digging in to the lawn skimming can not be avoided. A bounce of the bucking force of pushing hard into the rolling snow. It pushing back as more piles up out front the Fisher or Meyers or Boss whatever brand winter snow plow used that makes a mess of things.
You study the weather channel, hope for warm or cold temperatures to know just how to handle what Jack Frost and Mother Nature dished up. Deposited working in tag team.
But the 32 degree temperature hovering and the waiting game just clearing the ends of the driveway where the state highway snow plows are vigilant keeping those major and side road arteries open.
That is the tough part. Of trying to do more than you need because if you don’t it will mean call in a pay loader time. Or extra stress on the equipment. Even lots of white fluffy light flake accumulations has it’s challenges to plow. But the ground underneath does not get scarred and scraped if you are easy does it plowing snow in Maine.
Christmas Reflections In Houlton Maine. Small Town Proud Makes The Holiday Colors Brighter, Spirits Higher.
Something you never think of if a shovel for snow removal around your house steps is a foreign operation where you hang your hat.
And it’s pass the sun screen time all the year round. In places where Santa adds wheel attachments to the sleigh runners to tool around the sunny south, southwest sections of the nation.
Where it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas involves sand, palm trees and the standard candy canes, mistletoe and ho ho home for the holidays red and green ribbons where the only snow happens when you defrost the freezer.
Hope you have been good, stay that way for a few more weeks. And get everything on your list for Christmas this year. Merry Christmas faithful Me In Maine Blog readers and Happy New Year while we’re at it extending holiday best wishes.
Houlton Maine, located on the shared east / west International border with New Brunswick Canada. Houlton is the “Shiretown” or the county seat of Aroostook.
The earliest settlers to Houlton Maine making the trek north distilled down from a small, closely related group of families. From the New Salem area, one specific location in Massachusetts.
Until 1820, Maine was part of the Bay State and most of the early pioneers that relocated in this vast wooded wilderness region did so along the coastal locations. Joseph Houlton was a leader, the most prominent of those stepping forward to buy his larger portion of land tract acreage. Located much further away from the rock bound craggy coastline, to the north along the fuzzy, vaguely defined Canadian Massachusetts (eventually Maine) border.
Nothing New, Small Maine Town Pride, The Fun Home Grown & Kept Simple. Nothing Has Changed.
A boundary that took years to define and included the Bloodless Aroostook War. Also known as the Pork and Beans War that was an international incident. Where Great Britain wanted to defend it’s timber interest in those King Pines, the Loyalist population across the pond.
The skirmish and saber rattling between the two countries caused the US Congress to authorize 10 million dollars and to mobilize 10,000 troops to define, draw the line between Maine and Canada.
That dividing boundary eventually was hammered out once and for all with the help of a bottle of whiskey to lubricate the legalese crafted into the hard fought, way overdue Webster – Ashburton Treaty.
In the early years of settling Houlton, the other townships, half sections too the new inhabitants bought their land stakes from grants given by the state of Massachusetts to academies, many other worthwhile causes. To peddle the property, to develop and tame the uninhabited wilds to the northeast. This section of distant land needing population granted to benefit the New Salem Academy was primarily settled by the founders of New Salem itself.
Who stepped up to buy the Houlton land designed to create sales revenue for New Salem Academy when takers to lay down the money were few.
Early in 1807, trudging in on snow shoes, the earliest settlers of Joseph Houlton Jr, Samuel Houlton and William Cary arrived on the winter scene. Later that year, Joseph Houlton landed in the region via a sea route from Saint John, New Brunswick. Some of the settlers of Houlton crossed in from next door, across the border in New Brunswick Canada. Caused from the natural expansion of the St John area growth that pushed to the outreaches of the New Brunswick frontier.
Lots Of Parade Watchers In Small Maine Towns. Your Friends And Neighbors Of Houlton Maine.
Expansions of lumbering timber resources, the rise of the potato industry due to being blessed with the high test fertile soil of Northern Maine. Both helped population numbers gain momentum. After railroads opened up the Aroostook Region and attracted lumberjacks and dirt farmers to the region on the border shared with Canada.
The earlier British timber exports especially paid for the purchase of goods from St John to help the Southern Aroostook area grow and prosper. More on Houlton Maine history.
The legal step of organization of the plantation of Houlton was needed to be able to levy property taxes.
It finally happened in 1826. With the hope that a second half township of Foxcroft, the Williams College grant was added to make Houlton a full six by six miles in size township. That union did not occur until 1834. Two years later than the Groton and Westford Academy grants formed the township of Hodgdon to the south of Houlton Maine.
Maine Is Simple Living, Basic And Loaded With Common Sense.
So now the much needed but denied earlier money requests from Massachusetts became available to establish a post office. Where previously the mail was often sent to Houlton in care of Park Holland of Eddington, a well established surveyor. Who knew the woods and waterways of eastern Maine and round about ways through Eastport, St John and the Baskehegan Trail to get the posts delivered.
The first regular mail contract from Bangor to Houlton Maine by the Baskehegan was awarded James Lander. With the Calais Stage Route becoming the pony express option for spread the news, deliver the letters and packages. Amos Pearce came to Houlton Maine in 1810. There’s a street in Houlton named after the first postmaster appointed by President John Quincy Adams in 1826.
Celebrating Fresh Locally Source Food With Maine Farmers At Open Air Markets.
As the Houlton Maine population grew now connected better with mail news from the outside, a greater need for schools sparked educational options.
That led in time to eventually nine public schools serving the Houlton towns people.
The early settlers had New England Puritan religious roots and at first attended church in the new land across the border in Woodstock New Brunswick. Woodstock, a dozen miles distant, was a settlement established way earlier in 1786 by Loyalists to the King of England. After the American War of Independence and a desire for space caused their migration to the northeast, across the Maine border.
So many early Houlton residents from New Salem attended worship services in Woodstock New Brunswick Canada.
But in 1811, the First Congregational Church did enroll the first eighteen members. As the population of Houlton Maine grew, worship divergence happened to create many denominations.
The Federal government in 1828 established a US garrison in Houlton Maine which added over a hundred troops that had families or ended up married to locals. The extra social interaction the troops brought to Houlton Maine and the contracts and payroll put a lot of extra money into the local economy. But the building of the Military Highway and much later in 1950 the Interstate 95 system to connect to Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, a SAC base with B-52’s helped tremendously to open up the Northern Maine region.
With Houlton Maine now the cross roads of US Rt 1, 2, 2A and I-95 the connector to the Atlantic Canadian provinces Trans Canada highway make the County seat a true transportation hub.
The early railroad too did what local rivers that froze over for half the year could not. The St Andrews and Quebec railroad proposal of the 1830’s ran into a boundary dispute and was dropped. The lack of the well defined dotted line to establish where Maine ended and New Brunswick began fueled cross border tensions that hindered railroad service that would create benefits for both sides.
All Walks Of Life Make A Small Maine Community Shine.
In 1960 fifty thousand railroad cars of potatoes were shipped from Northern Maine but destined to soon be trumped by the overnight service and just in time inventory control offered by trailer trucks. The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad was first incorporated in 1891. Shipping freight, offering passenger rail service and eventually operating a bus route to carry folks in and out of “The County”.
The soil profile of Southern Aroostook County around Houlton Maine is extremely fertile, with a level to rolling, undulating land terrain which supports the planting, cultivation and harvest of crops.
Or to make pasturing animals and haying an easier endeavor than more mountainous sections of southwest Maine where Sugarloaf USA is located. Or the less desirable for tillable row crop rocky more acidic soil profile along the coast of the state where wild blueberries are raked.
My Dad was president of the Maine potato council, did a lot of testifying in Washington DC as a national council member to help shape the spud industry that was number one in the country production at one time. Grains, sugar beets, dry beans, even hops, broccoli and an increase of organic farming in the Houlton Maine area is done hand in hand with beef and dairy. Houlton Maine has a dairy serving Aroostook County since 1938.
The housing stock is attractive, preserved yesteryear designs that show Houlton Maine’s status of the richest town of its size east of the Mississippi was well deserved. Money was plowed back into the intrastructure and the 1966 comprehensive plan of Houlton Maine was very forward thinking by local tax payers.
The bits and pieces of the large antennae array through the woods system running miles and miles. The lines connecting England with Houlton Maine for radio intercepts is still found during walks through the woods. The radio station located west of Houlton on US RT 2 or the County Road where I grew up the youngest of four boys.
The radio station was located off the County Road, on what is now the residential property of Roger and Carol Hand.
Good mill sites were valuable to early settlers of Houlton Maine.
The state of Maine recognized the importance of good grist and saw mills to a beginning community. Sometimes granting 300 acres to the man who promised to start the first mill in a township of Maine.
Among the tanneries of the area, New Limerick Maine to the west of Houlton Maine was one important one. Set up in areas where there was a large abundance of hemlock trees. The wood bark needed for treating the hides to make leather.
Grand Older Maine Homes, Find Them Here. Listen To, Meet The Neat People Inside.
Hides were brought to the New Limerick tannery mill from around Maine. Those unorganized places early Maine looked like. From points more distant like cattle ranches out west, even from South America too.
The tannery in Island Falls was not established until after the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad line was well established. Another tannery was set up on Whitney Brook in Bridgewater Maine.
Fires in Houlton Maine shaped the look of today.
The first big fire happening on August 3, 1879. In the back of the Swanton building, the stable area opposite Fogg’s on Main Street. Seems a wind fanned the smoke that turned to flames and destruction. When the wind shifted westward the fire moved east wiping out most of the downtown Houlton Maine block.
The fire wiped out the C.P. Tenney row of buildings, his residence the second oldest home in Houlton Maine.
Being the one built by Samuel Wormwood for Dr. Rice. 21 Houlton Maine buildings including residences were wiped out by this blaze.
Shiretown Houlton Maine.
Nine months later, fire hit pretty much the same area again. It began in the back end of Samuel Gray’s workshop. On a dark night when water buckets were scarce the Aroostook Pioneer newspaper accounts report.
The only available water to fight the blaze in Houlton Maine was a “reservoir”. But it’s cover frozen below several inches of ice and untapped. This fire worked its way up and down Main Street and along Court Street. The Meduxnekeag River frozen over and no help either due to winter temperatures.
The Congregational Church caught fire and the nimble pastor at the time scrambled up the belfry. Able to put it out and save the building from ruin.
Houlton’s Great Fire of 1902 took out seventy five dwellings, three churches and left a score of business blocks in the Shiretown’s down town in ruin.
Eighty families were homeless. The fire started at the corner of Main and Mechanic Streets of Houlton Maine in the Almon H Fogg building.
The 1902 fire was fought with the help of the Woodstock New Brunswick Canada horse drawn fire carts providing mutual aid. That across the border helping hand when there is fire or diaster still happens back and forth today. Both departments work together when needed.
Houlton Maine, Aroostook County’s Oldest Town! The Shiretown Of Aroostook!
Small Maine towns are like that. This devastating 1902 fire of Houlton Maine burned a swath with straight sides all the way up to Bird Street. Where the horseshoe roadway entrance to the Houlton Junior and High Schools happens if you don’t access the back way. The Southern Aroostook Vocational Education complex is located near the armory and accessed off the Pleasant Street entrance.
Three major fires in Houlton Maine and the coming of the age of the railroad’s prosperity combined to create the brick buildings. Ones with intricate masonry appointments that are well preserved. All this saved from the past and better built to last. It makes Houlton Maine the fine Victorian downtown that it is today.
The Black And White Realities Of Running A Red, White & Blue Maine Small Town.Maine Has Four Seasons, They All Transition Slowly To Allow Adjustment, To Be Ready.
Fires caused losses quickly rebuilt like the McIntire home, the White Building. The latter today the home for both the Houlton Chamber of Commerce and historical museum. The pair hiding, protected behind large dramatic pillars on it’s open porch. The White building painted ironically yellow is located next to Cary Library.
Wisdom, Entertainment, History Housed Here Row After Row In Cary Library.
Cary Library a Carnegie well stocked book and ancestor search facility made of rock solid granite. Cut and hauled in from around Cochran Lake in New Limerick Maine.
Cary Library has a children’s section second to none.
One heck of an area for chasing down your family history DNA for study of their exploits.
Ricker College started in 1848 met it’s demise after the Vietnam War caused it to lose the battle. Failing to keep the doors to higher education open that ended in the mid 1970’s. Ricker College, the classical institute that neighboring bedroom communities without a high school tuitioned their students to for yuears.
Ricker College’s school colors of gold and burgundy.
Ricker an industry for new money brought in from out of state students to turn over six, seven times. Many Ricker alumni stuck around and settled down in Houlton Maine after college was completed. When chasing the sheepskin process ended for financial reasons or graduation happened and obtaining the diploma.
When You Live In Maine, Everything You Need Is Right On Your Back, Carried With You Daily For Skills For Home Grown Talent.Instilling In Kids Early On The Right Stuff To Succeed. To Contribute For The Greater Good.
There were two hospitals in Houlton Maine.
I was born in the Aroostook Hospital delivered by PLB Ebbet. A doctor who I noticed on a graveyard walk to visit Joseph Houlton’s tombstone to mark his final resting place. The good doctor died four years after my birth and I was the last baby he ever delivered.
The Aroostook Hospital located on School Street where the Community Living Association now has their headquarters.
The merger in 1972 of the Aroostook Hospital with the Madigan Hospital located on Military Street was a controversial one but much needed.
One strong health care facility works better than duplication of two offering services struggling in a small Northern Maine town like Houlton Maine. Learn more about the Houlton Regional Hospital.
Welcome To Houlton Maine, Aroostook County.
Stay tuned for more on my home town coverage of Houlton Maine. The story of this small community is not so different from one of the other 15 county seats. Maine has a handful of cities, over 400 small towns and plantations. Learn more about Northern Maine.
Agriculture, forestry which is tree farming are big in Northern Maine.
The local farmers, the harvest of their crops is a big part of the local work ethic. Gleaning potato farm fields helps the local weekly grocery budget for family meals too!
A taste of what it is like to live in a small Maine community where folks are pretty darn friendly. Always pitching in to make worthwhile events happen as dedicated volunteers. That’s the point of the hunt and peck on the keyboard and uploading images from my travels around Maine today.
I hope this blog post on the Houlton Maine and her early history is helpful, educational for the the readers of Me In Maine blog.
The affordable health care debate is a hot topic these days.
Turned up a few hundred degrees. As monthly coverage insurance rates double, triple and more. The postman is delivering daily news about the high deductible plan you used to have that is approaching the end of the line. Draining the affordable health care insurance pool that many were treading water in and pulling up stakes in many states.
The Black Horse Horse Buggies, The Walkers And Amish Bikers Hard To See At Dusk At Night In Maine.
And there are lower cost options for health care out there but they are not in compliance with Obama care.
And hey, what do the Amish communities do to comply with Obama care, for health care compliant coverage?
The Amish don’t have to because of legislation back in 1965 that excludes them with it’s roots from further back in the 1950’s. Tied to Congress’s exemptions and the Social Security Act. Read more on Amish health care.
Maine’s Amish communities are growing. This link describes a few Maine Amish settlements, population centers. I have sold real estate, farm land in East Hodgdon Maine to the Amish since this article hyperlinked above was penned and posted.
The Northern Maine Amish folks provide their trademark storage sheds, metal used for siding and roofing and grow organic food for distribution locally and in larger centers outside of Maine.
There is an Amish store on US RT 2 in Smyrna directly across from the Ridge Road northern entrance.
The Amish Freeway, Heading To Church Several Times In One Day.
You can load up the buck board wagon high with everything from Prairie Princess wood cook stoves to kitchen utensils, spices, home made items galore and bulk purchasing options for everything from candy to hardware staples at this darkly lit variety story.
The Price Is Right Bob and whatever is peddled is quality, used in the Amish households that give them the work out. Perform their own consumer reports testing on the local grass roots turf level.
The store with loading dock. Sky lights that make it better to shop during brighter days, not the overcast ones. Complete with a horse hovel run in for customers tying up their propulsion that waits patiently.
At the yesteryear establishment for mercantile where there is no drive through window or squawking static reminder. After repeating your order in wall to wall electronic jamming distortion like Mickey Dee’s or Red Robin, Sonic, Burger King. You have the personal discussion on the product, which is the better trade buy with the sales clerk in the aisle it populates.
Farmers Markets In Maine, Amish Community Members A Big Park Of The What’s Available For Home Grown Produce, Hand Made Items.
No impersonal cattle prod to proceed to the next retail station. After the read back of the order repeated in a blur of word slur. In Klingon or pig Latin, some form of gibberish to hurry it up and pull around lucky customer number 13.
Shake a leg. Be ready to leave the deep fried pit stop. Dig deep, have some cash or plastic ready Freddy.
Being careful to avoid accidently hitting a biking, walking, carriage using dressed all in black Amish community member takes concentration.
Monday nights I have play community play practice in Smyrna Maine’s historical museum, community center that doubles as the former Methodist church house of worship.
I don’t travel the US RT 2 highway through Smyrna after dusk and before sunrise for this reason. Hitting a horse, other livestock would be spell out a newspaper headline disaster for me and the animal. Hop on Exit 286 and off 291’s off ramp of Interstate 95 to avoid the roadway obstacles in Amish land.
When you meet a team of Amish horses sharing the roadways or coming into Market Square for another session of a Farmers Market, there is always a smile, a friendly wave. The children do the same, are a little quiet, shy, reserved but polite and well mannered.
Teaming The Horses, Working The Land In Maine Farm Fields. Amish Communities Do It Daily Around The State.
Like Maine’s other 5000 home schooled. It’s not true that this educational group has problems with socialization. Too busy working as a team to be highly productive and stay ahead of Jack Frost and Old Man Winter with their fence and building repairs, wood supply, root cellar, food pantry stocking from productive fields and pastures.
New enterprises in the local Amish community in Northern Maine where I hunt and peck these simple blog posts include bike shops, rustic furniture, leather tack for horses and more. They had wind power harnessed before the bigger monsters breeze beaters climbed up to sit atop the Maine foothills.
Travel North to visit, see the Amish settlements springing up in Sherman, the Limestone area of Maine and others more established, prospering.
Work ethic and quality work, fair pricing is not in short supply with the Amish dealings I have had personally. Taking care of themselves and not expecting, looking for a government hand out. Taking better care of their personal health on the physical, spiritual, financial level.
Using their own wits and sharpening their abilities, skill sets daily. The Amish are the best customer of the local used book store Volumes according to owner Gerry Berthelette. No TV’s. They are not glued to the glowing tube flat screen that brings FX, Netflix, HBO, CNN, Fox or the Disney channels into their hand built Maine homes.
(Clip Clop Clip Clop) Amish Horse And Buggies Ply The Roadway From Smyrna To East Hodgdon Maine Daily In Aroostook County.
There are farm chores to do with putting up produce orders, tending livestock this fall harvest time of year in Maine.
Large Amish families, an appreciation for what they have worked hard for from scratch as a community has taken up the slack on smaller, abandoned farm land tracts in Maine.
In one settlement, Thursday is Amish community building day. Where on rotation, the Amish travel by horse and buggy, on foot and by bike to wherever the weekly construction project happens to be slated on the chalk board.
Where the leaders deem a little joint help in the heave ho, here we go is needed. For the many hands make light work and a cheerful spirit carries higher the burdens of others collectively.
Growing up I peeled, turned the pages of black and white images of my Dad’s service in World War II.
He served in the Army Air Force as it was called at the time. Stationed in Italy and flying over German air space to drop a variety of bombs to hasten the end of the war.
My Dad, John R Mooers Was A B-24 Tail Gunner On A Liberator 4 Engine WW 2 Bomber Plane.
Each B-24 liberator four engine aircraft burned 200 gallons of fuel an hour, were manned by tight, superstitious ten man crews and the bomber planes flew in all the WW II theaters.
From Italy, Africa, in the Pacific because the B-24 had improvements over the B-17 bomber aircraft to make it go faster, further.
Carrying about 8000 pounds, waiting for the time when the order was given to open the bomb bay doors. With German 88 mm anti aircraft guns popping around you, the wind whistling, howling through the plane that smelled like a latrine.
Tracer bullets in the spray of ammo sent out from all sides of the flying fortress.
What You Wore In London England To Stay Safe, Prepared For German Air Raids, Gas, Fire And Bomb Attacks.
To help the gunner know if the target was being reached and to adjust the current, to make every second count.
In cold, un-pressurized cabins wearing electric flak suits, oxygen masks. In what seemed like a flying tin can coffin.
Trusting your 50 caliber gunners stationed around the plane to defend against determined fighters that were working their hardest to bring the aircraft to the ground.
To shoot it out of the sky or at least cripple it to distract and deter from dropping those bombs hidden inside.
The Imperial War Museum In London England.
If all went well, the B-24 leveling off at 28,000 feet and dropping the ordinance payload when over the primary or secondary targets in formation.
The pins pulled on the racks of bombs selected for the mission of the day. To fly over, make the bunker buster, incendiary or whatever type of “bombs away” milk run a success. Then high tail it back. Lighter, faster, every plane for themselves.
To get home to base. Eventually still alive and in time to family, loved ones state’s side. In one piece in the hop back across the pond.
300 B-24’s went up a day in the beginning of the war and 100 of them did not come back to base.
Buzzing In From Overhead, V-1, V-2 Flying Buzz Bombs Look For Targets.
Ten man crews meant 1000 men perished daily in each sortie bomb run from individual air fields.
Or some crew members who were not killed in action in the sky parachuted into enemy territory to hopefully avoid capture. Not end up stuck in a tree or taken prisoner.
I am proud of my dad, two brothers that were veterans too. On a trip to London, it was special to visit the Imperial War Museum and see the war effort from the another country’s landscape perspective. And to see the effort put in by European countries and the deep sacrifice, from the toll of war.
The Warcraft, Tools Of WW II Hanging In A London Museum. Showing How The Population Defended Against Air Raid, V-2 Rocket Flying Buzz Bombs.
My youngest son Elliot was with me and toured the museum that showed what life was like under attack in London during WW II. Thinking of stories his “Buppy” had shared. Usually during slow snow storm rides on road where story telling made the time pass quicker.
Like touring the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, not much talking happens as you observe, reflect, sense the horror, the honor at the same time of those who served. As we toured the Imperial War Museum.
The “many that gave some, the some that gave all”.
Thank you to veterans around the World who served, to protect freedom. On this Veteran’s Day, we pray for those lost and never found, those families that lost members or had service personnel in their flock.
I remember Andy Spyker who told me another story about being in the Dutch Navy when Germany invaded his country of Holland and he got the news out to sea.
War Happens In All Countries, Veterans Day Observed Around The Free World. The Tomb Of The Unknown Solider In Paris France.
Shocked, but quickly receiving orders to defect. To rendezvous with the English and proceed at once to a nearby British naval base.
To refuel, get provisions, re-assignment of the 26 submarime ships markings/flagging and to be briefed on what happens next for his underwater crew.
That was instructed on English naval protocol and suddenly finding themselves in her royal majesty’s fleet, at the crown’s service.
Working their hardest arm in arm. To get Holland, England, the World back into peace time status and free of German, Japan, Italian Axis rule.
War. Not many escape it in their lifetime.
Veterans Day, it’s everyday for most people, their famlies where War happened and they had a role in fighting it to preserve peace.
Ben Franklin had a lot of good ideas for the country.
And back in 1784, daylight savings time was suggested by wise old Ben to save on candle use. What else was behind that suggestion to wind ahead in spring, to fall back in the fall the Seth Thomas, Timex, whatever time device to measure the sands in the hour glass?
Maine Vacations. Like Vitamins, You Need To Take More Than One A Year In Vacationland.
Was political wrangling at hand? Did anyone talk about negative health effects of daylight savings time or realize what they were suggesting that might back fire? Or now that it would run its course and become outdated?
And a dozen other states are considering the same non-observance of the 1966’s national law designed to save energy. And when Congress tightened up the habit by making it one more law on the books to follow. Or not.
Regardless if your state does or not mess with where Mickey’s big hand is when daylight savings time causes the take a jump forward or backwards one step. What does the adjustment do to a person? When you roll over and sleep in during the fall back? To peel off an hour in fall that is just beginning where I hunt and peck. How does daylight savings time affect the body?
Some say it daylight savings time messes with your inner workings despite the argument it saves energy, uses more natural lighting.
Reports of more heart attacks, car accidents, work place inattentiveness all pinned on the daylight savings clock monkeying with time.
Traffic Is Not Usually This Heavy Or Aggressive Dog Eat Dog in Small Maine Towns. But Watch Out For Daylight Savings Caused Accidents When Groggy Behind The Wheel.
You know what happens when you travel and time zones change. Your body does not just pick up the new dance step like snapping your fingers easy. Losing sleep, fooling around with the habits and routine of the average bear never is a good thing. RRRrrrrrrr, pass the honey, honey.
Maybe it is the constant inner reminder when you look to catch the time that it is really an hour later or earlier that a person does inside. The game to say no one is fooling you. The mind talking to the body to explain the leap taken in time but not totally adjusted to it just like that. Done against our will.
Daylight savings time takes adjustment and the age old wondering does it really save you and me any money?
Is daylight savings time worth it or maybe it depends more on where you are on the blue and green revolving marble. The way the tilt of the Earth affects natural lighting in your X marks the spot, “you are here” GPS location.
Feeling groggy when you used to be brighter eyed, bushier tailed. Daylight savings time does not help that even though if you had to pick, falling back in the falls seems more luxurious sleep wise right?
Was daylight savings time more for agriculture reason back in Ben Franklin’s day? Following the plow for farmers does not really depend on sunlight though anymore. Lights got invented, bolted on those iron horses and farming blindly and stumbling around farm fields no longer happens right? Even the Amish use neat LED torches, helmet lightning to see the path ahead.
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Maybe old habits just die hard.
Or fighting the change could be more defiance. Don’t tell me what to do Big Brother, Uncle Sam. Or like a kid would say close to bedtime when sleep deprived from a go go go non stop day of having fun, making mischief.
“You’re not the boss of me” uttered to the parent trying to get the teeth brushed. The PJ’s on for the slide between the sheets, prayers, lights out.
Cue the Sandman. You’re on Pig Pen.
Spread some sleep dust. Or nudge, wink at the Tooth Fairy. If you remembered to fund the “celebrate the missing tooth” under the pillow part home dental operation of your kid’s childhood.
Regardless you adjust to sleepless nights no matter what is causing them. Daylight savings time put into practice twice a year or life’s ups and downs that keep you awake. Until processed completely and put to bed for good. Stay alert, drink better coffee as the daylight savings time works its magic and adjustment happens in Maine where it is still observed.
