Celebrating The Fourth Of July In A Small Maine Town.
In a small Maine town practically everyone does know your name.
Fewer people living in the small population rural regions of Maine means no one gets lost in the shuffle. Most of us travel in the same circles. Things get down quicker with Dave and the sling shot efficiency too. Because there is a familiarity that leaves no one in the dark. Today’s routine of getting a large black coffee before starting the day proves that.
I swing in to McDonald’s and there is just enough space, one car length to get the rear end of the Jeep out of the lane of traffic that would side swipe it otherwise. I’m thinking why not just pull in to a parking space, trot in and be out way way before the tail end of this wagon train gets to the drive through pick up window.
I hit the McDonald’s lobby, not needing a happy meal or breakfast burrito.
First guy I see is Snookie Bossie, an old snow sledding buddy. Friend and classmate of my oldest brother Stephen who told me if you are in Canada and get in a rumble, Snookie and the older Roger Howland are the two you need for protection to race back to the border. Snook prefers you call him Will but good luck shaking that novel, unique a high school nickname. How many Snookie’s have you known in your life time? Snook grins, asks where I am preaching today? Likes my matching suit.
Float Your Boat, Get Outside To Enjoy The Scenery Happens In Small Town Maine.
I smile and tell him no funerals, no sermon or services today but have an action packed real estate day ahead of me. Five closings last week in one day was a proud achievement but I tell him Robin, my secretary of twenty years gets the credit. More a business partner than an assistant. Elliot, my youngest as a full time single Dad was not even two when Robin signed on to the payroll.
Then I think as Snookie smiles, hey wait a minute.
He trained my secretary who worked at Ward Log Cabin 20 years ago. Robin said he was a boss that wanted it done right, or do it over. She liked that and does not like messing up, not getting it done right. Other secretaries in the pool did not take so fondly for his business like, right is right attitude. Robin embraced it, did not take it personally when criticized. It’s like conflict resolutions, focus on the problem, don’t attack the person.
Then Arnold Bulley who is a manager at McDonald’s says hello, waves on the way, zipping by behind the counter. David Grant, a friend of an older brother Jonathan and classmate of 1967 grabs my elbow and says hello on the way out. He has the day off from defending the US / Canadian border today. Snookie is “chalmerizing” his wife’s car, a loving gesture in his retirement. While waiting for it to warm up, go for a motorcycle ride.
Any one outside Houlton Maine would wonder what the heck “chalmerize” means.
Chalmer Karnes is or was the best car detailer in the business. And if there was a world series or Olympics for auto detailing, my money would be on the Chalmer of years ago. When he was in his prime.
Brick Solid, Victorian Classic. That’s Houlton Maine, County Seat For Aroostook.
Silver haired, always smiling Paul Callnan, a CPA wanders by with a breakfast tray and I figure he is taking the needed “you deserve a break today” after tax season.
Know him well through service in Rotary.
Rode on the same Houlton Maine yellow school bus lucky number thirteen growing up. Was at the University of Maine at Orono in the same freshman dorm Aroostook a few years back before joining TKE fraternity. Moving out and being on the north end of the UMO campus. No longer at the extreme south end to walk to a cold winter 8 AM college class with a strong breeze and no black flies in the dead of winter in Maine.
And then the large, careful it’s hot hot black coffee I trotted in for is handed to me.
Without asking me is this your order. Because the lady on the drive through sees me, knows what I am after. And with NASCAR efficiency delivers it. All done with in just a few minutes. The drive back to the Maine real estate office is a quarter mile, does not take ten minutes like a city.
So Much Going On In Small Maine Towns. Get Involved, Pitch In And Make A Difference Happens.
Thinking nothing of it, I left the Darth Vadar black jeep running, unlocked when I hopped out. Parked it at McDonalds. Keys in it. XM percolating, purring out of the speakers. Did not have to worry the 4WD SUV would be gone when I came out with my steaming cup of Joe. Or it being up on jack stands with the tires and wheels missing. Or other parts evaporated, air wrenched off by any five finger discount gang members. Who shop religiously at Midnight Auto Supply.
Things on the crime scanner are pretty tame. Instead of worrying about your personal safety you put the energy into improving the area. To help collectively to make things happening around you better than it was.
I am grateful for the natural, unspoiled beauty of Aroostook County but the people are the greatest asset. Maine, it’s not like this many other places.
Living in small Maine towns is friendly, helpful, healthy.
Visit Our Cary Library In Houlton Maine Video.
Cary Library is one of many local jewels, gems that make Houlton Maine special. Small Maine town living is special and everyone is connected for the common good.
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”.
Everything I apply to life I learned in the Maine potato field. Sort of.
The 300 acre Maine farm I grew up on and now own.
Maine youth help area potato farmers get the spuds into winter storage during school fall break.
Seriously, you start each morning, listening to the radio to see what time the Maine potato farmer is going to dig today.
A little frost or rain over night means a delay, or no picking. A reprieve from above in the food chain. But when you do get to the spud field after a big breakfast and carrying your lunch and water jug, you have to pick out a section.
A section is basically, how long a responsibility in the field can you handle?
If the rows are long, and one digger proceeds at a slow pace back and forth uncovering spuds to pick, you have to judge what is doable. To still stay caught up. You don’t want to be waiting for the digger. You need to avoid being hopeless behind, rows and rows out of uncovered potatoes waiting to be picked. That is discouraging but so is life sometimes. The best lessons are mistakes or miscalculations. Taking ownership, responsibility and stopping them from happening over and over. And wondering why.
Four baskets fill a 165 pound Maine farm potato barrel.
You put your ticket on the barrel and it gets plucked. Placed in a can as the barrel is hoisted onto a flatbed farm truck. The potatoes head to storage, your ticket to be counted that night. Sixty cents a barrel was the pay when my four kids picked a few years back. Before graduating to work in the potato house or on the harvester for an hourly wage. Where they thought now we are cooking. Have really arrived.
Kids spend the money if they think the item is worth six barrels of potatoes or whatever the exchange is as they contemplate a purchase. I have seen my kids pick something up, put it back on the store shelf and utter the word’s “Dad, that’s not worth six barrels of potatoes”. They worked too hard to part with their hard earned proceeds for something deemed an unfair exchange or quality for the work required to buy it.Maine potato picking video I posted.
No one leaves the Maine potato field until everyone is picked up.
No one left high and dry. If you find yourself behind due to poor section selection or the hot sun slowing down your production, others will show up to pick up your section. To add to their daily barrel tally. If you run out of barrels, you pick tops off the rows you get behind so when you get barrels, you can pick your section faster.
Digger pulled by the tractor breaks down? You head to the woods to do your business, make a nature call. Or have a snack and enjoy the break. Put it to good use to rest up. Or if hustling for a new bike, you trot down to a section that is behind that has barrels. You pick one or two barrels to tag with your ticket. You stay busy. You make good use of your time.
Another Generation Of Farmers In Maine. Remember, No Farmer, No Food!
Being outside in the Maine fall scenic foliage is exciting and beautiful. Blue skies, cold mornings, blistering hot afternoons. That’s a lesson in picking potatoes, my entry level job that was the blue print for every other job after that.
Growing up on a Maine farm was a valuable experience. And you are needed by the grower, shipper. You and he both are at the mercy of the biggest unknown, the Maine weather. Your section may grow or shorten too depending on the division marker of your neighboring picker. Who may be an ambitious little red hen or become lazy in the afternoon sun like a slug.
The field section markers may mysteriously re-adjust between where you end and your neighbor starts too.
End rows also can grow as the field lengthens. You find grass, tough picking, sods on the ends as a rule. Those are the picking ABC’s of mastering a Maine potato field. Watch the operation first hand with this Maine potato picking video .
