MeInMaine Blog

Tag: houlton maine homes

  • Who Used To Live In The Maine Home, On The Farm Or At The Lake Camp.

    They say a house is not a Maine home until you add some people.

    The sound of kids laughing, a parent working industriously on a project or tending the farmstead complete with a full array of critters. The grandmother shelling new picked garden peas on the front porch with a grandchild. Where volumes of wisdom are being exchanged with every installment of family time.

    Slow Down, Watch Out.
    Like Maine Moose, Pop Ups, Spam, Cookies Hard To Miss On The Internet Highway Surfing.

    Today as you cruise the neighborhoods of your city or town, take country road rides do you recall who used to live in this or that place?

    Or recall when there are a grand set of buildings on that now vacant land? Or see several houses where not so long ago there were none?

    In small Maine towns where population is never too large and just holding our own to keep from losing our youth to the urban magnet is the tug of war. We don’t worry about sprawl, not restricted by HOA’s that enforce long lists of do’s and don’ts on top of what city planners and local zoning boards demand.

    And the fond thoughts of who used to live in that green two bedroom ranch never fades completely to black.

    Stays a little shade of gray and visible.

    Want A Graham Cracker? 1958 Photo From Ralph And Marjorie Black's Houlton Maine Lawn.
    Happy To Be A Kid In Houlton Maine. I Was. Say, Want A Graham Cracker?

    In drive bys or daily walks around the familiar haunts memory lane happens. Where I remember the Houlton Maine owners who took so much pride in the place they built together. No kids air dropped, brought in by the stork for them.

    But the garden alive behind the home on the hill that sloped to the south, the rear of a very deep lot.

    Towered over by one very large pine with roots just under the grass and above in many places.

    That as a little kid peddling into town from the country added to the labor with the weekly lawn mowing and grass trimming. This is me to the left before the lawn mowing merit badge was earned on Franklin Avenue.

    Ralph the accountant at Fogg’s Hardware store sporting a crew cut and a fan of dulse touted by some as better than spinach or broccoli for nutritional horsepower.

    He popped, sucked on those pink peppermints you can only seem to find over home too. Maybe to counteract the salty seaweed he munched on.

    Maine Simple Living, Knowing Where The Value Is Day To Day.
    What Makes A Rich, Personal Life Is Not Bought, It Is Shared. Values, Beliefs, Traditions Big In A Small Maine Town.

    He and his wife Marjorie who worked at the Cary Library . Hailing from the bordering town of Woodstock New Brunswick  and fully naturalized. Duly sworn in with the right hand up as one of Uncle Sam’s successful transplants that never lost the love of Oh Canada.

    Ralph like a car with a cylinder miss would sputter. On his knees pulling weeds, planting seeds. A World War I veteran fighting for the Canadian side in England and catching pieces of shrapnel in his back that somehow affected his lungs, his breath in, breath out.

    Just a raspy, wheezy cough that if you did not know him you would ask is that just a nervous habit? No it is something that explained the purple heart medal and others he hid. Probably in his underwear drawer where with quiet respect and dignity the topic of why the cough was not discussed. Put out of his mind and kept behind him. In the cloud of mustard gas that went along with the ricochet of lead and steel.

    Sit Back, Take It All In. Maine.
    Outdoors, No Office Desks, No Deadlines. Your Outdoor Therapy.

    Ralph had a tan colored 1964 Corvair, the rear engine Chevy that Ralph Nadar helped escort get off the road. Into the breakdown lane for roadside assistance. More than a call to triple “A”. Ralph traded up to a 1966 Pontiac Tempest.

    No rug on the floor, vinyl like the stripped down police cruisers. For easier to clean mishaps when drunks pulled over, yanked into the car for a little questioning about how much have you had to drink.

    Ralph’s pride and joy. Just a six cylinder power plant of gerbils upfront.

    Kept washed, waxed and glass sparkling to show room perfection standards. The car always looked like it had just rolled off the Motor City assembly line. I think it had red line tires but that could be wishful thinking.

    The tempest could have been a super candidate for the real thing, a GTO clone. With some heavy modifications under the hood, suspension, transmission. Beyond replacing the Tempest with “Goat” designations, insignias.

    Sliding in a close ratio four speed, bolting in a different rear end and chain falling slowly into place an aluminum head, 396 cubic inch motor with three two barrel carbs riding on top under the hood scoop. With cut outs giving it plenty of air when the pedal went to the metal.

    (Yeah like the 1967 Mustang my older brother Jonathan totaled, bent the frame on in Brewer during college, that I was about to inherit as I got my driver’s license. I wished I had either of the two now … the Springtime Yellow Ford or Ralph’s mint Tempest wearing all tan blended with plain

    muscle cars, ponticas gto tempest
    Pontiac Tempest, The 1966 GTO Cloneable Classic.

    Jane beige lacquer.)

    Demand for those big engine muscle cars hand crafted in Detroit died off a tad as the males who bought them were drafted one by one and sent to Vietnam for some R and R.

    Had blogged a ways back about a Plum Crazy Purple Challenger about that time of the height of the conflict halfway around the globe.

    So today when I walk or drive by Ralph and Marjorie Black’s first home  where for three years of my life we were neighbors, there is nostalgia.

    Remembering pushing the turquoise Ex-Cell-O brand reel push mower, the yellow hand powered or “silent” rear trimmer and grasping grass clippers, I can see the leopard pattern banana bike seat, am reaching forward for the high rise handlebars and enjoying being a kid in a small Maine town.

    1967 Ford Mustage
    1967 Ford Mustang, Wearing, Sporting Springtime Yellow Paint, Wire Wheels.

    To roll up into Market Square and see other kids I knew from school as I pumped my legs to get to the destination of 5 Franklin Avenue, Houlton Maine.

    With the trust of parents, who let me pedal into town to earn my five dollars and a can of Mountain Dew or White Rock Cream or Black Cherry soda as the reward for the toil and sweat of the weekly obligation. In my home town of Houlton Maine.

    The same tonic that hit the spot in the dusty potato fields that would capture every kid’s attention come fall harvest in Aroostook County. We learned work ethic as kids.

    Can’t help but notice the changes with the home, that whoever is mowing the lawn now does not have Ralph or Marjorie watching closely to remind you skip a strip. Or that cedar needs a little of the shaggy growth under it given some love and attention. Or the garage door is left up round the clock so you can see the black Cel-o-tex sheathing where Ralph had a place for everything and order ruled the day.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker

    207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

    MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730

  • Stained Glass In Maine, Not Just In Churches Any More.

    Kids Are Like Stained Glass, Come In More Than 31 Flavors.
    Pick Your Favorite Color, Use Them In Your Life.

    Colored, stained glass that filters light.

    With each shade, intensity and the pattern contributing like an orchestra to the experience out in the audience. The sunshine that fuels the backdrop provides a different sensation than a set of spotlights trying to do the same job artificially.

    Not just found in Maine churches these days but still has a certain sanctity, sacredness because of the events you were exposed to growing up around stained glass.

    When a small child with feet that did not quite reach the floor. In a church wedding where everyone is low voiced whispering. When you are a kid used to using your outdoor recess voice for communication. To make a point. Or at a funeral with shades of purple trappings, sadness enhancing organ music and occasional bell chimes gonged. Resonating, signaling the end of time. Before the shift to let’s celebrate the life of the newly departed people. Can I get an amen? Not cry our eyes out and feel sorry for our own loss. Remembering they’re going, headed, on their way to a better final place, their real home. While the hole in your heart heals.

    Some stained glass church windows donated by family members in memory of the loved ones.

    To soothe the loss. To remember, not have the memory fade and the person’s “light” to live on. And lots of stained glass with scripture inserted. Tied into the array of colors and patterns. Stained glass is neat. But not just in churches in Maine any more. The image above mostly ordinary sea glass. But not so simple and transformed into something of dramatic beauty. Because of many hours, a highly creative spirit of the artist who proudly displays it at a local Lubec Maine coastal eatery. Here is another of a Maine moose of colored glass.

    The front entry door to where I live in a Houlton Maine home has a small vertical rectangle window space. And the old plain jane glass needed replacement a while back. I had a property behind me that sold to an Arizona couple. She was a nurse, he had royally messed up his back as a fire fighter. And instead of taking pain killers or keep trying to be put under the knife for more operations when the rails on the train had run out, the husband drank beer. All the time nursing cheap beer, Blatz barley pop. Like it was on an IV pole, plugged in by a hose for a slow drip constant. Except no metal pole on squeaky wheels or the swinging, hanging bag. Just right hand curls of the cheap beer through out his day. Into each night. Creating lots of returnable deposit empties, dead tin soldiers.

    One hobby Lloyd developed along with his default beer drinking as a professional, highly functioning alcoholic was stained glass.

    When he did not have time for the pain, he repaired removed church window sashes. In his carriage house workshop. Creating new stained glass window works. He brought tons of glass of various textures, patterns and hues with every color solid and combination pigments known to man. From West Germany, and in special 2×4 construction bins for each. Mostly sheets, squares but every smaller piece from a previous job kept for a shepherd’s pie of sorts. For repair and new window creation.

    Some green glass remnants he had kicking around made a local electrician sigh in big relief.

    When he broke a piece changing, swapping light locations in our house. But Lloyd cut the exact replacement color, shape and wham bam soldered, whipped it in securely. Nice and tight. And all was good again. His old Highland Avenue Houlton Maine home has lots of stained glass work left behind that is now owned, enjoyed by Anne and Andy Cottle. That used to be lived in by neighbors Margaret and Gary Hagan before the stained glass ta da embellishment took the place up a few notches.

    Maine churches in the area lamented hearing the relocation news. Sad to see him move before their immediate need was met in their sanctuary of worship. But while here, he was a Johnny Appleseed of sorts for long overdue stained glass church window repair. The local Houlton Maine churches in the flock could not afford to hire out of state firms to travel way north. Lloyd was well received and kept as busy as his lower back would allow.

    Before he left, back to that window out front where I live. I asked if I could hire him to make a replacement of stained, colored glass.

    We drew out a design of diamonds of lavender and milk glass, he measured the opening. And in short order, a new windows was created for what I thought was peanuts for compensation. It was a hobby, past time not full time work for Lloyd. He could not work the standard forty hour week. But when he was feeling his oats so to speak, having a good day, he created something beautiful. Above and beyond.

    Here is a Maine stained glass link of beautiful galleries to inspire. The lamps with dragon fly, jewels of intricate, rich hand blown colored glass beads, real antique ones not reproductions are neat. But creative spirit and not just solemn, proper, pious church applications has flung, no nailed the door wide open on stained glass “sky’s the limit”.

    Creations now only limited by your imagination and time allowed, the commitment from your wallet for the DIY stained glass designers. But stained glass also like ordering a restaurant meal options and how do you want it cooked has become more sophisticated than just repair of existing church windows. The cost has come down as the increase in the size of the market extends way way beyond church buildings, religious applications tied to just the collection plate.

    I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
    207.532.6573
    info@mooersrealty.com