Strange Maine

EVENT: Ghostly Valentine evening

2012-02-01T11:46:00.001-05:00

WHAT: Valentine’s Ghost Hunt, Benefit for Pemaquid Watershed AssociationWHEN: Saturday, Feb. 11th, 9:00pm-1:00amWHERE: Rufus Flye House, Damariscotta, MaineFMI: call Mysterious Destinations at (207)380-4677 or mysteriousdestinations@gmail.com, or visit http://mysteriousdestinations.com/ A quest for evidence of paranormal activity at the Rufus Flye House in Damariscotta will be just in time for couples seeking something different to do on Valentine’s Day weekend.The event even includes a romantic dinner, although the ambience will take a turn towards the technical during a briefing on how to use equipment to detect paranormal activity, when guests will also learn information about the building’s history and reported hauntings. The “Midnight Explore” is scheduled for Saturday, Feb 11th, 2012, from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. It will be hosted by Mysterious Destinations, a Damariscotta-based company that has coordinated many such events.A portion of the proceeds from the event will go to benefit the Pemaquid Watershed Association (PWA), whose offices are in the Rufus Flye Building; which is also home to the Damariscotta Region Chamber of Commerce (DRCC) and Salt Bay Café. Two prior Midnight Explores at the location have netted $200 in donations to the PWA.After dinner is finished, participants will use equipment provided by Mysterious Destinations in an effort to seek out signs of paranormal activity and contribute to a growing collection of information about the building.Several unexplained images have appeared in photographs, a number of electromagnetic fields in the building are being studied and weak electronic voice phenomenon have been recorded. During a Midnight Explore on October 15, 2011, two participants experienced some unusual circumstances using dowsing rods.The recent history of the Rufus Flye House has no shortage of reports regarding the possibility of paranormal activities.According to Salt Bay Café owner Peter Everett, late night and early morning incidents began occurring shortly after he purchased the business in the late 1990’s.Often, a side door was heard to open and close, followed by heavy footsteps moving up the stairs and into the second floor of the restaurant. Employees who thought they were working alone in an empty building would go to investigate, and find no indication that anyone had entered. These occurrences were so common that over the years most employees have come to take them in stride.But some reports are bit more disturbing. The first report of an employee called by name was over 5 years ago, but that manifestation has continued into the present with another employee who has heard her name called out twice – as though the person were right behind her – in a completely empty room.As recently as July 3, 2011 Peter Everett reported that he was alone at the end of the night in the upstairs office when he observed a vertical mist pass through the room and disappear through a wall.A number of reports and photographs on the Rufus Flye House are published online at www.MysteriousDestinations.com.“This will be a great opportunity in that we will exploring all three floors of this unique building, and one with a long and solid history of manifestations,” said Sally Lobkowicz, Director of Mysterious Destinations.The fee for the Midnight Explore and dinner is $45 per person and includes a full dinner and use of paranormal detection equipment. A donation to the PWA is included in the fee. The group’s size is limited due to both the size of the building and the availability of equipment, so reservations will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis. To make reservations, or for more information, contact Mysterious Destinations at 207-380-4677 or mysteriousdestinations@gmail.com.

EVENT: Crash Barry Q&A & signing tomorrow!

2012-01-24T11:05:00.001-05:00

Whoa! Want to spice up your lunch hour this Wednesday? Head to the Portland Public Library for the latest in their Brown Bag Lunch series, starring Crash Barry, outspoken Maine author of Sex, Drugs and Blueberries and Tough Island! Barry will be doing an author talk, followed by an opportunity for attendees to ask him questions, and get your copy of his book signed. Don't worry, if you haven't picked up one of these beauties, Longfellow Books will be on hand with fresh copies.

WHAT: Brown Bag Lunch with Crash Barry
WHEN: Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 from 12:00-1:00 p.m.
WHERE: Rines Auditorium, Lower Level, Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Square, Portland, Maine
COST: Brown Bag Lectures are free and open to the public.
REFRESHMENTS: Beverages will be provided, and please feel free to bring your lunch along!

About Tough Island: True Stories from Matinicus, Maine:
In 1991, Crash Barry moved to Maine's most remote inhabited island to work as a sternman aboard a lobster boat. On Matinicus, twenty miles out to sea, population fifty, the ferry visited nine times a year and airplanes only landed when there was no fog, rain, snow, sleet or darkness. Tough Island is a gritty memoir and guided tour of a unique society inhabited by resourceful individuals and scoundrels. Stories of danger and drugs, sex and violence, death and sorrow, all unfold in a landscape of breathtaking beauty.

About Sex, Drugs and Blueberries:
In the novel Sex, Drugs and Blueberries, failed Portland rocker Ben Franklin moves Down East with his poet wife to start a new life. Desperate for cash, Ben signs on for the Maine blueberry harvest where he's lured into a seamy world of sex and drugs that could lead to his downfall. Alternating between temptation and ecstasy, desperation and guilt, Ben discovers how quickly things can go wrong.

Crash Barry's website and blog can be found here: http://crashbarry.com/

See upcoming Brown Bag Lectures and other Portland Public Library events at http://portlandlibrary.com/programs/programs.htm

Blaine & the poison dagger?

2012-01-22T14:58:00.002-05:00

In digging around after another story this weekend, I came across a curious snippet of bizarre hearsay in the October 8, 1892 issue of the Illustrated American, on page 300:

Fads, Facts and Fancies

A citizen of Augusta, Maine, name G. W. King, has been telling Western reporters that ex-Secretary Blaine is constantly haunted by the fear of becoming mad, and that in anticipation of the dread moment when his mind will become a blank, the slighted leader of the Harrison cabinet carries with him, for ready use, a poisoned dagger, obtained in Italy from a professional assassin.

I don't think I've heard that story before!!!

To quote Wikipedia: "James Gillespie Blaine (January 31, 1830 – January 27, 1893) was a U.S. Representative, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, U.S. Senator from Maine, two-time Secretary of State. He was nominated for president in 1884, but lost a close race to Democrat Grover Cleveland." Photo from Wikipedia as well.

Victoria Mansion's winter finery

2011-12-31T12:10:00.000-05:00

I would be remiss to wave a flag pointing all of you to pay a visit to Victoria Mansion's wonderful holiday adornment this year (even if I'm a little late in jumping on that particular bandwagon).

If the lack of snow disappointed you over December, then you are in luck, because the Mansion keeps its finery on through January 8th, 2012, before closing for the season. Step into a Victorian winter wonderland, revive your holiday spirit, and find a sense of wonder that you thought had passed with the years!

The museum, located at 109 Danforth Street in downtown Portland, Maine, is open daily 11am-4pm (excluding Sunday, January 1st).

The holiday fantasia version of the Mansion happens each year when local decorators vie room-by-room for the admiration of visitors, unified in their efforts by an annual theme. This year, the overarching theme is "Deck the Halls: the Carols of Christmas," and the dozen areas encompassed in its rooms and passages portray ideals as varied as "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" to "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing By."

The photos shown here, taken by Aubin Thomas, give you just the barest hint of the decorations -- just a trifle to whet your appetite. There is nothing quite like entering the front door of the Mansion and finding the glimmer of its rooms and grand flying staircase sweeping before you with a promise of discovery around every corner.

For more information, please call them at (207)772-4841 or visit their website at http://www.victoriamansion.org/visit/default.aspx

Black Widows in Bath

2011-12-13T23:27:00.000-05:00

The Portland Press Herald confirmed stories of an incursion of toxic black widow spiders in Maine. I've been hearing stories about these buggly uglies in recent years from friends working in local kitchens, but usually they are rumored to arrive in tomato shipments, not vertical launch system components!

BIW unpacks a load of black widow spiders
The Associated Press

BATH — Bath Iron Works says it had to fumigate a warehouse and part of a warship because a shipment of parts from California contained about two-dozen venomous black widow spiders.

Bath Iron Works employees discovered the arachnids in a crate containing vertical launch system components.
[...]
DeMartini said the spiders were discovered earlier this month. The shipyard is confident that exterminators eliminated any spiders that weren't stomped.
[...]

Full article: http://www.pressherald.com/news/BIW-gets-a-load-of-black-widow-spiders.html

Oddly enough, the black widow spider showed up in an informational 1984 article in the Biddeford Journal (pg 9, 8/13/84), appropriately enough in the Science section, although Maine is not mentioned once in the article. The article did, however, describe the occasions in which one might be bitten, and the ensuing symptoms. In other words, do not go unwary into dry, dimly lit, secluded places, do not dangle your hand in their webs, and if you are a child, do not play with them! Even more oddly, another Maine mention of black widows occurred in... you guessed it!... the Biddeford Journal, this time way back on September 24, 1955 (pg 2). Again, no mention of Maine, and again an informational article. Maybe it was a slow news week? "Hey Marty! If ya got nothin' else to run, throw in a bit about poisonous spiders, will ya? That always gets 'em hoppin'." A random tiny paragraph telling of black widow bite symptoms appears in the midst of local news on page 2 of the Biddeford Journal in its 7/3/64 issue, too.

In the March 25, 1977 issue of the Biddeford Journal, the urban legend of black widow spiders in Bubble Yum bubblegum is recounted, including the fact that the company felt compelled to run full-page ads in 30 New York City metropolitan area newspapers telling parents "someone is telling your kids very bad lies about a very good gum." Apparently the company also went so far as to mail copies of the ads to school principals and PTAs (pg 5).

But the black widow has made actual forays into Maine before. Twenty years ago, in a 7/10/91 article in the Chicago Daily Herald (pg 40), picked up from the Reuters news feed from Portland, Maine, is a story about grocery chain Hannaford Bros. refusing further shipments of red seedless grapes from Southern California'a Coachella Valley "after two of the deadly spiders were discovered Monday in packing crates at its South Portland distribution center," and "a woman also reported a spider in grapes purchased at a store in Gorham two weeks ago," according to the 1991 article.

Anyone with their own Maine-related urban legends of black widow spiders is welcome to share them in the comments!

Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus

Dead Files TV show looking for stories!

2011-11-11T13:51:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, just thought I'd pass this along -- Erin Krozek, producer, emailed me earlier this week hoping to scare up some ideas from Strange Maine readers. See below for ways to submit your case.

The Dead Files, on the Travel Channel, is currently looking for new cases to investigate on our second season - and we'd like to find the perfect story in Maine.

If any of your readers have a home or business that is haunted and need answers, they can submit their story at www.helpmedeadfiles.com or they can even reach out to me directly.

To learn more about our show, you can go to www.travelchannel.com and click on The Dead Files under "Shows."

Thanks so much!

Erin Krozek
Producer
Painless Entertainment
310.839.9900 main
310.943.8178 fax
erin@painless.tv

According to the website, "The Dead Files team approaches every case from their two specific areas of expertise: Steve DiSchiavi is a Homicide Detective and Amy Allan is a Physical Medium. They are a paranormal team like no other, combining their unique, eclectic and often-conflicting skills to solve unexplained paranormal phenomena in haunted locations across America."

Old unsolved Portland murder resurfaces

2011-10-29T21:44:00.000-04:00

Marge Niblock did a bang-up job on this article in today's issue of the Portland Daily Sun, on a topic to be covered in more depth tomorrow, Sunday, October 30th, at 2:00pm, as the subject of a talk at the Maine Irish Heritage Center (corner of State and Gray Streets) in Portland. Suzan Roberts Norton will present the results of several years of research she has undertaken with the consent and assistance of the Connolly family. The talk is free and open to all.

From the sound of the article, it will be a talk well worth attending. Sadly, I'm stuck at work, but maybe some of you can attend!

Who Killed Officer Connolly?
By Marge Niblock
Oct 29, 2011 12:00 am

Since the establishment of the Portland Police Department in 1848, two officers have been killed on the job. The first was Charles McIntosh, in 1915, when he was shot and stabbed by two felons who were later caught.

Patrolman Michael Connolly
The second was Patrolman Michael Connolly, and the 81-year-old mystery of his death remains unsolved. Whoever killed Officer Michael T. Connolly literally got away with murder.

Connolly’s lifeless body was found not far from “a sinister squatters’ colony beneath the brow of Eastern Promenade . . . near Fish Point.” That grim discovery was made on the morning of August 15, 1930, and bold headlines to that effect emblazoned the first page of that day’s Portland Evening Express.

Longshoreman John Lee discovered the body in the sand while gathering driftwood on the beach at about 8:15 a.m. Connolly was lying face down and had been shackled with his own handcuffs. The officer’s fully-loaded service revolver was in his right-hand pants pocket, raising many questions. According to newspaper accounts, Connolly’s gun holster was carried on his left hip because he was left-handed.

Patrolman Connolly was considered to be “an efficient and faithful officer,” and was described as having a strong physique, weighing about 190 pounds. He left behind his wife Mary Connolly and five children, James, Edward, Catherine, Margaret, and John, ranging in age from 3 to 11.

The autopsy verdict was cause of death due to drowning, with no marks of violence on Connolly’s body. There was an embarrassing delay before the arrival of a medical examiner, causing strong criticism by police and County officials, as reported in the paper that day. It was more than three hours for a medical examiner arrive at the scene. There had been a “drenching rain” during that period of time. The medical examiner concluded that the officer was alive when thrown into the water.

Officer Connolly’s key for pulling the call boxes was around his neck on a string, but his uniform hat was missing. Connolly’s watch stopped at 4:07. He had called headquarters from a box at Congress and Mountfort at 5:09, and the time for him to pull the next box on his foot beat would have been at 6:07 at India and Commercial Streets.

Fifty-one new call boxes had been placed throughout the city in the early 1920s, replacing the old ones from the late 1800s. There was a phone inside each box, allowing officers to speak directly to police headquarters, located at 132 Federal Street at that time. After making an arrest, prisoners were walked to the closest call box. The boxes had two keyholes, with the one on top marked as “wagon call,” used when an arrest was made. Headquarters would then send a wagon to that location. Officers also left notes in these boxes at the ends of their shifts, to alert the next person on duty to any special circumstances that might warrant their attention. The use of call boxes ended in 1972.

There was a 15-minute grace period allowed to officers in pulling boxes, so police began searching for Officer Connolly around 6:25.

Connolly had been appointed to the force in 1918. For many years he had patrolled along the Western Promenade, but six weeks prior, local beats were changed and he was assigned to the Eastern Promenade area.

There were several possible theories involving bootleggers bringing in a shipment of liquor. The County Attorney ordered police to question all sailors from three battle cruisers that were docked in the harbor who may have gone ashore overnight.

This was the era of Prohibition, with smuggling of alcohol was big business, and many bootleggers’ boats carrying the illegal cargo pulled in near the shore of the city’s East End to unload their goods. The docks and warehouses on Portland’s waterfront held many secrets during that era.

Connolly’s badge number 71 was officially retired shortly after the tragic incident.

On June 28, 1985, a ceremony was held to celebrate the christening of a new police boat, the Michael T. Connolly. A rendition of that badge was painted on the vessel’s side. Numerous Connolly family members were in attendance, along with then-U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, Police Chief Francis Amoroso, and Mayor Joseph D. Casale. The 31-foot boat served the department until August 1, 1992, when it was retired from service. The department never has purchased another boat.

Kevin MacDonald, an evidence technician with the Portland police department who has been in that job longer than anyone else in the unit, said Connolly’s death would have been hard to investigate.

“Water complicates things due to rinsing effect.” He said under the circumstances that existed on that particular rainy day, and a body that had been immersed in water for many hours, “the transfer of hairs and fibers would be much less likely.”

MacDonald stated “If it happened today, we’d take the handcuffs, swab for DNA, and check for fingerprints.” He also felt there might be some significance connected to the officer’s missing hat, which was never found. “A lot of times guys would keep papers and information in their hats,” noted MacDonald.

This remains a cold case that the passage of time has not helped to solve.

Article and photo source:
http://portlanddailysun.me/featured/story/who-killed-officer-connolly

REVIEW: Mark LaFlamme's Box of Lies

2011-10-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

This review is really, really late in coming, because I wanted to do it up right, and I didn’t want to skimp on it. Chances are you wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t told you, because chances are you haven’t heard of the book, Box of Lies, even though it’s been out a full year as I write this. You may not have even heard of the author, Mark LaFlamme, unless you live in the Lewiston-Auburn area. Why this is, I can’t explain. LaFlamme has been steadily writing and releasing excellent horror and weird fiction books since 2005, and each one has had a slightly different but equally captivating overall character. I’ve liked and admired every single one of his books I’ve read, and that’s most of them. Why one of the big publishers hasn’t picked up his contract is beyond me.

LaFlamme was born in Waterville, Maine, and continues to live here with the rest of us loonies. Clearly this has affected his brain, and has fertilized his imagination to an ungodly level. As if that wasn’t enough, for the last 17 years or so he has been writing the Lewiston Daily Sun’s crime beat, and has been the author of their “Street Talk” column for many years. The influence of this journalistic work on his fiction is a straightforward approach that takes the reader on roads that would never have been taken otherwise (one hopes).

I know in the past I’ve compared some of his storytelling skills to Stephen King’s, but truly his voice is his very own, and a strong one at that. Unmistakable and somehow honest even though what he tells us word by word is a string of lies. That, I suspect, is because he knows the truth, intimately. Working the crime beat in Lewiston, Maine, is a hard way to learn about reality, yet that is what he does, every day, every late night shift. Yet somehow within him a spark of light still lives – though perhaps that light simply serves to throw darker shadows as he speaks in these stories.

Page by page in Box of Lies, LaFlamme giveth and he taketh away. Is what we imagine real? Is that which we think real imagined instead? In "Table for One," LaFlamme turns the fancies of the paranoid mind of the restaurant diner into solid worse-than-you-could-imagine reality. In "Pepper," a visiting alien finds out what makes Earthmen tick. In "The Bender Argument," LaFlamme gives us a scenario that posits what you might get if you like philosophy a little TOO much, a story which would make one hell of a nightmare movie, a perfect Twilight Zone episode, and would make Philip K. Dick himself proud.

Those of us who spend time musing about the unknown histories of our local street people may notice that LaFlamme has the talent to transmute these blanks into new stories, such as Elsy in "Find a Penny," wherein we find out what happens when you can’t tell a bad penny from a good one until its spell is woven in intractable time. Others of us who wonder what happens in communities after the press is done reporting on the latest icy winter sport fatalities will find out perhaps more than we wanted to know in "Bone Lake," where the search goes on for the dead that have left land for the cold dark waters.

The 28 stories in Box of Lies vary in size from 5 pages to 31 pages in length, which gives a wonderfully varied pace to the collection, and subject matter ranges from the graphically horrific to the futuristically normal, which reminds me of some of my favorite horror/weird fiction authors’ collections, like Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. But when I asked him if he prefers writing scifi or horror, LaFlamme answered, “I'm constantly telling people that I don't write either. I don't set out to write horror or science fiction. It's just that my characters tend to do things that are: A) horrifying, or B) in defiance of known physical laws. I like to think of myself as a perfectly normal writer whose characters misbehave. I even tried to write a romance once. The heroine ended up dead, hacked into a dozen pieces and shipped to Venus. Not really. But that sounds pretty good. I might write that one.”

As a Mainer, his stories are often set here in the Pine Tree State, but as he succinctly explains, “The slithering freak plants in Vegetation are no more creepy because they are set in Homefield, Maine. I could have set that book in Dork, Utah and the substance of the tale wouldn't have changed a bit.” Yet somehow his home state creeps its way into the tales, for whatever reason. It may have something to do with the long winters, which form the impetus for him to create: “I absolutely hate winter. It's cold. It's dark and it seems endless. I can't ride my motorcycle much and there's no point in going to the beach at all. Maine winters are harsh and long. With all that time spent indoors, it's easy to become introspective and gloomy. Which I do. If I didn't have fictional worlds to turn to, I'd probably go into my basement and never come out.” (Maybe that’s another story for you to write, Mark!)

Like me, he has pondered why Maine does seem to stand out from other settings. “There IS something about Maine. It's rugged. It feels isolated from the rest of the world. The people here have their own way of doing things. I think that gets overplayed in Hollywood sometimes, but there's no doubt that living here is conducive to creativity. And perhaps lunacy.”

Some folks who read LaFlamme’s work in the Lewiston Sun Journal develop the idea that he’s from away, but that may be due to the fact that he, like many Mainers, has felt the need to roam. “I spent some time in the south - Charlotte, NC and Newport News, Virginia, specifically - but didn't last long down there. Like so many others, I came back. It was almost a subconscious decision, some homing mechanism I don't fully understand. Someday, I'd like to move out to California or Arizona. Could I stay out there? Remains to be seen. In the meantime, I'm here in Maine, my roots getting thicker by the hour.”

Since I couldn’t figure myself out why none of the big publishers has picked LaFlamme up yet, I asked him directly. He said he hadn’t initially planned to stick with his independent publisher, Booklocker, beyond his first book The Pink Room, but “six years and four novels later, I have no plans to go anywhere else. Why would I? Right now, I have final say on things like title, cover and layout. Once my novel gets through tweaking, editing and design, it gets to the market fairly quickly. It's out there getting read and making money instead of sitting on some big publisher's slush pile along with five hundred others. It's the golden age of indie publishing, although too few people know that right now.” For LaFlamme, going indie has allowed him to focus his time on book writing instead of spending futile hours trying to craft proposals to big publishers and agents, a gamble which doesn’t often pay off in the floodtide of material coming through their office doors each day.

LaFlamme made an observation on the newly rejuventated state of independent publishing in a growing electronic book market: “A lot of authors are turning down respectable offers from traditional publishers these days because they like the freedom and earning potential of the indie way. And yet, a lot of people still believe that authors are self-published because they have no other choice. There's still that stigma, but I suspect it won't last forever. With more and more indie authors out there, chances are good that your next favorite book will be written by one of us. Hopefully by me personally. There are plenty of authors doing extremely well just by selling their books on Kindle. Look up Amanda Hocking, Joe Konrath or John Locke to find out just how well.”

In September 2011 he released his newest book, Delirium Tremens, which lands solidly in the horror genre. This latest accomplishment from LaFlamme leads readers into the terror-laden life of alcoholic Stephen Boone, soon to die if he doesn’t cease his liquor habit. Problem is, if he stops drinking, all the dead people that visit him when he’s sober will come back. A Catch-22 erupts when spirits of a mother and daughter involve him in the details of their murder, and there is no going back. You can find this book on Amazon in either print or electronic versions, along with his prior volumes, such as Box of Lies, Dirt, and The Pink Room. You might even find copies of a few of his titles at your local independent bookshop, such as Portland's Green Hand Bookshop. You never know!

Sacred & Profane 2011

2011-10-11T17:47:00.002-04:00

FYI folks, no advance sales of tickets this year for the Sacred & Profane festival!! Buy 'em Saturday at the Casco Bay Lines terminal when embarking for Peaks on the 2:15 ferry, or get 'em @ the Peaks Island dock when the ferry lands @ 2:35pm.

Death photography at the Victoria Mansion

2011-10-10T16:31:00.000-04:00

As Halloween rolls around, the mind turns to ghost stories, and more obliquely, mortality. Victorians dealt with death in a far different manner than we do today, almost seeming to embrace its reality at times, and transposing it into objects that embodied and replicated death in a well-crafted and beautiful version of itself to encourage contemplation, such as hair brooches and postmortem portraits.

Portland's Victoria Mansion gives us a glimpse into the ornate world of upper class funereal memorials in today's post on their blog at http://victoriamansionnews.wordpress.com/. There are a bunch of touchingly beautiful memorial photos and painted portraits in the post for those who are interested.

EVENT: The mysterious lobster lecture!

2011-10-07T11:57:00.000-04:00

Wish I could go to this, but I'm going to have to listen to their audio recording of it after the fact, 'cause I'll be out of town. But maybe some of you are available to go! This is a great lecture series, you won't be disappointed.

WHAT: Sea State Lecture: The Secret Life of Lobster
WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 13th, 2011 from 7:00-8:00 p.m., Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: GMRI (Gulf of Maine Research Institute), 350 Commercial Street, Portland, Maine
RSVP: to Patty Collins at lectures@gmri.org or (207)228-1625
COST: Sea State Lectures are free and parking is provided in GMRI's adjacent lot.

For 30 years Dr. Win Watson, Biological Sciences Professor at UNH, has been studying the animal physiology and animal behavior of lobsters and other marine animals in the Gulf of Maine.

In this presentation Dr. Watson will mix together a little bit of data, a lot of videos and a few pictures to educate the audience about the behavior of these fascinating creatures.

"One might think that we know everything there is to know about lobsters, but in reality, there is much to learn." Win Watson

See our upcoming Sea State Lecture series schedule and hear audio recordings of previous lectures at www.gmri.org/seastate

EVENT: Shoestring Theater Halloween Parade!

2011-10-05T14:33:00.001-04:00

Hold onto your horses, it's October again, and that means fun things like the Shoestring Theater's annual Halloween parade are lining up and ready for you to join them for some Halloween fun!

WHAT: Shoestring Theater's annual Halloween parade
WHEN: Monday, October 31st @ 6:00 - Participant lineup starts @ 5:30
WHERE: meet at 155 Brackett Street, Portland ME

This annual parade is Portland's howling, dancing, and drumming reminder of what Halloween is. Everyone is invited, all ages are welcome. If you'd like to participate in the parade, either in your own costume, with your own instruments, or by using some of the Shoestring puppets and instruments that are available, please arrive at 5:30 so they can get everyone settled in time for departure at 6:00.

The parade leaves the Shoestring Theater's home at 155 Brackett Street, across from Reiche School, and winds its way through the shadows of the West End, bringing a little bit of Halloween brouhaha to everyone in its path. Come and have fun! The Portland Police Department provide an escort car, and the event is wild but family-friendly for sure.

Here is a really long video of 2009's parade by Aaron Woodbury -- unfortunately you can't hear the wonderful raucous madness of percussion and cheering that is the parade itself over the soundtrack song, but the visuals are there -- up to the 2:45 mark it shows the preparations for the parade, and then it really kicks in.

Shoestring Theater's Annual Halloween Parade from Aaron Woodbury on Vimeo.

However, if you watch this video of the 2007 parade, you can get a real sense of the noise and fun that awaits you!

EVENT: Stephen King in Boston

2011-10-05T13:15:00.000-04:00

I got all excited because the JFK Library in Boston is hosting an appearance as a stop on Stephen King's current book tour, but the seating is full, according to their website (http://www.jfklibrary.org/Events-and-Awards/Forums.aspx). However there is another option!

For those unable to get tickets, they also produce a webcast of the event at http://www.jfklibrary.org/webcast

WHAT: Stephen King reads from his new novel 11/22/63 and discusses his long literary career with novelist Tom Perrotta.
WHEN: Monday, November 7, 2011, 1:30-2:30 PM
WHERE: JFK Library, Boston, MA,

All forums are free and open to the public. To make a reservation, call (617)514-1643 or go to their site. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Once the main hall is full, seating is in an overflow theater where the forum is streamed live. Doors to the main hall open one hour before the program begins

For more information, visit their site at http://www.jfklibrary.org/Events-and-Awards/Forums.aspx.

In addition, if you have cable, Turner Classic Movies will be presenting A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King during the month of October. As part of the program, Stephen will be discussing the classic horror films that influenced him. The show premieres Monday, October 3rd, at 8:00 PM (ET). Stephen will be discussing how he discovered terror at the movie theater. For more information about the program, please visit their site, which has a full schedule of the airings and more details on the program itself:
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/443507|449900/A-Night-at-the-Movies-The-Horrors-of-Stephen-King.html

EVENT: Eastern Cemetery rain or shine today!

2011-10-01T12:55:00.000-04:00

The launch party for MERCY IS TAKING PLACE AS PLANNED at the Eastern Cemetery.

Join us for cloudy and possibly misty:

-Undead Makeovers

-Antiqued Photos with the Ghost of Mercy

-A Reading from Mercy: The Last New England Vampire

-Book Sales & Signing

-Edible and Tattoo'd Hearts for the Taking

Come or eat your heart out!

Fun stuff for those interested in the old New England vampire stories...

WHAT:book launch party for MERCY: The Last New England Vampire
WHEN: Saturday, October 1, 2011, 2:00pm - 4:00pm
WHERE: Eastern Cemetery, 224 Congress St, Portland, ME (Rain location: Portland Public Library, Main Branch, Teen Room)
FMI: Curious City, 207-420-1126

MERCY, the last New England vampire, was pulled forcibly from her tomb in 1892. The teen novel about this horrific true incident and the present-day girl who uncovers it will be launched at the Eastern Cemetery in Portland, Maine on Saturday, October 1st at 2:00 PM.

The author, Sarah L. Thomson will be reading and signing her novel while the ghost of Mercy walks the graveyard. Readers will have a chance to catch Mercy on film, to try out a choice of supernatural makeup (vampires, zombies, or ghosts), and to tour the graveyard with its caretakers, Spirits Alive. Spirits Alive will tell stories of other teen girls taken tragically at the turn of the century. Each reader will walk away with a memento of Mercy.

Mercy: The Last New England Vampire is published by Islandport Press and the event is sponsored by the Islandport Press, Portland Public Library, and Curious City.

Old York's October events

2011-09-29T11:36:00.000-04:00

The museums of Old York (http://oldyork.org/) have released their October schedule, and I thought some of you in the area might have fun at some of the events, especially the Oct. 29 Haunted Historical Halloween celebration! :)

MUSEUMS OF OLD YORK ANNOUNCES OCTOBER 2011 PROGRAM SCHEDULE

October 3 Needle Wizards. Join us every Monday morning as we socialize while sewing costumes for Old York's education interpreters. Whether you are good at cutting out patterns, hand-sewing caps, piecing skirts or sewing on the machine, we could use your help. Come to The Parsons Center upstairs in the gallery at 3 Lindsay Road for an hour or the whole morning. 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. For more information, email Cindi Young-Gomes at registrar@oldyork.org.

October 6 Who Discovered York? Observe Columbus Day in a different way by learning about the several "discoveries" of York from the 1630s - 1900s. 7 p.m. at The Parsons Center. For more information, email rbowen@oldyork.org.

October 10 Needle Wizards. Every Monday from 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. upstairs at The Parsons Center. Email registrar@oldyork.org for more information.

October 12 Scarecrow Making. Learn the origins of the scarecrow while you make one to decorate your yard. Bring old clothes to stuff with leaves and create a crazy face out of cloth. 3-5 p.m. at The Parsons Center. Ages 6 and up, $8 per child ($6 members). Registration required. Email education@oldyork.org to sign up.

October 15 Marketfest! The Museums of Old York will be a busy place Saturday October 15th from 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. Jefferds Tavern will be open to the public for $1. Visitors can watch the Tavern Mistress cook a full meal over the open fire, enjoy traditional crafters, and check out our new upstairs exhibit on WWII home front efforts. Outside Jefferds Tavern children and adults can help press apples into cider, enjoy home baked goods and have fun making a rag doll at our kids table. The Parsons Center will be open for $1 with the upstairs exhibit on life in 17th century York, titled "The country heer is plentiful", open all day. Downstairs people can view the pies entered in our Autumn Pies contest, or have their photo taken in costume in our Old Time Photo Booth. The pies will be judged in the Parsons Center at 2 p.m. The 1719 Old Gaol will be open all day so people can see the original stone cells and learn about the prisoners incarcerated within. For $1 join us at 11 a.m., 1 p.m., or 3 p.m. to watch theatrical prisoner performances and hear stories told by the jail keeper! If you would like to enter a pie in the Autumn Pies contest, or are interested in volunteering at the Museum for Marketfest, please email education@oldyork.org.

October 17 Needle Wizards. Every Monday from 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. upstairs at The Parsons Center. Email registrar@oldyork.org for more information.

October 19 Fall Fair Day. Join us for traditional fair activities and fall fun! Potato sack and three-legged races, human ox pull, skillet throw, bobbing for apples, leaf diving for treasure and apple cider pressing. 3-5 p.m. at The Parsons Center. Ages 6 and up, $8 per child ($6 members). Registration required. Email education@oldyork.org to sign up.

October 24 Needle Wizards. Every Monday from 9:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. upstairs at The Parsons Center. Email registrar@oldyork.org for more information.

October 26 Pumpkin Carving. Come carve pumpkins in front of the fire! Learn the history of Halloween as you transform your pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern and eat the seeds roasted over the open fire. Bring your own pumpkin. Knives, newspaper and cleanup will be provided. 3-5 p.m. at The Parsons Center. All ages are welcome. $5 suggested donation. Registration encouraged. Email education@oldyork.org to sign up.

October 29 Haunted Historical Halloween -- Where Facts are Scarier than Fiction! Join a tour of historic ghosts starting at The Parsons Center and traveling through the buildings and grounds at Old York. For the young or skittish, we offer storytelling in Jefferds Tavern and spooky games in the Parsons Center. 6 - 8 p.m. All ages are welcome. Members free. $5 for teens and adults and family rates for non-members. For more information, email education@oldyork.org.

Thanks to Nancy Noble at the Maine Historical Society for tipping me off to this event! :)

EVENT: New England vampire book launch

2011-09-25T13:28:00.001-04:00

Lost and found graves

2011-09-24T14:08:00.000-04:00

Speaking of graves in odd places, WABI-TV5 reported earlier this month on the discovery by a work crew of unexpected gravestones during a recent dig.

Construction Crews Uncover 19th Century Tombstones in Lincoln
by Laura Roberts - September 13th 2011 10:29pm

Lincoln - It was a normal day for construction workers in Lincoln until they dug up something strange.

"We're digging and putting in a new water line and just came across some white stones and we pulled them out to see what they were and found out they were headstones," said Jason Cameron, a worker for Maine Earth Construction.

Knowing this wasn't business as usual, they alerted town officials to what they had uncovered.
[...]
"Fortunately last night we did have a regularly scheduled town council meeting. We needed to get approval from our town council that they were okay with the project continuing. All work yesterday stopped for 25 feet from where the tombstones were found," said Shelly Crosby, Lincoln Town Clerk and Office Manager.

The town council gave construction crews permission to keep working but they're told to proceed cautiously in case any human remains are found.

"We started digging again today but we never found anything beyond that," said Cameron.

Meanwhile, Lincoln officials did some digging of their own in town records. They found out more about who these stones belonged to and matched their names to those already on a marker in the town cemetery.

"We brought the tombstones to our actual cemetery, they are here and then from there we're going to determine how we're going to proceed," said Crosby.

The town plans to unite the three stones with the larger marker in the cemetery, creating a more complete monument in these early town settlers' memories.
Source:http://www.wabi.tv/news/23495/construction-crews-uncover-19th-century-tombstones-in-lincoln

Bear mystery meat?

2011-09-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

The Press Herald reported this morning about an unusual occurrence in Portland, in which a bear was spotted "acting strangely" (WMTW) in the East Deering area, and was consequently shot by game wardens. WMTW also reported on the incident: http://www.wmtw.com/r/29276769/detail.html. Both sources declined to show photos of the dead bear, improving my morning immensely.

Black bear killed in Portland
The bear is initially spotted in a tree on Oregon Street early this morning.
From staff reports

PORTLAND — Officers of the Maine Warden Service shot and killed a black bear today around 7 a.m. in the woods off Veranda Street in the East Deering neighborhood.

Portland police reported the treed bear to the Wardens Service around 4:30 a.m. Wardens initially tried to tranquilize the bear, but were unable to, according to Portland police Lt. Jim Sweatt.

"It was getting to be 7 o'clock and you don't want school buses and firearms on the scene," Sweatt said.

The bear initially was spotted in a tree on Oregon Street, a residential area, before climbing down and running off, Sweatt said.

The wardens service said the bear weighed around 120 pounds. The hide is being sent to the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife so researchers can determine the bear's sex and age and other factors.

The meat will be distributed to soup kitchens.

Source: http://www.pressherald.com/news/Black-bear-killed-in-Portland.html

Not so sure about the decision to send the meat to the soup kitchens, unless the bear wasn't really "acting strangely," and was just a normal-acting bear that it was safer and more convenient to shoot.

Not-so-fun while it lasts?

2011-09-22T20:57:00.000-04:00

Bangor Daily News reported last week on an odd juxtaposition of graves and Funtown USA in Saco:

Saco workers to move graveyard amid Funtown/Splashtown
The Associated Press
Posted Sept. 16, 2011, at 9:24 a.m.

SACO, Maine — A small, 150-year-old private cemetery amid Maine’s Funtown/Splashtown USA is going to be moved.

Next week, municipal workers in Saco will help move the graves with the assistance of a local funeral director to the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Over the years the amusement park has grown up around the cemetery, believed to contain at least 17 graves.

In 2006, Bob Phillips, a retired postal service worker from New Hampshire whose grandparents are buried there, discovered a 10-foot-deep trench that was part of a park attraction passed within 10 feet of the cemetery, which he claimed was a violation of a state law requiring a 25-foot buffer around cemeteries.

Phillips family attorney Sandra Guay told the Portland Press Herald the family is happy the graves are being relocated.

Source: http://bangordailynews.com/2011/09/16/news/portland/saco-workers-to-move-graveyard-amid-funtownsplashtown/

5 years ago, the All Things Maine blog reported on the initial struggle to protect the graveyard from desecration by development. Read more: http://allthingsmaine.blogspot.com/2006/11/grave-situation-at-funtown-usa.html

The new Gazette is out!

2011-09-20T15:26:00.000-04:00

Hear ye, hear ye! The so-called "Late Summer" issue of the Strange Maine Gazette is out and has hit the streets! Subscribers should have their copies any day now, and vendors will likewise have the new issue in hand -- they've all been mailed. If you're in Portland, you can find it at several locations in the downtown area (see below).

Places you can find copies of the Gazette right now:

-- The Green Hand Bookshop, 661 Congress St, Portland
-- Arabica Coffee, 2 Free St, Portland
-- Coast City Comics, 634 Congress St, Portland
-- Portland Public Library, 5 Monument Square, Portland
-- Strange Maine, 578 Congress St, Portland
-- Maine Historical Library, 489 Congress St, Portland
-- Coffee By Design, 620 Congress St, Portland

Places that will have their copies within the next few days:

-- Boat House Beverage, Long Island
-- Captain Perry's Cafe, Long Island
-- Little Dog Coffee, Brunswick
-- Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library
-- Maine Coast Bookshop, Damariscotta
-- Owl & Turtle Bookshop, Camden
-- Fort Knox, Prospect
-- Treasure Chest, Waterville
-- Lithgow Public Library, Augusta
-- Books Lines and Sinkers, Rangeley
-- Mr. Paperback, Ellsworth
-- Mr. Paperback, Dover-Foxcroft
-- Mr. Paperback, Farmington
-- Mr. Paperback, Caribou
-- Obadiah's Bohemian Cafe, Machias
-- Calais Bookshop, Calais
-- York's Book Store, Houlton

Review: Sex, Drugs & Blueberries

2011-09-06T15:51:00.001-04:00

Written by Crash Barry
reviewed by Michelle Souliere

At face value, Sex, Drugs and Blueberries is a painfully honest, raunchy, raw read, a fictive treatment of a not uncommon Maine way of life presented to the reader in an entertaining format. Crash Barry’s narration sucks you right into his too-real make-believe world. You are warned by the epigraph, before you even get to the text: “This is a story about how quickly things can go wrong. The characters and events are inventions of the author.”

It could be said that never was a book more aptly titled. Sex, Drugs and Blueberries is rife with all three, and Barry’s not about to deny it. Given a chance to do a reading from the book, he doesn’t shy away from plot points ripe with juicy material. It’s really something to see, and hear.

But at the real heart of the book is the ingredient that makes it both impossible to put down, and also difficult to read all at the same time. That unlabeled ingredient is the normal mishmash of circumstances and motives that creates the tangled dance that is life in the fields of Washington County, which in one way or another mirrors life wherever in the country it is hard to get by.

This is the territory where resources depend on what comes from the dirt and what you can scrounge or finagle to make ends meet when the dirt fails you. You may have other, better, more highly paid skills, but is there a market for them? Is it worth moving to a more tightly-packed urban environment where rent is high and skilled workers are a dime a dozen? Not usually, and so inevitably some folks find themselves sticking it out in the proverbial boonies, trying to get by without overextending themselves in futile efforts.

It is the life many people lead, the kind in which one constantly asks oneself if what one is doing is worth the price, where poor judgment can spell doom or survival, and the odds of either result are as unpredictable as the roll of dice. Your decisions are a double-edged sword -- do you do things that will allow a marginally fiscally-viable existence at the potential cost of your mental, physical, and emotional health? Do you do things that compromise your moral happiness in order to try to bridge that fiscal gap? That emotional deficit gap?

We could hash these choices out for hours, but luckily Barry has recorded at least one version of them and their results for us to read through, like some kind of entertaining dastardly variant of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” story. But don’t expect me to give away the ending. You’ve gotta read it for yourself, just like I did. Do you have the guts to take a chance on a new author who may well be the Next Maine Great of Prose? Not many of his generation have spoken yet from our state’s ground, this is your big chance to hear the word first.

Sex, Drugs and Blueberries is available in softcover at your local bookstore now, or online via Barry’s website at http://crashbarry.com/

Fans will also be excited to know that Barry has just released another book, which is currently a bestseller at Longfellow Books in Portland -- Tough Island: True Stories from Matinicus, Maine. Those of you who have been to his readings at Longfellow Books know a Crash Barry reading is like NO OTHER!

For regular installments of his writing, please check the current issue of independent monthly The Bollard at a newsstand near you.

Cover art by Pat Corrigan.
Photo by Abraham Schechter

Flying Moose of Maine!

2011-08-13T15:09:00.020-04:00

I thought Strange Maine readers might enjoy an intriguing field note from one of our readers, Gary Dick, who told me about the Flying Moose statue he had spotted while out and about in the Greenville area. Here is what he has to say about that elusive creature:

The moose is on SR15 between Greenville and Rockwood. You will do a double-take when it appears, as it's a really lonesome road. You can google it and get more info also. The full story which is related on the moose's placard is:

Legend of the Flying Moose

Well before the arrival of the first white settlers, the Abenaquis tribe lived in a village where the Mechatigan and Manosak rivers meet.

The Abenaquis tribe would return to this area every year to stock up on food, which was plentiful here thanks to the two rivers and the surrounding forests.

According to the legend, Mahanak, the son of the grand chief Metgermett, befriended a young moose that had lost its mother when she tried to protect it from a pack of attacking wolves. When Mahanak found the young moose, it was badly injured and weak and was slowly dying.

The two friends became inseparable. One spring day, Mahanak and his friend were returning to the village after a long trek through the Etchemin countryside. They were forced to take a different route because the melting snow had caused the mighty Manosak river to rise. In an effort to avoid a huge rock, the two companions lost their foothold, fell into the raging river and were swept away by a powerful current.

Mahanak managed to grab hold of the moose's antlers and climb onto its back. As they were approaching the Devil’s waterfalls, Mahanak implored the spirits of the forest to come to their rescue.

The spirits remembered Mahanak’s act of kindness on the day he saved his young friend. The spirits helped the moose descend the falls by keeping its head above the water and saving Mahanak from drowning. Two old hunters, who had witnessed the scene, said that the moose had descended the falls slowly, as though it had wings.

The following night, Mahanak had a dream. The spirits of the forest told him that his moose would be leaving him to go to the land of the spirits where it would watch over the inhabitants of the forest. Mahanak then saw his companion nod good-bye and slowly fly away, opening its mighty wings. By sunrise, the moose had disappeared.

EVENT: Full moon ghosthunt in Damariscotta

2011-08-11T17:56:00.000-04:00

WHAT: ‘Midnight Explore’ PWA Benefit at haunted house
WHEN: Saturday, Aug. 13, 2011 -- 9:00pm to 2:00am
COST: $45 per person. A light buffet and a donation to the Pemaquid Watershed Association is included in the fee.
RSVP: Spaces are limited. Please contact Red Cloak Haunted History Tours ASAP at (207)380-3806 or redcloaktours@gmail.com to register for the event.

This unexplained bolt of light coming from the
roof of the Salt Bay Café building in Damariscotta
sometimes appeared in a photos taken during a
Red Cloak Haunted History Tour.

Heavy footsteps on an empty stairway and an ethereal mist that passes through darkened hallways can be a bit unnerving, but a ghost that knows you by name? Now that’s just downright creepy, say employees at Salt Bay Café in Damariscotta.

“That’s a very interesting paranormal manifestation; it implies that the presence has an understanding of its present circumstances,” said Sally Lobkowicz, the Director of Red Cloak Haunted History Tours. “Yet there are two employees who say they have been called by name when there is no one in the area, with one of the employees reporting two incidents.”

It’s a good reason for further investigation, which is why Red Cloak Haunted History Tours is hosting a Midnight Explore at the Main St., Damariscotta building that houses Salt Bay Café, the Damariscotta Region Chamber of Commerce (DRCC) and the Pemaquid Watershed Association (PWA). The Midnight Explore will take place on Saturday, Aug. 13 – a full moon night.

A portion of the proceeds generated by the event will go to benefit the PWA, which has the mission of conserving the natural resources of the Pemaquid Peninsula through land and water stewardship and education.

The Midnight Explore invites guests to participate in actual evidence collection activities, such as using meters to identify areas of electromagnetic field (EMF) activity (thought by some to be associated with a paranormal presence), using a digital recorder to pick up electronic voice phenomenon (EVP), and using video and still cameras to capture unusual images.

Equipment such as the EMF detectors, the EVP recorder, a digital movie camera and other assorted gear will be provided by Red Cloak Haunted History Tours, along with training on how to use them. (Participants are encouraged to bring their own cameras and any equipment they may have.) The group will be split into teams to explore the building and, hopefully, collect evidence that will shed light on some of the reported paranormal activity at the location.

Whether or not any evidence reveals itself, there’s no shortage of reports regarding paranormal activity at the building. According to Salt Bay Café owner Peter Everett, late night and early morning incidents began occurring shortly after he purchased the business in the late 1990’s.

Often, a side door was heard to open and close, followed by heavy footsteps moving up the stairs and into the second floor of the restaurant. Employees who thought they were working alone in an empty building would go to investigate, and find no indication that anyone had entered. These occurrences were so common that over the years most employees have come to take them in stride.

But some reports are bit more disturbing. The first report of an employee called by name was over 5 years ago, but that manifestation has continued into the present with another employee who has heard name called out twice – as though the person were right behind her – in a completely empty room. As recently as July 3 Peter Everett reported that he was alone at the end of the night in the upstairs office when he observed a vertical mist pass through the room and disappear through a wall.

Several years ago, a guest on a Red Cloak Haunted History Tour photographed an unexplained image that appears to be an energy bolt emanating from the roof of the building. The image was captured by the camera, but was unseen by the photographer.

The potential source for these manifestations is not apparent from the building’s historical record. The structure was built in 1810 for Rufus Flye and in more recent times was the home of Dr. Parsons. Perhaps the most unique aspect of the building is that it has changed position since it was built. In 1980 the original house was lifted off its foundation and turned sideways to allow space for the Damariscotta Bank & Trust driveway. So, the front of the present day building was the side of the original building. The Mainway Café opened there some 24 years ago, and later became the Salt Bay Café.

The Midnight Explore will begin at 9 p.m. with a light buffet at Salt Bay Café. During the meal there will be a briefing on the building and the manifestations associated with it, as well as instructions on how to use the paranormal detection equipment. The group will split into teams and explore the Salt Bay Café areas of the building, then move on to the upper floors occupied by the PWA and the DRCC. The Midnight Explore will wrap up at 2 a.m. Observations and any evidence from the Midnight Explore will be published on the Internet.

“This will be a great opportunity in that we will exploring all three floors of this unique building, which has a long and solid history of manifestations,” Lobkowicz said.

The fee for the Midnight Explore, which includes the light buffet, is $45 per person. A donation to the PWA is included in the fee. The group’s size is limited due to both the size of the building and the availability of equipment, so reservations will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis. To make reservations, or for more information, contact Red Cloak Haunted History Tours at (207)380-3806 or redcloaktours@gmail.com

If you can't make this event, but are interested in knowing more about local history, other Red Cloak tours tours have been ongoing since July and will run through through October. Their website is www.redcloakhauntedhistorytours.com, or you can reach them at (207)380-3806.

They regularly hold tours in Bath, Boothbay Harbor, Camden, Wiscasset and Damariscotta, by reservation only.

For more information on unusual images in photos, check the “Ghostly Sightings” section at www.RedCloakHauntedHistoryTours.com.

Photo by Cathy Orne, (c) Red Cloak Haunted History Tours.

Lobstering in Casco Bay

2011-07-16T12:08:00.000-04:00

This article appeared in the spring issue of the Gazette, but I figured you all might like to read it online, too! Enjoy...
- - - - -
Lobstering in Casco Bay
Article and all photos (c)2010 by Michelle Souliere.

Last year I decided that one of the things I needed to do as the voice of Strange Maine was to spend some time on a working boat. So much of Maine’s economy and history has been driven by what one can pull in on a boat. I thought to myself, “How can I possibly understand this context unless I’ve been aboard?”

Luckily, I know some folks who are out there making their living this way, and found a crew that was willing to take this landlubber out during their daily lobstering work. While I realize that it is impossible to get a clear vision of the entirety of the working fisherman’s life from such a small glimpse, I’ll do the best I can to show what I saw that day and what I learned afterward.

With Brian Murphy’s assistance, I met with Tom Marr, who owns the Blue Dolphin II, and on a cold mid-November morning we set off from Long Island, from a mooring in Harbor De Grace before the sun rose to see what the day would bring us.

The first thing I realized is how close I was to the frigid water while sitting in the dinghy. That underlying awareness never really recedes once you’re on the gray November waters, whether it’s in a dinghy or a 36-foot boat. I’d wager that it doesn’t ever go away, even if you’ve been out on it for years.

Brian Murphy baiting the needles in the gray morning light.

We got on board the Blue Dolphin II and chugged out into the open water. Brian worked through the early morning blear by prepping the bait needles – pulling salted redfish and pogies out of a big black plastic vat and sliding them onto long, wood-handled metal needles, each with an eyelet at its tip. Bait needles work kind of like a backwards needle threader – the line from inside the trap goes into the eyelet at the tip, and the bait fish are pushed down the needle until the line threads through them, and then the line gets tied back into the lobster trap. The pogy is technically called the Atlantic Menhaden, though I don’t suppose you’ll ever hear that name out in the harbor!

We spent most of the day circling around in Casco Bay, pulling up lines in different spots, locating each on a list of coordinates kept by Tom in a well-worn notebook. Depending on where we were, we could see different angles of Outer Green Island, Junk of Pork, Cliff Island, and even the Ram Island Ledge lighthouse which lies off the coast of Cape Elizabeth.

Junk of Pork, off the shore of Outer Green Island.

Each time we located one of Tom’s fluorescent green buoys, the boat would slow to a stop. Tom would reach over with the gaff hook and drag the line and buoy up into the boat, running the line through the winch. Then the stringer, usually carrying 9 traps along its length, would be hauled up from the deep one trap at a time, making the boat pitch as it fought to stay in place with all that weight dragging against it from below.

Brian grabbed the buoy as it came aboard and dunked it into a tank of steaming water, heated by a coil. By the time they’d finished hauling up the stringer, a lot of the algae and other sea growth that had attached itself to the buoy and its rope had been cooked to a point where it was easy to clear it off with a big scrub brush. In the cold November water, the accumulation wasn’t too bad, but during the summer it could go out of control easily as the water warmed and plant life flourished.

Tom Marr pulls a trap on board after the
winch pulls it up from below.

As each trap emerged from the ocean, dripping streamers of salt water, Tom reached over and hauled it up onto the edge of the boat by hand. Opening the trap, he quickly sorted through the various lobsters, crabs, and occasional other sealife to see what qualified as keepers. Most of the trap contents were tossed back in.

Stray fish, crabs, and peculiarities such as sea mice were easy to pick out and return over the side. Smaller lobsters, obviously undersize, were another easy elimination, as were v-notched lady lobsters who were known breeders, and eggers -- female lobsters carrying a heavy coating of tiny dark eggs under their tail. Any lobsters of a more mature size were set aside into a handy milkcrate, where they waited to get the official word from the little brass ruler used to measure their carapace to see if it was too big, too small, or just right for keeping.

As each new trap on the line came up, Tom would pass the previous one along the side of the boat to Brian for more picking and for rebaiting. Once the trap was tidied and rebaited, Brian would swing it into place on the stern for its return to the water.

A sculpin gives me the hairy eyeball before he
gets tossed back in the drink.

A few minutes pass while Tom maneuvers into place to drop the stringer back down into the deep, where most of the traps will land around 100 feet down after they’re settled. They’ll stay there for the next few days, hopefully attracting lots of fat lobsters. The trick is to find a spot the lobsters like without crossing your line over another fisherman’s string of traps or into his general territory. Good fences, even invisible ones, make good neighbors in Casco Bay as elsewhere.

At this stage in the game, as the long wet line begins to slide off the boat more and more quickly, the most important thing to keep track of while you’re setting out a stringer of traps is where the other parts of the line are. You don’t want to suddenly find you’ve stepped into a loop of rope that is about to zip you into the freezing cold of Casco Bay.

Brian swings the traps onto the stern.

For the fisherman, this goes on and on, all day long, zigging and zagging between navigational points. Occasionally another boat, such as Skip Werner’s Foxie Lady, would come within earshot, and a holler and a wave came across the water. Other boats were visible in the distance, tending their traps, and the chatter on the radio came in small waves, which ranged from checking how many totes of bait were needed for the end of the day to commentary on whatever current event was on folks’ minds.

Tom and Brian got a good chuckle out of telling Skip I was along from the New York Times for the day. The radio got much quieter after that!

The sky shifted from leaden to glaring greywhite to pearly streaks and back, occasionally raining. The surface of the water changed appearance constantly, variations on a rippling or choppy theme. The sloshing of the seawater that pumped constantly into the holding tank was background noise, occasionally spilling onto the deck as the boat turned and maneuvered into position to pull the next buoy up. The smell of salt water was pervasive but was buried easily under the heavy competition of baitfish and sea sludge. Everything was in motion, all the time, either the boat or the ocean or both, and even the horizon line seemed unstill as the halted boat pitched and yawed at each buoy stop.

Each lobster has to be measured
with a regulation brass rule. If it’s
too big or too small, it cannot go
to market, and is tossed back.

While it seems there is a certain peace in time spent on the open water, it is an illusion, for underneath it all moves the changeable ocean, and her ways are many, strange, and strong. Let the unwary beware.

By late afternoon the catch had filled the better part of the on-board holding tank with lobsters, and Tom headed off with the boat to get the day’s haul weighed and to pick up some totes of bait for the week ahead. The grey day had gotten darker, and I was happy to be heading for shore. Standing around on a lobster boat when you aren’t the one throwing the heavy traps around gets cold pretty quick, and since I didn’t feel confident enough of my sealegs to venture astern much, that’s exactly what I was doing. Brrr!

At the weigh-in, the day’s catch came in around 200 pounds. After dumping totes of fresh bait fish into the bin on board, Brian shook a hefty amount of salt over them. The salt system of preservation has been in use for centuries, and still does the trick. Even in the cold weather, baitfish need help to stay fresh long enough to get them into the traps.

Tom got started as a fisherman in a roundabout way. When he was only 5 or 6 years old, his father took him out on a trip to help pull traps for a friend down by Southport Island (near Boothbay Harbor), “and that just stuck in my head,” Tom recalls. “Then as I got older, I don’t know how old, maybe 10 or 11 years old, I remember building my first lobster trap out of an orange crate. I threw it off the back porch. You know, in a make-believe world.”

Tom keeps a sharp eye on the water and his gauges as he
takes the Blue Dolphin II to the next buoy.

The early and continual exposure to the ocean, the waterfront environment and all the activity that surrounded it made a lasting impression on Tom Marr. By the time he was 15 he had a chance to haul lobsters on his own with a friend out of Falmouth Foreside, running a little skiff for the summer as a team, and with the return to fishing, Tom says, “that really got into the blood, for sure.” The rest of high school passed without much fishing, though, and was followed by a stint in the Navy. But as soon as he finished his duty, Tom was back in Maine and working as a sternman on a lobster boat.

It was in the back of his mind all the time that he wanted to lobster, and so he did as soon as he had the chance. Decades later, he continues his work.

Like other lobstermen, early in his career he found himself without winter work. He switched to steadier jobs, but he was always out on the water, from working on Casco Bay Lines’ boats in the 1960s, to Harbor Supply’s oilboat, to tugboats, and back to lobstering again. Since about 1980 he’s lobstered full time.

Skip Werner and his sternman aboard the Foxie Lady.

In 1985 or ’86, Tom and his wife Sharon moved out to Long Island for good, after going back and forth from one or another mainland residence on a seasonal basis. This allowed them to do away with unnecessary commuting, and committed them to something few people experience – the loneliness and cold of the Maine island winter. As Tom says, in the winter, “you’ve got to keep busy.” Not many people stick it out, and many that do find a way to visit somewhere warm and southerly for at least a week or two to make the winter pass more quickly. Tom estimates only about 150 people stay on Long Island on a truly year-round basis, while in the summer the population fluctuates to upward of 1,200 people.

I asked him about concerns that lobstering won’t last. He laughed. “They’ve been saying that for 50, 60 years. My father-in-law said it.” Which is not to say that things will remain as they are now. “The question is can it sustain the population that’s fishing it now?”

The smaller lobsters are the feisty ones. Tom figures it might
be because of the wily, finger-crushing ways of young lobsters
that the entire breed earned the nickname “snappers.”

Certain regulations are in place to help weigh the trade against the depletion of the lobster population. Some are statewide, and some vary depending on location within the Maine Lobster Zone Councils’ jurisdictions. In Casco Bay we fall into Zone F, which runs from Cape Elizabeth’s Two Lights in the south to Small Point in the north (just below of Popham Beach). According to Tom, Zone F has a 5-in-1 ratio for replacement of lobstering licenses. In other words, before a new license can be issued, 5 need to be retired. This should reduce the overabundance of boats currently fishing the region, and balance it more appropriately over time.

Tom operates a 36-foot boat with himself and one sternman aboard. He estimates that the majority of the local boats are running similarly sized crews. Only a few of these crews run all the way through the winter, and those that do often carry two sternmen instead of one, “because it’s safer, it’s harder weather.” The winter storms keep the boats in port an unpredictable number of days, and sometimes weeks in a row go by without passable weather. Some fishermen won’t pick up the season again until May.

Tom lets one of the big guys
stretch his claws before he
goes back into the water.

One of the advantages of only bringing one helper is obviously low overhead cost, but as Tom jokes, “the best way is to go alone, there’s no overhead!” Captains will pay helpers in a variety of ways, most often either a percentage of the haul or a flat daily rate. Tom believes most of the island boatmen use the percentage method, a way of encouraging their crew to be more attentive to their work and use of time, “because the more they catch the more they’ll make.”

Noticeable on the boat is the lack of downtime. Even in between hauling stringers, the helper’s time is spent measuring and banding the previous traps’ haul, hosing down the muck that comes on board from the muddy traps, and whatever else needs attending to as the captain steers the boat toward the next buoy’s location, pivoting his attention between the ocean and his equipment readings, leaving
nothing to chance.

I of course asked Tom if he knew any ghost stories, or had any interesting tales that Strange Maine readers might get a kick out of. While he couldn’t think of any haunting legends offhand, I did find out that the biggest lobster he’d ever caught was over 2 feet long, right out back of Long Island, and there were a few other odd items that came up with his traps over the years, some animate, some inanimate.

In 1994 Tom pulled up a piece of helicopter windshield in one of his traps after that year’s tragic crash when poor weather hampered a med-evac transfer of a burn victim from Ellsworth to Portland. The pilot, operating at higher than normal altitudes to gain visibility, ran into turbulence which increased the flight time to the point that the copter ran out of fuel and crashed into Casco Bay only 8 miles north of Portland, killing the patient, nurse, and paramedic on board. The pilot survived.

In 2004, Tom was surprised to fi nd a buoy moving around in an odd way. “It looked like something was snarled up on the end. I thought I’d picked up a rock, or a log or something, or seaweed.”

As the line came up, wrapped in the slack of the line was the neck and flipper of a gigantic leatherback turtle, clearly annoyed by the event. Tom guessed the turtle was about 6 feet long, as he and Arthur, his helper, pulled him gently up to the surface. Their main concern was to undo the line and set the creature free, which the turtle helped hurry along by repeatedly smacking Arthur with his huge flippers. (I bet Brian was glad he wasn’t around for this abuse!)

Last year, in 2010, Tom spotted the unmistakable tail of a thresher shark making its way through the bay. He was surprised, since larger predators are not often evident this close to shore. “I haven’t seen a shark this close in a long time.“ Smaller sharks such as dogfish are often around, and more of a nuisance than a danger. Dogfish show up in the traps after they try to get at the bait inside. “They get in, and they’ve got a spine in their back, atop their tail, and they get snarled up in the net when you’re trying to get them out.” Of course they’re fighting with the fishermen as they’re trying to get them out of the trap, just to complicate matters. “The only thing you worry about is that horn, you know. You’ve got to be, because you could get an infection. The teeth aren’t much to worry about.” The best bet is to grab them by the tail.

The Blue Dolphin II at its mooring in Harbor De Grace.

So now you have a snapshot of one part of Maine’s traditional life and livelihood. When I asked Tom why he keeps on lobstering, he told me it was either because he loves it, because he’s foolish, or both. It’s different from a 9-to-5 job, and within its compass you find self reliance, camaraderie, and competition, each element showing strong in the mix. Whether this is a way of life that is disappearing is anyone’s guess. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of new lobstermen cropping up, and the lobsters keep showing up too.

As Tom put it, “I guess there will always be a lobster in the water.” And there will always be someone who wants to catch it.

Summer 2011 Eastern Cemetery events

2011-07-01T16:16:00.000-04:00

Interested in cemeteries? Intrigued by their history? If you're in Portland, Maine, or passing through sometime this summer, be sure to schedule around these opportunities to participate in the living history of the Eastern Cemetery, as hosted by Spirits Alive! This historic burial ground is located on Congress Street, just before it mounts Munjoy Hill in downtown Portland.

Summer Tours
WHEN:Sundays
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
WHERE:Meet at the Dead House near the front gate at 1:15 PM
COST:$7 per person, seniors and students $4, children under 12 free

It's summer, and that means guided tours through the cemetery! Learn about the types of stones, some of the stories of those who are interred, and some fun facts about burial grounds and funerary customs. The terrain is uneven, the sun can be warm, and the wind can be cool, so wear layers and appropriate footwear. There's so much to see and learn, so join us every Sunday! You can pre-register by emailing sa@spiritsalive.org but it's not required. Check our Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/#!/easterncemetery for cancellations due to weather.

Unearthing the History of the EC
WHEN:Most Every Saturday
8:00 AM – 12:00 PM
WHERE:In the back, down the hill

A group of us continues with the survey of every single stone in the cemetery this summer! Each Saturday we move from stone to stone, filling out a form for each that records the inscription on the stone, the location of it, and the condition of the stone itself. Weather determines whether we will be there or not, so check the Website for the most up-to-date schedule . You can also check our Twitter feed each Saturday morning – we often post updates on what we've encountered.

Zombie Kickball VI video!

2011-06-29T12:56:00.000-04:00

Clearly, as always, fun was had by all. Can you tell it's a family-friendly event? Look at all the kids this year!! :) Hot diggity, zombie fun in the sun.

Thanks to Mark Hensley, who took the time to put the film together and post it to my Strange Maine book page on Facebook with this note: "Today was a great day for ZOMBIE KICKBALL in Portland Maine!!! I would like to thank Pete Witham & The Cozmik Zombies for letting me use their song I Wanna Be A Zombie!!! Thanks Guys."

Thanks Mark!
Click on this link for the YouTube Video if the embedded video above isn't working: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsIlOCfARPA

SUNDAY: Zombie Kickball VI!

2011-06-23T09:35:00.000-04:00

Better late than never. Those sneaky zombies, crawling about under my radar...

Here are the details if you would like to join the horde of cheerful undead kickball players (or just come and watch 'em lurching around the playing field) this Sunday:

WHAT: Zombie Kickball VI
WHEN: Sunday, June 26, 2011 from 12:00pm - 4:00pm
WHERE: Softball field, Eastern Prom, Portland ME 04101
COST: Free! Just bring your undead team spirit and sense of humor, you won't be disappointed.
FMI: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=199022546796183

Bizarre art stunt met with oblivion

2011-06-21T15:19:00.037-04:00

"White Heart Bar" (acrylic on receipt folder; 2008)
by Christopher Michael Sullivan

The Bollard is one of the most interesting independent Maine publications around, but every now and then they have a story that is even more wildly-improbably-but-true than their usual fare.

For instance, their June 2011 issue features a short but jaw-dropping piece by Christopher Michael Sullivan, titled "Customer Copy," wherein he recounts his attempts to dazzle Portland waitstaff with his artistic feats of illusion, only to find them so focused on their jobs that no trick of skill was perceived:

Customer Copy: An artistic gift that failed
By Christopher Michael Sullivan

I imagined myself as David Blaine skillfully performing street magic. Not so much the flashy Blaine frozen in Times Square, or the ripped, glowering Blaine who held his breath for 17 minutes on Oprah. I would be the benevolent, unfettered Blaine, the one who wields a simple deck of cards, and who then might suddenly, quietly levitate for an audience of one or two zaftig tourists on a boardwalk. The Blaine who doles out intimate acts like the transformation of a playing card’s color; a delicate trick that brightens the day of the few people fortunate enough to witness it.

As an artist, my deck of cards would be a paintbrush, and my trick would be the transformation of restaurant receipts into paintings. My magic would brighten the night of all the servers who stumbled upon it. It would be my gift to the service industry.

The trick was supposed to work like this. When dining out, after finishing my meal, I would ask for the check and hand the server my credit card. The server would return with a black receipt folder containing my card and the receipt. The server would see me take my card, sign the receipt, and leave. When the server came back to collect the receipt, she would discover that – magically! – the folder now contained two identical receipts: alongside the paper original was an exact replica, meticulously hand-painted onto the inside of the folder.
[...]
I have spent the past two years performing this trick and can assure you that no one has mistaken me for Banksy. In fact, eight “receipts” have been dropped at establishments all around Portland and not one has conjured any excitement whatsoever. They have, without exception, been completely overlooked. After a cursory glance, the painting is mistakenly thought to be another receipt. The work of art, and the magic, are wasted.

My tragic magician’s tale began (as so many tragic tales once did) at the now-defunct White Heart Bar and Cocktail Lounge on Congress Street. [...] Over the course of several weeks and half-price bottles, I studied the rhythms of the White Heart, noting prices, the servers’ work schedules — even the time it took to pour and deliver a drink. I gathered all the information I would need in order to create a convincing facsimile of the receipt I would be given. Then I went to work in the studio, meticulously painting a receipt onto the inside of a folder just like those used at the bar.

After a week of painting, I was ready. With the folder concealed beneath my coat, I returned to the White Heart, ordered and drank wine, executed the switch, and left. A secret magician’s assistant, planted elsewhere in the bar, stayed behind to observe the server’s reaction. He picked up the folder. He entered the totals into the register. Then he put the folder on a stack of others behind the bar and went to take another order.

Maybe the White Heart was the wrong venue, I thought. Two more bars, two similar reactions. Two restaurants, two similar reactions.

Maybe it was a lack of complexity – perhaps the painting wasn’t dazzling enough. I made double receipts, folded and creased receipts, wine-stained receipts, stapled receipts. Nothing. The most notable response was, “Wow! It is really stuck down.” Each time, the work was tossed aside. The hours of preparation, the sleight of hand, and the artifact were all lost on their intended recipients. The work wasn’t received as art. It continued to be perceived as a receipt, and thus failed to manifest magic.
[...]

Click here to read the full article and see more of the paintings! http://www.thebollard.com/bollard/?p=8652

While you're there, don't forget to take a peek at this month's cover story, NPR's Other Enemy," about John Crosby, interviewed while in jail for sending threatening messages to NPR via email, including a death threat directed at the host of the popular show, "All Things Considered." Or, if you prefer lighter fare, a regular favorite Bollard feature is "That's My Dump," a column which investigates the history (and possible futures) of abandoned or ill-treated properties around the Greater Portland area, here: http://www.thebollard.com/bollard/?cat=46

WANTED: Psychic & Paranormal Faire vendors!

2011-06-19T13:32:00.000-04:00

Hello all -- Leon from the Friends of Fort Knox dropped me a line with a request to let all of you know that Fort Knox is are looking for psychics, card readers and vendors of the unusual for their annual psychic/paranormal faire. If interested folks could contact Leon Seymour at fofk1@aol.com or (207)469-6553.

For those unfamiliar with the Faire, it is being held this year on Saturday and Sunday, July 23 and 24, Paranormal/Psychic Faire. Those who have attended in the past know that it's a great place to not only meet up with people who believe in things unusual, but it's also a great opportunity to take in the stunning and intriguing environs of the carefully restored Fort Knox.

This unique event, which serves as a fund-raiser for the Fort's continued restoration and maintenance, features psychics, ghost hunters, exorcists, ufologists and renowned crytozoologist and author, Loren Coleman (often seen on the History and Travel Channel). Regular Fort admission and a $2 event donation requested.

To check the Fort's schedule for the Faire, etc, please visit http://fortknox.maineguide.com/events.html
For information about admission fees and area resources, see http://fortknox.maineguide.com/faq.html

Directions:
View Larger Map

Here is the 2011 Paranormal and Psychic Faire Schedule, as of today:

Saturday, July 23rd, 2011

10 AM – 4PM Psychics and vendors in the Fort Officer’s Quarters

10 AM – 4PM Lecturers will be available in the Visitor Center

Lecture Schedule
Lectures take place in the amphitheater at Visitor Center.

10 AM- Ghosts of Maine- Marcus LiBrizzi is a Professor English at the University of Maine at Machias. His latest book, Ghosts of Acadia, follows in the tradition of his previous collection, Dark Woods, Chill Waters: Ghost Tales from Down East Maine, the book that inspired an ABC Extreme Makeover—Home Edition in Milbridge, Maine. His other books include Lost Atusville and The Nelly Butler Hauntings.

11 AM- Cryptozoology- Loren Coleman, one of the world’s leading experts on bigfoot, sea serpents and other yet to be confirmed mysterious creatures of the world. Loren is often featured on the History Channel.

12 Noon- Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (East Coast Ghost Trackers)

1 PM- UFOs? What Do You Think? (Facilitated by local UFO enthusiast Cindy Proulx and Chris Gardner)

2 PM - Cryptozoology- Loren Coleman, one of the world’s leading experts on bigfoot, sea serpents and other yet to be confirmed mysterious creatures of the world. Loren is often featured on the History Channel.

3 PM- Developing Your Sixth Sense (Sky Taylor)

Sunday, July 24, 2011

10 AM – 4PM Psychics and vendors in the Fort Officer’s Quarters

10 AM – 4PM Lecturers will be available in the Visitor Center

Lecture Schedule
Lectures take place in the amphitheater at Visitor Center.

10 AM- Paranormal Investigation Process, Equipment and Techniques (East Coast Ghost Trackers)

11 AM- Cryptozoology- Loren Coleman, one of the world’s leading experts on bigfoot, sea serpents and other yet to be confirmed mysterious creatures of the world. Loren is often featured on the History Channel.

12 Noon- UFOs? What Do You Think? (Facilitated by local UFO enthusiast Cindy Proulx)

1 PM - Ghosts of Maine- Marcus LiBrizzi is a Professor English at the University of Maine at Machias. His latest book, Ghosts of Acadia, follows in the tradition of his previous collection, Dark Woods, Chill Waters: Ghost Tales from Down East Maine, the book that inspired an ABC Extreme Makeover—Home Edition in Milbridge, Maine. His other books include Lost Atusville and The Nelly Butler Hauntings.

2 PM- Cryptozoology- Loren Coleman, one of the world’s leading experts on bigfoot, sea serpents and other yet to be confirmed mysterious creatures of the world. Loren is often featured on the History Channel.

3 PM- Developing Your Sixth Sense (Sky Taylor)

Odd old Yankee want ads

2011-06-05T15:02:00.000-04:00

Found in the January 1954 issue of Yankee magazine, on the page containing "The Original Yankee Swoppers' Columns" (sic). Apparently birds were in demand at the time.

-- Swop: My cute puppy, Toy Manchester Terrier with pedigree. Wanted: Useful things, rare birds, or make offer.

-- I want a hand sled on which I can load heavy stones for drawing away. Will swop with Vantines deodorant spray bottles.

-- Have a natural red fox neckpiece. Would like 20 or 25 jigsaw puzzles (any size); any 3 complete years of National Geographic or Reader's Digest or Holiday or complete year each of all three; and odds and ends of colored yarns (any weight).

-- Will swop crochet work for parakeets or finches.

-- A beautiful old organ with false pipes. Tone splendid. Will swop -- just tempt me right.

Stuffed fish, anyone?

2011-06-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

Found in an old out of state newspaper, a fishing curiosity for your entertainment. Mainers have been making mone off of tourists in creative ways for years!!

A Maine Fish Story.

A fisherman in Winthrop tells that he caught a pickerel through the ice on Lake Marancook, last January, and found in its stomach a roll of undigested bank bills amounting to $300.

He thinks that the money was lost by a sporting man whose boat was upset on the lake more than a year ago. —Bangor Commercial.

Source: The Indiana Progress, 7/17/1889, pg 8

Clownbox disappears in Lewiston

2011-05-21T13:20:00.003-04:00

A guest post from Loren Coleman:

The ringmaster, Peter Sturgis, of the Kora Shriners Circus called the International Cryptozoology Museum today to follow up on some books he was obtaining from our giftshop. During out conversation, he mentioned that the circus's visit to Maine this year was one of the strangest they have experienced in years, due to the fact someone stole their "shrinker" from the parking lot of the Temple in Lewiston.

I looked up the news account via Bangor Daily News, and thought Strange Maine readers might be interested.

Clown prop stolen from truck in Lewiston
By Mark LaFlamme, Sun Journal
Posted April 22, 2011, at 9:36 a.m.

Sun Journal photo courtesy of the Lewiston Police Department
The Kora Clowns Weight Loss Machine in action at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee.
LEWISTON, Maine — The tension is thick.

A large clown named Kracker has crawled into a bright yellow box. Bulbs are flashing, blue, green, red. A buzzer sounds. Smoke pours from the magical box. Confetti flies into the air and moments later, the clown emerges, half the size he was moments before.

It’s called Kora Clowns Weight Loss Machine and it dazzles audiences wherever it goes. Only now, the machine is missing, the target of thieves who swiped it from the back of Kracker’s truck.

The theft was a trick in itself — at 400 pounds, the bulky box could not have been an easy thing to carry away.

“The machine is very large and heavy,” Lewiston police Lt. Michael McGonagle said, “and would need more than one person to move.”

Detectives are on the case. Real police, not the Krazy Kops. And they are not clowning around. Leads have already been developed. Police and the Shriners who use the box to entertain crowds at the circus are hoping the thieves will bring it back.

“It’s not a high-value item,” Shriner Michael Morin said. “But it means a lot to us and to the kids.”

On Thursday afternoon, there was a report that the Weight Loss Machine fell off the back of a truck on Interstate 295 in Freeport. Police were checking into that report while chasing local leads.

“If anyone has information,” McGonagle said, “or knows of someone who has lost a lot of weight in the past day, have them contact Detective Roland Godbout.”

Cue rim shot.

It’s hard not to joke about a device used by a bunch of clowns. But the Shriners are serious about getting it back.

The prop was taken from the back of a pickup parked on South Lisbon Road the night of April 12-13. Its absence leaves Shriners without one of their more popular gags with which to wow audiences.

“The guys are scrambling now to put something together for the Augusta circus shows on Friday and Saturday,” said Jim Bennett, also known as Ginjo the clown. The box was constructed by — no, really — the Shriners Klown Unit. It’s a simple box with attachments for the bulbs, smoke and confetti. It’s Kracker who goes into the machine but a slimmer clown named Stumpy who comes out.

Which Rob Farrington, of the Klown Unit, feels is fairly important to note. Who knows if the thieves are crawling in and out of the box, waiting for the pounds to magically disappear?

“It’s a pretty cool little skit,” Farrington said. “But it doesn’t really work.”

Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/04/22/news/clown-prop-stolen-from-truck-in-lewiston/

UPDATE:
Thanks to Brian for pointing out a follow-up article in the Sun Journal, in which it was determined that the box fell out of Krackers' truck, and was not in fact stolen.

Clown prop recovered. Sort of.
By Mark LaFlamme, Staff Writer
Apr 23, 2011 12:00 am

LEWISTON — The Kora Clowns Weight Loss Machine, reported stolen earlier in the week, more likely fell off a clown's truck in Freeport, police said Friday.

Police said it appears the 400-pound wooden box was not stolen after all. Indications are that the gizmo may have fallen off of a pickup driven Richard Nadeau, aka Kracker the clown, after the Shrine Circus show in Portland on Tuesday night.

Highway officials apparently found the box along Interstate 295 in Freeport late Tuesday or early Wednesday. It was in less than prime condition, police said, and the Weight Loss Machine was disposed of.

Nadeau had been hauling the box and told police he did not notice the item missing from his truck parked on South Lisbon Road until Wednesday morning. When he discovered it was gone, he told police he assumed it had been stolen, police said.

It was not reported to police until Thursday. They began looking into the matter and by the end of the day, they discovered that the box had been found on the interstate in Freeport.

The Weight Loss Machine featured flashing bulbs, ominous smoke and a buzzer that heralded the seeming transformation of a big clown into a little one.

"It was a pretty popular skit," Shriner Mike Morin said.

It had been constructed by the Shriners and was valued at about $500. With more circus appearances on the schedule, Morin expects the Shriners will waste little time in constructing a new and improved Weight Loss Machine to continue the business of shrinking clowns and wowing crowds.

"I'd be really surprised," he said, "if they don't build another one right away."

Source: http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/1019444

Sunday: LIVE on Maine Ghost Hunters radio!

2011-05-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Yep, that's right, I'll be on the Maine Ghost Hunters' radio show this Sunday evening, 5/22/11, from 8:00-10:00pm, Eastern Standard Time!

FMI: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/maineghosthunters/2011/05/23/mgh-presents-zerolux-radio-maine-author-michelle-souliere

Giving ghosthunters a bad name

2011-05-20T20:10:00.000-04:00

When I first heard about this story, I was going to post it as a reminder to folks who are interested in "ghost hunting" to be careful about trespassing on abandoned sites in Maine. However, when I went to read the full article on the Bangor Daily News site, I discovered that not only were the people involved in this incident trespassing at an old mill site, but also they were dense enough to drag their infant (yes, I said infant) along with them.

Yep, the best place for a 15-month-old is wandering around a potentially hazardous abandoned site. Good job, guys. Good team effort, there.

Ghost hunters summoned for trespassing in Orono
By Dawn Gagnon
Posted May 18, 2011, at 11:28 p.m.

ORONO, Maine — Four area adults were summoned on trespassing charges shortly after midnight Tuesday after they reportedly scaled a barbed-wire-topped gate leading to Ayers Island with a baby in tow.

“They said they were looking for ghosts,” Orono police Officer Wilfred King said Wednesday evening. King said one of the ghost hunters brought along a camera in hopes of documenting paranormal activity on the island, which is privately owned and off-limits to the public. Several large signs there make that point.

King also said that the ghost hunters picked late Tuesday night because they said there was a full moon.

Sgt. Scott LaJoie said the group didn’t quite make it onto the island, however. King, who was patrolling the area that night, spotted their vehicle shortly after they arrived.

Charged with trespassing, but not arrested, were: Eric Roy, 23, of Bangor; Kimberly Patten, 19, of Orono; and Chauncey Hulbert, 27, of Bradley, and Hulbert’s 25-year-old wife, Suzanne Hulbert, King said.

King said that the Hulberts had brought along their 15-month-old child and that Chauncey Hulbert was taken to a Bangor hospital for treatment of leg injuries he suffered while climbing over the gate, which King said is about 8 feet tall and topped with barbed wire.

According to published reports, Ayers Island is home to the former Striar Textile Mill, which was built in 1890 and last operated in October 1996, as well as the former Orono Pulp & Paper Co. Most of the buildings that remain there were built around 1907, according to local histories.

It has been, among other things, the focus of redevelopment efforts and an environmental cleanup.

It also has a reputation for being haunted. In the summer of 2006, the cable network VH1 filmed two episodes of “Celebrity Paranormal Project” on the 62-acre island titled “Tanner’s Ghost” and “Wooden Lucy.” (Video here: Tanner's Ghost -- http://www.hulu.com/watch/120375/celebrity-paranormal-project-tanners-ghost Wooden Lucy -- http://www.hulu.com/watch/120374/celebrity-paranormal-project-wooden-lucy)

According to local legend, the island in the Penobscot River, located two miles from the University of Maine campus, is haunted by the ghost of a foreman killed in a mysterious accident who is said to haunt the mill seeking revenge, and the ghost of a young girl whose father accidentally killed her after being tricked by a 300-year-old American Indian curse.

Roy and Chauncey Hulbert were among three men arrested in 2008 in connection with the theft of $6,000 in electrical wiring from a Bradley contractor. (Story here: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2008/08/01/sports/3-men-arrested-in-theft-of-wire-worth-6000/?ref=relatedBox)

Roy later was indicted by the Penobscot County grand jury and sentenced the next year to 30 days in jail and $500 restitution. He also has a theft conviction from March of this year and convictions for possession of drug paraphernalia and driving without a license.

Hulbert has been convicted of criminal mischief in 2010 and 2009, and assault in 2009.

Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/18/news/bangor/ghost-hunters-summoned-for-trespassing-in-orono/

Photo of Ayers Island from http://www.scicloid.com/, home of Ayers Island LLC.

Toilet fire? Yep, toilet fire.

2011-05-17T20:30:00.017-04:00

I can't make this stuff up.

The Bangor Daily News made up the title for it, though.

Toilet fire reported in Rockport
By Abigail Curtis, BDN Staff
Posted May 01, 2011, at 4:03 p.m.

ROCKPORT, Maine — A would-be arsonist used a dollar bill and alder branches Saturday night in an attempt to set a fire in a portable toilet outside a Route 90 convenience store.

“That is odd. That is very bizarre,” said Traci Cultrera, a cashier at the Tolman Pond Market. “I’m blown away that they used their own money.”

She said that staff had discovered Sunday morning that there were a bunch of “brambled sticks” in the urinal, along with the dollar bill. Not much damage was caused by the fire in the toilet, which is adjacent to the store.

“Just a little charring on the Porta-Potty,” she said. “Good thing it didn’t manage to catch. If it did, we would have lost the whole store.”

Patrolman Dana Smith of the Rockport Police Department said that he had been called to the scene to investigate.

“It started to burn, but either somebody showed up, or they got sick of waiting for the green branches to burn,” he said. “The dollar bill was pretty much gone.”

He said that he encouraged the store’s staff to get better security cameras. Smith said that he thinks he has a suspect in the matter.

“You just never know what you’re going to get,” he said.

Source:
http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/05/01/news/toilet-fire-reported-in-rockport/

TONIGHT! Strange Maine on WMPG

2011-05-16T18:11:00.000-04:00

WHEN: Monday, May 16th from around 10:00pm to 11:00pm
WHERE: WMPG, 90.9 FM and 104.1 FM in the Greater Portland area, or listen online here to their streaming broadcast.
WHAT: DanK of the Random Thought Crime Generator show interviews me about the world of Strange Maine and the latest issue of the Gazette

Who knows what will surface? The show customarily features a mix of soundtracks, novelties, spoken word, experimental, and instrumentals from all genres, especially jazz, surf, and r&b, but the Strange Maine interview show creates a neat hybrid of these elements with extensive interview segments interspersed. Nifty dandy!!!

Tune in and check it out!

More Maine UFOs?

2011-05-15T10:57:00.046-04:00

MUFON listed a new report from a Mainer this week, which occurred on May 7th, 2011. Unfortunately no area or location is mentioned, beyond a rural setting, so it could be anywhere:

I saw two bright lights out the window. The lights came from the east and headed west. It appeared to look like a jet headed for a landing in my driveway.

When I went outside, it changed direction towards my property which is in a rural area. I then noticed there were two sets of lights. As it got closer I could see two triangular shaped vessels. They were very close to each other. There was the sound of machinery, engine. But it was not like the sound of a jet engine, helicopter, prop plane or automobile. The air was still underneath it. It was not a very loud sound.

I called for my friend in the house to come out and see it. There were many white lights underneath. There were bright lights at each corner of the isosoles triangle. When looking up you could see inside the vessel. It appeared to be about 20 ft across. As you looked up into it seemed to be constructed like a pyramid. Inside the lights you could see geometric patterns.

Lights like search beams eminated from it. The light was very bright but not blinding. At one point the light fixated on me for a few seconds and the vessel continued on like what seemed to be a walking speed. As I stared up at the vessel I knew it was other worldly. It came in from the east and then proceeded south southwest.

(I have corrected a few minor and obvious single-letter typos for readability.)

Source: http://mufon.com/mufonreports.html

Back on April 22nd, another sighting was reported via MUFON, this time near Lewiston:

I took my dog out for some business about 12:10 this morning. I went out on my stoop and I always look at the sky. Having moved here a little over a year ago, I enjoyed the night sky because it had so many more stars than where I lived before.

I noticed what appeared to be a plane above and to my right. It had a couple of lights on, flashing but not going on and off. They seemed to twinkle more than flash. I assumed it was a plane and continued to watch the dog as she sniffed around. After a few seconds, I looked up again and there was one steady light. I thought I must have been mistaken about the additional lights and thought maybe it was a star. Then they came on again. It wasn't moving but it was hovering, and I realized after a minute or two that this was something unusual.

The lights flickered, and then it started moving extremely slowly toward me, with no sound at all. That freaked me out a little and I went inside. I looked out the window of the door, and I saw it moving side to side, slowly. Then it stopped and continued to flicker.

At first I thought it looked like it was a boomerang shape. But it could have been a disc. It definitely had an angle to it. It reminded me of a wedding band that had diamonds all around it. Like I said, they were white and flickered, sometimes all of them, sometimes a couple and sometimes just one.

It was hovering out towards Lewiston, ME and it was about the height and size of a plane. I watched for about 15 minutes, but because of it moving toward me, I decided to stop watching. It definitely gave me an eerie feeling. I've seen UFOs in the past (many years ago) and they didn't evoke that feeling in me. This just seemed different, maybe because I was by myself and it was so dark out. I watched the news hoping to hear of other reports, but so far there haven't been any. I thought I should mention it to someone. Thanks.

Maine Ghost Hunters cemetery series!

2011-05-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

What: Sunday Cemetery Series Kick-Off - Eastern Cemetery in Portland, ME
When: Sunday, June 12, 2011 1:00 PM
Price: $3.00 per person
Where: Eastern Cemetery, 224 Congress Street, Portland, Maine (between Mountfort and Federal Streets)
FMI: http://www.meetup.com/MaineGhostHunters/

The kick-off to the 2011 Sunday Cemetery Series is here! Plan to attend the first location of the series right in beautiful Portland, ME. This Maine Ghost Hunters Series was a huge success in 2010, and promises to be even more impressive this season. Unlike some of our investigation meetups, this series is family friendly. Well behaved children 12 and over are invited to attend with their parents.

Any serious cemetery enthusiast would agree, Eastern has to be at the top of the list when it comes to "must see" locations. For many reasons, it is easy to argue that this is one of the most significant colonial cemeteries in the country. It was added to the registry of historical places in 1974. Speaking of history, a theme of this year's series is a remembrance of the 150 year anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War. At each location on the tour we will be explaining that particular cemeteries tie to the American conflict that put brother against brother. Eastern has an impressive connection.

Also, for this tour, the Maine Ghost Hunters Team is proud to announce that a member of Spirits Alive will be our very special guest! Spirits Alive is a group dedicated to the preservation of Eastern Cemetery. Their work has kept this national treasure from falling into the hands of neglect, time and vandalism. Their knowledge of the cemetery and all that can be found in it, is unrivaled. Check them out at www.SpiritsAlive.org

So make sure you wear your Maine Ghost Hunters T-shirt (if you have one) and join us for an unforgettable day of cemetery exploration.

Swarm of earthquakes hits state

2011-05-13T19:54:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week NPR's All Things Considered program looked into the micro-quake swarm that percolated along the coast of Maine during the first week of May. On their site they have an audio version of the interview that Melissa Blocks did with Robert Marvinney, director of the Maine Geological Survey. For those who prefer the written word, a transcription of the interview is also available.

While most folks don't consider Maine prime earthquake territory, those of us who have been here for a long time know that they do happen now and again, though not usually in such quantities.

Blocks quizzed Marvinney about why such a series of quakes would occur in Maine, to which he responded, "There was a swarm like this in 2006 around Bar Harbor, another one in 1967 around the Augusta area. And because they're so rare and they're so small, we really don't have a good answer for why a spate of earthquakes will occur like this in one location."

Visit NPR's site to hear the whole interview for yourself:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/10/136181941/maine-hit-by-tiny-earthquakes
Very interesting stuff!

Atlas Obscura: 8 Maine sites

2011-04-24T09:25:00.000-04:00

The Atlas Obscura, a guide to interesting sites to visit all over the world, has eight Maine locations listed on its site at http://atlasobscura.com/globe/north-america/united-states/maine. Ranging from the Eagle Lake Tramway to Eartha, the giant DeLorme globe, each location has a thorough write-up and photos. Great inspiration for anyone ready for a spring fieldtrip!!

Got a report of your own to file? Go ahead! Atlas Obscura depends on curiosity-seeking travelers to add to its information.

1978 UFO report from Strong, ME

2011-04-22T20:27:00.000-04:00

A report was filed April 12th on the MUFON website (http://mufon.com/) relating a 1978 sighting (reproduced verbatim below):

Three of us, July 1978, teenagers at the time, were night fishing for eel on the shore of the Sandy River in Strong Maine. We heard a whooshing sound, like the wind, directly overhead, we looked up, and said at the same time, "Wow look at that", and there was a black triangle, with rounded points. Each point had a fixed colored light, (not blinking)red, blue, and green. The round lights were at least 10 feet in diameter, much bigger than any man made aircraft lights i've seen otherwise. The triangle was an estimated 300 feet each side. The craft was approximately 300 to 400 feet above us and made no noise except the sound of the craft cutting the air. The speed of the craft was about 20 miles per hour, too slow to be a conventional aircraft. It was below stall speed and should have crashed, but it kept slowly flying west, up river until it went out of sight. Time span was about 30 seconds. my brother still thinks to this day that it was an experimental military aircraft. In my opinion, it was a technology out of our reach and beyond our capabilities at the time. This is the only flying triangle I have seen. I have had 9 other experiences that I will share at another time, 4 of which were during my childhood in the 1970s. Keep looking skyward my friends. Phil62.

Source:
http://mufoncms.com/cgi-bin/manage_sighting_reports.pl?mode=view_long_desc&id=28639&rnd=378201303516069

Just one more example of the high-strangeness era of the 1970s! Even Maine wasn't immune to a rash of UFO sightings. In the September 7, 1976, issue of the Biddeford Journal, mixed in with all the other classified ads for lost wallets and "Hairdressing in your home" by Mr. Andre, the following ad was run:

PLEASE report UFO sightings or encounters in your area to:
Shirley C. Fickett, 797-2664, International UFO Bureau, East Coast Headquarters, 482 Auburn St., Portland Me. 04103.
We are serious about UFO's and need information. They are also being seen in other areas. We will be confidential, we are not with the government.

Maine Talks... but how?

2011-04-17T16:03:00.030-04:00

One fascination that folks seem to have with Maine is the so-called "Maine accent," which is liberally abused by actors from all over the place.

Mainer Tara Taylor did a bunch of research on the topic for her thesis project, which can be seen online at http://mainetalks.com/, and is called "Hahd Tellin' Not Knowin'"

The project itself takes the form of a massive Flash file, which will take some time to load and watch. But the end result is pretty neat. The page that loads gives you several options. You can listen and read about "The Dialect," "The Words" (there's a great vocabulary list), and "The People" who use them. For another melange of words and images, you can click on "The Place." All in all, it's a fun way to focus on the rhythm of speech that most of us here in Maine take for granted.

I realized when listening to her recorded interviews that I run across the Maine accent all the time, but being from here I don't think about it, my brain just fills in the blanks and accepts certain turns of phrase and pronunciations as normal. For me, they are normal. There's almost a tidal push and pull in the way Mainers talk that grows on you, and while it drives some folks from away nuts trying to decipher it, there are those of us that delight in it as a simple element of who everyone here is.

Review: Umbrella Cover Museum guide!

2011-04-13T13:06:00.000-04:00

What can I say about Uncovered and Exposed! A Guide to the World’s Only Umbrella Cover Museum? Once again, Nancy 3. Hoffman has outdone herself.

As director and curator of the Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island, Nancy has long done her darnedest to remind the rest of us about the magic and delight that can be found in the most mundane objects. Now, as the author of this book, she is spreading the word even further than the shores of Peaks.

Like the narrated tour she gives to guests of the museum, her guide is peppered with inimitable Nancy-isms and keen observations about umbrella covers and their reflection of our culture. From statistical facts about the mysterious little tabs (a.k.a. doo-hickeys) that appear on many umbrella covers to the battle with her word processor over whether or not “doo-hickey” should be one word or two, the guide sets out to entertain and educate us in fine fettle.

The book is self-published in a sturdy square-bound format, and is packed with full-color photos of museum treasures and events. Like any good museum guide, it walks armchair visitors through the museum piece by piece, pointing out the items that might be missed in the midst of their normally distracting surroundings. Not only do you get to see the covers as documented by Nancy’s camera, but also you find out each piece’s provenance, which in some cases can be far more intriguing than their plain appearance would indicate to an uninformed spectator.

Are you curious yet? The book is available at local bookshops or through the museum’s website at http://www.umbrellacovermuseum.org/ The museum reopens for the season in May, and can be reached by calling (207)766-4496. The best way to get there (unless you have your own boat) is to take the Casco Bay Lines ferry to Peaks Island, a pleasant 20-minute ride out of Portland Harbor.

New Issue of the Gazette!

2011-04-09T11:02:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone! Just a note to let you know that issues of the Strange Maine Gazette's first issue of 2011 are on their way out into the world. I just updated the list of places you can get copies of it (see righthand side of blog page), and added a bunch of new spots. If you know a place that would like to carry issues of the quarterly publication, drop me a line with the address to send them to and I'll add them to the list.

Most of the Portland locations have the new issue, and other towns' issues will be in the mail on Monday, so check with those fine establishments later next week! Subscribers will have their new issues within the next few days. Hooray!

Image from http://doversociety.homestead.com/CHARACTERS.html depicting Mr C. BECKER, Dover Town Crier (PHOTO of him) “celebrates 80th Birthday on February 27th. Town Crier for 48 years (Dover Express 6.2.1914 p.2)

Ragged Isle! Episodes 1-3 online

2011-03-25T20:55:00.000-04:00

Fans of Dark Shadows and other gothic Down East fare will be really thrilled to find that three episodes of locally-produced show "Ragged Isle" are now available online. If you really want a treat, click through to their YouTube page and watch them in HD. It's well worth it.

Bangor Daily News does a great interview with filmmaker Barry Dodd:

There’s something in the water. Something dark, mysterious and possibly hostile. Everybody on the small, insular Maine island knows about it, but nobody much wants to talk about it directly — except one newcomer, who appears determined to figure out what exactly is going on.

That’s the basic premise of “Ragged Isle,” a 10-part Web series that launched online at raggedisle.com on March 9, with a new 10-15 minute episode premiering each Wednesday through May 11. The series was written, produced and directed by a group of Portland-based filmmakers and writers called the Entertainment Experiment, led by the husband-and-wife team of Barry and Karen Dodd, both natives of Waldo County and graduates of Belfast Area High School.

Read full article here: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/03/21/lifestyle/maine-island-of-mysteries-featured-in-web-episodes-of-the-new-%E2%80%98ragged-isle%E2%80%99/?ref=latest

For those who want to dig further, there is a blog with lots of behind-the-scenes material here:
http://www.raggedisle.blogspot.com/

EVENT: Fort Knox Ghost Hunters premiere

2011-03-25T20:18:00.000-04:00

SyFy Channel’s "Ghost Hunter" TV program will air the results of its February investigation of Fort Knox, in Prospect, Maine, on Wednesday, April 6 at 9 p.m.! Shown here is Leon Seymore, of the Friends of Fort Knox, sitting with Amy Bruni and Grant Wilson of TAPS, ready for the "reveal" segment of the episode.

A live public screening of the "Ghost Hunters" Fort Knox episode, which is titled “Residual Haunts,” will take place Wednesday, April 6 from 7:30 to 10:00 p.m. at the Bucksport Golf Club on Route 46.

The special event fundraiser, sponsored by the Friends of Fort Knox, will provide viewers an opportunity to meet people who have reported paranormal experiences at the fort and watch the show on a big-screen TV.

Advanced tickets for the Bucksport event are $7 in advance, $10 night of the event, and may be purchased by calling (207)469-6553 or stopping by the Friends’ office at Fort Knox. Attendees will receive snacks, and a cash bar will be available.

Source: http://waldo.villagesoup.com/ae/story/fort-knox-ghost-hunters-to-air-april-6/388049

Facebook event page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180247668687843&ref=ts

EVENT: Orono UFO interest group

2011-03-18T11:41:00.000-04:00

WHAT: Meeting of UFO Interest Group (held 3rd Sunday of each month)
WHEN: 4:00-5:00PM, March 20, 2011
WHERE: Fire Sign, 50 Main Street, Orono, ME 04473
FMI: call (207)866-3626 or email firesign@myfairpoint.net

Join other locals for a monthly UFO interest group. Open discussion about past, present and & future UFO activity in a safe and anonymous environment. To register, call (207)866-3626 or email firesign@myfairpoint.net

http://home.myfairpoint.net/~firesign/products.html

About Fire Sign:
Fire Sign is a shop which features items for metaphysical and New Age interests, including books, incense, crystals, jewelry, candles, magazines, cards, Tarot & more. Check their calendar of events for more classes and interest groups, and information about tarot, rune, and psychic reading availability.

EVENT: Death & Civil War lecture

2011-03-18T11:08:00.001-04:00

WHAT: Death and Survival in the Civil War, lecture
WHEN: Saturday, March 26, 2011, 10:00 - 11:00am
WHERE: Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress Street, Portland, ME
COST: Free, Donations Appreciated
FMI: http://www.spiritsalive.org/events/lectures.htm

The last lecture in the series, "Death and Survival in the Civil War," will take place on March 26. “Dead Men’s Pockets: Gettysburg Bodies and Other Stories” will be presented by Margaret Creighton, Professor at Bates College. Creighton wrote Colors of Courage: Gettysburg's Forgotten History which considers the legendary battle of Gettysburg from the perspectives of white women civilians, African American civilians, and immigrant soldiers. This book was a runner-up for the Lincoln Prize and named as one of the five best books on Gettysburg by the Wall Street Journal.

The theme of this year's Spirits Alive 3-lecture series was chosen in support of the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War (2011–2015). The lectures offer insight into this country's greatest national crisis in relation to death and dying. It is estimated that up to 700,000 people, or 2% of the population died in the War Between the States.

About Spirits Alive
Spirits Alive is a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Portland's historic Eastern Cemetery through a range of activities including promotion and education. Founded in 2007, the group carries out an active program of seasonal tours of the cemetery, a winter lecture series, and is conducting a stone-by-stone inventory of the nearly 4,000 grave markers still existing in the 340-year-old cemetery. http://www.spiritsalive.org

Maine Ghost Hunters on WCSH6

2011-03-16T22:30:00.000-04:00

Back at the beginning of March, the Maine Ghost Hunters visited the studios of WCSH-6 here in Portland to answer some questions on their morning show. Check it out!

Source: http://www.wcsh6.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=150576

Maine's sister-state in Japan

2011-03-16T13:57:00.000-04:00


Hirosaki Castle in Aomori Prefecture

Bill Nemitz did a great piece in today's Portland Press Herald about Aomori, Maine's sister state in Japan. I was not surprised to find out we have a sister state there, knowing already about Shinegawa's sister city relationship with Portland, but apparently many Mainers were unaware of this relationship, and how it came about.

I've posted the article below, but for a quick link to Maine efforts to assist Aomori in its own hour of need, here are a few starting points:

-- Maine Japan Earthquake Relief Effort on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Maine-Japan-Earthquake-Relief-Effort/110509232363317

-- Maine + Aomori Partners Relief Efforts for the Earthquake/Tsunami Disaster in Japan https://sites.google.com/site/friendsofaomori/relief-efforts

-- Japan America Society of Maine http://www.maine-japan.org/

How the relationship started over 100 years ago is well worth learning. Let us remember that we have Japanese friends who are struggling through a very difficult time.

Linked by disasters, sister-states bond
March 16
By Bill Nemitz, Staff Writer

Late last week, as the horror of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe was just beginning to unfold, Gov. Paul LePage issued a statement of condolence and prayer for the victims of that country's worst calamity since the end of World War II.

LePage also noted that Maine "has a sister-state relationship with the Prefecture of Aomori," about 150 miles north of the all-but-obliterated city of Sendai.

Sister state? When, some Mainers undoubtedly wondered, did that happen?

Well, it depends on how you look at it.

The formal relationship was struck by Gov. John McKernan in 1994.

But the story, as told in a 1997 speech in Aomori by a local resident, Kou Ootaka, goes back more than a century.

It was late October of 1889. The Chesebrough, a three-masted ship built by Arthur Sewall and Co. in Bath, had sailed from Maine to Japan with a shipment of case oil, refilled its hold with 2,300 tons of sulfur and was just getting under way on its long voyage back to the United States.

It had been a rough trip. A typhoon the previous month had heavily damaged the Chesebrough, forcing its 23-member crew to lay over in the port of Hokkaido for 34 days while the vessel was repaired.

Their luck would be no better as they finally set sail on Oct. 28. Another ferocious storm hit the Japan Sea the next day, toppling the ship's main mast and leaving Capt. Peter Erickson and his men helpless as the Chesebrough broke up and sank within sight of the Japanese village of Shariki.

Villagers came running to the shore and built bonfires. Fishermen boarded a rescue vessel and headed out to search for survivors.

They found only four.

"Are you Napoleon? Are you Bismarck? Are you Washington?" asked a policeman, trying to determine the sailors' nationality. At the mention of "Washington," they replied, "Yes! Yes!"

"They are Americans!" the policeman announced.

One of those pulled from the water, a man named Wilson, was unconscious and appeared to be near death. But something remarkable happened.

"At this time, one of the women who had brought food from the village, Mrs. Han Kudo, 45 years old and the wife of Mr. Yoshiemon Kudo, did not hesitate in public," Ootaka recalled. "She took off her clothes and hugged Mr. Wilson in the sleet to warm him up. People still say she looked like a heavenly maiden. Miraculously, Mr. Wilson was revived."

For days, even after the survivors recovered from their ordeal and departed for their long trip home, Japanese villagers found the bodies of other crew members washing up on their shore. All of them, including 40-year-old Capt. Erikson, received solemn burials.

And the Japanese never forgot.

At the top of a hill overlooking the village is a religious shrine. And near that is a stone commemorating the wreck of the ship from faraway Maine.

"Every year since the disaster, the people of Shariki hold a service for the sailors who lost their lives on that night in 1889," Ootaka said. And for 100 of those years, few if any Mainers even knew about it.

That changed in 1990, when the mayor of Shariki sent a letter to Bath City Hall to tell officials of the annual memorial service, and to lament the fact that in 100 years, no representative from Bath had visited the village.

That simple communication, and the visits between dignitaries from both communities that soon followed, led to the establishment of a vibrant sister-city relationship between Bath and Shariki in 1996. (The connection was expanded in 2006 to include the city of Tsugaru, which encompasses Shariki.)

It also spawned the sister-state connection between Maine and Aomori Prefecture, which in the past 17 years has included a variety of trade missions, cultural exchanges and business deals.

And now this.

Tuesday morning, representatives from four Maine organizations that have strong tethers to Japan – the Japan-America Society of Maine, the Maine-Aomori Sister State Advisory Council, Friends of Shinegawa (Portland's sister city) and the Maine International Trade Center – met in Portland to compare notes about the still-unfolding disaster and explore what might be done to help.

The news from Aomori could be much worse – the port of Hachinohe on the east coast sustained considerable damage from the post-earthquake tsunami, but nowhere near the widespread death and destruction that occurred to the south. (Shinegawa, near Tokyo, also escaped the brunt of the disaster.)

Still, Steve MacDougall, chairman of the Maine-Aomori Sister State Advisory Council, said the various groups feel a need to do something – starting with contacting their counterparts in Japan to ask how Maine can help.

They've also created a Facebook page – Maine Japan Earthquake Relief Effort – where they hope to provide firsthand reports and images from Japan and, just as important, links to various relief organizations that are collecting donations.

"We are so saddened by the tragic images coming out of Japan," MacDougall said. "We have no doubt that Mainers will want to come to the aid of one of our country's and Maine's closest friends."

One last thing about the wreck of the Chesebrough, as recalled in that speech by Kou Ootaka:

Not long after the Maine ship went down, a villager named Nakamura found a pear that had washed ashore from the Chesebrough's food stores. It was much better tasting than the smaller ones grown locally, so he planted one of the seeds in his backyard.

The tree – still there in 1997 – grew to 24 feet, Ootaka said. And every year as it bore its delicious fruit, Nakamura would pick 19 pears and lay one as an offering at each Maine sailor's grave.

Concluded Ootaka, "We have such wonderful history. We won't forget this."

Nor, in Japan's hour of need, should Maine.

Source:
http://www.pressherald.com/news/linked-by-disasters-sister-states-bond_2011-03-16.html

EVENT: Mechanic Falls ghost hunt

2011-03-15T21:51:00.002-04:00

The Congregational Church, New Home to the Historical Society

WHAT: Mechanic Falls Historical Society ghost hunt demo
WHEN: Saturday, March 19 5:00 p.m. - 12:00
WHERE: 64 Elm Street, Mechanic Falls, Maine 04256
FMI: (207)345-3134
COST: $25.00

An authentic, hands-on ghost hunting experience is coming to Mechanic Falls on a full moon. The Mechanic Falls Historical Society in association with Everything Paranormal of New England will show how a paranormal investigation is done on Saturday, March 19 from 5 PM until midnight at the Mechanic Falls Historical Society, 64 Elm Street, Mechanic Falls (the former First Congregational Church).

Renee Alling and her troupe of investigators will guide, teach and show a paranormal investigation.
Source: http://wcsh6.planetdiscover.com/localevents/event/200/26088-Mechanic-Falls-Ghost-Hunt

Mechanic Falls Historical Society website: http://mechanicfalls.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={8F1AABA3-E2F0-410C-83B3-5B8381EB9991}

EVENT: Tomorrow! Gravestone symbolism

2011-03-15T12:31:00.000-04:00

WHAT: William Macomber reveals elements of 'Gravestone Symbolism'
WHEN: Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 6:30pm
WHERE: Augusta City Center, 16 Cony St., Augusta, ME
FMI: Call Kennebec Historical Society (presentation sponsor) (207)622-7718 or visit http://www.kennebechistorical.org/

Taphophilia is a passion for and enjoyment of cemeteries, and many interested in local and family history find themselves joining this group as they do field research.

Also of interest for taphophiles is Macomber's membership in the Maine Old Cemetery Association, and the Association for Gravestone Studies, which will hold its 34th annual conference June 14-18 at Colby College in Waterville.

Macomber noted that certain flowers and plants carved on gravestones have particular meaning. A broken tree trunk, for example, symbolizes premature death, while a weeping willow symbolizes grief, death and earthly sorrow. A wreath symbolizes victory in death, the indestructible crown and eternity.

Macomber will discuss these and other symbols during his presentation. “Hopefully, they’ll get a better idea of what they’re looking at,” he said.

If you would like to visit the Kennebec Historical Society, sponsor of the event, they are located at 107 Winthrop Street in Augusta, and are open to the public 10:00AM to 2:00PM from Wednesday through Friday, with additional research hours by appointment. They can be reached at (207) 622-7718

About Maine Old Cemetery Association
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~memoca/moca.htm
The Maine Old Cemetery Association, M.O.C.A., was founded in 1969 for the main purposes of locating old cemeteries in the state of Maine, encouraging the care and preservation of those cemeteries, and the gathering and preservation of historical information regarding these cemeteries.

The Maine Inscription Project (MIP) is THE primary project of MOCA. This entails transcribing all old cemeteries in Maine. MOCA is continuing to prepare its county cemetery listings for publication. This has been an ongoing project since MOCA's beginning. There are still many cemetery listings undone or incomplete. Contact us as to format and data collection procedures. Volunteers are urged to submit listings, updates and corrections for this project.

About the Association for Gravestone Studies
http://www.gravestonestudies.org/
he Association for Gravestone Studies (AGS) was founded in 1977 for the purpose of furthering the study and preservation of gravestones. AGS is an international organization with an interest in gravemarkers of all periods and styles. Through its publications, conferences, workshops and exhibits, AGS promotes the study of gravestones from historical and artistic perspectives, expands public awareness of the significance of historic gravemarkers, and encourages individuals and groups to record and preserve gravestones. At every opportunity, AGS cooperates with groups that have similar interests.

Ghosts put on hold in Hallowell

2011-03-14T21:50:00.000-04:00

The Kennebec Journal reported on the latest steps in CMPI's efforts to do an investigation at Hallowell's city hall building. Sounds like they really don't want them there, but don't want to come out and say it!

No ghost hunters yet for Hallowell City Hall
March 9
By Betty Adams, Staff Writer

HALLOWELL -- Paranormal investigators won't be seeking poltergeists at Hallowell City Hall anytime soon.

City councilors on Monday sent the investigators' requests back to the Property Committee to resolve some confusions.

In January, Holly Cooper of Central Maine Paranormal Investigations asked to observe City Hall for evidence of paranormal activity. The matter was referred to the Property Committee.

The committee then recommended the paranormal investigators carry liability insurance naming the city as insured, and that a police officer supervise the setup and takedown of equipment.

City Manager Todd Shea said one of the paranormal investigators he spoke with indicated the group does not purchase liability insurance.

Other councilors too wanted to be sure that the investigators would pick up the cost if police are called to for special duty to supervise the setup.

Mayor Charlotte Warren suggested possibly requiring a deposit.

Councilor Peter Schumacher will seek clarification of the issue at the next Property Committee meeting.

Hallowell City Hall, at 1 Winthrop St., was constructed in 1898-1899 in the Classical Revival style. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, because it located in Hallowell's Historic District.
[...]

Read full article here:
http://www.kjonline.com/news/ghost-hunt-stalled-at-hallowell-city-hall_2011-03-08.html

Back in January, Ms. Cooper broached the subject of an investigation at the council meeting. According to the meeting minutes, the request is very mild and unobtrusive in nature: "She asked to be able to come into city hall at night for a few hours to record some of the strange paranormal activities that have been reported. She will put together a package of what they document."

For those interested in seeing more of Hallowell's great wealth of historic buildings, there is a wonderful list of them which can be used as a walking tour on this page:
http://hallowell.govoffice.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={724BEFBA-4433-4E61-A6AD-04BC4A89956C}
Also at hallowell.govoffice.com you will also find a brief history of the town, which rests on the banks of the Kennebec River, and aerial photos of the region which give a clear image of its presence on the riverside, as well as a detailed account of the ongoing restorations of their City Hall.

Dear Strange Maine fans!

2011-02-24T11:34:00.000-05:00

It is once again time for voting in the Portland Phoenix's "Best of 2011" poll!

BEST BLOG category:

Now, as in past years, we've been nominated in the Best Blog category, under "City Life," (we won in 2008 and 2009, but were ousted in 2010). However, this year there is a new development! This year, because of the publication of my book, Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State, I landed in the author category as well! So, if you've read the book, enjoyed it, etc, and would like to help give me a shot at Best Author, I would be very happy if you also voted for me in this category. I'm up against some heavy hitters, so the odds are slim... but who knows?

PORTLAND AUTHOR category:

Please note two important things:
1) You can vote once a day.
2) Your vote will not be counted until you click on the "VOTE NOW" button on the FINISH page, which can be reached at any time in the process by clicking the "SKIP TO FINISH" button on each page.

Thanks everyone!! :)

--Michelle Souliere, Editor

EVENT: Spirits Alive lecture series

2011-02-24T11:20:00.012-05:00

Winter Lecture Series Continues
WHEN: Saturday, March 5, 2011, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
WHERE: Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress Street, Portland, ME
COST: Free, Donations Appreciated

TOPIC: Evergreen Cemetery Civil War Monument, 1895

Join us as Tom Desjardin, PhD, Chief Historian, Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands will speak on "Civil War Heroes and Heroines Buried in Evergreen Cemetery."

Evergreen Cemetery is 239 acres located on Stevens Avenue. In addition to being the fourth city cemetery, it is a place to birdwatch and see numerous examples of Victorian memorial sculpture, and a experience the beauty of rural cemetery landscape.

Many civil war veterans are part of the over 65,000 interred in this cemetery, and a monument has been erected in their memory.

The last lecture in this series, "Death and Survival in the Civil War," will take place on March 26.

Find out more about the lecture series here:
http://www.spiritsalive.org/events/lectures.htm

The mystery of Jeremy Alex

2011-02-22T16:21:00.000-05:00

The television show "Disappeared" focused on a 2004 missing person case from Maine earlier this month. Jeremy Alex, 28, disappeared from Northport almost 7 years ago. Since then, his father has started the Jeremy Alex Fund with the purpose of helping at-risk kids. Bangor Daily News revisits the story:

TV show to air about Maine man who disappeared in 2004
By Abigail Curtis, BDN Staff
Posted Feb. 06, 2011, at 8:00 p.m.

Editor’s Note: This article is part of a feature called Follow-up in which BDN staff update stories from the past to inform readers of the status of subjects covered in initial reports and any new developments.

NORTHPORT, Maine — Almost seven years ago, Jeremy Alex disappeared in the woods of Northport under mysterious circumstances.

Despite a $20,000 reward for information on his whereabouts, his family is still left with many questions, no answers — and no Jeremy.

They hope that a television program about him that airs Monday night on the Investigation Discovery channel’s series “Disappeared” will change that.

“There’s not too many things left to do that will spark an interest again,” his father, Ted Alex, said Friday from Portsmouth, N.H., where he lives. “We’re optimistic … Hopefully, somebody will call and give us some information.”

Jeremy, a landscaper who was in the process of moving to Northport from Islesboro, was 28 when he last was seen running into the woods off Pound Hill Road the evening of April 24, 2004. Although the disappearance was treated initially as a missing-person case, his family believes that the man they describe as kind and a free spirit may have been murdered.
[...]
Deputies found Jeremy’s car nearby, but were unable to locate him. A search was mounted immediately, but nothing was found. After the public was notified that Jeremy was missing, a second witness recalled seeing a man who matched his description run across Route 1 near Northport Marine at about the same time. That area also was searched extensively, but nothing was found.

For years, there were no more reliable clues, Ted Alex said last week. But about 2½ years ago, Jeremy’s driver’s license surfaced at a home on the shore in Northport along with a story of missed opportunity.

In 2004, a Northport couple was building a house on the ocean, and about a month after Jeremy disappeared, money started washing up onshore. Workers found about $30 in all, according to Alex.

About two weeks after that, Jeremy’s driver’s license washed up, too.

The couple had a bowl on their coffee table that was filled with everything that had floated in on the tides, and they put the license and the money in that. They never made the connection to the missing man. After the husband died, friends came to a get-together after his funeral. A retired highway patrol officer saw the driver’s license in the bowl and remembered hearing about Jeremy Alex.

“He called the police,” Ted Alex said. “He ended up e-mailing me about it, saying ‘I have $30 of Jeremy’s money and his license,’ which was obviously really bizarre.”
[...]
The $20,000 reward, too, has led to nothing more tangible than rumors, he said.
[...]
He remembered his son as a nice guy who struggled with addiction but loved snowboarding, chess, music, gardening and Maine.
[...]
Anyone with information about Jeremy Alex should call Trundy at the Waldo County Sheriff’s Office at 338-2040.

For more information, visit www.jeremyalex.com.

Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/02/06/lifestyle/tv-show-to-air-about-maine-man-who-disappeared-in-2004/

The Jeremy Alex episode of “Disappeared” aired at 9 p.m. Monday, Feb. 7, on the Discovery channel. See below for videoclip:

Cat stuck in a sewer for 2 days

2011-02-20T15:57:00.002-05:00

Karen Douglas isn't the only one having a rough February. This poor cat had a run-in with a 300-pound sewer grate! Ouch!! Maine Public Broadcasting Network reports:

Boots the Cat Endures Two-Day Ordeal in Maine Storm Drain
The seven-year old feline's head was stuck in the storm drain for two days.
02/17/2011 04:32 PM ET

A South Berwick veterinarian encountered an unusual case today--a cat that was brought in with a 300-pound sewer grate attached to its head.

Authorities say Boots the cat got it's head stuck in the grate on Highland Avenue in the southern Maine city and was trapped for two days. A passerby finally noticed the trapped feline and called the highway department for help.

After chipping ice away from the grate, crews brought the cat, sewer grate and all, in to Dr. Amanda Rizner at the South Berwick Animal Hospital. "And we extricated the cat from the sewer grate," Rizner says. "She just has some bumps and bruises and she was really cold from being stuck it the sewer grate, so we treated her hypothermia and her bumps and bruises."

Rizner says Boots, a seven-year-old spayed female, was scheduled to return home today and is expected to make a complete recovery.

Source: http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/15233/Default.aspx

Ghost Hunters here and gone

2011-02-19T11:32:00.000-05:00

The Village Soup reports on the recent visit of members of TAPS and their visit to Fort Knox in Prospect, near Bucksport.

'Ghost Hunters' wraps Fort Knox investigation
Show to air late March or April
Feb 12, 2011

Prospect — The Friends of Fort Knox, working in partnership with the Maine Department of Conservation’s Bureau of Parks and Lands, has announced that the SyFy Channel’s "Ghost Hunters" TV program has concluded its paranormal investigation of the state historic site.

The investigation and filming began late Feb. 6 when the 19-member production crew arrived at Fort Knox. Leon Seymour, Friends of Fort Knox executive director, provided the investigators a tour of the site and recounted visitor reports of paranormal experiences. After the initial tour and overview, SyFy "Ghost Hunters" stars Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson began their investigation of the fort. Their efforts extended to approximately 3:30 a.m.

The investigation continued the evening of Feb. 7 into the following morning amidst brief snow showers. On the afternoon of Feb. 8, the "Ghost Hunters" production company interviewed individuals who had reported as having a paranormal experience at the fort to the Friends. One of those interviewed by the crew was local radio personality Sky Taylor, who reported hearing various sounds and even seeing an apparition. On Feb. 9, Bureau of Parks and Lands Historic Site Specialist Tom Desjardin provided the production company with a brief history of Fort Knox. The "Ghost Hunters" film crew spent the rest of the day shooting exterior shots of the fort from various locations and some shots of the town of Prospect.

On Feb. 11, Hawes and Wilson, presented their paranormal investigation findings to Seymour. This portion of the investigative process, known as "the reveal," will be kept confidential until the TV program airs.

"Ghost Hunters" producer Patrick Powell, based in California, told Seymour that he expects the Fort Knox episode to air in late March or April. The Friends of Fort Knox are giving some thought to having a screening party the night the episode airs on the SyFy channel. The organization says that they will release details and how the public may obtain tickets in the near future.
[...]
Individuals interested in learning more about the Friends of Fort Knox, special events and the history of the historic site are encouraged to visit fortknox.maineguide.com.

Full article source: http://capital.villagesoup.com/ae/story/ghost-hunters-wraps-fort-knox-investigation/380561

Mowed over by a moose!

2011-02-18T19:49:00.000-05:00

Bangor Daily News reports on one woman's encounter with a very big bull moose! "Douglass suffered an injured shoulder from the moose impact, another injured shoulder from hitting the ground, mild hypothermia and frostbite on her lower legs. She also suffered severe leg bruising, mostly from the difficult trip home without her snowshoes."

Orland woman: I was run over by a moose
By Karen Douglas, Special to the BDN
Posted Feb. 18, 2011, at 11:44 a.m.

ORLAND, Maine — [...] This winter’s exceptional snowfall prompted me to take up snowshoeing, and lately my three dogs and I have been regular visitors to the woods.
[...]
My dogs caught scent of something and took off. [...] I could hear them all barking like mad in the distance, which is generally not a good sign. My first thought was that they had encountered a porcupine and all I could think about as I made my way toward them was how much a veterinarian visit for quill removal was going to cost me this time.
[...]
As I clawed to the top of the embankment on the other side of the stream I saw him — a bull [moose] about 6 feet high at the shoulder. I’m 6 feet tall, and he was looking down at me. Mature bulls drop their antlers after mating season, to conserve energy for the winter, and this one was not sporting a set, so I assumed he was an adult. He also had a large “bell” on his neck.

The moose didn’t seem especially concerned about the three dogs barking at his heels. All three were keeping their distance, just making a lot of noise. The moose was standing under a grove of trees, where there was relatively little snow, munching on vegetation. I had heard that moose can be aggressive, but I was fooled into complacency by this moose’s calm demeanor. I thought the best thing to do was to grab the dogs’ leashes and lead them away before the moose got riled.

I made a wide circle as I approached. When I was about halfway to the dogs and out in the open, the moose charged. My right side was to the moose. I was trying to avoid direct eye contact, so I only saw him from my periphery just before he rammed me.

The force threw me to the ground. I stayed down, stunned, in a fetal position. I wanted to make certain that he wasn’t coming back to trample me or kick me in the head. All three dogs came over to empathetically lick my face, and I was able to grab the leash of the largest and loudest of the three dogs. I figured if I could lead him away, the other two would follow.

Content that the threat was gone, the moose went back to his spot under the trees to stand his ground.

I crawled with the leash in hand to a stand of trees where I could be out of sight before I stood again. [...] I realized that one snowshoe had been knocked off in the attack. I scanned the ground for it, but I didn’t see it. I wasn’t fond of the idea of revisiting the moose to fetch it. Had I realized how difficult it was going to be to hike out of the woods without snowshoes, I probably would have risked going back. I abandoned the remaining snowshoe because it wasn’t doing me any good.
[...]
Many times I had to crawl across the snow to make headway, pausing often, exhausted, wet and freezing, wondering why I had left my house without my cell phone that morning. I knew I was getting hypothermic because I was trying to tell the dogs that had now rejoined me to “just go home!” afraid that they would freeze. I heard myself slurring words. My feet and lower legs felt like slabs of meat fresh out of the freezer, but I didn’t dare pause to look closely. I just wanted to get myself to the safety of home, then worry about frostbite.
[...]

Read full article and see photo on the Bangor Daily News site:
Source: http://new.bangordailynews.com/2011/02/18/outdoors/orland-woman-run-over-by-moose/

BOOM! Timing is everything!

2011-02-10T10:58:00.000-05:00

Portland Daily Sun's Bob Higgins points out the timing of Maine Legislature's unexpected attempts to re-legalize fireworks in the Pine Tree State looks almost as though they were trying to shoot themselves in the foot. Why else would they time the debate to occur during Portland Firefighters Children’s Burn Foundation “Burn Awareness Week”?

Yep.

If properly used under adult supervision, fireworks are no more dangerous than sparklers. But everybody forgets that last part about adult supervision. Adults have a hard enough time supervising themselves in this state, evidence being on the weekly police blotter. Let’s not add to the number of folks nicknamed “Lefty.”

Read the full run-down here:
http://portlanddailysun.me/opinion/story/burn-notice-fireworks-issue-timing

Photo by Michelle Souliere. July 4th, 2007, fireworks on the Eastern Prom in Portland, ME.

Nominate for Best Blog?

2011-02-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

If any of you feel inclined, I would be tremendously happy if you nominated the Strange Maine blog to be part of the annual contest for the Portland Phoenix's Best of Portland 2011 candidates!

Go here: http://thephoenix.com/thebest/portland/vote/

To complete your vote, make sure you click on the "FINISHED" button to submit your vote! You'll know you're official when you get to the page where they ask for your email before clicking the last button.

Many thanks, all! We didn't win last year, but I'd like to give it a try again this year! :)

Ghost Hunters at Fort Knox in Bucksport

2011-02-08T12:09:00.001-05:00

Some of you may remember rumors from about a year ago that the television show Ghost Hunters was interested in paying a visit to Fort Knox, located across the Penobscot River from Bucksport, Maine. Now, seen on Fenceviewer and elsewhere, the confirmation of the soon-to-be visit of Ghost Hunters to Maine's own Fort Knox is official!

Some of you may remember the write-up I did a couple of years ago after my first visit to the Fort during their annual Paranormal and Psychic Faire: http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2009/09/not-your-normal-fort.html The episode will definitely be worth watching!

“Ghost Hunters” to Visit Fort Knox
Tuesday, February 01, 2011 at 4:10 pm

PROSPECT — SyFy television network’s “Ghost Hunters” program will film an episode of the popular series this month at Fort Knox.

A video crew will spend six days at the fort looking for evidence of “ectoplasmic apparitions,” according to a press release from the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands.
[...]
“The fort has the feel of a big, medieval dungeon, so it’s really natural for people to wonder if it’s haunted,” Desjardin said.

The park historian said there are no official reports of hauntings at Fort Knox, and only one soldier on record died while at the fort.

The fort’s barracks were not located in the fort, but in an unspecified wooden structure located somewhere on the fort property, Desjardin said. In 1866, an artilleryman, a new recruit that spoke only German, died of disease while stationed there.

“He was buried at the fort, but we don’t know where,” Desjardin continued. “No one knows where the burial ground is. It was never fenced off — and he’s the only occupant.”

Desjardin said he will give the video crew a tour of the fort, help with setting up and do a historical interview. The crew is expected to do two nights of investigation, the park historian said.

“We hope the crew will be prepared for winter nights on the Maine coast,” Desjardin said.

Leon Seymour, executive director of the Friends of Fort Knox, will serve as “the client” who points out where visitors have had unusual experiences.

For more information about “Ghost Hunters,” visit http://www.syfy.com/gh/.

Source: http://fenceviewer.com/site/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=58445:%E2%80%9CGhost%20Hunters%E2%80%9D%20to%20Visit%20Fort%20Knox&catid=1:latest-news

EVENT: Stephen King story in Belfast

2011-02-07T12:48:00.000-05:00

From the Waldo Village Soup!

WHAT: Åarhus Gallery's as if stories, an ongoing series of readings of short stories by Maine writers performed by Maine actors, present "The Reach," a lyrical winter ghost story by Stephen King
WHEN: Sunday, Feb. 13 at 3 p.m.
WHERE: Åarhus Gallery, 50 Main St., Belfast ME
FMI: (207)338-0001 aarhusgallery[at]gmail.com

“The Reach” will be performed by Helen York and Bonnie VersbenCoeur, with musical accompaniment by Doug Ludwig. Suggested donation is $10.

The mission of as if stories is to showcase the work of Maine writers — the known, the lesser known, and the great unknown — by bringing their stories to life in live readings by Maine actors. Everyone is invited to join the growing and enthusiastic audience for this lively and compelling afternoon of story, music, art and conversation. Light refreshments will be served.

"The Reach" was first published in Yankee in 1981 under the title "Do the Dead Sing?", it was later collected in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. [Source]

Another UFO in Vassalboro?

2011-02-06T16:50:00.000-05:00

Back in 2007, we posted a possible UFO sighting from Vassalboro that had appeared in the Kennebec Journal. This past week, I received an email from a reader who saw something herself, and was wondering if anyone else had any insight into the event (the "something like this" refers to the prior Vassalboro report):

I did and have seen something like this several times. I was at my mothers yesterday [Feb 4, 2011], in Vassalboro, Maine. It was around 3:10 pm and I was taking the dog out.

I saw an extremely large, sort of oval shaped object in the sky, it was not very high up or far away. It was super bright!!! Silver and light like a window (maybe) towards the upper part. It dissapeared within seconds. It was not a jet or plane. There were no clouds around it and no lines left behind as there are with jets.

I would like to know if anyone else saw it?

The National UFO Reporting Center site (NUFORC) lists multiple sightings in Vassalboro, ME, both recent and from the 1960s (you can click on links for additional details for each reported incident):

6/1/60 20:00 Oval, + multi experiences with unknown.
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/056/S56732.html

7/3/63 21:00 East Vassalboro, Black triangle with central orange light moving slowly across sky.
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/054/S54777.html

6/28/65 Disk, round about 300" in diameter, silver with windows, no sound
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/014/S14460.html

3/9/00 19:45 Saw bright crescent shape light through curtains; pulled back to reveal crescent with very bright beacon or headlight hovering over trees
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/012/S12404.html

8/28/01 21:00 Streaking fireball over central Maine
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/019/S19331.html

12/4/09 04:50 Circular light/orange craft out running a pursuing military helicopter
http://www.nuforc.org/webreports/073/S73584.html

Velocipedic experiments in Gorham

2011-02-04T16:02:00.009-05:00

In reading through Hugh McLellan's History of Gorham (1903) I found a tidbit about the venturesome attempts of some local citizens to find out what those there new-fangled velocipedes were all about. It sounds like they created a monster! I can only imagine what it looked like.

About the year 1820 an attempt was made to manufacture a velocipede in Gorham. The idea was suggested by a rough woodcut in an English magazine which had come into the possession of some one in the village.

A number of men subscribed small sums toward defraying the expense, and Mason Frost and George Hight undertook its construction; their only guide being the picture and its description in the book. The machine was built in the shop afterwards owned by Capt. Bailey, and which at that time stood close to the street, but was moved back about 1840 to its present location in Alfred Bailey's yard. Mason Frost, who was a carriage maker, got out the frame and wheels, while George Hight undertook the iron work.

The machine consisted of a stout piece of white oak, supported at each end by a sturdy oak wheel. The rider sat astride of this backbone, and propelled the vehicle by striking his toes against the ground. There were no pedals or other machinery to it. It was steered by an iron bridle, attached to the forward wheel; and, as represented, was able to go up hill as fast as an active man could walk, while it could spped down a moderate slope at the rate of about ten miles an hour, and on level ground nearly as fast.

At last the thing was completed, and a trial was made of it in the presence of a throng of interested spectators, but no one could do much with it, excepting to amuse the crowd. At this time there was no saddle or seat on it, but one was afterwards added. Frost was the only one able to make any headway at all on level ground, and he but little, while as to riding up hill, it was no go. The velocipede was finally stowed away in some corner, and the experiment abandoned.

The mad moose of Lewiston

2011-02-02T15:59:00.000-05:00

Here's another piece of urban legend or folklore, depending on your preference for terminology.

Back in the mid-1980s, a friend of mine grew up in Lewiston, Maine. Her family lived on a sideroad off of Grove Street. Not too far away was a sandpit which was accessed via trails that ran past a marshy wildland that ran in back of the neighborhood.

Among the local kids who used to hang out in the sandpit, riding their bikes and so on, there was a story that circulated -- the Legend of the Brainless Moose!

Legend had it that the moose had a parasitic worm that entered its head through its ear and ate away at its brains over the years. The result was a crazed, rampaging moose with only half a brain left! If you heard rustling in the undergrowth, you knew the moose was coming, and you got out of there fast!

Lewiston is no stranger to rampaging and roaming moose, with or without brainworms, according to other friends who grew up in the area. I'm sure other groups of kids in the area had their own tales, but it'll be hard to top this one!

St. Barnabas and its legends

2011-02-01T15:00:00.001-05:00

I was recently sent a note from a reader who as a child had played in and around some foundation ruins at the corner of Norwood and Woodford Streets in Portland. Among his friends, legend had it that the foundation was the remains of the old St Barnabas Hospital or possibly an animal infirmary, and the 3- to 4- foot steel chute that transected it was used to dump bodies to the morgue. There were plenty of rumors that there were "forgotten" basements and sub-basements in the area with all types of hospital oddities in them.

While there is not a whole lot of info about St. Barnabas available upon a cursory search, between the web and the Portland Public Library I did find a few things.

The hospital, known alternately as "Saint Barnabas" and "Dr. Cousins' Private Hospital," was founded by Dr. William Lewis Cousins in 1904, opening its doors at 231 Woodfords Street to patients on July 21, 1905. Photos of the reception rooms and grounds bespeak a gracious impression, though no photos of patient facilities are shown. The hospital boasted a terraced lawn, a broad, glass-enclosed sun parlor, an elevator, and refrigerator ice gleaned exclusively from Sebago Lake.

To give you an idea of what type of hospital it was, here is a description of St. Barnabas' from an ad in the Journal of the Maine Medical Association, Vol X, No. 1, Aug. 1919, pg ii. The facility's expertise focused on ailments that required surgery, attended to in their state-of-the-art operating rooms on the 3rd floor, but cases with purely medical treatment options were accepted as well. 30 student nurses resided in a dormitory adjacent to the hospital.

DR. COUSINS' PRIVATE HOSPITAL
SAINT BARNABAS

A private institution for the care and treatment of all Surgical Diseases

Thoroughly modern in every respect, steam heating, vacuum cleaning, electric lighting and electric elevator, most modern fire protection including private alarm box, extinguishers in each room, corridors fitted with hose and water mains, and fire escapes surrounding the building. Abundance of private baths, latest and most approved operating room and laboratory facilities.

Complete X-Ray Outfit. Special attention given to diseases of the gastro-intestinal tract.

ACCOMMODATIONS FOR FIFTY -- Rates given upon application.

EXTRAS—Patients' private laundry, drugs, laboratory fees, operating room and special nurse. This latter is $2.50 per day.

SAINT BARNABAS HOSPITAL TRAINING SCHOOL FOR NURSES

Course of training extends over a period of three years, embracing instruction in both medical and surgical nursing including special branches. A maternity department offers valuable training in this important line of work. Nursing in private cases which forms such a very large portion of the work will be found of especial value as representing the class of practice encountered after graduation. Applicants must present satisfactory evidence of good health, morals and a degree of education equivalent to a four years' high school course or certificates from normal schools, academies and institutions of like standing.

SAINT BARNABAS HOSPITAL REGISTRY for GRADUATE NURSES
is run in connection with the Training School for the assistance of physicians employing graduate nurses.

For information, write or telephone

Supt. Saint Barnabas Hospital

231 Woodford St., - Portland, Me.

TELEPHONE NUMBER 82440

So far as the foundation remembered by the reader goes, "The heating plant and boiler room is in a separate building a short distance from the Hospital. The garage, laundry, and engineer's rooms are also in this building, in addition to accommodations for the help." This location matched with his recollections of the location of the foundation.

[Source: Report of Work Done at Saint Barnabas Hospital from July 21, 1905 to January 1, 1914 (George D. Loring, Printer, 1914)]

Based on that information, we are guessing that the chute was for coal or other heating fuel. The stories of forgotten basements with hospital oddities in them is entirely likely-- according to the same report, "In the basement, which can be entered from a side street [Norwood???], is a well-equipped laboratory, and the storerooms."

Since the hospital seems to have specialized in surgical procedures, who knows...?

Among the available St. Barnabas info, I found a listing of the hospital rules. Some of them (especially #3!) seem so common sense you'd hope they wouldn't need to be told to folks, but I guess then as now people don't think clearly about how their actions affect those around them!

1. Do not deface walls or furniture, sit on sides of beds, talk in loud tones in wards or halls.

2. Relatives are allowed to see patients daily when the patients are convalescent.

3. Refuse of any kind must not be thrown into bath tubs or water closets, nor out of the windows, but will be placed in a proper receptacle and removed by a nurse.

4. Patients are not allowed access to the wards or private rooms unless by special permission, nor are they allowed to leave the premises without permission of the physician in charge.

5. Patients are required to bring sufficient clothing in order to make frequent changes. All laundry work must be done outside of hospital at the expense of patient.

6. Patients should not question nurses regarding ailments of other patients. Nurses are cautioned against answering such questions.

2010 Maine Crime round-up

2011-01-13T21:49:00.000-05:00

Fans of weird crime coverage will be pleased to find that the Maine Edge has done a bang-up job of compiling the cream of the crop from 2010's Maine crime blotters for our enjoyment. My favorite?

Catfight? Not exactly

OLD TOWN - Police responded to a 911 hang-up call that turned out to be quite innocuous.

On Feb. 17, around 8:30 a.m., dispatch received a hang-up call that also sounded like someone struggling. When the officer arrived at the address, he saw a woman talking on the cell phone. She was speaking with another officer on the phone and police learned that she had called dispatch in order to contact the fire department because three cats were stuck in a tree. While she was on the phone, one of the felines jumped on her head, causing her to drop the phone.

Source: http://www.themaineedge.com/content/19610/2010_Crimees/

Portland Citywide Snowball Fight!

2011-01-12T09:50:00.000-05:00

SNOWBALL FIGHT!!! Whoever has the day off or gets sent home early because of the snow, meet at the bridge in Deering Oaks Park at 3:00PM. If you have goggles, wear them. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS! Dress Warm!!!! If you can make it, or if you can't make it, please repost this, let's see how many people we can get!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=170836926293080

And while you're at it, someone should bring a big kettle of hot chocolate!!!

Ragged Isle makes a splash

2011-01-11T09:23:00.001-05:00

A couple of weeks ago the Press Herald published a pretty great teaser of an article by Dennis Perkins for a new Maine supernatural mystery show, Ragged Isle. The cool thing? It's completely homegrown, being put together by two very talented locals Barry and Karen Dodd.

The long-gestating brainchild of Mainers Barry and Karen Dodd, "Ragged Isle" is a Web series about a young woman who accepts a job as photographer for the titular island's lone newspaper and finds, amongst Ragged Isle's small and secretive population and isolated yet beautiful scenery, that things are not what they seem.

While decidedly not an amateur (he's been working in local broadcast TV for 17 years) Barry Dodd has certainly embodied the DIY spirit in bringing "Ragged Isle" to life. Originally conceived as a "Dark Shadows"-style soap opera for a contest for Soap Net, some years ago, "Ragged Isle" lay fallow for years. But, you might say, it continued to haunt Dodd, until last year, when he gathered everyone together again, brought in new talent and added elements of series like "Twin Peaks" and "The X Files."
Source: http://www.pressherald.com/life/go/ragged-isle-web-series-blends-beauty-with-spooky_2010-12-23.html

Sounds good to me.
For more info, and to stay updated, check out the website at http://www.raggedisle.com/, and treat yourself to a look at the very slick trailer for the series, below. It's all we have to tide us over until a projected February release for the first episode's final edit! I suspect you'll find yourself wanting more, as soon as possible.

Ragged Isle Season One Trailer from Barry Dodd on Vimeo.

Rent-a-haunt

2011-01-07T21:18:00.001-05:00

I ran across a listing for a vacation rental located in China, Maine. Interestingly enough, under the amenities is listed "paranormal activity." That's a new one on me!

Under "Other Activities," the listing goes into more detail:

The Old Maine Farmhouse is nearly 300 years old and it is not unusual to experience paranormal activity. Doors that open and close by themselves, footsteps in the attic, lights coming on or turning off, the television changing channels...scents and fragrances......are all things we have come to consider 'normal' for the Old Maine Farm. If you are bothered by this kind of unexplainable phenomonon [sic] we suggest you book the cabin. It has over 2200 sq feet of contemporary living space. It was built 5 years ago and doesn't yet have the rich history or the 'aura' of a building that has been around for nearly three centuries.

Well, even if it is all a ploy to get you to rent from them, it does look like a pleasant place to stay if the photos are any indication.

Here's the site listing the house as a rental: http://www.vrbo.com/335986

Cold ghosts of Bethel

2010-12-14T22:21:00.001-05:00

The Boston Globe did a neat article about Bethel's haunted history on Halloween.

Maine town appears quieter than its ‘spirits’
By William A. Davis, Globe Correspondent
October 31, 2010

BETHEL, Maine — Centuries ago it was widely believed that Halloween, the evening before the Feast of All Saints, was the one time in the year when spirits of the dead freely roamed the earth. There are still people who believe in ghosts and some who think there are places where numbers of these restless spirits are present all the time.

One such reputed haunt haven is Bethel, an old resort town of some 2,400 year-round residents on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. “I think we have a dozen ghosts here, maybe more," says Stanley Howe, research director of the Bethel Historical Society.
[...]
At The Oaks, now part of the Bethel Inn but built in the 1890s and once used as a clinic dormitory, there have been sightings of a mysterious woman in black along with sounds of high heels where no one could be seen.
[...]
The Chapman Inn, which like the Bethel Inn looks out on the common, is said to have at least one but possibly two resident ghosts. One is suspected of being the daughter of the building’s original owner, a girl named Abigail Chapman, who died in her teens in the house after a long illness; and the other a woman who had been her paid companion.

“We kept hearing from guests about strange things such as the sound of women’s voices coming from empty rooms, a mysterious black cat, and a girl in a white dress who disappeared,’’ says Fred Nolte, who runs the inn with his wife, Sandra Frye.
[...]

Read full article, including info about visiting the sites, here:
http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/maine/articles/2010/10/31/maine_town_appears_quieter_than_its_spirits/

graphite from the Colonies !

2010-12-14T16:35:00.008-05:00

As early as 1630, when the region known as Massachusetts Bay Colony would have also been the address for a contiguous southern Mainer, colonial explorers searched the area for resources that were of especial value in London markets. None less than Governor John Winthrop's son- also named John- began a graphite trade with the Nipmuc. The native Nipmuc mined graphite from the hills in Tantiusques (near today's Southbridge, Massachusetts) to produce ceremonial paints. Winthrop used the mine to supply English pencil manufacturing. The Tantiusques graphite mine is among the oldest mines in America, and its fame is also connected to Captain Joseph Dixon who worked in the mine and built up a crucible-making business and the famous Dixon Ticonderoga pencil company. The mine was closed in 1910.

Today, the mine site looks like this:

In 1901, George H. Haynes wrote:

The mine is situated in the midst of a tract of land, still wild and desolate.

StrangeMaine readers might know that Henry David Thoreau's family business was a pencil factory. Thoreau pencils were made in the Tantiusques region- and were used atop Mount Katahdin by Charles T. Jackson for the early geological surveys of Maine.

Read the whole story about this ancient mine here.

Ghost Trackers on track for TV?

2010-12-12T10:01:00.032-05:00

Back at the end of October, the Maine ghost hunting team called East Coast Ghost Trackers announced a screening of a pilot episode of their nocturnal adventures, which they hope to find a home for on the airwaves.

WABI TV-5 in Bangor reported on the story, interviewing Ken Ort, founder and lead investigator of the group. You can read their article and see a video clip of the interview on their website here:
http://www.wabi.tv/news/15271/east-coast-ghost-hunters-hosts-screening-of-television-pilot

A preview for the team's proposed show can be found here:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1393827300379&ref=mf (I suggest watching the regular quality video, as the HD one tends to misfeed if your access is at all slow.)

You may recall hearing about the Ghost Trackers in conjunction with paranormal reports from Fort Knox, near Bucksport, when during their investigation they believe they encountered a manifestation of the spirit of Leopold Heghyi, who was stationed at the fort and was buried nearby.

Cougar: "Ghost of the Maine woods"

2010-12-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

The Bangor Daily News has published an excellent and extensive article about cougar sightings in Maine.

Despite hundreds of sightings, cougar’s status remains in doubt
12/3/10 04:50 pm Updated: 12/5/10 06:57 am
By Kevin Miller, BDN Staff

Roddy Glover said he will never forget the day a decade ago he came face to face with the fabled ghost of the Maine woods, a predator that according to virtually all scientific accounts no longer existed in New England.

It was mid-September 2000 and Glover, then 39, was scouting out some easily accessible spots along railroad tracks in Monmouth where, with an injured foot, he could more easily bowhunt for deer.

Standing on an embankment above the tracks, Glover saw a large, tawny-colored animal strolling toward him in the mud beside the railroad ties, he said.

“I thought, ‘That looks weird. It doesn’t look familiar,’” Glover, a lifelong hunter as well as a taxidermist, recalled recently. “It was friggin’ huge.”

But when the animal turned sideways, revealing its characteristically long tail, Glover said he realized with a shock what was headed his way: a mother mountain lion with its good-sized offspring in tow.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” he said. “I just laid down … because I couldn’t run because of my foot. They started coming closer and closer, and they got within 50 yards of me when they turned and went into the woods.”

A biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife later would say in media reports that the tracks he documented at the scene were “the most solid piece of cougar evidence we’ve ever had.”

In the decade since, DIF&W has received scores of reports — and even some grainy photos — from people throughout Maine convinced they spotted a mountain lion crossing a road, stalking prey in a field or lounging in the sunny backyard like a gigantic house cat.

Reports of mountain lions — including one sighting near Greenville last month — have come in from all around the state in recent years. But officially at least, self-sustaining populations of wild cougars or mountain lions exist only in Maine’s history books.

[...]

Read full Bangor Daily News article here (this excerpt is only the tip of the iceberg!):
http://tinyurl.com/2b2zfah

Victoria Mansion in holiday best

2010-11-29T12:48:00.001-05:00

The Victoria Mansion is one of the historic prides of Portland, Maine. Nearly missing this role when it came close to being demolished in 1940, the Mansion survived due to the foresight of a local patron who purchased the big old beautiful beast of a house and ensured it would be available as a museum of Portland past for those to come. Built between 1858 and 1860, the house made headlines at the time as all sorts of lavish fixtures and materials were shipped through Portland's harbor to arrive on its newly constructed doorstep, making the home a showplace of appropriately preposterous Victorian fashion.

Today, the Victoria Mansion allows visitors to step back in time and get a sense of the atmosphere in which Portland's more privileged citizens lived their daily at-home lives. As such, it has the feeling of a fantasy world, and never more so than during this time of year, when local designers enter the rooms and work Christmas magic on their surroundings, until the Mansion in its entirety is a fabulous concoction of effervescent Yuletide cheer. Each year a theme is selected, and the many rooms are decorated to suit. This year's theme? The Twelve Days of Christmas.

Having had a chance to visit the newly-bedecked Victoria Mansion during their holiday press reception this past week, and meet the museum's enthusiastic new director, Thomas Johnson, I feel it my duty to tantalize you but not give away all the lovely treats in store for you at that venerable location. Below the photos I took, you will find all the details of upcoming holiday events (including the gala on 12/2) and tours at the Victoria Mansion. Why let the tourists have all the fun? Enjoy! If you click on any of the images you can see a larger version for more detail.

INFO:
Victoria Mansion Holiday Gala
Thursday, December 2, 2010
6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Don't miss the Mansion's most elegant and spectacular event of the the year. Get an early look at two floors of period rooms transformed by local designers with dazzling decorations inspired by this year's theme: The Twelve Days of Christmas. Fabulous food and drink provided. Tickets are $50/person, all proceeds to benefit the restoration and operation of Victoria Mansion. Please call (207) 772-4841 ext.. 10 for reservations.

Christmas at Victoria Mansion
Friday, November 26, 2010 - Saturday, January 8, 2011
Open daily 11:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Closed Christmas Day and New Year's Day

Each holiday season, local designers showcase their talents by transforming the Mansion's interiors with extravagant decorations. This year, the Mansion will be decorated to reflect the stanzas of the much-beloved Christmas carol The Twelve Days of Christmas. This not-to-be-missed event is now in its 26th year!

Adults $15; AAA/Senior $13.50; Members $7; Children (6-17) $5; Children under 6 free; Family ticket $35

EVENT: Maine horror double feature Monday!

2010-11-21T17:17:00.000-05:00

WHAT: Screening of locally made horror films: Award-winning SHE FEAST (15 minutes), feature film THE WRONG HOUSE (82 minutes) and trailer premieres for THE STALKER and JUBILEE JONES.
WHEN: Monday, Nov. 22, 9:00 p.m. (doors open at 8:00)
WHERE: Geno’s Rock Club, 625 Congress St. Portland, ME
COST: $5 suggested donation. SHOW IS 21+
FMI: Call the Fun Box Monster Emporium at (207)329-5395 or visit the Facebook event page at www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=156896187676741

Sunday night at The Orpheum in Foxboro, MA, the Maine-made short film SHE FEAST took top honors at the international Killer Film Challenge. The challenge assigns groups of filmmakers a horror sub-genre and gives them 72 hours to create and submit a completed short horror film.

The Maine Murder Party were assigned the splatter genre and created the bloody short film SHE FEAST, directed by Nate LaChance and starring Carrie LaChance, Krystal Kenville and Vanessa Leigh.

Three days after cleaning up at the Killer Film Challenge, SHE FEAST struck again, winning BEST PRODUCTION at the Portland Phoenix 5th Annual Short Film Festival.

Monday night (Nov. 22) at 9 p.m. at Geno’s in Portland, Mainers will have a chance to catch the extended cut of SHE FEAST, along with a special screening of the Maine-made horror thriller THE WRONG HOUSE. Also premiering are the trailers for locally made feature films THE STALKER (director Nate LaChance) and JUBILEE JONES (director Teymur Lazimov).

THE WRONG HOUSE was inspired by a break-in at the home of director Shawn French and his wife (and co-producer) Sue Stevens. It stars Stacy Ann Strang, Brendan Potter, Daniel Galloway, Megan Mathieu and Julian Brand as a group of friends camping in the Maine wilderness who burglarize an isolated home in the woods. When the owners track them down, the thieves learn too late there are some people you just shouldn’t mess with… and that they picked THE WRONG HOUSE.

THE WRONG HOUSE is one of the best-reviewed independent horror films to ever come out of Maine, racking up raves from critics in over a dozen states and three countries. It was an official selection at the Queen City Scare Fair in Meridian, MS and will be represented at this weekend’s Dark Carnival Film Fest in Bloomington, IN.

Currently self-distributed on DVD through Amazon and all Bull Moose locations, THE WRONG HOUSE has been picked up for international distribution by Elite Entertainment and an Elite DVD/Blu-ray edition loaded with over an hour of special features will be on store shelves later this winter.

“We’re psyched to be screening THE WRONG HOUSE again in our home state,” said writer/director Shawn French. “So many people have had their homes or cars robbed and Mainers are really enjoying our twisted little tale of revenge.”

www.thewronghousemovie.com
www.facebook.com/pages/The-Wrong-House/281901606309

Lobstering in November

2010-11-20T18:27:00.000-05:00

I figured since I'm writing about Maine and its history I really should know what a working boat is like, so I seized the opportunity to go out with my friend Brian on Capt. Tom Marr's boat, the Blue Dolphin II, this past Monday. I'll be writing up an article on it soon, but meanwhile the photos are up and ready for viewing if anyone is curious!

It was a grey day, but not too cold. We hit the water around 6:00am and finished up around 3:00pm.

Here's the link to my Flickr album with all the photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkbrilliance/sets/72157625431852808/with/5192799096/

The City Has Ghost Streets : Part 4 - Winslow Park & Oakdale

2010-11-02T09:22:00.002-04:00

Above Oakdale, facing downtown Portland, circa 1963.

Beneath today’s roadways, walkways, and structures are some extinct lanes and sites of Portland past, whose references are merely their ground coordinates. These comprise the city’s Ghost Streets. Though replaced, plowed under, or built-over, the souls of these Ghost Streets, institutions- even parks- bear silent witness to the lives and souls that inhabited and traversed them, and we need but only notice traces left behind. What clues remain today? This installment reveals glimpses of an area and a well-known crossroads in Portland’s Oakdale section. There has been a lengthy hiatus since the previous time Ghost Streets have been spirited from the great beneath here on the Strange Maine blog. This time, extensive archival work has permitted for the viewing of some remarkable aerial photographs, providing necessary context for an area that has undergone dramatic change.

Indeed, no street is an island. A look at a length of buildings along a thoroughfare easily connects to intersecting roads and proximate landmarks and businesses. Oakdale today is commonly associated with the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine; the neighborhood extends north toward the Woodfords neighborhood, west toward the eastern portion of the Libbytown neighborhood, and east to Back Cove.

Prior to major highway construction in the early 1970s, the section of Oakdale closest to downtown Portland had been densely residential. West of the intersection of Forest Avenue and Bedford Street, now covered by I-295 with its network of curved ramps, along with contiguous portions of the USM campus, were Winslow Street, Conant Street, and Lightfoot Street. At the confluence of Winslow Street and Forest Avenue was the original Winslow Park. The streets are gone, but the park has transmigrated to another side of the neighborhood. How does a park move to new digs? We shall see...

When studying transition through historic photographs, we find our bearings via recognizable structures and street schemes. At the center of the changed landscape among these Oakdale ghost streets is the present day USM Portland Campus Library at 314 Forest Avenue. The basic structure had been built as an industrial baking company, the T.A. Huston Company bakery, by Thomas Huston in 1919. For its time and place this was a large structure, and was strategically situated close to the Boston & Maine Railroad tracks connecting Portland’s Marginal Way to points north and south. The bakery’s specialties were pastries, cookies, crackers, and biscuits. In 1931 it was bought out by National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), who operated the manufacture until 1954. From the mid-1950s through just after 1990, the 100,000 square foot, 7 floor building served as warehouse space for building and plumbing suppliers (including Johnson Supply), a shoe company, and in the late-1980s as artists’ studio spaces. In 1991, the building was purchased by USM, which opened the renovated building as a library in 1993. With this reference point standing witness through its neighbors’ changes, the unfamiliar subjects in the photographs have an abiding fulcrum.

Aerial view of Forest Avenue, with intersecting Baxter Boulevard, circa 1960.
Note Winslow Park at lower left corner, Texaco gas station (253 Forest Ave.) immediately across the street, with 5-storey cannery behind (lower right). The photo below was taken in Winslow Park!

Below, the same view as above, from same vantage point, but taken today.

Winslow Park, in its original site, appears to have been a simple memorial and green space between the pre-highway (and thus larger) Deering Oaks and nearby Baxter Boulevard. The small park’s location and name had great significance. Just across Forest Avenue was Portland Stoneware Company (Winslow & Company), popularly known as the Old Pottery. Before the landfilling and highway construction in the late-1960s began, 253 Forest Avenue and its adjacent neighbors were commercial locations with industrial docks on Back Cove. The Cove was regularly dredged, to accommodate ships parallel to Marginal Way- west to Forest Avenue. According to the Portland City Guide (1940), Portland Stoneware had been established in 1846 by John T. Winslow (1820-96), and “for many years produced crocks, jars, and ornamental stoneware. In 1870, however, the pottery started mass production of more utilitarian objects and today [as of 1940] produces digester brick, tile pipe, wind guards, flue linings, and chimney tops.” The Old Pottery closed in 1946, and the successor to its address was the large Maine Canned Foods, Inc. Winslow Park’s original manifestation dates back to 1903, as a bequest to the city of Portland and one of the Portland Park System’s first neighborhood parks. The park covered barely two-tenths of an acre, on the triangle formed by the sharply-angled Winslow Street and the broader Forest Avenue. The continuation of Winslow Street, traversing east across Forest Avenue and heading into Portland Stoneware was the now-ghost-street Pottery Lane. The Old Pottery and Winslow Park pre-dated the bakery building. A critically important year to keep in mind is that of the Great Fire: 1866, after which many Portlanders began building homes and businesses (requiring building materials) in the Woodfords and Oakdale areas. Another key year is 1899: the merger of the cities of Deering and Portland.

Streets, Winslow Park, and Deering Oaks in 1914.

Now we come to the ghost streets that were filled with 19th century homes- just west of the intersection of Bedford Street and Forest Avenue. As the photographs (taken in 1924) attest, the architectural styles of the homes (Victorian and Greek-revival clapboard) match the immediate area- which is south of Deering Center and Woodfords, east of Libbytown. Winslow Street spanned Bedford Street and Forest Avenue, running southwest-northeast. Emanating eastward out of Winslow Street, from north, were Lightfoot, Conant, and Grand Streets. These short streets were flanked west by Winslow Street and east by the railroad tracks which became the basic footprint for highway I-295.

15 Lightfoot Street. Notice the bakery (today's USM Portland Library at left!)

22 Lightfoot Street

2 houses on Conant Street (above)

Winslow Market, 10 Winslow Street- near Forest Avenue.

27 Winslow Street.

Below: Mr. Rocco Nicolai, at 27 Winslow Street, in 1967.

58 Winslow Street

By the completion of highway I-295 (November 1974), a massive project with city-wide ramifications, a swath of elevated expressway effectively separated Oakdale from Parkside and the remainder of downtown Portland. Parallel road-construction projects included Franklin Arterial, extending Preble Street onto the landfilled Marginal Way, extending State Street through Deering Oaks Park, and creating the Libbytown interchange at Libby’s Corner. Numerous homes and several neighborhoods gave way to the new highway connectors. Among the casualties was Winslow Park, whose site had been taken by eminent domain in 1969. Today, the western portion of the I-295 southbound trestle stands over the park, and the southbound Forest Avenue onramp traverses the ghost of Winslow Street.

Above: Map from 1954.
Below: Forest City Motors, with bakery in background. Bedford Street at left, Winslow Street at right.

Below: today's view, compared to above in 1950.

Exponentially expanded in the past 25 years, the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine occupies much of the area immediately northwest of the intersection of Forest Avenue and Bedford Street. The Muskie School of Public Service (Wishcamper Building, opened in 2008) and its adjoining parking garage, and adjoining Abromson Community Education Center (built in 2004) stand upon the ghost streets of Winslow, Lightfoot, Conant, and Grand. Wishcamper is immediately upon the footprint of the corner of Winslow and Bedford Streets- for decades the site of Forest City Chevrolet. The core of the campus (between Beford and Falmouth Streets) is historic land in itself, having been part of Sir Ferdinand Gorges’ land grant, and later the Deering family estate. Payson-Smith Hall’s construction, begun in 1957, signified Portland Junior College’s transition into the University of Maine in Portland.

Below: Aerial view with Portland campus at center with new Luther Bonney Hall, circa 1965.

Above: Footprint of the original Winslow Park.

And yet there remains Winslow Park- the “new” Winslow Park. Through the early 1970s, the Winslow descendants successfully contested the elimination of the park and its memorial in Maine’s Supreme Court. The Court’s decision, in 1976, stipulated that the original plaque (from Winslow Street) be embedded in a stone upon a parcel of land at the corner of Baxter Boulevard and the Preble Street Extension. The New Winslow Park was dedicated on June 6, 1980. Visitors to the new park will notice the large 1902 plaque near a tall, modern sculpture. The present Winslow Park is situated at the edge of the expanse of 1970s roadway landfill- yet still just a short walk northeast from the Old Pottery.

The new Winslow Park
Above, with Back Cove in background. Note the 1902 plaque.
Below, with USM Library and Forest Avenue in background.

Now, with these reference points, landmarks, and coordinates, the known and overt are joined with the subsumed and hidden. As you merge from Forest Avenue onto I-295 south, or exit from I-295 for northbound Forest Avenue, you’ll know the path crosses through the Old Pottery that produced household ornaments and sewer ducts alike. Hurtling across the Forest Avenue overpass, your wheels bisect the airspace of the old Cannery that succeeded the Old Pottery in its place. And walking across the USM Portland campus that is south of Bedford Street, your steps meet the ghosts of sidewalks, houses, stores, and backyards past that trimmed Winslow, Lightfoot, Conant, and Grand Streets. So keep your eyes tuned, when noticing modern structures amidst old settlements. These indicate layers of built landscape. Your very being traverses the plains between the surface present and the foundations and footsteps of your predecessors. The City Has Ghost Streets.

Above, view toward downtown from USM Library.

Aerial view from east, above Back Cove. Notice the pre-I295 terrain, with the Cannery (former Portland Stoneware site) in foreground. Circa 1964.

Above: an inadvertent ghost street stroller, traversing the ether of Lightfoot Street. View from USM Library looking southwest.

EVENT: Waterboro paranormal site tours

2010-10-29T20:43:00.000-04:00

Some of you may remember a couple of years ago when one of the cases taken on by the Paranormal State television show was a Maine property, in Waterboro. Well, this Halloween in a rare event, they are opening up the house to the ghost-seeking public as a fund-raiser for the local Animal Welfare Society.

WHAT: "Pet Cemetery" house guided tours
WHEN: Friday 10/29 through Sunday 10/31, 5:00-9:00pm
WHERE: 1226 West Road, East Waterboro, ME
COST: $5 donation
FMI: (207)985-3244

Visitors are welcome to bring their own audio and video equipment to document their visit to the site.

If you are unable to visit but do want to make a donation to the Animal Welfare Society anyways, please consider visiting their website which provides information on how to do so at: http://www.animalwelfaresociety.org/spt_donate.php

Our original post about the house, from the time of the episode's first airing, is here: http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2008/01/pet-cemetery-haunting-on.html

EVENT: Shoestring Theater Halloween parade!

2010-10-27T16:52:00.002-04:00

How many times have you heard about this parade after the fact, and said, "Darn it, why didn't someone remind me to go?!!" Well, no excuses this year, 'cause I'm reminding you right now.

WHAT: Shoestring Theater's annual Halloween parade
WHEN: Sunday, October 31st @ 6:00 - Participant lineup starts @ 5:30
WHERE: meet at 155 Brackett Street, Portland ME

This annual parade is Portland's howling, dancing, and drumming reminder of what Halloween is. Everyone is invited, all ages are welcome. If you'd like to participate in the parade, either in your own costume, with your own instruments, or by using some of the Shoestring puppets and instruments that are available, please arrive at 5:30 so they can get everyone settled in time for departure at 6:00.

The parade leaves the Shoestring Theater's home at 155 Brackett Street, across from Reiche School, and winds its way through the shadows of the West End, bringing a little bit of Halloween brouhaha to everyone in its path. Come and have fun!

A video of part of 2007's parade:

Shilling Shockers in Maine

2010-10-27T14:06:00.001-04:00

Another Halloween treat I look forward to every year is Penny Dreadful's Shilling Shockers Halloween special! This year she has a great list of public access channels in Maine that will be showing her annual show.

I've linked to the stations' schedule pages to make it easy for you. In addition, most (including Portland's CTN-5) have online streaming episodes of the show available for anyone to watch from their home computers if you can't watch when/where their airing officially. Have fun!!!

Belfast: BCTV Channel 2 http://belfastcommunitytv.blogspot.com/

Gorham: GOCAT Channel 2 http://psg.gocat.org:50000/external_schedule/simple_day_schedule?id=3D%3C=channel%20#

Hollis, Buxton, Limerick, Limington, Standish, Waterboro:
SRC-TV channel 2 http://www.src-tv.org/schedule.html

Norway, Paris, Waterford:
NPC-TV Channel 11 http://npctv2.org/testimonials.html

Portland: CTN Channel 5
Check schedule or watch streaming Shilling Shockers episodes online here! http://ctn5.org/schedule/ctn-5

South Portland: SPC-TV Channel 2

Washington County (Eastport, Machias, Lubec and numerous smaller towns):
Washington County TV Channel 2 (sorry, no online schedule link that I could find)

EVENT: Radio Horror on Halloween!

2010-10-27T12:36:00.000-04:00

Longtime readers of the blog may remember in past years mention has been made of the excellent Halloween radio drama specials done by the local group at FinalRune Productions, featured at Radio Drama Revival's website. This year brings fresh fodder from their imaginations!!!

They've been running special spooky stuff all month, but on Halloween night the new masterpiece of modern sci-fi suspense known as The Cleansed is going to air for the first time. To see some great action photos of all the crazy location segments they recorded over the last little while in prep for the show, check out their website: http://www.finalrune.com/this-halloween-tune-into-the-cleansed/

It's going out at 7pm EST at WKIT in Bangor and then again 9pm on WMPG here in Portland. The story is one that has run through the minds of Americans a lot in the last few years...

Some time in the not so distant future, the world as we know it is starting to unravel. The United States is mired in unwinnable wars, gas is scarce and the transportation system grinds to a halt. Homegrown terrorists take out the electric grid. Food is strictly rationed and distributed by the military. As citizens grow increasingly angry with the government, martial law is called in to maintain peace.

And then things really start to get bad.

You can listen to the promo here: http://finalrune.com/mp3/cleansed-halloween-promo.mp3

And a 5 minute sample here: http://finalrune.com/mp3/cleansed-sample.mp3

This Halloween! Tune into THE CLEANSED

FinalRune's newest piece of work, the pilot episode of our new sci-fi serial The Cleansed, will be debuting on Sunday, October 31st - that's Halloween, my friends!

How to Hear:

* 7:00PM EST on WKIT 100.3 "The Rock" of Bangor - Stephen King's radio station! Hit "Listen Now" on http://zoneradio.com/wkit/index.shtml
* 7:00PM EST on Transcontinental Terror, the international audio festival featuring 6 hours of original horror programming for Halloween. Streams online: http://transcontinentalterror.com/
* 9:00PM EST on WMPG, Greater Portland Maine's Community Radio: http://wmpg.org/ Links to "Listen to WMPG" on the right
* Miss these dates? Stay tuned for a live stream to be embedded on the Radio Drama Revival site.

There will NOT be a free podcast version of this show due to licensing restrictions of music used in it. So be sure to tune in when you can!

Portland's latest mural

2010-10-23T11:14:00.000-04:00

Portland, which has a fair number of excellent murals past and present, is soon to be home to a new piece of art, executed on the side of Joe's Smoke Shop by Ryan Adams and Jeff Griecci. Griecci is friends with one of the employees of Joe's, and became aware of the trouble that has been caused by the constant need to remove graffiti from the sides of the building at 665 Congress Street. They prepped the wall at the end of the week, and this sunny Saturday morning they started to layout the draft for the mural's design.

Here the two painters consult a historic photo of the property, which sits next to the large Trelawny building, built in 1909. At the time of its construction, and as late as the photo shown (see detail below), the Trelawny Building housed the Portland Club's offices. We'll keep you updated on their progress!

Halloween 2010 events - Round III!

2010-10-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

Here are a few last additions to the roster for this year! And, in case you missed them, here are Round I and II as well:
Round I: http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-2010-events-round-1.html
Round II:
http://strangemaine.blogspot.com/2010/10/halloween-2010-events-round-ii.html
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October Moon Red Cloak Haunted History Event with The Maine Ghost Hunters Society
Saturday, October 23, 9:00 p.m.

The Maine Ghost Hunters Society joins The Lady in the Red Cloak at the Winter Street Center in Bath for a 4 hour paranormal investigation. You can join in, too, and learn all about the equipment, possibly have a chance to use some, and be involved with the investigative team as they demonstrate "ghost hunting." We'll explore every possible nook and cranny of this haunted site!

This full moon special event is by reservation only, $35.00 Please call FMI, 207-380-3806, www.redcloakhauntedhistorytours.com.

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WHAT: Dark and Stormy Night, the premiere Maine showing!
WHEN: Monday, October 25, 2010, 9:00pm showtime
WHERE: Geno's, 625 Congress Street, Portland
COST: $6 admission
FMI: (207)329-5385

Larry Blamire's epic old dark house meets locked room mystery spoof, "Dark and Stormy Night" will be premiering at Geno's with a guest appearance and Q&A with star, Robert Deveau. Did you love "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" and "The Lost Skeleton Returns Again"? This is by the same folks! Did you love the movie "Clue"? Alright, we're on the same page -- make sure to put this on your calendar!!! Besides, Robert Deveau is so charming how could you possibly miss a chance to meet him again?

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Mayo Street Arts Haunted House and Costume Ball
Saturday, October 31st, 2010
Haunted House 6:00-8:00pm...Live Music and Dancing 'til 10:00pm!

A haunted church on Mayo Street - two floors of hauntings and dancing, with tricks, treats, and performances! Live music features those spooky fellows, Hobgoblin, plus Blue Lobster Troupe and Violent Femmes Cover Band. (Super awesome poster too!!) $5 kids, $10 adults
FMI: http://mayostreetarts.org/

Ghostport 2010 - TOMORROW!

2010-10-22T20:05:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, October 23rd, the Town of Bucksport embraces the Halloween season with a day-long festival full of variety and fun -- Ghostport 2010! Visit http://www.bucksportchamber.org/ghostport.html for more info, a schedule, and contest information.

Activities include:
-- Kids costume parade
-- Brunch with witches
-- Chili Cook Off contest
-- Trebuchet pumpkin chucking into the Penobscot River
-- Jonathan Buck’s coffin race to the grave
-- Pumpkin carving contest
-- Evening Monster Mash Acoustic Bash concert
-- Friends of Fort Knox Fright at the Fort fireworks
-- Screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Alamo Theater
(see schedule below)

Across the river starting at 5:30 PM, Ghostport’s sister event, Fright at the Fort, opens for its second of four nights of scary fun (http://fortknox.maineguide.com/fright/).

This year's Ghostport Festival promises to be bigger then last year. The Event is Saturday the 23rd, with a full moon. Rain date Oct. 30th.

Several contests are featured during Ghostport, and perhaps the most unusual of the contests is the Jonathan Buck’s Race to the Grave coffin race. The coffin race is comprised of teams of four people, plus a coffin rider called a Jonathan, who speed the wheeled coffins down a designated racecourse. The race format is similar to a drag race. For race rules please view the PDF at http://www.bucksportchamber.org/ghostport/Race%20to%20the%20Grave.pdf

Another activity that is sure to cause some excitement is the Seaboard Credit Union’s Trebuchet (similar to a catapult) that will be erected on the Bucksport waterfront.

GHOSTPORT SCHEDULE
October, 23 2010 Schedule
Rain date October, 30 2010

10:00am – 4:00pm Wahl’s Dairy Port offers fall flavors

10:00am – 4:00pm “BOO”k Sale and Raffle
Help raise funds for Buck’s Memorial Library - Celebrating 123 Spooktacular years!

10:00am Little Goblins Parade - We meet at Town Office and march down Main St.

10:15am - 11:30am PTO Brunch with the witches at the Gazebo on the waterfront

11:30am Bittersweet Gift’s Chili cook off, check in - Located at the Gazebo on the waterfront

12:00pm - 1:00pm Chili cook off judging and eating - Located at the Gazebo on the waterfront

11:30am - 4:00pm Seaboard Federal Credit Union Trebuchet launches pumpkins into the Penobscot! At Flag Point on the waterfront

12:00pm - 1:00pm Jonathan Bucks Race to the Grave, check in - In Bangor Savings parking lot on Main St

1:00pm - 1:45pm Tech Inspection and pre judging

2:00pm Jonathan Buck's Race to the Grave Coffin Races Begin! Located in parking lot behind Chamber offices

4:00pm – 5:00pm Bookstacks host Spooky Story hour

5:00pm – 5:30pm Carved Pumpkin Contest, sponsored by Wahl’s Dairy Port. Check in located behind Rosen’s on the waterfront

7:00pm – 9:00pm Monster Mash Acoustic Bash, brought to you by United Cerebral Palsy of North Eastern Maine. Performance held at the Gazebo on the waterfront

9:15pm – 9:45pm Friends of Fort Knox Fireworks Display, launched from Verona Island

10:00pm The Alamo presents The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Come in your best costume! You may be nabbed by a Ghostport Ghoul and win a cash prize!

The Gauntlet haunt ride review

2010-10-20T11:53:00.000-04:00

Hello all -- I'd been wondering about The Gauntlet, a new haunt attraction that set up in Mechanic Falls for this Halloween season. Mark LaFlamme did a great write-up on it for the Lewiston Sun Journal if you have been curious too:

http://www.sunjournal.com/bplus/story/921801