Milt's Corner on the Black Bear Blog has a great photo post showing some overly amorous trees that have become completely intertwined. Hooray for weird trees! Check out Milt's other entertaining and interesting photo posts while you're there.
The Journal Tribune ran a great article recently, in which they interviewed Patricia Mayo about her love of cemeteries. Her graveyard pursuits are not unlike those of many of us who find a fascination in the toppled rows of stone markers that fill acres of the Maine landscape. The article talks about some interesting epitaphs, how Mayo got started on this hobby, and much more.Patricia Mayo likes to wander around in cemeteries. She can spend hours in them, especially the old ones, taking in the artwork of the stones and marveling at the poetic inscriptions.The photo above is one I took myself, during one of my own boneyard forays. This one was taken exactly two years ago, on Christmas Eve 2006, in Fort Fairfield, in a small family cemetery well off the main road. I've visited many cemeteries throughout New England and New Brunswick, such as (click links below for a selection of photos)...
“Some people look at me like I’m really weird,” she said, but cemetery viewing is actually a rather common hobby, with enthusiasts seeing the acres of plots as a sort of museum.
For Mayo, her visits are about remembering – the people, the history and the art of the monuments.
Read the full article here: [Source]
While most of us have been heavily exposed to Dickens' famous Christmas story, "A Christmas Carol," few in America know that it is part of a larger British tradition of holiday ghost stories. While here we tell spooky tales during the Halloween season, over in Great Britain they feast on the supernatural around cozy Yuletide fires as part of the annual holiday doings. Sounds good to me!
How can you NOT read something that starts with a paragraph like this?The deal went down in a Wendy's parking lot in Biddeford, Maine, nearly eight years ago. Huddled between a Subaru station wagon and a 1961 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, two men made a seemingly lopsided exchange: One left with $40,000, the other with an old license plate.The New Hampshire License Plate Museum has a nice selection of antique Maine license plates in their online display, for those of you curious about what they used to look like in the early 1900s. Click here to see some of their Maine plates. Likewise, the Plate Shack has a detailed rundown of more recent plates (boy I miss the old black and white ones).
[Source]
...or perhaps I should say "melts" instead of "meets"?Once bitten, Newman had the racing bug
December 16, 2008 5:00 PM
...
“Dave? I’ve got a deal from a guy in Maine,” the voice on the other end said.
“It’s a custom Volvo 960 station wagon, OK? But it’s different. He’s going to take a small-block Ford V8 racing engine, strip out the transmission and suspension, then supercharge it. My guy’s gonna make it for me. Would you like one?”
David Letterman was stunned.
“Well, yeah, Paul,” Letterman told the caller. “Wouldn’t we all?”
So Letterman, one of the most famous late-night talk show hosts and a car nut, told Paul Newman, one of North America’s most famous actors and a car nut, to go for it.
Supercharge the Volvo. Swedish safety be damned! Go nuts!
“So, Paul eventually brings the car over, drops the car off and this is the kind of car that people would stare at street lights,” Letterman told his TV audience earlier this year upon Newman’s death.
“It was like an atomic furnace under the hood. I used to love driving it. It would go 170 miles per hour and, underneath, the exhaust system would glow bright orange.”
Then, one day, Letterman was in the Volvo on a New York interstate with his girlfriend when she asked a simple question: “What’s that smell?”
Letterman turned to her and said, “Raw power and speed, baby.”
Wrong. The Volvo was on fire.
“We had to pull over. The car was shooting flames everywhere. It couldn’t handle the power,” Letterman said.
“I call Paul and say ‘The wheel wells, everything is on fire.’ But, wow, what a car. Paul Newman and I were the only ones with this car.”
...
[Read the full article here: Source]
Paul Newman fans will be happy to note that the article contains some great anecdotes about the man.
Maine.info's website has started hosting The Daily Maine Fact on their front page (formerly posted daily by AroundMaine.com). They don't have an archive, which is sad for folks like me, but every now and then I remember to look at it. Earlier this month, the fact-of-the-day was about letter writing in the early history of Maine.The first letter ever sent from Maine went to King James I of England in 1607. It was dispatched on this date by George Popham, founder of a short-lived colony at the mouth of the Kennebec River. Popham ran to excess in praising both his monarch and the natural resources of the new land, which he claimed included nutmeg and cinnamon. (Source: Maine: A Literary Chronicle, W. Storrs Lee, editor. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1968)The Maine Historical Society has extensive collections of Maine-related letters for those interested in digging further. Many of the documents are beginning to appear on the Maine Memory Network website, www.mainememory.net, as they are scanned and transcribed to make them more accessible to researchers. The Maine Memory collection is remarkable in that it collects documents from a wide variety of sources and makes them fully available in a number of formats for history sleuths.
There is an interesting post about Maine Railroad Accident Reports from 1874 over on the MaineGenealogy blog. If this sample is any indication, Victorian era railroads were a bustling and fast-paced environment, and resulted in a wide range of serious injuries, usually ending in amputation or death. A surprising number of these were the result of simple slip-and-fall accidents.January 16. The night express train from Boston was thrown from the track near Newport station, and ran along for a short distance, tearing up the rails and badly frightening the passengers. Frank Jackson, a brakeman, was thrown on to the ground with great violence and injured internally. Charles Estes, also brakeman, was thrown off and his ankle sprained. None of the 49 pass[e]ngers on board were injured.MaineGenealogy blog has a wide range of these reports available in its archives, which can be found at http://www.mainegenealogy.net/blog.html.
Normally stand-up comedy wouldn't have much of a place on the Strange Maine blog. However, there is an exception to be made, and that exception is for the one and only Tim Hofmann. [illustration by the man himself]
Hello all, I received an email this morning complaining about spam on my Google Strange Maine mailing group, and I have just finished banning the two so-called "members" who were polluting the message pool, and somehow hacked the welcome message, with porn. They also hacked the settings for posting, and that has been fixed as well.
Well, okay, actually he will READ your mind. But it might be a mind-blowing experience.Greetings! Welcome to the Theater of the Mind. I am Rory Raven, Your Host. I am a mentalist with over a dozen years' experience reading minds and astonishing audiences. Neither a psychic nor a magician, I offer a new and compelling kind of entertainment unlike anything you've ever seen. With a few simple props (paper and pencil, a pack of playing cards, some paperback books, and the thoughts of some volunteers) I involve the audience in a highly unusual -- and unusually entertaining! -- experience. Thoughts are revealed, predictions come true, and perhaps even the spirits are summoned ....
St. Lawrence Theater Manager's note: When Rory Raven was here last, the audience was so stunned by his abilities that we were all speechless! We have spent the last few months trying to figure out exactly what happened that night. Not for the faint of heart!
A wonderful groundbreaking event to support the International Cryptozoology Museum has been planned by Boston comedian Shawn Donovan.You can click the blank button below to link to PayPal to donate to the museum:
Coming on Saturday, November 22, 2008, at the Empire Lounge on Congress Street, downtown Portland, Maine, the “Bene-foot: A Comedy Benefit for the Cryptozoology Museum” will kick off at 8 PM.
Besides Shawn, who has been part of the Boston Comedy Festival for the last 3 years, the other comedians confirmed to be performing will be Paul Nardizzi (Late Night w/Conan O’Brien, Comedy Central) and Dan Sally (Comedy Central, Just For Laughs). Shawn told a popular comedy forum this morning that he would “leave it up to Sally to bump with the Patterson/Gimlin film.”
“Bene-foot: A Comedy Benefit for the Cryptozoology Museum” is being held to support the museum, and all proceeds go to the museum. No corporate fiscal umbrellas in the mix here. Although tickets can be bought at the door for $25, I’m going to begin selling tickets online via my PayPal account and through the mail at a pre-event discount.
Here’s the rundown for ticket sales:
Pre-event tickets: $22.00/one ticket ($20 + $2 service charge) ~ Via PayPal (to LColeman@maine.rr.com ) or via snail mail (International Cryptozoology Museum, attn: L. Coleman, PO Box 360, Portland, ME 04112).
Pre-event tickets plus a signed book by Loren Coleman = $45.00/one ticket/one book.
One of eight tickets to the VIP table, $100 per ticket.
Special to someone, have dinner with Loren Coleman, $250.00, before the Bene-Foot or perhaps at a time convenient to you.
Additional donations to the Bene-Foot, $25 to $1000, will be appreciated for the museum fund. Use PayPal or the mailing addresses above. DO NOT use the PayPal button for Cryptomundo on the upper right corner on this page. Use the instructions above for funds, thank you.
Shawn is also taking donations for raffle items that will be announced closer to the event (gift certificates to eating and entertainment locations to objects you wish to donate are what he is thinking about).
Further details on event poster art, possible tee-shirts and more will be forthcoming.
Fund Bene-Foot, support the Museum!!
All donations are greatly appreciated, and they are not tax deductible due to the home museum not being a 501(c).
View his original post for video clips of the performers and more: Source
Mark LaFlamme’s Dirt: An American Campaign
WHAT: TWISTED TALES FROM MAINE DVD RELEASE PARTY
Covered in Bees will be celebrating the release of their outrageous 24-Hour Album, as well as their participation in creating the soundtrack for the zombie film "2", included in the DVD 4-pack. Playing with them will be two other ever-rowdy and fun-loving bands, The Pubcrawlers and the Hand Me Downs. Top it all off by helping Knaughty Sarah celebrate her birthday!
Some of you may have attended last year's early November performance by the eerily wonderful Robert Lloyd Parry at One Longfellow Square. Others of you may not have. Which is why you should come this year! Highly recommended as an addition to your Halloween season spooky fun stuff.
This is a brief but excellent photo essay by Nate (a.k.a. Ravenwing) about the South Oakfield, Maine, cemetery that I found online at fourthirdsphoto.comSouth Oakfield met decline and finally oblivion soon after the advent of the railroad, with a few farms holding on into the 1930’s, but is now wholly forested, marked only with a few cellar holes, and a small cemetery. Since moving here some 25 years ago, the South Oakfield cemetery has held a certain fascination for me.
If ever a place can be haunted, this place is. I don’t mean haunted in the ‘scary’ sense, but when I visit this little cemetery, the feelings of dreams unfulfilled, geographical isolation, and human despair seem thick in the air. It is quiet, peaceful, even beautiful in a way, yet an indescribably sad place. I went there the other day, my first visit in several years, and found it much as I left it, though if anything more lonely and perhaps a bit more dilapidated than ever.
It is rugged, and stony ground surrounded by forest, accessible only by several miles of rough and narrow gravel road over steep hills and across northern bogs.
Read full essay and view all the photos here: [Source]
WHAT: a performance of Dracula’s Guest, written originally by Bram Stoker
Slaid Cleaves has a great song about Maine's drowned town on Dead River, Flagstaff. (see our prior posts on this subject here)In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out? So, week by week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled, more gone to seed, more woebegone.In addition, one of the commentators, Richard Paradis, added an article which is well worth reading about another Maine town that, while not drowned, was emptied out and left, graveyards and all, because of another project, near Frye Mountain. Click here to see the post. Mr. Paradis' comment is #3 below the original article.
One of the elements of Portland's history that I was surprised to find out about 5 years ago or so is the amount of Chinese-American culture that made its way into the city early in the 20th century. This is a great opportunity to lay your feet on the pavements of the city and see where all this happened, nestled in among the shops of today.
Photo: Georgia Koch paddles out of the cove with her hitchhiking cormorant. (Photo by Ken Bailey/Village Soup)'Hey lady, can I have a ride?'
By Ken Bailey
Outdoors Editor
HOPE (Oct 7):
...
This little adventure began one night a few weeks ago, while Sandy and I were out for an evening boat ride on Megunticook Lake and some friendly fishing competition. I’ll let you know how the competition went later.
We had just pulled into a quiet cove and made a couple of casts when my cell phone rang, breaking the silence of the late-summer setting. Don’t you just love those modern wonders?
Sara Foster was calling from Bishopswood Camps in Hope to inform me that while out kayaking with her friend, Georgia Koch, they had come across an aquatic bird that might possibly be injured. It was perhaps a loon, but because it was tucked way in the back of a cove, partially hidden by tall lake grass, they were unsure.
...
Because we were just a few coves away, it wasn’t long before we pulled into the cove behind Pine Island where the sighting had taken place. As we idled into the cove, we could see Sara in her kayak with Annie — her dog — along for the ride, and Georgia slowly paddling out to greet us from the back of this shallow cove.
As Georgia came closer, we noticed something on the bow of her kayak that looked a little out of place. She continued to slowly come our way, silently paddling her light-blue kayak toward the waiting flotilla.
Soon, I could make out that the object on the bow of her kayak was a bird — a cormorant. The bird was stretching its wings and preening as it approached us; seemingly without a care in the world. Even a greeting bark from Annie did not seem to disturb this fish-eating aquatic bird.
...
After going back into the cove to look for an injured bird, she searched the area where it had been seen. Nothing. The bird was gone.
Scanning the surface of the cove, she still did not see any sign of the bird. Suddenly — off to one side — she heard a splash. A bird briefly appeared a few feet from her kayak, then dove under the water, reappearing on the other side of her craft. She identified it as a cormorant — a very strange cormorant.
After splashing the calm surface of the lake and swimming under the kayak a few times, it approached the surprised woman. As Georgia waited with her kayak paddle in a defensive position, the unfazed bird swam up to the kayak and easily jumped onto the bow.
After the initial shock of this freeloading cormorant hitching a ride, Georgia slowly made her way out of the cove, not knowing what the bird’s next move would be. Would it attack? Would it fly away? Would it panic as she approached the other boats, people and dog.
No, the feathered bowsprit stood its ground, head upright and twisting from side to side to look at all the strangers. Approaching the port side of my boat, Georgia began to explain her evening’s adventure.
There we were, sitting in three boats as the sun began to settle behind the mountains, wondering if this bird was sick or just in need of some human bonding.
...
The bird soon became bored, and dove into the water, swimming a short distance before it took flight, landing on a nearby island. It did not appear to be sick. It was able to dive, swim and fly.
Why did a wild bird — one that usually takes off when a boat or human approaches — lose its fear and spend more than 40 minutes within an arm’s reach of the three of us? Why was it not spooked by the dog?
...
Read full article here (and see more photos!): [Source]
Every October, it suddenly seems like there are too many delicious things to do! This year is no exception. So far, here is a rundown of events that have come to our attention. First, items we've showcased already are listed here for easy reference (new events added 10/15/08):
On a quarterly basis, I put out a print version of this blog, in the form of the Strange Maine Gazette. Often the stories in it derive from material previously posted here on the blog, but occasionally the material is new and the print version is its first incarnation. I try to remember to post that material here as well, but sometimes I get distracted. Ha!Can a myth come into existence spontaneously? Can a story, utterly truthless, obtain widespread belief through hundreds of years, and thus become a tradition?Stephens stands out because he wrote repeatedly about the “injun devil” in his short stories, which are told with such realism that Bigfoot enthusiasts have even listed one of them among historical accounts of Maine Bigfoot, with the slight caveat that it is “possibly fiction.”
At the close of a five-years’ residence among the hunters, lumbermen and river-drivers of the Northern Maine forests, in connection with the lumbering business of my uncle’s firm, I find myself puzzling at these questions, as I recall the persistent and ever-recurring tales and accounts which everywhere come to my ears, of that strange being, or animal, which the Indians used to call “Pomoola,” and which the white woodsmen have translated “Indian Devil.”
...the moon was pouring down brightly; and I distinctly saw its shape, — the figure of a man, looking brown and naked, save where a hairy outline showed against the light. A feeling of sickness or of horror came over me.On getting up the next morning, Cluey tells the older trapper accompanying them about the sighting, to which he receives this response:
“It’s an Indian devil! It’s old Pomoola! That’s just as I’ve heard the Oldtown Indians describe it a hundred times; but I always thought it was all a lie. They always left a place as soon as they’d seen one of these things; and I reckon we’d better!”According to Stephens’ tales, Pomoola (more commonly known today as Pamola) would kill anyone who set foot on the peak of Mount Katahdin. This guardian spirit has become an amalgamation of both native and white men’s lore over the years, until today it is hard to figure out exactly what it is supposed to be. But around the turn of the century, it is plain to see that the old men of the woods had their own ideas of what Pamola was.
He’ll mock the fears of mystic and he’ll scorn the bookish talesWhere did all this material come from? Were there actual sightings reported by wilderness dwellers such as Cluey that never made it into the early newspapers of the region? Or was the idea of this manbeast extrapolated from tales told of the Yahoo, a “ten-foot hairy giant,” by pioneer hero Daniel Boone? He, in turn, may have taken liberties with Jonathan Swift’s own race of bestial bipeds, mentioned in Gulliver’s Travels, and called by that same name. Other potential sources include Native American folklore of the Wendigo, according to Loren Coleman.
Of the fearsome apparitions of the past, but courage fails
In the night when he awakens,
all a-shiver in his bunk,
And with ear against the logging
hears the steady, muffled thunk
Of the hairy fists of monsters,
beating there in grisly play,
--Horrid things that stroll o’ night-times,
never, never seen by day,
For he knows that though the spectres of the storied past are vain,
There is true and ghostly ravage in the forest depths of Maine.
Few people know of the existence of one of Maine's strangest fish natives. Now the singularly unattractive Atlantic Wolf Fish has been identified as a species that is in need of protection. Maine shares this fishy character with other coastal regions such as Iceland, where a blogger recently remarked that the species in general looks as though "its seen a thousand badly-behaved boozy world tours and has the scars and dodgy teeth to prove it." [Source] Incidentally, the post from which the above quote is taken is titled, "A Series of Unfortunate Icelandic Animals, Part One: The Wolf Fish."Wolf Fish Targeted for Endangered Species ListTo find out more about the decline of the wolffish in Maine, go to the Gulf of Maine Census of Marine Life.
by Tom Porter
The Conservation Law Foundation and others today filed a petition seeking federal protection for the species that lives along the sea bed in the deep waters off New England. “This is a really good example of what happens when a species is on its way to extinction, when the population becomes contracted and fragmented.” University of Maine Marine Scientist Les Watling also signed the petition. Speaking at a tele-conference held to launch the petition, he said the excessive use by fishermen of bottom trawling, or rock-hopper gear as it's known, has destroyed much of the wolf-fish's natural habitat. “They like to nest under large boulders, so any habitat disturbance, for example, when rock-hopper gear comes along in these areas and tends to move a boulder or roll a boulder, and then a whole nest is vulnerable.”
The fierce-looking wolf-fish can grow up to 5 feet in length, and have long eel-like tails and sharp teeth that can eat a crab in a few swift bites. Peter Shelley, vice-president of the Conservation Law Foundation, says numbers have dropped dramatically in the last 20 years, and wolf-fish can now only be found in about 2 concentrated areas in New England waters. As a key predator, he says its extinction would be disastrous for the ecosystem. “It controls a lot of other species, which if they're left uncontrolled, can trigger cascading effects in the marine environment that are very destructive to fish populations and the health of the ocean.”
...
The federal government will now study the petition, and if successful, it would be the first time an ocean fish is listed as endangered in New England.
Read the full article here: [Source]
WHAT: Search and Seizure: Neal Dow, Prohibition, and the Maine Connection
Tales of Terror Saturday, October 18, 2008
Two Performances, 6-7:3o p.m. or 8:00-9:30 p.m.
What could be a more perfect setting than a big, Victorian mansion to hear the wickedly scary, nineteenth-century tales created by two of the most frightening imaginations in history?
Join us at Victoria Mansion for a spectacular performance of the The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and Green Tea by J. Sheridan Le Fanu by Portland storyteller Lynne Cullen. http://www.lynnecullen.com/
The evening begins with tours of the house dimly lit at gas lighting levels complemented by chilling, nineteenth-century music.
Ghoulish guides grant you passagethrough the dark halls of the Mansion. To participate in this terrifying evening, you must reserve your space inadvance...if you dare!
Tickets are $20 for adults, $15 for mansion membersand $10 for kids. Please call 207.772.4841 ext. 10 or email information@victoriamansion.org
Faint of Heart Beware!
GENERAL MUSEUM INFORMATION Victoria Mansion is located at 109 Danforth Street just steps from the Old Port. The Mansion is open for its regular season of tours May - October, Monday - Saturday, 10-4, Sunday 1-5. All tours are guided and reservations are not necessary for groups under 10. www.victoriamansion.org Join us November 23 - December 30 for our Holiday Season of tours.
Photos of Victoria Mansion (ca. 1940)
from the Portland Public Library Archives!
While most folks know that Stephen King's books focus predominantly on the state of Maine, few know that some of the classics of the horror genre are set in our home state as well. Maine Crime Writer blog, run by Patrick Shawn Bagley, takes a moment to focus on one of these: Hell House by Richard Matheson, author of other horror books such as I Am Legend, basis of the Vincent Price classic "Last Man on Earth." Hell House was later made into a terrifically chilling motion picture starring Roddy McDowall, "The Legend of Hell House." Since Matheson did the screenplay himself, it mirrors the book almost exactly.
Updated 10/13/08 with new schedule of events.
The name Carroll A. Deering will prick up the ears of any ghost ship enthusiast worth their salt, the account ranked by some among the Top Ten Modern Mysteries. However, the name originated in the life of a young boy who grew to be an old man with little interest in launching himself on the seven seas, though his father had been a shipmaker of great repute. Morse High students uncover a new Carroll A. Deering mysteryPurely baffling.
Missing for 41 years, 3 journals of a famous 'ghost ship' namesake are found by students.
by Seth_Koenig@TimesRecord.Com
09/23/2008
BATH — Even decades after his death, mysteries still cling to former Bath resident Carroll A. Deering.
More than 87 years after his namesake schooner became one of the most famous ghost ships in American history, some of Deering's long-lost journals unexpectedly appeared beneath a bush outside Morse High School.
In the months after Deering's March 15, 1967 death, his house was broken into and logbooks from as far back as the early 1900s were stolen. Other mostly sentimentally valuable items also disappeared, including a complete set of books by Edward Rose Snow and a box full of old campaign buttons — as well as Deering's collection of antique muskets and a silver sword from the local Masonic Lodge.
Two weeks ago, Deering journals from 1932, 1962 and 1964 turned up in the proximity of Morse High School. Science teacher Eric Varney sent his students outside to find everyday objects in nature and write descriptions of those objects as part of a lesson on scientific research. What students discovered was a lesson on maritime history and, perhaps, the unexplained.
Freshmen Zach Fone and Wyatt Brackett each found one of the journals near a bush by the school's front entrance, and classmate Chris Fox discovered a third journal across the street near his house.
The students managed to track down Carroll "Pat" Moffatt, the grandson of Deering who resides in Florida but, by coincidence, is currently back in Maine for a brief vacation. Moffatt was fighting in Vietnam in 1967 when his grandfather's home was robbed, and according to Varney, "he never heard anything more about (the stolen journals) until now."
"My first impression when they called me was, 'No, they couldn't have,'" said Moffatt Friday, after he addressed the class to share memories of his grandfather. "I thought, 'Forty-one years later, it couldn't be them.' But when I saw them, I realized it was true — these are his journals.
"Obviously, they couldn't have been under a bush for 40 years," he continued. "That's what's got everybody confused. They couldn't have been outside all that time, they'd have been destroyed. But how did they get there? Nobody knows. Or somebody must know, but they aren't telling. Another mystery of Carroll Deering."
The first mystery of Carroll Deering surrounded the commercial schooner with his name. Deering's father, Gardiner G. Deering, ran one of Bath's prominent shipyards early in the 20th century and named a five-masted cargo ship after Carroll.
Less than two years after its 1919 launch, the schooner Carroll A. Deering was sighted aground on Diamond Shoals, an area off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. There was no sign of the 11-person crew, and then-Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover — who would later become U.S. President — launched an aggressive investigation into the disappearances.
"What happened to the Carroll A. Deering? We'd all like to know," pondered Moffatt on Friday. "The crew aboard would like to know. The people were all gone. Nobody ever saw them again."
...
No answers to the mystery of the Carroll A. Deering ghost ship can be found in the man's recently discovered journals, however. Deering himself didn't serve on the boat bearing his name.
"The journals were just a day-to-day record of his life," explained Moffatt. "A list of people that came in and out of his house every day, or the events of the time, like when old sea captains died — stuff like that."
The details scribbled down by Deering in the browned pages may be routine, but their reappearance after 41 years is just as perplexing as what happened to the ship in his name.
Read the full story here: [Source]
About a year ago (read original article here) we posted about the unique sandwich offered by a Maine restaurant which is earned free of charge if the recipient will jump into Moosehead Lake sans clothing. At the time a customer was raising objections to the menu item and threatening legal pursuit of a ban on skinny dipping patrons. While the effort didn't go anywhere, there still may be repercussions for a few folks who recently earned their sandwiches by shedding a few pounds of fabric and taking the plunge.Police summon 3 who took naked plungeThe articles about the incident which have appeared in other newspapers such as the Lewiston Sun Journal, have garnered a lot of comments, including this one from user name Streaker from '76: "I wonder if the Black Frog would offer a free beer to go with lunch if say, 50 of us all went at the same time? Would the police attempt to arrest us all? Would the court attempt to try us all?" [Source]
By Diana Bowley, BDN Staff
8/29/08
GREENVILLE, Maine — The Skinny Dip sandwich at the Black Frog Restaurant is free if you bare all and brave a jump into the cold waters of Moosehead Lake, but the court fee for indecent conduct isn’t.
Three friends who took the plunge bare-naked over the weekend and had the tasty sliced prime rib in a baguette roll may now have wished they’d ordered another meal or paid the $10.95 for the sandwich.
Crystal Stilwell, 25, of Bath, Bernard Beckwith, 31, of Windham, and Christian Simpson, 37, of Bethel, each were summoned by Greenville police for indecent conduct. Their initial court appearances were set for Sept. 15 in 13th District Court in Dover-Foxcroft.
The Class E crime is punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000, according to Piscataquis County District Attorney R. Christopher Almy. Almy said Wednesday that the punishment for such a misdemeanor would not involve jail time and that the fine would likely range from $300 to $500 each.
The trio doffed their duds at about 5 p.m. and dashed off a barge behind the Pritham Avenue restaurant into the water in full view of diners, who apparently enjoyed the brief show. The barge, which is part of the Black Frog and is attached to the main restaurant by a walkway and ramp, features a dining area and a bar.
Restaurant owner Leigh Turner said Thursday that all of the 40 to 50 patrons on the barge at the time were asked in advance if they would be offended if someone jumped naked from the barge and no one objected.
But Greenville Police Chief Scott MacMaster said Wednesday that a family that had been standing on the boardwalk nearby was offended and had contacted police. Ironically, the naked plunge also was observed by a local game warden who had been refueling his boat, he said.
When police arrived and issued the summons, all of the restaurant patrons on the barge pitched in and donated money to the streakers to help pay the fine, according to Turner. He believed the guests provided about $150 to each of the three skinny dippers.
Turner said he has had one or two people a week order the sandwich and then take the naked plunge, but usually the dips are done later in the evening when the streakers aren’t as visible.
“This is not done to offend anybody, and it was certainly not done to make anybody upset, which is why everybody on the barge was asked beforehand if anybody would be offended,” Turner said.
Turner said he has no plans to do away with his offer of a free sandwich for the nude dip.
[Source]
