An old Scarborough story

Big thanks to Scott Leonard, who runs the excellent Old Blue Genes blog over at http://oldbluegenes.blogspot.com/. He dropped me a line this weekend because he thought some of you Strange Maine readers would be interested in a story he recently did a piece on, and I think he's right:

The Clukey Fire of 1949
http://oldbluegenes.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-clukey-fire-of-1949.html

As with many stories of bygone days, the newspapers tell a disjointed and partial version of the tale, revising the events that led up to a disaster as the witnesses step forward with different stories each time. This one is particularly convoluted, and in the end I don't know that the final version of events made anyone particularly happy. But it did make for a lot of newspaper coverage.

Scott Leonard delves into the murky ashes of the fire that killed WWII veteran George Clukey, and the history of Vinegar Road in Scarborough, Maine, where he lived.

Check it out!

Forget the register, gimme the ATM!

The Bangor Daily News reported on yet another odd Maine crime earlier this week.

Maine man charged with stealing ATM from store
11/30/09
Associated Press

SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A Maine man accused of taking a cash machine from a convenience store and driving off with it in the back of a pickup truck faces charges including aggravated assault.

Scarborough police who arrived at the convenience store late Sunday found the front door had been ripped off, and soon spotted the pickup with the ATM in the back. Police say the truck backed into a police cruiser and then sped off.
[...]

Please click here for full story: [Source]

You don't think he could have found a more subtle way of getting into the store?