Friendship Sloop Society comes to

Sail, Power, Steam Museum

 

From Penobscot Bay Pilot, Feb. 23, 2015

ROCKLAND — The Sail, Power and Steam Museum in Rockland is the new and permanent home of Maine's own Friendship Sloop Society.

The Friendship sloop is one of the maritime symbols of Maine having its origins as a style of fishing boat designed and built in Friendship. Now the Sail, Power and Steam Museum will be the home of the Society's archives, memorabilia, and models for all to see.

The Museum currently has three sloops undergoing restoration from the newly launched Persistence to the 100+ year old Blackjack; and more to come. The public will be invited to check out the projects during the summer season when the museum is open. Anyone looking for an advance visit can call ahead for availability.

In addition, the Sloop Society's annual gathering held in Rockland in late July will take place at the Museum. These events include races and opportunities for the public to visit the boats. Check the Museum's and Society's websites for more information.

Sharp's Point South and the Sail, Power and Steam Museum are at 75 Mechanic St. in Rockland.

For more information on the Sail, Power and Steam Museum and its programs, 207-701-7627 or 207-596-0200, email sailpowersteammuseum@gmail.com or visit the website at www.sharpspointsouth.com.

Event Location: 

Sharp's Point South and the Sail, Power and Steam Museum, 75 Mechanic St., Rockland

Event Website: 

http://www.sharpspointsouth.com

Contact Phone: 

(207) 701-7627

Contact Email: 

sailpowersteammuseum@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Maine Bucket List for a Maine Native

 

February is fast disappearing and it won’t be long before this winter’s snow is just a memory. Although there are many things to enjoy outdoors in Maine during the winter, at this point everyone up in New England is yearning for warmer days.

As a native Maineiac, as we call ourselves, I have my own special list of favorite places to visit and enjoy in my own home state. However, there are many places I have never visited and therefore I now add them to my future to-do bucket list of things to do and visit in Maine.

Before I do that however, let me introduce you to the bucket list I have already enjoyed during the years I lived in Maine. It’s hard to believe that I have lived away from my beloved State of Maine longer than I lived there.

I don’t know as you can really call this a bucket list, as I enjoyed these places and activities and food long before anyone ever came up with the idea of a “bucket list.” I mention them here as places you might like to visit when you come up to Maine on your vacation. If you have never been to Maine, you will be amazed at the raw beauty of the scenes around you. Here goes.

1.    Visit Arcadia. Although I have visited that area as a child, it has been a long time between visits.  I would like to revisit that area. Thunder hole in Bar Harbor is fantastic. Check it out.

2.    Fishing. In lakes and ocean alike. The most fun times was when I rowed out a ways with my father in Spruce Head to catch a mackerel if we could. One time we put our lines in the water over the end of a wharf and only caught crabs. We caught so many we decided to collect them and have a crab bake later, which we did.

3.    Camping. I’ve camped in sites on lakes and ponds along the Maine coast. It was a lot of fun, especially the quiet times when all you could hear was the song of the loons out on a lake. My years at Camp Mechuwana or the Methodist Church Camp in Winthrop are some of my fondest memories also.

4.    Lobster and fried clams, my two favorite Maine foods. The best lobster rolls can be found at the Keag Store in South Thomaston, a place I head to every time I come home. We local people like to keep this place a secret so we can have it all to ourselves; however, it is becoming increasingly popular with the summer crowd. There are many places where you can find good fried clams along the coast.

5.    The Lobster Festival in August. A fun time for all.

6.    Visiting museums like the Farnsworth and the Andrew Wyeth Museum and places like Montpelier, the home of General Knox, over in Thomaston. There are also many antique stores to enjoy in every nook and cranny of Maine.

7.    Eating again. The diner in Waldoboro, Moody’s, which is a must to visit, is now very well known. Stop in to their gift shop while you are there too.

8.    Pemaquid. I always take new people to Maine over to see the ledges at Pemaquid. I could watch the surf break on those rocks all day long. It is a great example of “the rockbound coast of Maine.” It is especially fun just after a big storm has hit the area. They have a gift shop there and sell a good ice cream cone too.

These are just a few of the sights and sounds and foods I love in Maine. Cousin Linda recently posted a list of 50 things to do in Maine. I have edited that list and included some of the things I’d like to put on my bucket list for my future time in Maine. I have already enjoyed some of them.

1.    Visit one of the many county fairs such as Union Fair and the Fryeburg Fair. You will find the real Maineiac at these venues and they have a lot of local charm.

2.    Leaf viewing. Do come on a trip to Maine in the fall to view the beautiful foliage. Just about anywhere you go you will find a beautiful vista of gold and red and deep purple.

3.    Go see a farm team game such as the Sea Dogs down Portland way. When the League was on strike, many locals fell in love with their own teams in Maine.

4.    Watch a lobster boat race or the lobster crate racing event which is held during the Lobster Festival. You have to be light on your feet to run over 50 lobster crates strung between two floats down in the harbor.

5.    Visit the Rangeley Lakes area on the western side of Maine.

6.    Visit Baxter State Park up in Aroostook County. Maybe you are brave enough to paddle a canoe down the Allagash. Also check out Moosehead Lake and Mt. Katahdin.

7.    Find a field of wild blueberries and get permission to pick some for yourself.

8.    Go to a clambake which includes lobsters too.

9.    Take a trip on a day sailer from one of the wharfs on the coast. If you can, go on a week-long trip on a Windjammer like the Victory Chimes, which I did many years ago. I was the only Maineiac on board.

10.  Visit Hussey’s in Windsor, the largest general store in Maine. You can buy everything from paint to wedding gowns to fishing and hunting licenses here. You have to see it to believe it.



 

1.    There is still a drive-in theater in Saco, Maine, if you want to have that kind of experience.

2.    Hike part of the Appalachian Trail which ends in Maine, if you are hiking North that is.

3.    By all means visit LL Bean down in Freeport. Once a small store alongside the road near Waldoboro which I remember, it is now an international business. You will find more than one LL Bean store, each dedicated to different products they have for sale, such as the hunting and fishing and outdoors store; and the store which sells good sturdy outdoor clothes and footwear. There are also many other stores of well known brand names in a mall area in town. It’s an all day shopping experience. Be sure to stop by the street cart for some good seafood for lunch.

4.    Visit the eastern most point in the country, Quoddy Head, an area which has had over 90 inches of snow this winter.

5.    Visit one of Maine’s state parks besides Baxter and Arcadia. Take a nice picnic lunch to Camden State Park, just up the road from my home town of Rockland.

6.    Visit one of Maine’s beaches in Southern, Maine, such as Ogunquit, one of my favorites.

7.    Besides the sailing excursions I mentioned, take a ferry ride to one of our beautiful islands or just a motorboat on one of the lakes or along the ocean shore. I would like to spend a day on a working lobster boat, maybe be a stern man for the day. Smelly, but fun.

I leave you with a wonderful video I have shared before which shows the beauty of Megunticook Lake. My second cousin has a home on this lake. The narrator was a well-loved warden on the lake, Ken Bailey. Enjoy, and think about coming to Maine soon.

 

Thanks for listening.

Sail, Power & Steam Museum News

 

 

 

 

 

 

COME SEE US THIS SEASON AND VIEW THE "SLOOPS."
BETTER YET VOLUNTEER!!!

 

The Many Shades of Love Stories

 

As Fifty Shades of Grey opened to the delight of crowds of excited women in America on this Valentine’s Day, we are reminded once again of our obsession with a good love story. Is this film a love story though or just a “lust story?”

I have not read the book nor seen the movie and don’t plan on doing either. Women’s groups claim that it degrades women and promotes hurtful sexual practices. I can’t say I agree or disagree because I haven’t fallen prey to the “50” craze. However, the movie and book interest me in a literary historical way.

 “Fifty…” did not get good reviews in spite of its phenomenal success as far as book sales go for author, E. L. James. The book has been panned at the very least as “very bad writing” and even “trash.” There is also a copyright question because the book is said to be based on a fan-based attraction to the Twilight novels.

“Fifty…” is actually part of a trilogy. Fifty Shades Darker was published in 2011, the same year as Fifty Shades of Grey, which was book 1. Fifty Shades Freed was published in 2012.

Although not heavily banned as some other such novels I will discuss below, it was banned in the library of Brevard County, Florida. Brazil also imposed a restriction on its sale by demanding that it have the cover “covered” over.

As far as being banned by the Catholic Church, Boston, or becoming the subject of a court battle over “first amendment” rights, every author of such novels knows that being banned is the best thing that can happen to their book because everyone then wants to read it to see what all the hoopla is about.

These days we get our fix for this genre on T.V. with the show “Scandal” and “How to Get Away with Murder,” neither of which is on my regular viewing list.

The Greatest Love Stories Ever Told

Before I get into the historical aspect of novels of love and lust, let me remind you of some of the greatest love stories ever told. These are the stories I love. According to www.yourtango.com these are the top ten “Greatest Love Stories Ever Told.”

1.    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

2.    Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

3.    Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare

4.    Casablanca, originally a play by Murray Burnett and later a movie

5.    Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare

6.    Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, one of my very favorite

7.    Sense & Sensibility, Jane Austen

8.    Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

9.    Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

10.   Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

As you can see by this list, it’s the classics that survive the test of time.

Books of Love and Lust

The books below I chose as being the most well known as novels of love and lust. All of them were banned, thus ensuring their popularity at the time of their printing.

 

Fanny Hill.  Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, best known as Fanny Hill, was the first pornography to appear in the form of a novel. An erotic novel written by John Cleland in 1748, it told the story of a young girl, Fanny Hill, who was forced into the world of prostitution in London. As you can imagine, the book was much aligned, prosecuted, and banned. The book has become a synonym for obscenity.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover. A novel by D. H. Lawrence was published in 1928. It tells the story of a physical and emotional love affair between a working-class man and an upper-class aristocratic woman. It’s the classic tale of “class” conflicts in Great Britain. The book was heavily censored in Great Britain but was published in America by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 1928. It suffered court battles in the U.S., Canada, and Australia

Tropic of Cancer. First published in 1934 by Henry Miller, it was described as “notorious for its candid sexuality.”  In 1961 it was published in the U.S. by Grove Press which led to the obscenity trials of the 1960s testing the laws of pornography. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the book non-obscene. Today it is regarded as an important masterpiece of 20^th century literature.

Forever Amber. Probably the first “romance novel” by Kathleen Winsor and published in 1944. I actually read this book as a teenager. I think we all passed it around.

The story tells the story of an orphaned Amber St. Clare who sleeps her way up through the ranks of 17^th century English society by sleeping and marrying successively richer and more important men. Again, a story of “class” struggles.

The story includes portrayals of Restoration fashion with the introduction of tea in English coffeehouses and homes of the rich; politics; and public disasters like the plague and the Great Fire of London. Some reviewers praised it for its relevance to the times by comparing Amber’s fortitude during the plague and fire to the women who similarly held their homes together during the blitzes of WWII.

Fourteen states banned it as pornography. Of course the Catholic Church condemned it for indecency which again increased sales, making it the best-selling novel in the U.S. in the 1940s selling over 100,000 copies. Banned in Australia in 1945, the Minister for Customs, Senator Keane, said “The Almighty did not give people eyes to read that rubbish.”

Couples: A Novel. By John Updike, published in 1960. This book scandalized the public with a picture of the way people live in a “post-pill” society, a time of “free love.” It chronicles the lives of ten young married couples in a New England town who make a cult of sex and of themselves. It was one of the attempts at a Utopian life that was doomed to fail.

Myra Breckinridge. By Gore Vidal, 1968. Another novel which explores the sexual revolution of the 60s. It’s the first novel in which the main character undergoes a clinical sex-change. It takes place in the Hollywood of the 60s and shows glimpses of life there at that time.

Portnoy’s Complaint. By Philip Roth, 1969. Another 60s novel in the same vein. It made Philip Roth a celebrity. The book was controversial in its use of sexual words and its candid treatment of sexuality. Portnoy’s Complaint has been described as “A disorder in which strongly felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longings, often of a perverse nature…”

 

 

Peyton Place. Grace Metalious, 1956. And so we come to our very own novel that has its own steamy moments. We love this story and the fact that we got to witness the movie being made up in Maine. It sold 60,000 copies in the first ten days of its release and was on the New York Times best seller list for 59 weeks.

 

 

This book cover line reads, “The extraordinary new novel that lifts the lid off a small New England town.”

I remember the controversy when this book came out, which as a result, everyone wanted to read of course. Grace was the E. L. James of her time except that no one disputes that she really knows how to write. The book was adapted as a film in 1957 and also became a T.V. series from 1964-69.

The book is America’s version of a “class” difference. It follows three women: Constance MacKenzie and her illegitimate daughter, Allison; and her employee, Selena Cross, a girl from “across the tracks” or “from the shacks” as they all come to terms with their identity as women and as sexual beings in a small New England town. In the book we find hyprocrisy, social inequities, and class differences. Grace didn’t leave anything to the imagination when she included such things as incest, abortion, adultery, lust and murder. As a result “Peyton Place” became a generic label for any community where the residents kept sordid secrets. The book has been described as “Truly a composite of all small towns where ugliness rears its head, and where the people try to hide all the skeletons in their closets.”

Nora Roberts

 

 

 

We can’t leave this discussion without mentioning the most recognized and in fact the queen of Romance Novels in America, Nora Roberts. She has legions of fans that rush out and grab her very latest book as soon as it appears on the shelves. I’m not one of those fans, but I have friends who are.

Roberts also writes under the pseudonyms of J. D. Robb, Jill March, and in the U.K. as Sarah hardest. Under J. D. Robb she writes the “In Death Series” featuring characters in NYPSD or New York City Police and Security Department. As such, she has now entered the mainstream of novel writers.

She was the first author to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. As of 2011, her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list for 861 weeks, 176 of those weeks in the number one spot.

I wish her luck in her future novel endeavors.

Gee, you know what? Maybe I should have put some steamy scenes into my book, The South End. My fictional South End in Shoreville certainly had enough skeletons in the closet I could have exposed. Then maybe I could have been banned in Boston and by the Pope; sold 1000,000 in the first week of publication; and ended up on the New York Times Bestseller for 100 weeks or so. What do you think? A rewrite? Naaaaaaah.

If you have other books you think I should add to this list, please email me at southendstories@aol.com.

Thanks for listening.

 

The Grange Movement

Recent efforts by the Maine Coast Heritage Trust to bring farmers together to explore cooperative efforts and how they can all work together more profitably have been well received by farmers in Knox, Lincoln and Waldo counties.

A February 6 story I found on Village Soup, “Small farms ‘not only practical, but necessary’ for Midcoast’s future,” by Sarah E. Reynolds, reports on meetings organized by Aaron Englander of Erickson Fields Preserve, owned by Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT). He likens the possible collaboration of local farmers to that of the Grange of a century or more ago. It looks like there is some great possibilities for cooperation in the future through discussions and meetings such as the ones Englander organized. Please see that complete story on Village Soup. I assume the same story will be included in a recent edition of The Courier also.

I thought it might be interesting to bring some of the history of The Grange to you. Though not as active as it once was, we in Maine have a soft spot for the Grange and for the people who attend Grange even if it is only for a “family, or community” baked bean supper. Though my folks were not farmers, they became members of the local grange in Owls Head later in life. It was open then and is open today to anyone who would like to become a member.

 

This is a picture of the North Somerset Grange Hall in Solon, Maine, circa 1910 which I found on Wikipedia.

The picture above is called, “I feed you all!” a lithograph by American Oleograph Co., Milwaukee, ca. 1875. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). I found this picture at the site called The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Please go to www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/populism-andagarian-discontent/resources/grange-m for the complete history of this lithograph.

Besides the farmer and his plow and horses, other pictures include a lawyer “I Plead for All;” President Ulysses S. Grant, “I Rule for All;” an officer, “I Fight for All;” a clergyman, “I Preach for All;” a ship owner, “I Sail for All;” a shopkeeper, “I Buy & Sell for All;” a doctor, “I Physic You All.” Don’t you love that last one?

How and Why Did the Grange Begin?

The official name of the Grange is The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry. It was organized as a fraternal organization in the United States to bring families together to promote the economic and political well-being of the community and agriculture. At its height, the Grange was the center of farming life and was also a big influence in Congress in Washington, D.C.

The first Grange was founded in Fredonia, N.Y. in 1867 by seven men and one woman: Oliver Hudson Kelley, William Saunders, Francis M. McDowell, John Trimble, Aaron B. Grosh, John R. Thompson, William M. Ireland, and Caroline Hall. It’s interesting to note that women were encouraged to participate and the organization rules required that four of the elected positions could be held only by women. The organization did indeed support suffrage. Susan B. Anthony even made her last public appearance at the National Grange Convention in 1903.

President Andrew Johnson got the ball rolling by commissioning Oliver Kelley to collect data to improve Southern agricultural conditions. Because it was just after the Civil War, southerners were leery of any northerners interfering with their business be it farming or other endeavors. Therefore, Kelley enlisted the help of the Masons in the southern areas he visited, which ultimately allowed the Grange to be organized for the good of both North and South farmers.

Because of the Mason’s involvement, the first Grange borrowed the Mason practices of secret meetings, oaths and special passwords. There are seven degrees of Grange membership. The ceremony practiced at the meetings was related to the seasons and various symbols and principles.

In the last few decades, the Grange no longer has secret meetings, anyone may join, however, they still acknowledge the history, practices, and traditions of the original organization.

The Grange originally formed to promote the social and economic needs of farmers in the United States. The membership grew during the financial woes of 1873; falling crop prices; increases in railroad fees; and Congress’s reduction of paper money in favor of gold and silver.  Although nonpartisan, the Grange has supported such groups as the Greenback Party, the Populist Party, and the Progressives.

During its prime popularity it behooved politicians trying to represent rural areas to try to get the backing of the Grange. If they didn’t, they would have a difficult time getting elected.

Accomplishments of the Grange

What are some of the significant accomplishments of the Grange? Here are a few:

1.    The regulation of railroads and grain warehouses.

2.    Creation of the Cooperative Extension Service

3.    Rural Free Delivery

4.    The Farm Credit System

5.    Supporting Suffrage

The Grange became a respected organization whose members included Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S Truman, artist Norman Rockwell, and businessman Frederick Hinde Zimmerman.

The monument to the founding of the Grange is the only private monument on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

If you come from a community that includes a Grange Hall, be proud. If someone laughs at you for your loyalty, show them this brief history. The Grange is a worthy institution with a rich history that we should all be proud of.

For more information on the history of the Grange, there are many references at the end of the Wikipedia article from which I took much of this information. See “The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry.”

Thanks for listening.