As a college student downeast I’ve had a few snow experiences. I’ve written about that subject before. This story takes place, I believe, in the winter of 1962. One phrase in this story became a family joke later on. See if you can find it.
I made a friend named Nancy while attending summer school in Gorham that previous summer. She was a music major at Gorham and was from Presque Isle. For any of you who have lived up that way, you know how far upstate it is. We who are familiar with the area call it “the county,” for Aroostook County takes up a big chunk of the state at its northern end.
I was, of course, attending Washington State Teachers College (now a part of the University of Maine) in Machias. Machias is downeast in Washington County near Calais and the Canadian border. Even though Washington County abuts Aroostook County on the eastern side, traveling north from Machias in the winter is no neat trick as this story will illustrate.
The route from Machias to Presque Isle goes mainly on Old Route 1N to Rt. 1N/Houlton Rd. The last stretch of this road we call “the Airline Road.” I believe it is so called because it more or less leads to the now defunct Loring Air Force Base, or as it used to be called until 1954, Limestone Air Force Base, as it was located in Limestone, Maine at the very top of Maine. I guess that makes sense as it was a Strategic Air Command Airborne Command base and presumably protected our northern border from invasion. The Canadians never invaded us during my lifetime so I guess that may be why they decided to close it. I believe it was closed in the late 80s sometime.
So as my story goes, in the middle of the winter of 1962 I find myself headed for the Airline Road and Presque Isle from Machias to visit my friend, Nancy, who was home from school at Gorham at that time. It wasn’t snowing or anything like that but it was bitter cold and the snow we had at that time was half way up the telephone poles.
I hitched a ride that day with school friends who were headed that way. However, they could only take me as far as Mattawamkeag, about 50 miles from Presque Isle. From here, I was to catch the Greyhound bus the rest of the way. The middle of nowhere—the kind of place where “you can’t get there from here” if you know what I mean.
So my ride drops me off at a desolate gas station/slash bus stop to continue on my journey. Mattawamkeag isn’t even in Aroostook County but Penobscot County. It also abuts “the county.”
I go into the gas station/store to buy a ticket and guess what? “The bus has already gone, young lady. The next one won’t be here till tomorrow.”
Oh boy, what to do? Being a young college student, I never had much money on me and credit cards were something rich people had. No cell phone either, of course, and it was getting dark quick. I guess I looked like one very frightened young girl to the clerk so he took pity on me and directed me to the one hotel in the area, the Houston Hotel, across the street from the station.
The Houston Hotel only existed in this desolate place for one reason—to provide a place for the lumberjacks to go after being in the woods for a week. They came here to relax and have some fun on the weekends. They didn’t see any women all week, so you can imagine what was on their minds as they came into the hotel on Friday nights. I have no idea if the hotel is still open.
The hotel clerk also took pity on me and let me make a phone call first to Nancy’s house and then to my own mother way back in Rockland. Nancy said she could come pick me up the following morning. Great, now what? I called home and my mother answered. She didn’t even know I was planning on going to Presque Isle this weekend and was very worried once I told her the situation. My mother never swore mind you but I do remember on this day that she just saw the need to when she said, “Where the Hell is Mattawamkeag?”
The upshot was that the hotel clerk let my mother wire him some money for my stay. So I had a place to lay my head at least, but I was hungry too. I went into the bar/restaurant/lounge in search of food. I was not of legal age to drink quite yet. The girl behind the counter motioned me over to the bar. She didn’t ask for an ID. She asked if I was hungry and I said yes. She made me a hamburger “on the house.” Somehow she knew I didn’t have much money on me.
As I ate I could feel the eyes of a couple lumberjacks on me. The girl gave me some very good advice and was quite adamant about it too. She said, “Listen to me…..” Then she explained about the fact that this place was a gathering place for lumberjacks over the weekend. She looked at me intently so I would understand her meaning.
“Here’s what I want you to do for me, OK? Finish your hamburger, go up to your room, lock your door, and don’t come out till the morning. Understand?”
I said yes, finished my hamburger quickly, and headed for my room. I locked myself in and looked around. It was clean, but otherwise pretty barren. The full sized bed was nice. I had never stayed in a motel by myself, let alone a hotel. I looked for the bathroom. The girl downstairs explained the deal with the bathroom. There was a door that had a hook latch on both sides. You shared a bath with your next door neighbor. You flipped your hook and if the door opened, the bathroom was yours. If it didn’t, it meant the door was latched on the other side and the other person was using it. That person had a door like mine in their room also.
I figured that out, making my time in the bathroom minimal and went back into my room, flipping my inside latch as I came back into the room. I slept fitfully that night understandably. I didn’t wholly trust that that flimsy latch on the bathroom door couldn’t be forced open easily by one of those muscle-bound lumberjacks. I was sure glad to see the morning light come.
Nancy did indeed pick me up that morning and we enjoyed some fun time in Presque Isle for the little time we had together. Her mother wasn’t happy that she had to come get me in Mattawamkeag and even less happy that Nancy gave me a return ride to Mattawamkeag on Sunday. Fifty miles up and back on the Airline Road in winter was every mother’s nightmare. The road can easily put you to sleep as it runs pretty much in a straight line with nothing to break the monotony. Truck drivers also tell of seeing the ghost of a woman walking along the side of that road. The woods close in on you, being thick and dark and eerie and foreboding as they are.
Here’s where the story gets even more interesting. Nancy dropped me off in Mattawamkeag once again to connect with my school friends once again for the ride back to Machias. Yes, you guessed it. We didn’t connect and I had to spend another night in the Houston Hotel and finally get a ride back to Machias on the bus that Monday morning. My landlady, Effie, who I roomed with in downtown Machias at the time, was beside herself not knowing where I was.
That second call home was just about as much fun to make as the first one was. My mother was exasperated at that point as she had to send yet more money to the desk clerk. She instructed me, in no uncertain terms, to return to Machias and stay there. I did.
Did you catch the phrase which became a family joke from that time on? “Where the Hell is Mattawamkeag.” Yep, that would be it.
Thanks for listening.
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