Sonny’s

Sunshine

Corner

I’ve decided to make this blog my Update space for each month. Here you will learn about new stories and features to come on “On Being a Southender;” any technical problems I may need to alert you to; thank yous; how my life is going presently; and much more. It may be a good idea to check here once in a while.

This picture was taken when brothers Sonny and Butch were babies sitting by my old computer at the old mobile home we lived in at the time. We used to keep blue and red collars on them to tell them apart. It soon became unnecessary, however, when Sonny grew to be about twice the size of Butchie. Here, Sunny is in the front, while Butchie has control of the mouse.

Some technical things to update you on and some good news as to access to this blog. During the last week I found it difficult to access “On Being A Southender” via www.southendstories.blogspot.com. However, that problem seems to be OK now. This blog is produced in Microsoft Word and then transferred to the blog via Chrome and Google. Therefore, a glitch will occur once in a while.

I post my main story for the week on Facebook, so if you are my friend on FB, you can access the blog there when you click on that story. The blog also is automatically posted to my South End Stories FB page. That page may be accessed from the main blog.

The good news this week is that my main blog for the week is also now posted on the Village Soup site for the Courier. This blog originally appeared on Village Soup exclusively, however, I began my own blog when the old organization started charging people to read it. I also found that system to be limited in the information I wanted to dispense.

The Courier is now charging a fee to view its material. I decided to post the blog with the Courier again because there are also free ways to view my blog. So if you subscribe to the Courier online at villagesoup.com, you can now read my blog there.

I strongly suggest that whatever way you decide to view this blog that once you get to the site that you put it in your favorite places or bookmark it in some way so you will have easy access when you want to come back to it.

OK, so now that we have that all straightened out I would like to thank Dianne (Phillips) Allen and William Pease for welcoming me back to the Village Soup site. I’d also like to thank Nina Reed and Deborah Dyer for their kind comments.

I was so excited to receive my “first edition” of the new Courier Gazette. It was so nice to see that old familiar masthead and to meet the people who made it happen. I wish the paper a long and successful run and hope it never folds again.

My knee surgery was a success and I am mending well. Physical therapy will begin next week. I look forward to walking without a cane and being able to walk for extended periods of time.

Congratulations to the folks who participated in the “So You Think You Know Rockland” contest recently which benefited Main Street, Inc. The Rotary team was the champion. I don’t know if they used any of my South End questions or not, but I’m glad the evening was a success.

This month look for a new Fish and Chips column from brother, Ted and special Mother’s Day stories.

I have recently discovered a Maine writer, Alonzo Gibbs, via my cousin, Mary Sue. He used to live down the road from the farm in Bremen. Look for his works later on in this blog.

Remember also that I do not post everything to my FB page. South End stories automatically gets everything I post on “On Being a Southender.” Check out the rest of the features and stories once you get there. I look forward to seeing you there. Comments are welcome at the end of each blog. Just post your thoughts there and after I approve it, it will be posted.


Good News Again!

I have just set up a special URL so that you can reach my South End Stories FB page easily. Just go to www.facebook.com/SouthendS.

If you haven’t “liked” me yet, I would appreciate it. Also consider becoming a “follower.” See the right hand column to set that up.

Thanks to everyone for your continued support.

Museum Reopens May 15th

May Happenings

Down East Fiddler’s Festival—May 25-26-27

Concerts, Workshops, Jams & more

25^th—Features Frank Ferrel, renowned fiddler, & special guest Emma Walsi.

26^th—Features Kimberly Fraser, Cape Breton master with David & Surrette/Dan & Cindy Roy

27^th---Features Seamus Connolly, Ireland Champion fiddler with Gabirel Donohue, guitar & piano and with Marian Makins, vocal and Bodhran.

Admission

$20/day, full weekend $50

207-701-7627   reservations 207-596-0200

Seating limited

Calling All Volunteers

  

Volunteers of the Sail, Power & Steam Museum are a dynamic and exciting group who share many diverse interests such asnautical history, boat building and steam engines. There are many opportunities for Volunteers–something of interest for every interest.The Sail, Power & Steam Museum salutes, recognizes and celebrates our volunteers as well as volunteers at the local, state and national levels. We encourage anyone interested in learning about volunteering to contact the museum.

America has a proud tradition of neighbor helping neighbor, and today this volunteer spirit is needed

more than ever before. Studies show that people who volunteer their time live longer, healthier and happier lives, and the satisfaction of a job well done is always an enjoyable feeling. Many thousands of retired individuals have found that they are not only welcomed, but needed in the carrying out of the day to day workings of organizations worldwide.

Learn the fine points of boat building-come help complete our30 foot Friendship Sloop and get her sailing on the Bay.

EVERY SUNDAY:

OPEN JAM 2-4pm. Pickin’ times. Bring your instrument, voice and ears.

For news and events at the children's museum,

 go to www.coastalchildrensmuseum.org/

COMING IN JUNE

June 1, 7:30 pm at the Museum

Songwriter, Nick Humphrey will perform original and traditional Maine music!

Tickets $10.00/refreshments served

To see membership form and Family Fun day events in June see below.

To become a member of the museum see the form below:

Thomaston Library Poetry Event

Submitted by Joanna Hynd of the Thomaston Library

Local Poet Celebration!

Sunday, April 29th at 2 P.M. in Room 208 in the Thomaston Academy.

Six local poets will read their original work at the Thomaston Public Library in celebration of the end of Poetry Month.

Carol Bachofner

Alan Clark

Chris Fahy

Ellen Goldsmith

Joanna Hynd

Kendall Merriam

Opening the program is well renowned local poet and founder of Rockland's Annual Poetry Month, Carol Bachofner. Bachofner's work has been described by Kathleen Ellis as "Imbued with an acute sense of place, drawn to rivers, finning across ponds, pulled to the sea, every poem welcomes both poet and reader as a long-lost relative."

Poet, playwright, and artist Alan Clark will follow Bachofner. Clark's art work has been displayed at the Farnsworth Art Museum and Asymmetrick Arts. In 2006, new poems appeared in The Caribbean Writer and The Wolf Moon Journal. Clark and Goldsmith will be reading this year together at the Lunchtime Fireside Poetry chats.

Novelist and poet Chris Fahy of Thomaston is the author of many novels and collections of short stories and poetry. In 1999 Fahy won a Grand Prize at the International Poetry Competition sponsored by the Atlanta Review.

Ellen Goldsmith is the winner of the Hudson Valley Writers' Center for the 1997 Chapman Contest and is the facilitator of the "Poetry in Art" workshop at the Farnsworth Art Museum. Her poems have been published in many magazines and journals, including: Bangor Metro, California Quarterly, The Kerf, Off the Coast and Wolf Man Journal.

Joanna Hynd is the youngest of the poets reading. She has been published twice in The Maine Review in 2010 and 2012. She won 2nd place for poetry in the Grady Awards at the University of Maine in 2011 and High Honors for her undergraduate thesis, Metastable Structure, a manuscript of original poems. This will be her fifth public reading.

Closing the program will be the highly prolific Kendall Merriam. Merriam is Rockland's first poet laureate. During Merriam's term as laureate, he distributed poetry throughout the city of Rockland to approximately 100 people every week.

This reading will take place in the Thomaston Public Library section of the Academy building on 60 Main St. in Thomaston. Public parking is located behind the Academy.

In celebration of Poetry Month, the Thomaston Public Library will host two poetry readings in addition to poetry related displays and themes. This event is free and open to all ages. Contact us to find out more: 207-354-24532

This is the first part of Ted’s column which contained the story that led to a letter from Andy Rooney. It describes what the city was worried about at that time. You may remember Ted’s gentle poking of the city’s government. This column appeared January 9-10, 1982. I suspect that the coffee shop across the street was where he got some of this information.

The best story we heard this week concerns Yankee common sense.

The city owns the former K-L Feeds Inc. property in the southend which has fallen into some disrepair and is easily accessible by inquisitive youngsters. A while ago, one youth climbed up a ladder inside the building, fell off and was injured. There have been indications a lawsuit against the city may result from the incident.

This has prompted officials to consider methods of securing the property against trespassers to avoid future problems. Among suggestions were to board up all possible entrances to discourage entry into the building. Another possibility was erecting a fence around the property.

News accounts of these possibilities prompted a resident to call Councilor Jean Chalmers. The caller said her mother had an idea which would discourage youths from climbing around inside the building. Why didn’t the city just cut off the ladder.

God bless these Yankees and their common sense. We love ‘em.

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The flap this week between the personnel board and the city manager over the appointment of a fire department lieutenant prompted another call to us.

In case you missed it, the board was ripped that Manager Harold Parks decided to re-interview lieutenant candidates after the board had made its decision. Parks was assisted by Fire Chief Ernest Daye and Camden Chief Robert Oxton. Board members termed this an affront to their integrity and said the matter reeked of politics. One member claimed the applicant had already been chosen and the board’s function of screening applicants was merely an exercise in futility. The manager denied all this and said he was only trying to make the best appointment for the city. As of the end of the week, there had been no announcement of an appointment.

But back to the other development. We were advised that Daye had spent several hundred of the taxpayers’ bucks to install a fancy remote control door opener on bay five of the fire station so he could drive his private vehicle in and out of the station with ease. His station wagon, by the way, is also equipped as an emergency vehicle.

Well, we sought out the chief for an explanation. He told us that all doors at the fire station were already equipped with automatic door openers which are controlled by the man sitting in the dispatch room. But since the room is unmanned during periods of the day and night, and Daye is frequently in and out of the station on not only department business, but code office work, he said (my copy here is undecipherable so I’ll guess that the chief said he really needed the remote control for the above reasons.)

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The city tax office is preparing its list of delinquent taxpayers to be published. While there is no word on just how many names will be published in the paper, it appears that it will again be more than 200.

Finance Director David Hodges said that as of Dec. 31, the city was owed $329,000 in outstanding 1981 taxes. This compares with $300,000 which was uncollected at year’s end, 1980.

While the city was owed more at the end of 1981 than the previous year, the percentage of collections was slightly higher, as taxes in 1981 were $620,000 more than 1980.

At the end of 1980, the city had collected 90.5 percent of its $3.2 million in taxes. At the conclusion of 1981, the collection rate was 91.5 percent of the $3.8 million tax bill.

Still, $329,000 is a pretty good piece of change for the rest of the city’s taxpayers to carry.