Melissa Philbrook, of Warren, was named 2013 Sea Goddess at the 66th Maine Lobster Festival Coronation in Rockland on Wednesday, August 31. See the full story on the Bangor Daily News online site. This photo is from the BDN.
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Kendall Merriam was
born and raised in Rockland, Maine. He has a history degree from Gordon College
in Wenham, MA and graduate studies in military and maritime history at the
University of Maine at Orono and Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Conn. He also
received grants to study historical research at Colonial Williamsburg and the
National Archives in Washington, D.C. Merriam has been widely published,
including in Katyn W Literaturze(Katyn
in Literature), a Polish anthology of literary works about the WWII Katyn
Forest Massacre by 120 international authors, including Czeslaw Milosz. Merriam
has written more than twenty books and plays. Most of Merriam’s work has a
definite muse – family, friends, and strangers – with life’s larger themes of
work, love, loss and death. On April 29, 2010, Merriam was appointed Rockland,
Maine’s Inaugural Poet Laureate, an honor from his hometown Merriam cherishes.
HEAT
For
Olivia
It has been blistering here
Though I guess
London is worse
But look for more
It is still crossing the Atlantic
I tried to send you a note
About the books you have to read
For your teaching lessons
Throw them away
You have a wonderful passion
For Central Europe and beyond
And a fund of knowledge
Let them shine out
Forget all the rest
In the 7th grade
Our teacher, Mr. Harjula
Every Friday afternoon
The only history I remember
From any public school
Just think how the boys
Will be bowled over by
Your physical beauty
And the girls by your fashion sense
From combat robe to wedding dress
Telling the history of the cultures
That fostered every item
From birth, marriage, to death
Use poetry, drama, short stories
From the world’s wealth of literature
And they will remember your life
Critically important to the world
Kendall Merriam, Home, 7/16/13, 7:55 PM
Listening to the fan above traffic
ICED VODKA
For Olivia
It courses through
My altered brain
I cannot have it
In any sense
Sweet Mirror Lake water
Is what I take
You remind me of that
A natural stimulant
That makes me feel good, alive
After much pain, heartache
I do not know if I will reach you
In Lusowo in September
But you are are already launched
In your career
To bring our mutual sleeping friend
Back to life
In books around the world
In celebrations
That the women of earth
Will call a halt
To the nonsense of war
I think my soul
Cannot match yours
Perhaps having seen less
Of cruelty in the open
But as I drink clear water
Your mind will be on fire
With the spirits of God
You will write a novel
To bring a glass of truth
Kendall Merriam, Home, 4/12/13, 1:24 PM
Listening to “The Best of the Gypsy Kings”.
Coast
Guard Not Relocating
By TED SYLVESTER
(Excerpts
from the December 17, 1971 column. A bit of Coast Guard history in Rockland.)
Is the Coast Guard
interested in acquiring the Samoset property for its own future use?
We asked this question
from Washington to Boston to Rockland this week and got a negative response.
Officially we got the word that there is no intention of re-locating the
Rockland station at the present time.
The theory that the
station might be moved sometime in the future, however, was said to be a
possibility.
CWO Kenneth Black,
commander of the Rockland station, said there was a possibility that the
station might be re-located if repairs to the existing facilities at the end of
Tilson Avenue prove to be so costly that they would be prohibitive.
Black said that the
Coast Guard has long range plans to modernize the Rockland station. “These are
presently in the priority planning stage. We in the first Coast Guard district
have certain priorities on new construction, and Rockland is third on the
priority planning list,” he said.
As to the condition of
the present facilities, Black said that “major repairs will be needed in the
near future.” He suggested that the cost might run as high as $500,000.
He reiterated that
modern improvements here are in the “long range planning stage,” and that “we
have no plans at present to re-locate.”
As to comment on the
Coast Guard acquiring Samoset property, Black said, “It must have been a
premature guess on somebody’s part. There’s not a written word on the thing
anywhere.”
Night
in the Woods
There is a Rockland
couple who are thanking their lucky stars after an experience last Sunday while
out in search of a Christmas tree.
Father, mother and
daughter were tree hunting in the South Warren area, got turned around and when
darkness overtook them were forced to spend the night in the woods. There was
no organized search for them as nobody knew they were missing.
The next morning they
found their way out and would rather just forget about the whole thing and
asked not to be identified.
No, they didn’t get a
Christmas tree.
Unusual
Gift?
Shopping in a Rockland
store the other day for Christmas a customer was examining one of those new
fangled clocks that orally tells you the time.
You’ve seen them
advertised. You just place your hand on the top of the thing and a voice tells
you the time.
The store clerk was
explaining to the shopper how the clock worked and proceeded to give a
demonstration. It worked perfectly.
The only problem was
that the voice announced the time in Spanish.
Rockland
Detective
An interesting
discussion arose at the annual Rockland city budget hearing this week. It
involved an expenditure in the police department budget of $1,700.
City manager Henry
Bouchard explained that police chief Maurice Benner will be eligible for
retirement in October (26 years service) and it was his hope that the chief
could be enticed to become Rockland’s first detective.
“With the increase of
crime here as it has been everywhere, I feel that Rockland definitely needs the
services of a full time detective,” Bouchard said.
The proposed expenditure
was approved by the council.
Recipe of the Month
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