‘Please don’t swear’
Describing the springtime weather in Maine was the theme of the Limerick Contest in 1985. During the 11 p.m. news, Ron Harris, meteorologist at Channel 7 in Bangor, gave the final call for people to send their poems to him. Before going to bed I wrote the following lines:
After sunbathing Down East one spring day
When winter’s clouds had all passed away,
My skin remained white,
And the doctor that night,
Made treatment for frostbite in May.
As the winner of the contest I received a $50 gift certificate to a Bangor restaurant and was invited to be with Harris during the 6 o’clock news on May 17, 1985. That experience was fun and things went well.
Most remembered was the panic stricken appearance of the announcers at 5:59pm, then recognizing how happy and calm those same people were while on the air only a minute later.
Instructions from Channel 7 were few. Just before “weather time” a staff member said to me: “If things go wrong, please don’t swear!”
Stranded on Peaks Island
In late winter and early spring our expectations for good weather are often too high. It was that way in 1956 when the Maine Maritime Academy training ship arrived at Portland on March 16.
During the previous two months my friend Malcolm Murray often told me about the beauty of Peaks Island while we were learning how to operate a ship’s engine and visiting ports of the sunny Caribbean.
Upon arrival at Portland the day was sunny and cool. Malcolm and his parents invited me to visit their home on the island near the ferry dock. Storm clouds were thickening as we enjoyed the lobster “banquet” prepared by Malcolm’s mom and dad.
By mid-afternoon snow flakes were falling. Within two hours Casco Bay Lines stopped its operations due to blizzard conditions. Being marooned on that island was a pleasant experience.
The day after the storm I returned to the training ship and started telling people all I know about that place in Casco Bay: “In late winter all of Peaks Island is the color of snow. Nice people live there. It’s a restful place, and the food, especially seafood, is right out of this world!”
Worst driving conditions
Other weather conditions in April and May made memories: The worst driving conditions I’ve ever encountered occurred between Eastport and Machias on April 1, 1997. Chauffeuring my wife and mother-in-law to a doctor’s appointment through that blizzard made me realize what the highway snowplow operators often encounter while most people are home watching TV.
Legendary rabbits
Maine received a lot of snow during the winter of 1962-63. Most of that winter I was aboard ship. Many of my shipmates were from Texas, and they liked to brag about things being big!
After returning to Maine, and by mid-May, the snow had melted from the fields. I grabbed the fishing pole and went to the trout stream. In the woods, near the brook, there were places where the snow was near the top of my high-top wading boots. The trout were not biting so being able to brag about catching a fish didn’t happen.
However, after the snow melted, it would have been fun to describe the size of Maine rabbits to my Texas friends. Several clumps of bushes, above the height of my shoulders, displayed signs where rabbits, on top of the snow, had eaten the bark and buds from the branches.
Infection, last day of school
Deep snow of winter can leave memories. Wild rabbits, finding their supper on top of the snow, is similar to one of my dad’s memories after the winter of 1919-20. In order to attend high school, he was staying with relatives in Eastport, but as often is the case, “Troubles come in bunches.”
Several big snowstorms were followed by a severe ice storm that left a 5-inch crust on top of the snow. At dad’s home on the farm in Perry a disaster was slowly happening.
In the days before penicillin, my grandfather, Henry Lincoln, became seriously ill with an arm infection. Within a few weeks he would lose his arm. My dad returned to working full time on the farm.
He would remember the day before the ice storm as his last day in high school.
While cutting firewood that winter he stood on top of the snow. In the spring, after the snow melted, he found stumps more than six feet high.
(The attending physician, making house calls (on foot) during my grandfather’s illness was Dr. Herbert Best of Pembroke, Maine. “Old Dr. Best” was well known in the Perry-Pembroke area. About a year after he did everything possible to help my grandfather, his son, Dr. Charles Best, teamed up with Dr. Frederick Banting and made a discovery in 1921 that helped millions of people. Today a bronze plaque on the side of a house in West Pembroke, Maine, has the following inscription:
“Charles H. Best, C.B.E., F.R.S., co-discoverer of insulin, was born in this house Feb. 27, 1899. With the discovery of insulin, control of diabetes became possible and the lives of millions of diabetics have been saved.”)
City fortune
My parents survived many set-backs. Weather and other items beyond their control caused some of their problems. In their early 20’s they separately left Down East Maine and started finding their fortune in the big cities. In the late 1920s my mother was a live-in maid for a rich family in Concord, Massachusetts. My dad held a good job in Philadelphia. They married in 1930, then started a family.
Within a couple of years they found the Great Depression in Philadelphia, “lost everything,” then found a way to return to Perry. After living with in-laws for a few years, they purchased a very small house in Perry. My brother, sister and I, called that place “home” for seven years.
Apple blossom time
We were living there in the spring of 1945 and witnessed some of Maine’s unusual springtime weather. April 1945 was the warmest April on record. The snow melted early, and the grass was green ahead of schedule. Each year, in late May, when my mother saw apple blossoms, she would always sing: “I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time.”
That year she was singing the tune more than three weeks early. Apple blossom time started the first week of May. The sweet aromas of springtime were in the air, but without any warning the landscape changed the night of May 10. Daylight on May 11 found the pretty apple blossoms, and the ground, covered with 6 inches of heavy slush. My dad often said it was the gloomiest storm of his lifetime.
In 1945 the springtime weather was bad, but there was good news. The war in Europe was ending, and the lights were beginning to go on again all over the world.
Dale C. Lincoln lives in Perry.