Graffiti artists get new canvas
I think it’s great that the city of Bangor is trying to make the Darling’s Waterfront Concert venue more attractive. The new fence is awesome but I can guarantee that the local graffiti artists also are going to be excited. The Bangor Police Department can’t watch every inch of this fence 24/7. I’m sure certain individuals are already planning to tag this new canvas. The city will be spending money and resources repainting it only to have it tagged again.
Remember when vandals destroyed the flowers up and down Main Street? How about when the senior center rooftop garden was hit? Take a walk along Valley Avenue in Bangor on a weekly basis. The overpass supports get tagged on a regular basis. The city covers them up and the next night they are hit again.
Summer is coming. Some people are up all night looking to deface anything the city tries to do to make it more attractive. They rarely get caught, and if they do, it’s a slap on the wrists to them, plus they get bragging rights to their friends and will just do it again. I find the whole thing maddening and sad.
David Winslow
Brewer
Accept the national monument gift
On Monday, supporters of the proposed national monument in the Katahdin region came from all over Maine to ensure Sen. Angus King and the Obama administration understand how much Maine wants to accept this incredible gift. With all the speeches, economic data and the long list of reasons to conserve this incredible place, one thing missing is the fact that this is a gift. Not only does this proposal include about 87,000 acres along the East Branch of the Penobscot River but it also includes a multimillion-dollar endowment to help pay for monument operations.
Acadia National Park began as a national monument 100 years ago. Millions of people from all over the world visit Acadia every year and spend hundreds of millions of dollars in Maine’s economy. What if the lands within Acadia hadn’t been conserved for us by our ancestors? Would such a beautiful place have remained open to everyone? No way. Yet, here it is for all of us to enjoy all because of the leadership of a handful of dedicated people who had the necessary vision and courage.
King must show such leadership now and express his full support. Maine will see these same kinds of benefits rippling out from a beautiful piece of the Unorganized Territory in the Katahdin region. People from around Maine attended his meeting to say we want his help to accept this gift to enjoy forever.
William Wood
Bangor
Baseball memories
Ron Joseph’s May 14 BDN OpEd on baseball in rural Maine was terrific. In the mid-1960s, our field in Lubec was equal parts hay field, swamp and convention center for sea gulls. No dugouts, no fences and no manicuring. But our ragtag group, including the nonstarter “Ho-Ha squad,” played for the love of the game, and 50 years later the memories are priceless.
Miles Theeman
Bangor
No hope for America
If we could look up in a thesaurus the essence of Hillary Clinton, we might find the synonyms to be “Marx and Engels-educated, perverter of the republic and its Constitution, agenda-driven with nary a nod to honesty, truth, morality nor that which is lawful.” For Bernie Sanders, we might see, “one indoctrinated against all that prospered in America.” As for Donald Trump, perhaps we’d read, “Pinocchio, shifting sands, ends justify means, lover of debt, revengeful, blusterous, amoral and know-nothing know-it-all.” Hopeless lesser-of-two-evils voting dies as preferred-demise voting births.
The death of wisdom and discernment has cost us the loss of a rare hope. Outcast and despised, he and many remain true to God and country, treasuring the costly, precious gifts from our founders.
Elizabeth Hutchins
Bangor