Now that my weekly Locke’s Mills column (along with those of several other former Bethel Citizen town correspondents), is part of Western Maine Neighborhood News, found on Substack and at the website wmnn.org, I’ll be posting only every other week’s “free to all” Locke’s Mills columns here on my own site.
On some of the weeks when my current column doesn’t appear here, I’ll be posting a look back at Locke’s Mills columns from 5 and 10 years ago.
FIVE YEARS AGO
In my March 18, 2021 column, I wrote about a trip to Bretton Woods, N.H., where I had hiked Mt. Willard with my daughter Annie: “The scenery as I approached the trailhead was dramatic, and a little bit daunting—bigger mountains than I’m used to!—but this hike is very moderate, only a little over three miles up and back, and the payoff is an amazing view of Crawford Notch.”
Also that week, Brian and Suzanne Dunham were preparing to host Maine Maple Weekend at Velvet Hollow Sugar Works on Dunham Road, “serving breakfast wraps until noon and maple turkey chili in the afternoon on both days, with tours of the sugar house all day, and maple syrup and other products for sale. Their facility includes a dedicated gluten-free kitchen, and they will be following CDC safety guidelines.”
In the March 25, 2021 Citizen, I observed that it had been six years since I had taken over writing the Locke’s Mills column: “In my very first column, I noted that, since no one else had expressed an interest, I was stepping in ‘on at least an interim basis, since I hate to see our town go without a local correspondent.’” [The “interim” lasted for more than ten years in print, and I hope it will continue for a long time online!]
Eli the Wonder Pup and I had done several hikes that week, “including two sunrise trips up to Lapham Ledge on Tuesday and Friday and one very chilly, windy hike of the Sanborn River Trail on Monday afternoon, after we waited all day for it to warm up and finally realized it wasn’t going to. Even after a couple of really cold days, the river was starting to open up, a sure sign of spring.”
TEN YEARS AGO
In the March 17, 2016 issue of the paper, mud featured prominently: “Who loves mud? Not the residents of dirt roads in Maine in early spring, that’s for sure. And not the town highway crews, who have been doing their level best to keep the roads passable and reopen those that degraded very quickly when the temperature shot up into the 60s last week.”
In Greenwood, both the Bird Hill Road and Hobbs Road had officially been closed temporarily, which meant residents could still attempt them at their own risk, “but it definitely required a 4WD with high clearance to get through.”
I wrote about living on Bird Hill almost 35 years earlier [now nearly 45 years ago!]: “There were very few houses there, and those of us who chose to live one to two miles up a dirt road on a hillside just accepted the fact that there were going to be times when we couldn’t get up the road, whether it was due to snow, ice, or mud. I remember using skis or snowshoes to get to my job at Bob’s Corner Store at least a few times, and walking more times than I can count. But things are different now; there are a lot more people living on Bird Hill than there were in the early 1980s, and they have different expectations. The entire road is a boulevard compared to the narrow lane I used to slew down in my car on icy winter days.”
I reported that Highway Foreman Alan Seames had been out with the rock rake, “going from one dirt road to another last Friday. With the warm temperatures, there wasn’t much else he could do, since using heavy trucks to haul gravel over roads that are already muddy just makes things worse. Fortunately, in the midst of a long stretch of days when the temperature wasn’t predicted to go below freezing, we had one morning in the 20s, Saturday, and our hardworking highway guys took advantage of it to haul enough crushed gravel to get the roads back open.”
I patted myself on the back for writing the Locke’s Mills column for one full year, and missing only one week in that time, when I was “out of town and away from internet access.”
In the March 24, 2016 issue, I wrote that I had had a taste of spring, attending the Boston Flower and Garden Show on the Adult Ed bus tour. Also along on the tour were Crystal Lake and her three sisters, who referred to themselves as “the Queens”: “As we were waiting for the bus to leave the show, they told me the story behind that name. There were five girls in their family, and after losing first their mom, Rowena Dunham, in 2014, then their older sister, Dolly Olson, last year, they realized that life is short and uncertain, and the remaining Hebert women should get together once a month. At one of their gatherings, they were playing cards, and when they took turns cutting the deck, each of the four sisters cut to a queen. The odds of such a thing happening are infinitesimal, so I have to think someone was sending them a positive message!”
The Facebook page “Journey on the Back Roads of Maine” had recently shared a photo of the schoolhouse on the Bird Hill Road as it appeared in 1890, and I wrote: “When, out of curiosity, I was poking around on the Internet to find out the last year that classes were held there (the answer is 1981), I found a Sun Journal news story written by Jane Chandler in 1985 that detailed an effort that year by a group calling itself the Mt. Abram Mercantile Association (although unaffiliated with Mt. Abram Ski Resort) to purchase the building and turn it into a nightclub. A special town meeting had been set to determine the fate of the old school. I was living on Bird Hill at the time (as a resident of Bethel, not Greenwood), but I must have been oblivious to local current events. I don’t remember hearing about the outcome, but I assume voters rejected the plan.”
Ten years ago, there were five Thursdays in March, and on March 31, 2016, I wrote that there would be an opening for a school board member at Greenwood’s annual Town Meeting in May, “as Dick Melville has decided that fifty years on the board is enough. I believe he became a school director in 1965, when the area towns joined together to form MSAD #44, and, except for the years when Bev was teaching in the district and he couldn’t serve on the board, he has been there ever since.”
The Greenwood Bicentennial Committee was looking for artists with a connection to the town to paint unique designs on wooden desks from the old Locke’s Mills School, to be auctioned as a fundraiser: “Butch Fuller and Peter Musso are working to identify and contact local artists, so if you are one, or you know of someone who is, get in touch with Butch or Pete.”
Ice on the ponds was thinning: “It looks like ice-out will occur any day now on our area ponds. I’m betting on April 3 for North Pond, but we’ll see. Some years it seems to take forever after the ice turns dark for it to finally go.” [In fact, the ice did go out of North Pond on April 3 that year, one of the earlier ice-out dates I’ve recorded in the 15 years or so I’ve been keeping track.]
Easter was early in 2016, on March 27: “We had Easter dinner in Sunday River with my brother Steve and his family, and later we went to see a movie at The Gem Theater in Bethel. It’s great to have a movie theater back in the area.” [The theater had reopened the month before under new owners Wade Kavanaugh and Beth Weisberger, after being closed since 2012.]