Orono artist recalls youth in library exhibition

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Anyone interested in what life was like growing up in the Orono area during the 1940s might want to view the exhibit of Orono artist Esther Taylor, which is on display now through the first of September at the Orono Public Library.

“This is the first time I’ve displayed this work as a whole,” she said of the exhibit, which features 24 watercolor and ink drawings of scenes from her childhood. “I had two or three of them in an exhibit last fall.”

Taylor grew up on a farm in Orono and her family had a camp at Pushaw Lake.

One of her favorite works is of Taylor and her brothers “riding on the fenders of the car on the way to camp. I remember it was a 1930s Graham-Paige,” she said of traveling along “the short piece of road from Forest Avenue into camp.”

It’s an activity, by the way, she would not recommend anyone doing today.

Some of her other favorites include a picture of Taylor and her mother canning food in their kitchen, and one “of the old wringer washing machine in the laundry.”

The exhibit also features the family fishing, and Taylor “sitting on the dock with my dad.”

Taylor, who holds a master’s degree from the University of Maine, was a 1959 Orono High School graduate. She returned to her alma mater where she taught art “for 291/2 years,” she said, although she took a break in 1984-85 to serve as a Fulbright exchange teacher in England.

Taylor hopes people who visit the exhibit will come away with a sense of “what it used to be like,” growing up when she did.

Many people have told her that viewing her exhibit “brings back memories … of their childhood.”

And, she said, the librarians “have talked with kids about it, asking them to think about what they do in their childhood and put it on paper” as she has done.

Shayne Cobb of Orono is excited about the exhibit, which she believes “offers the young a history lesson and the older, nostalgia.”

Cobb described the exhibit as depicting a time in Taylor’s life when people were paying attention to the news of World War II, listening to radio programs such as the Jack Benny show and, “in Orono, Maine, families had to do canning when the garden was ready, even if that meant using a hot stove in August.”

In addition to the Taylor exhibit, library director Katherine Whedon told me the library’s theme for its Children’s Summer Reading Program is “fairy tales.”

So when you visit, bring the kids, because they’ll enjoy seeing things like Jack’s beanstalk, Rapunzel’s hair, and the bridge used by the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

“We also have a fairy tale museum, with ‘artifacts’ such as the pea from the mattress that the princess slept on, Little Red Riding Hood’s basket, and the pebbles that Hansel dropped,” Whedon said.

To view Taylor’s exhibit, and the fairy tale exhibit, visit the Orono Public Library from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays; and noon-5 p.m. Fridays.

The library is not open on the weekends during the summer.

The Orono Public Library is part of Orono High School, but has a separate entrance at the front of the building on Goodridge Drive.

Cyclists will want to mark their calendars for the 10th anniversary Tour de La Vallee to benefit the Edgar Paradis Cancer Fund of Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent.

The Tour de La Vallee is set for Sunday, Aug. 19. It begins and ends at NMMC.

The fund-raiser features four tour options for riders of all levels and experience.

You can choose from a 25-mile route along U.S. Route 1 to Frenchville and back or a 50-mile tour along Route 1 to Madawaska and back.

A third option is the 62-mile tour from NMMC to Lille and back, and the fourth option is a 100-mile trek from Fort Kent to Van Buren, Grand Isle, Long Lake and back to Fort Kent along Route 161.

A major fund-raiser for the Paradis Cancer Fund, registration information and pledge forms can be obtained by calling Tour de La Vallee chairman Roger Lagasse at 834-3195, Ext. 3181, or visit NMMC’s Web site at www.nmmc.org.

Eagle Scout Blake Civiello of Bangor wrote me last month to ask that I help him thank “all the businesses and individuals for their generous contributions” that helped him complete his Eagle Project at Downeast School in Bangor.

Civiello wrote that his project involved designing, preparing and planting landscape areas around the school, and the work was completed over Memorial Day weekend.

Civiello extends a special thanks to city forester Roland Perry, Sam’s Club, Rocky Ridge Perennials, Bangor Daily News, Downeast School PTO, Sprague’s Nursery, Home Depot, Rotary Club, Ecotat, Kathryn McCatherin of The Irishman’s Lady, Shop ‘n Save, Dunkin’ Donuts, W.A. Bean and Sons and “all family, friends and fellow Boy Scouts who donated over 400 hours to the project.”

Civiello was kind enough to include before and after photographs of the areas surrounding the school that he helped transform from bleakness to beauty.

What a tremendous difference this Eagle Scout project has made to the Downeast School community.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.