‘Main Streets’ not just coffee table book

MAIN STREETS & BACK ROADS OF NEW ENGLAND, The Globe Pequot Press, Guilford, Conn., 2001, hardcover, 168 pages, $29.95.

When a colleague handed me this book to review, I glanced at the dust jacket and groaned, “Terrific, another coffee table title written by big-city authors who think Maine ends at Old Orchard Beach.”

But surprisingly, the writers delved much farther into Maine than York County, and despite its glossy packaging, the book glistens with genuine human portraits from throughout New England. Among those interviewed are Lewiston-area milkman Cliff Plourd, now retired from his 60- to 80-hour workweeks, and Mapleton entrepreneur Butch Tobin, who markets a cure-all pill called Velvet Antler, harvested from the horns of his very own red-tail deer.

Most of the stories are of the main street variety and not from muddy back roads such as the one adorning the cover. And depth is sacrificed for brevity and volume (scores of villagers, islanders and other characters are profiled). But there’s no doubting the diligence and sincerity of editor Susan Sloane, producer Chris Stirling and the other staff members of the popular WCVB-TV Boston program “Chronicle,” perhaps unfamiliar to many Mainers, where these features first began airing on Jan. 25, 1982.

The concept seemed simple enough – send hosts Peter Mehegan and Mary Richardson to all six states searching for the heart and soul of New England and see what they came back with. The result is a deft blend of people, places and things that is seldom cute or overbearing, and frequently touching enough to prompt a chuckle or a tear. The episodes translate well into book form, thanks to an engaging chapter design and clear digital photo transfers from videotape to the printed page.

Vivian York, pictured inside her Lobster Lane Bookshop at Sprucehead, in Knox County, nearly jumps off the page as she guides the viewer through the tiny store’s Maine, fiction, juvenile and poetry sections. So does Friendship author John Gould, who dismisses the myth of the aloof and standoffish Maine native with this rejoinder, “Easiest people in the world to get acquainted with, but you don’t want to jump in ’til you’re ready to swim.”

Also visited are Frenchboro, an island in search of homesteaders, located nine miles off Mount Desert Island; a Rangeley museum called Orgonon, the home of the late eccentric inventor Wilhelm Reich; and the Harmony property of Wally Warren, nicknamed (at least by the authors) “The Gauguin of Garbage” because of the “Wall of Refuse” he fashioned entirely from recycled materials.

History buffs will appreciate a retelling of the Jonathan Buck legend in Bucksport (the silhouette of a witch’s foot, or stocking, still haunts his gravesite); and the tragic 1944 circus fire in Hartford, Conn., which claimed the lives of 167 people, mostly women and children. Here’s a tidbit I never knew – bandleader Merle Evans spotted a flame and cued his musicians to play “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” a distress signal to big-top workers.

Another highlight – a chat with Dorothy West, nicknamed “The Scribe of Oak Bluffs” because of the many columns she wrote for the Martha’s Vineyard Gazette in Massachusetts. The African-African writer, who died in 1998, was a respected novelist on “The Vineyard,” where she explored the strong ties between blacks and the island.

Vintage black and white photographs punctuate the sections on the Mohawk Trail in Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills, as well as mention of a 1902 carriage accident in Pittsfield, Mass., that nearly killed visiting President Theodore Roosevelt. They blend well with the contemporary color images, although at times they should have had better captions. The title color page for the chapter “People,” picturing hikers on a rocky mountaintop, offers no written clues at all. Is it Cadillac? Katahdin? Washington?

Sometimes the authors take off the gloves, adding muscle where there might have been fluff. We learn, for example, that Katharine Hepburn was “a crusty old broad” who fired several people while acting in “On Golden Pond,” filmed at New Hampshire’s Squam Lake. And that Mainer David Jackson tangled with police (he paid no fine) for painting over the red crustacean on his license plate. “… A boiled lobster is a symbol of affluence,” he says, “and I think that there are a lot of people in Maine who simply don’t share that kind of affluence.”

Amen to that. And to the folks at WCVB-TV for producing one classy little book. Better keep it off the coffee table and in your hands where it belongs.