E-mail writers were right: That hurricane was no lady

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I was flooded by Isidore, or at least the mail I received about Isidore.

Jeez, where have I been since 1978. I mean, I’ve read a newspaper or two since then. I must have missed the story in 1978, which announced that future hurricane names would alternate between female and male.

The world is still flat, isn’t it?

In 1978, I was in Belgium at NATO military headquarters (SHAPE) serving in Uncle Sam’s canoe club.

My primary sources of information were Stars and Stripes, L’Equipe (a French sports daily newspaper), AFRTS (the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service) and the bartender at the Top Graders Club.

AFRTS has since been shortened to AFN (Armed Forces Network) for obvious reasons.

Stars and Stripes fed me some U.S. news and stories about the guys down in motor pool. L’Equipe fed me soccer scores and sports news that weren’t three days old (Stars and Stripes was a little slow). AFRTS fed me Paul Harvey and The Tooth Fairy radio serial. And the bartender fed me, well, that’s another story.

So imagine my surprise when the e-mails came pouring in about my little faux pax that ran in Saturday’s Bangor Daily News. I referred to Hurricane Isidore as a “lady.”

First, let me say that the e-mails were all polite. Secondly, thanks to those of you who wrote with the history lessons.

I have typed “Isidore is no lady,” 500 times on my computer.

– . –

You may have better things to do with your life, but you could do far worse than spend a Saturday afternoon in the fall at a Maine Maritime Academy football game in Castine.

Last Saturday’s homecoming was exceptional with representatives introduced from the school’s classes dating back to 1947.

As a vet, it was a great seeing The Regiment in formation, flags flying prior to the game. And their antics during the football game were a crowd-pleaser as well.

The Marine Corps Silent Drill Team put on an exceptional show and, oh yeah, a pretty good football game was played.

Finally, the drive to and from Castine is beautiful.

– . –

A person can learn a lot in the tunnel under the stands at Cameron Stadium in Bangor following a football game.

If you’ve become jaded, a few minutes there might do you a lot of good.

You can see kids who have just finished playing each other in a hard-fought game meet on their way out to the parking lot, talking and joking with each other.

You can see others making plans for later.

You can see the parents of both the winners and the losers telling their sons how proud they are of them.

I’m not sure it’s that way every Friday night after a game. But that’s the way it was last Friday night. It did me some good to see these high school athletes in such a setting.

And before those of you in high school take exception (“What else would we be doing?), sorry, but it’s only natural to wonder.

As people grow older we naturally assume that the current crop of teenagers won’t be able to run this place in the future. That the world is going to hell in a handbasket.

It was that way with my parents and their parents before them.

We’ve been wrong every time.

Don Perryman can be reached at 990-8045, 1-800-310-8600 or dperryman@bangordailynews.net.