Yesterday …

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10 years ago – Dec. 4, 1993

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BREWER – Mysterious stones with strange markings have begun to appear along the banks of the Penobscot River.

Brewer’s newest park, as yet unnamed, is beginning to shape up as sculptor Carole Hanson sets about carving monolithic bluestone slabs that have been hauled to the site next to the Veterans Remembrance Bridge. Architect Andreas Von Heune is designing the landscape.

The park is being developed with funds left over from Brewer’s Centennial celebration three years ago.

Hanson has been working on the main stone for several weeks. She said she has been carving the face of the stone to give it a feeling of rivulets of water with jumping salmon. The fish will come later, on another stone.

“I’m trying to represent humanity with a muse-like figure to bring out the Indian legends and origins of Brewer,” Hanson said. “The other stone will have wildlife and plants. There will be ferns and a wild duck on one stone.”

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WINTERPORT – Connie Lowe has taught second grade at the Leroy Smith School for more than 20 years. Some of her original pupils have children of their own in her class.

Lowe retired earlier this year and a potluck dinner in her honor is being billed as a remembrance party, said Katherine Craig, a retired teacher and friend of Lowe.

Lowe taught for 27 years, first at Washington and later at Dixmont, and for the past 20 years as a second-grade teacher in Winterport.

“Her love for children and great compassion has made life more pleasant for everyone with whom she has associated,” said Craig.

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BANGOR – The year was 1970. Merle Goff was city manager. Robert Brandow finished his first year at Eastern Maine Medical Center. Stephen King graduated from the University of Maine. And at the unfinished Airport Mall, Paul Flanagan and James Mooney started to work at a new Standard Shoe store.

The Union Street shopping center reportedly was Maine’s first enclosed mall. Construction began in August 1968 and the mall was set to open April 14, 1970. Standard Shoe was ready. Unfortunately, the rest of the shopping center wasn’t.

“Only the anchor stores Woolco and Freese’s – were open,” recalled Flanagan. “There were dirt floors in the halls. People came into our store on a wooden sidewalk.”

Standard Shoe closed its Airport Mall store today, and the two men will report to new jobs.

25 years ago – Dec. 4, 1978

BREWER – They came in all shapes and colors, but only one size – big.

The Bangor area’s first cat show attracted all manner of fuzzy, furry and friendly cats and their human masters at the Brewer Auditorium.

“And they all seem to be such big cats,” said Dixie Lott of Old Town, who helped to organize the show. “There were no little or dainty ones.”

To win a ribbon in the show, pedigree was not important, but personality was. The Companion Cat Show, sponsored by Pet Pride of Maine, was for all house cats, and a pet’s patience and friendliness toward humans was one of the important considerations.

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ORONO – Nancy Otto, senior at Orono High School and 1978 governor of Maine’s Dirigo Girls State, left to spend a month in Israel at Gedera and Tel Aviv.

Miss Otto, the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Fred B. Otto, will visit Shirley Yahel, who spent six months in Orono during 1977-78 as an American Field Service exchange student. Miss Yahel resided with the Charles Grant family while in Orono.

In January when Miss Yahel returned home, Miss Otto promised to visit and timed it during her friend’s monthlong vacation from preparation for social work and before she joins the army for two years of compulsory service.

50 years ago – Dec. 4, 1953

ORRINGTON – Pfc. Everett Harriman, son of Mr. and Mrs. Merrill Harriman, North Orrington, has returned to his home after spending two years in Okinawa. He has re-enlisted for six years in the Army Engineers Corps as a welder. He will report Jan. 24 at Fort Worth, Wash. He will be stationed in Alaska.

100 years ago – Dec. 4, 1903

BANGOR – A.B. Haskell, the Bangor undertaker, has returned from a short trip up the Kennebec on which he had a most enjoyable outing and also obtained an interesting souvenir of the work of an industrious little animal.

Mr. Haskell went in from Bingham, going through the chain of Carry ponds, and stopping at Lane’s Carry Pond Camps.

The specimen of the beaver’s work which he brought home with him is a portion of the trunk of a yellow birch, about eight inches in diameter. This tree had been almost felled by the beavers, being cut through to the thickness of about three inches.

The work was done as neatly as a man would do it with an axe, and the tree was not gnawed into sawdust but cut in large chips several inches in length. There was evidently a large colony of beavers there, for a large amount of wood has been cut and laid on the ground, the most of this being what are called “beaver canes,” small alders about two inches in thickness.

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BANGOR – We all enjoyed a nice little storm yesterday. It wasn’t hard enough to be disagreeable, but had just enough sting to make it refreshing. Reports last night were to the effect that the sleighing was excellent everywhere. Where the ground is bubbly it is pretty rough, but the bubbly places were few and far between. Merchants on Main Street were joyful for the first time in months, and their grins will expand in proportion to the volume of sound the sleigh bells make.

A rain would be better than anything. It would take away from the Christmas trade for the immediate present, but it would do thousands of dollars worth of good up north. The river is running at the lowest pitch it has for a long, long time, and lumbermen and lumber contractors want to see it swell.

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The second game of basketball in the City League will be played in the YMCA gymnasium this evening, between the YMCA team and the team of the Bangor Theological Seminary.

This game promises to one of the best of the winter, for the seminary has a very strong team, and the association team has improved considerably since the last game. The Theologs came very near winning the championship in the league last year, and they have four of that team as a nucleus of this year’s team. The two teams are very evenly matched and a fast contest should result.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin