Blackfly Breeders swarm to Machias for yearly bite

MACHIAS – Black flies are the resident enemy of folks in Maine, but a civic-minded foursome has discovered plenty of positives in promoting the pests.

Ever since developing the tongue-in-cheek Maine Blackfly Breeders Association as a nonprofit organization five years ago, the four have made hundreds of friends along the way.

They also have given out more than $8,000 to local charities. Most of the money has come from first-place prizes in parades and sales of black fly-related items.

Eighty more locals who have jumped on the black fly bandwagon gathered Monday morning to fill long tables for breakfast at A’s Bar and Grill for the group’s sixth annual convention.

They weren’t just swarmy.

Worse, they were smarmy, talking about their favorite fly with jest and jokes.

But first came Holly Garner-Jackson’s business report. The group has donated $2,840 in the last year to a mix of Down East services, from libraries to food pantries.

“We just like to improve the quality of life through humor and hand out money,” said Jim Wells, a retired psychologist and woodworker in Machiasport and, along with Garner-Jackson of Whiting, one of the four who carried on the convention with straight faces.

Marilyn Dowling of Jonesboro and Laurel Robinson of Machias are the other board members. They keep area stores stocked with homemade, hand-painted black fly mementos, the sales of which turn into charitable contributions.

Last year’s convention – more a sharing of witticisms – drew 105, but that was staged on a Saturday. The group always calls for a convention on Feb. 29 – or, in this year’s case, Feb. 30.

The Monday date kept the attendance down and the buzz in the room a bit dulled, especially with some regulars stuck at home with sickness. But merriment shone through anyway.

Don Green of Machias was entertaining with campaign declarations for the Maine Blackfly Party.

“As members of the Blackfly Party we will not become part of the race for the White House,” Green said. “We will instead pester and provoke those already running. We will swarm them on the beaches, we will swarm them on the streets, we will swarm them at their speeches, and we will bite them in their seats.”

Ginny Brown of Machias threw in a campaign slogan: “We are left-wing and right-wing, too.”

Joel Pratt shared his limericks.

One goes: “A hungry black fly swarm in Maine, Bit scores of Down Easters in vain, Said one ‘give me tourists, For they are the surest, To scream out loudly when in pain.'”

“Pratt has a lot of time on his hands,” Garner-Jackson said in introducing the retiree from Roque Bluffs.

None of the four current organizers can take credit for the Breeders Association idea. That belongs to the late Peter Clarkson Crolius of Marshfield, who included his position as “chairman emeritus” in the obituary he wrote shortly before he died in 1994.

But they sure do a good job with keeping the lighthearted look at the forlorn flies alive year-round, even in winter and particularly when tourists come to town.

There is even international support for the convention. Canadians Leigh Waldron and Art White have crossed the border from St. Stephen, New Brunswick, to take part the last three years.

The first-timers in the room got automatic life membership in the association for $1. Monday’s attendance means there are more than 700 life members, from Maine to California, who pay tribute to black flies.

Not all members live with them, as Down Easters do, but they all love ’em.

The group has a Web site, maineblackfly.com.