10 years ago – April 22, 1994

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BANGOR – “Think globally and act locally.” That’s what students in the Greater Bangor area are doing to celebrate Earth Day.

In Bangor, 180 eighth-graders from Garland Street Middle School participated in an interdisciplinary unit of study that ended during Earth Week, April 11-16. Pupils competed in Earth Week challenges, projects that earned homerooms competition points for essays, artistic works and vegetarian food creations, all with an environmental theme. Guest speakers dealt with various topics.

Sarah Kates-Chinoy, an eighth-grader at Garland Street, discovered how difficult it was to clean up oil when her science class used motor oil and a tin pan filled with water to simulate an oil spill.

“Nothing really worked well,” she said. “A lot of it just contained the oil, but nothing really picked it up,” she said.

.

BREWER – Morrill’s Redemption Center in Brewer has tripled its business in six months.

Last summer the owners almost shut it down, barely able to make ends meet. Then they began paying customers 6 cents per empty instead of 5, and business took off.

“It saved my job,” said Roger Allard, who manages the center in a ramshackle building on South Main Street. “We’re averaging $300. That’s what we pay out a day. Last September it was $75. [Now] we do 10,000 containers on some days.”

In making the change in order to stay open, Morrill’s followed the lead of other redemption facilities in the area. The result has been a price war for customers, with some centers offering 6 cents and others a nickel.

For 16 years Mainers have paid retailers a deposit on beverage containers.

25 years ago – April 22, 1979

ORONO – She says unequivocally that she’s 66, but from her physical energy and mental acumen, you’d swear she was no more than 50. May Sarton, in Orono for the first time to discuss her work and to read from it, had driven up from York, where she makes her home, to meet with English students on the University of Maine campus.

For years, Miss Sarton lived alone – and has emphatically liked it.

“Still,” she added, “I could not live in a completely empty house. So I keep pets.” Actually, the stunningly prolific writer has written frequently on the facets of living alone. Her output has included 30 published books, 12 of them novels, five or six autobiographical works and a dozen anthologies of poetry.

What comes as a shock from a woman of vast sophistication, emotional depth and culture is that she never attended college.

“I’m quite proud of that,” she said.

.

ORONO – Maine members of the New England Press Association have received a $500 grant from the Maine Commission on Arts and Humanities to begin publication of The Puckerbrush Review.

The magazine is devoted to reviewing the work of Maine writers published by Maine small press and independent publishers. It will include reviews of small Maine newspapers and magazines, feature interviews with and articles about Maine writers and small press publishers, as well as poetry concerning being a writer in Maine.

The editor is Constance Hunting of Orono. She will be assisted by contributing editors. Designs will be by Bern Porter of Belfast. The first issue of The Puckerbrush Review will appear in late spring.

.

Winter is reluctant to loosen its grip on Maine this year. The third week of April still finds deep snow in the woods, ponds blacked with ice and birds confounded by snow where there should be grassy areas.

One gray, rainy day a week ago, Mrs. Paul Hannemann of Brewer saw nine great blue herons grouped disconsolately at the far end of the Orrington Marsh – possibly wondering why on earth they wanted to come to Maine. How nice if one could reassure them: “Cheer up, the spring peepers have started singing.” That opening song occurred April 15, a day earlier than my earliest recorded date.

50 years ago – April 22, 1954

BANGOR – As far as is known the polio vaccine is completely safe, Dr. Lawrence M. Cutler told a group of parents meeting at Bangor High School for an orientation on the forthcoming polio vaccine field trials. The only question, Dr. Cutler said, is whether the vaccine will prevent polio.

Dr. Cutler opened his talk by giving some of the historical data telling how the vaccine came into being. He then went on to tell how Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Hart E. Van Riper of the NFIP, and Basil O’Connor, national president, conferred with state health officials all over the country to see how the testing of a half-million children could be carried out and the incidence of polio lowered.

Dr. Cutler said children in the second grades will be eligible for the tests upon written consent of their parents or guardians.

Up to now, Dr. Cutler said, 7,500 children have received the vaccine in the Pittsburgh area and there have been no untoward effects.

.

BANGOR – Members of the Kiwanis Club watched a motion picture of the Mount Washington Television station at their regular meeting at the Bangor House.

James F. White introduced Charles Hildreth of Portland, one of the directors of Mount Washington TV station, who told the Kiwanians that Bangor will be on the “fringe area” of the Mount Washington service.

Hildreth said that while it was difficult to say just when the station will begin operations, it was a safe bet to designate the starting time as “the last of August or the first of September.”

The movie, “Pictures from the Sky,” showed the difficulty of carrying on operations on Mount Washington, “the roof of New England.” The wind on the mountain has been recorded at 231 miles per hour and temperatures drop to 50 degrees below zero.

100 years ago – April 22, 1904

BANGOR – Fast Day wasn’t such a very swift time after all. It was the most half-hearted holiday that Bangor has witnessed for a long, long time. The weather was a little more congenial than has been the case for the last week or so, but it wasn’t balmy enough to make May flowering a possibility. It isn’t known whether many picnics were held.

About all the retail stores were open in the morning and doing a snapping business. In the afternoon, however, shades were pulled down, doors were locked and everybody went out to wander aimlessly around the streets and “have a good time.”

The day was important in presenting an opportunity for a very belated Easter parade. Just think of the bushels and barrels of finery that have been tucked away ever since the last of March waiting for half a show of weather. Great Easter hats with mountains of flowers! And not a one that has seen the glad light of the sun.

.

BANGOR – A new society is to be formed that one writer has called a “real United States order of nobility.” It is made up of “Who’s Who” folks.

The average citizen need have no fear of being held up by an organizer and induced by a suspended initiation fee to sign an application for membership. He can’t join unless his name and condensed biography appears in “Who’s Who,” an American-made Blue Book (it’s bright cherry red in binding) which has become quite famous since its first appearance in 1899. Then it contained 8,602 names. The latest edition had 14,442 names – all eligible for the new Who’s Who Society.

Bangor is represented in this extraordinary society. In Who’s Who are to be found the names of the Rev. John Smith Sewall, theologian; Augustus Choate Hamlin, retired surgeon; Gen. Charles Hamlin, lawyer and veteran soldier; Dean William Emanuel Walz, educator; and the Rev. David Nelson Beach, clergyman and educator.

.

BANGOR – Nothing in the line of ocean commerce came up the river on Fast Day, although perhaps the day didn’t make any difference. Several of the lumber coasters got away, and more will go today.

The Annie F. Kimball sailed with lumber from F.H. Strickland for Northeast Harbor; the Game Cock for Boston from Sterns Lumber Co.; and the Mary Eliza from Sterns Lumber Co. for Frankfort.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin