(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – April 29, 1994

BANGOR – People who neglect to lower their flags to half-staff out of respect for the memory of Richard Nixon are raising the ire of Fred Larson.

The no-nonsense Navy veteran has secured for himself the somewhat unusual mission of protecting the symbol he fought for. While traveling in his flag-bedecked car, Larson keeps a keen eye out for breaches of what is a fairly strict protocol.

Whether it’s speaking to the manager of a fast-food restaurant or taking the liberty of lowering a flag himself, Larson doesn’t mess around when it comes to Old Glory.

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BANGOR – Barbara Rice appreciates the patience patrons have shown while half the front steps at Bangor Public Library have been out of commission, and she hopes they will be patient a while longer. The process to fix the steps is finally under way.

A crew from Sargent and Sargent was on hand to get things started.

“The bottom steps were lifted up and taken off to see what was underneath,” said librarian Rice.

“It wasn’t our worst fears,” Rice summarized after talking to an engineer at Ames Corp.

But it was bad enough. What the workers found underneath the heavy granite steps was clay, Rice said, “and with the freezing and thawing, the step had to move. It came loose.”

It has been quite a wait just to find out the status of the steps. The library announced last December that the left side would be blocked off because those steps were sloping inward, and repairs might cost $25,000 to $50,000.

“They haven’t been touched since 1911,” Rice said at that time.

25 years ago – April 29, 1979

ORONO – Alan Lewis, director of the physical plant at the University of Maine at Orono, was the speaker at the general meeting of the League of Women Voters of Orono, Old Town and Veazie, at the home of Sarah Hasbrouck. The league is studying local solid waste disposal and recycling.

According to Lewis, the Orono Town Council has been working on the problem of solid waste disposal for some time, since the present dump can only be used for a few years. Old Town’s solid waste disposal area will last a few years longer that Orono’s.

The cost for constructing a building and equipping it with incinerators, a spare incinerator, a chipper for wood waste and a heat recovery system was estimated at somewhat over $2.3 million with net annual costs of $180,000 per year over the 20-year life of the facility. Since the local usable waste was estimated at 50 tons per day, the cost would be $13.60 per ton, which is too high at present.

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BANGOR – It is nearly impossible to be nervous in the presence of Dick Curless. He is a man who puts you at ease immediately, shaking hands politely, quietly, remembering to call you by name.

He is a man that the citizens of Bangor, where he now lives, and of Fort Fairfield, where he was born, are proud to claim as one of their own. At 46, Curless is more respected, less rebellious, than he was in his “Tombstone Every Mile” days, but he is still affectionately called “The Baron” of country music, and his invitations to pick ‘n’ sing continue to exceed the time and physical energy he has for his trade.

How does Curless, now semi-retired due to health reasons, feel about being one of the first artists to make it into the Maine Country Music Association’s Hall of Fame?

With typical sincerity and modesty he responds, “Great, but I didn’t think it should be me. I thought it might be Yodelin’ Slim Clark, who taught me.”

50 years ago – April 29, 1954

BANGOR – A dream of many years took a long step closer to reality this week when ground was broken for the new Bangor municipal auditorium at Bass Park.

Civic-minded citizens and the municipal government have labored over a long period of time to bring to fruition a long-felt need in Bangor – an auditorium with modern facilities sufficient to take care of large crowds attending tournaments, festivals, expositions and other such events.

The new building will seat about 7,500 people and projecting the city’s growth into the future it is felt that this capacity should be enough for some time.

John A. Volpe, president of the Volpe Construction Company, Malden, Mass., low bidder on the building, said that he expected equipment would move in and actual construction start next week. Volpe said the building probably would be ready for use within a year.

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BANGOR – The whale is here again.

At least that’s what grownups and youngsters were shouting early Wednesday evening as they lined both sides of the Bangor-Brewer bridge.

The whale, sturgeon or whatever it is, is believed to be the same marine critter first spotted in the waters of the Penobscot River Monday morning.

Since then, it has been surfacing periodically in the river, any place between the site of the new Bangor-Brewer bridge and the Bangor Waterworks dam – a distance of about one mile.

It is generally believed to be mostly white in color, between 10 and 14 feet in length, and not in the least anxious to vacate its present water grounds.

Shark and porpoise are two other theories advanced since Monday on Bangor’s now famous visitor.

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BANGOR – Five hundred and fifty-seven second-grade children in Bangor, Brewer, Old Town, Orono and Veazie will participate in the polio vaccine field trials commencing Monday. The number of children to receive the vaccine in the five communities is: Bangor, 292; Brewer, 90; Veazie, 8; Old Town, 115; and Orono, 52.

Only second-grade children are eligible to receive the vaccine and first- and third-grade children have been asked to give blood samples, and 971 parents have given permission for this.

St. Mary’s Parochial School in Old Town is participating in the program 100 percent. There are 35 children in the first grade and 35 parents made requests to have blood samples taken. There are 15 children in the second grade and there were 15 requests to have the vaccine, and the third grade has 15 pupils and parents of all gave approval for blood samples.

There was a potential of about 1,900 children eligible for the vaccine in five communities.

100 years ago – April 29, 1904

BANGOR – Whether there are “fever bugs” in the Penobscot River water, or not, the fact remains that the water taken from the river at the Waterworks dam is not agreeable, not to say unfit, to take into the human system.

Another fact is that, as years go by, the quality must grow steadily worse. As it is at present, the sewage from communities with a total of 25,000 or more people empties into the Penobscot River, almost half of which comes in at points by 12, 10, eight and five miles above the intakes of the Bangor Waterworks.

Within the former limits are two large pulp mills and two woolen mills which empty waste directly into the river.

The conditions cannot improve. The upriver towns are growing. More sewers are built every year. The river is gradually decreasing in volume by the cutting off of the forests upriver.

Given then, that Bangor must some time, and the sooner the better, look for another and purer water supply, the question arises, where?

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BANGOR – The Penobscot Machine Co. of this city has completed a deal for an important addition to its plant on Franklin Street. This week owners secured the right for this vicinity to the invention known as the ferrofix which has attracted the attention of machinists all over the state.

It is a new process for brazing manufactured by the American Brazing Co. By the use of ferrofix, small, medium and large pieces of iron, steel, brass or any other metal parts of a machine may be repaired and placed back in position, not weaker than they were before, nor of the same strength, but from 5 to 10 percent stronger.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin