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In Franklin, everyone knows Allison Catheron II as “Al” – Shirley’s husband of 47 years, World War II veteran and lifelong Republican.
He likes a beer and game of pool at the Franklin Veterans Club once a week. He loves to fish when he can. His annual ritual each fall is filling his white clapboard farmhouse’s porch with split wood. He can talk details about today’s weather and what’s ahead for tomorrow and the next day, too.
What people don’t know about Al Catheron, 79, is the fact he sits down every evening to record the day’s highlights.
Outgoing around town, Catheron is intensely private about the very thing that distinguishes him in this day and age – his devotion to keeping a daily diary for close to 50 years.
Beyond his family, he said, at most “two or three” people know about his ritual.
Why? Because, he figures, “it’s mundane.”
“It just goes on,” he said simply at his home of 33 years along Route 182.
Catheron doesn’t see how his journal-keeping would be of any interest to anyone but himself.
“I’m sure there are people who have diaries that are far more interesting,” he said.
Years ago, Catheron began faithfully recording the day’s events because he wanted his boys to know more about his life. Lloyd Catheron, 44, lives in Franklin and works for a Bangor alarm and security company while Kevin Catheron, 45, just retired after serving 22 years in the U.S. Navy.
Stored in a cardboard box, the dozens of journals are a father’s gift of sorts. Catheron plans to leave them to his sons, but he has no sense of their value to anyone really but himself.
“They can do whatever they want with them,” he said with a grin. “They can throw them out if they want.”
Lloyd Catheron hasn’t read the diaries. Not yet, anyway. He remembers his father’s diligence with the diaries as always being part of the family fabric. It was such a routine that it was hardly noticeable.
“He’d do it in the evenings; he just always did it,” the younger son recalled. “He’s quite an intelligent person and he has a lot of stories to tell.”
The most precious diary in Al Catheron’s hands probably isn’t his own. It’s the work of Donald McKay, a Scots ancestor who lived in Nova Scotia. Written in 1793 in McKay’s graceful cursive, the journal tells of the Scotsman making his living in the woods.
Catheron keeps that diary protected in plastic on a shelf in his living room. It has been a source of inspiration.
Of the Franklin resident’s own diaries, no two are the same size or shape. He uses whatever ledgers or other bound books are on hand when Jan. 1 rolls around.
The diaries reveal a man who forged a career in forestry and geology and has an appreciation for conservation. Born in Massachusetts, Catheron studied at both the University of Maine in Orono and McGill University in Montreal. His work took him to Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
But World War II came before the career. At 19, Catheron entered the air force arm of the U.S. Army Air Corps., serving with the 17th Antisub Squadron. He stayed within U.S. borders, working the waterfront between Long Island, N.Y., and Virginia. Those years, between 1943 and 1945 when he tracked submarines and missiles, formed the foundation of his diary-keeping.
Catheron took up the pen again in 1957. Newly married, he was working in the Vermont forests where his boss told him to keep a work log. Today, he can show a guest all his carefully kept, neatly typed notes from that time. That was back in the days when – as the diary reads – he was reimbursed 8 cents per mile.
Wherever he went through the years, whatever he did, he recorded it all. There were some years of teaching, too – seven years at Franconia College in New Hampshire, one year (1970) at Shead High School in Eastport, another year (1974) at the University of Maine at Machias in the outdoor recreation program. Then came his retirement.
The journals reflect someone who has always loved the outdoors – ice-fishing included.
Take, for example, what his Feb. 24, 1975 entry:
“Cold, windy, 28 degrees F to 30 degrees. Some sleet in the afternoon, freezing rain. Caught four trout, took two of them and a squash down to Ralph and Frances Richardson in Town Hill. Took short walk, met Mrs. Estes tonight.”
His entries usually start with the weather – the day’s minimum and maximum temperatures, the barometer reading, both morning and evening, and whether it is rising or falling, any precipitation.
He writes about what he got in the mail, who he mailed things to. He relates who he talked to, the wildlife he saw, how the garden is coming. He tells of tasks at home or errands in Ellsworth. He mentions national and world events of note.
He is modest about his commitment to his journals. He takes them out from time to time when he wants to refer back to something.
“He is forever looking things up,” Shirley Catheron noted.
“Once in a while something will come up that I have to check on, and the only way I can do that is to go back to the diaries,” he said.
He has barely skipped a day since his sons were born, although he did lose two weeks to a hospitalization some years back.
Catheron’s ritual tends to take place at nearly the same time every day, mostly after supper. But he doesn’t sit at the same place necessarily. He writes at the kitchen table or from a chair in the living room.
What’s important is that he writes.
He writes purely out of habit, as if recording the day’s details is the most natural thing in the world. For him, it is. It’s never a hardship.
“It’s just what I do. I don’t know why I do it every day,” he said.
“But I do.”
Katherine Cassidy can be reached at 255-3324 or kcassidy@downeast.net.
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