Yesterday…

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10 years ago – Sept. 16, 1994

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BANGOR – The heavy beat of the large barrel-shaped drum broke the quiet discussions at the Bangor Mall while, nearby, Japanese dancers in blue and white robes with yellow bows and bells chanted and lightly hopped from one foot to another as they danced.

It was a traditional dance of the Nabuta festival that annually draws 3.5 million people to Aomori City, swelling the city’s population in August by tenfold.

Although it drew substantially less than that to the Bangor Mall, the dance and Japanese trade show are aimed at giving Mainers a glimpse of Japanese culture, life and business.

The trade show is part of a four-day visit by about 200 Japanese from the Aomori Prefecture, a small state in northern Japan that this spring became Maine’s sister state. It’s a relationship that could provide increased export opportunities for both.

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BANGOR – Tabitha King’s feet touch the ground just enough to swivel her about in the chair in her husband’s office near the Bangor Airport. She flicks back her hair, which is fashioned in a stylish bowl cut. She smiles puckishly and then settles the corners of her lips back into jowly cheeks. Her dark eyes sparkle behind lightly tinted spectacles.

King is, at once, girlish and womanly in her demeanor as she considers all the reasons she felt prompted to write in depth about a male character and his progression from childhood to middle age. One reason involves coming to terms with a rebellious quality of her own, one she left unexpressed as a youth but rediscovered as an adult and as a writer.

“There is probably some emotional parallel between a 17-year-old male and a 45-year-old menopausal woman,” says King. “The Book of Reuben,” her newest installment in the make-believe lives about the Mainers of Nodd’s Ridge, combined just those qualities, she says. In writing about Reuben, King combines the impulse of adolescence with the insight of adulthood and comes out with a tale that wavers between shocking and sad.

25 years ago – Sept. 16, 1979

ORONO -An antique Sheffield silver tray with serving dishes has been presented to the University of Maine at Orono by Raymond H. Fogler of Exeter, whose name has become almost synonymous with giving at the campus from which he was graduated in 1915.

The handsome antique is silver on copper and the tray, which is on a pedestal, has a well to hold hot water to keep food in four covered serving dishes warm. Additional pieces include a tureen and salt and pepper shakers.

The Fogler gift, which was in his home in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., will be placed in the Presidents House on campus.

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OLD TOWN – “Gee, a real school,” said one of the handicapped students entering the public St. Joseph’s School in Old Town last week.

Seventy handicapped students from around southern Penobscot County have entered self-contained public schools or classrooms for the first time this fall as part of a new regional effort to bring special education under the aegis of public school officials.

Several private schools in Bangor and Brewer have closed and public programs have been opened in Brewer and Old Town for students with various types of emotional, physical and mental conditions. Another program is planned in Bradley.

“This is the finest program of its kind in the state. There is no other program serving these students that offers the comprehensiveness we do,” said Murray Shulman, director of Old Town’s alternative program, which enrolls 37 students, many of whom have behavioral and learning problems that would get them into trouble in the classrooms.

St. Joseph’s School enrolls only handicapped students, but Shulman estimates that by midyear about a quarter will be enrolled for at least part of the day in regular classrooms at other schools. He feels that mainstreaming will be more extensive in the public programs than it was in the private schools over the past few years.

50 years ago – Sept. 16, 1954

BREWER – Ronald E. Stewart, city manager of Brewer, said Hurricane Edna clearly shows that the city has several shortcomings in handling an emergency and made suggestions to the City Council for improvement of the situation.

He also requested that the program of public education be instituted to avoid duplication of phone calls which, during Hurricane Edna, swamped phone facilities.

In a third suggestion, Stewart asked that some better method of communicating with the Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. be established.

Hurricane Edna was damaging to Brewer, Stewart reported, but did bring to light several shortcomings of the city in handling an emergency. Early in the storm, the city lost its power and the main station became inactive. Fire engine number two, the city manager’s car, the police car and the highway pickup combined to form a system of communication.

The system worked, but the situation could have been much more serious in a greater emergency.

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BANGOR – As events proved, the straw vote that was taken by the Bangor Daily News with the automatic voting machine at the Bangor Fair last August came within 0.4 of a point of predicting the outcome of the Muskie-Cross gubernatorial race.

Although the voting machine was installed in the Bangor Daily News booth as a public service, it was equipped with the September ballot and fairgoers were invited to try the machine. It was the first appearance of a voting machine in Bangor.

In that poll Muskie received 2,197 votes to 1,993 for Cross, or 52.4 percent of the total vote cast on the automatic voting machine.

In Monday’s election in Bangor, Muskie received 3,788 votes to 3,384 for Cross, or 52.8 percent of the total vote in the Queen City.

Statewide, Muskie received 54.5 percent of the total vote, and Sen. Margaret Chase Smith received 58.4 percent of the state vote. The NEWS straw vote favored Sen. Smith by 54.4 percent of the machine totals.

100 years ago – Sept. 16, 1904

BANGOR – The last day of the summer vacation for school children proved a most happy one to the inmates of the Children’s Home.

Through the kindness of their good friend, Mr. M.F. Brackett, 25 of the children, the matron and the assistants were taken to Etna in response to an invitation given by Mr. and Mrs. Weatherbee of the Echo House, who entertained them most royally.

A bountiful dinner, to which ample justice was done, was provided the entire party. A happier company would be hard to find, as they enjoyed the privileges of the ample grounds given them, and the time for the return came all too soon. The drive home was made merry by the singing of the children while their faces seemed most surely to say, “Long live Mr. Brackett and Mr. and Mrs. Weatherbee, with very many thanks for providing such a happy day.”

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BUCKSPORT – The storm which visited Bucksport and the surrounding country on Wednesday afternoon and evening and Thursday morning was one of great severity.

The mildness with which it commenced changed in the evening, the fury of the wind and the volume of rain increasing until a climax was reached about half past two, when a severe thunderstorm joined forces with the gale.

The lightning was exceptionally sharp, which together with particularly heavy thunder made the night one which will not soon be forgotten. The thunder shower lasted until after daybreak. The rain, in addition to the strong wind, on many farms gathered the apples which the farmers had left on the trees that they might increase in size, gathering them as effectively, but not as well, as many a bruised spot testified.

The wind did much damage to the telephone lines, especially to the Orland line, besides many of the local lines. Owing to the severity of the storm on Thursday morning, the signal for “no school” was sounded from the Franklin Street tannery. The Boston and Bangor boat did not leave Boston Wednesday afternoon and thus the freight here had to be sorted and in some cases shipped by rail.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin