(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – April 14, 1995

ORONO – Interim Chancellor Robert Woodbury was received warmly on his first visit to campus since reassuming the University of Maine System’s top post.

Woodbury spent an hour answering questions from UMaine faculty, administration and staff. His quick start highlights what he called his two priorities. The first is to visit campuses “to hear what is on people’s minds.

“What this job needs, more than anything else, is a good radar system,” Woodbury said.

.

INDIAN ISLAND – Eighth-grader Chuck Altean was the winner in the final competition of the Indian Island School Civic Oration Contest held at the Indian Island School. Taletha Stevens, a seventh-grader was named runner-up.

Each received trophies and gold award pins, and their names will be engraved on Indian Island’s permanent trophy. Commemorative pins also were awarded to Maulian Dana, Lydon Corvino, Veronica Patterson, Albert Glossian, Chelsea Paul, Jey Coslin, Rachel Guimond and Darrick Luce. The contest was sponsored by Modern Woodmen of America.

25 years ago – April 14, 1980

ORONO – Where can you find a recipe for Black Forest cake, the address of the consulate general of Turkey, information on church architecture in Maine and material on underground houses – all under one roof?

The public library.

Few people realize the magnitude and variety of questions answered by local libraries in the course of a day – questions that oftentimes require considerable research.

“We don’t mind at all,” replied Deb Baxter, when asked how her staff at Orono Public Library copes with its fair share of “in-depth reference questions.”

The director of library services believes they have an obligation to answer the public’s questions, no matter how complex or unusual. She reasons that the public pays for the library and the salaries of its staff and that they have a direct responsibility to assist people any way they can, even if it means answering questions about recipes, gardening, world events and literature.

.

“Food and Cooking in Early Bangor,” the opening exhibit for the Bangor Historical Society Museum’s 1980 season, will feature items from the museum collection and others on loan.

There are some surprises to be found in the culinary tastes and habits of our ancestors. Visitors will learn that oysters, rather than today’s seafood, were a staple in the past, and often used as a base for other dishes.

Young people may get from the exhibit a hint of the long hours spent in the kitchen preparing meals in the early days. Their parents may be intrigued by Mrs. Shaw’s recipe for cheesecake – guaranteed to last for seven years! (Mrs. Shaw was the wife of a proprietor of the Bangor House in the late 1800s.)

In a handwritten cookbook from 1819, a recipe for making gum rubbers joins those for Johnny cake and gingerbread. There is also one for tallow candles and a cure for cholera beginning with two tablespoons of laudanum, after which the other ingredients probably didn’t matter. Obviously, the kitchen wasn’t just for cooking.

50 years ago – April 14, 1955

BANGOR – The relocation of Hammond Street, necessitated by the expansion of Dow Air Force Base, is expected to begin this summer. And construction of an additional “spur” connecting the new road with Main Street will probably follow at a later date.

Present plans call for the relocation to swing off Hammond Street just north of the Queen City Motel, following a sweeping curve along a 2 1/4-mile-long course to swing back into Hammond Street near Mason Street, probably near Dysart’s Garage.

Residents of Buck Street and Silver Road have been requesting that a road be built connecting Hammond and Main streets for several years, because trucks using those streets at night “keep them awake.”

Although construction of a “spur” from the relocated Hammond Street to Main Street has not been definitely scheduled, it is anticipated that it will take place in 1956.

.

BANGOR – “You have just witnessed the biggest selling job in America – Salk vaccine,” Eugene B. Mapel, marketing and management consultant, told 112 Lions and their guests at the luncheon meeting of the Bangor-Brewer Club.

“Using modern marketing techniques to overcome the prejudices of medical societies, PTA groups and Walter Winchell – who said over the radio that the Salk vaccine was a killer – they have sold the idea that immunization against polio is possible,” Mapel said. “That is selling.”

Mapel, speaking on “Master Salesmanship in Today’s Economy,” emphasized that there is nothing wrong with selling as a profession and urged the audience to go out and sell selling to young people. “No other profession is so rewarding. And no good salesman is ever out of a job,” Mapel said.

.

OLD TOWN – The James W. Sewall Company has started construction of a one-story cement block wing at an estimated cost of $30,000.

The wing will be added to the present structures housing the company on Center Street. The building will be used to house intricate precision machines used in the highly specialized mapping work of the firm. The company does photo-grammetry, or surveying by means of aerial photographs, civil engineering, timberland mapping and revaluation.

100 years ago – April 14, 1905

BANGOR – Manager J. Leland Crosby of the track team at Bangor High School said that he had secured the services of ex-Captain Moody of the Dartmouth track team as coach for the local team. Mr. Moody is at present a student at the University of Maine School of Law.

Mr. Moody was a great long-distance runner, being especially strong on the 2-mile. People who saw his performance at Brunswick a few years ago when he was running for Colby, will not easily forget it. He ran nine laps for the two miles, when he should have run only eight, and lowered the record at that.

.

HAMPDEN – Work on the new clubhouse of the Condeskeag Canoe and Country Club has commenced.

The site selected is upon the bluff at the mouth of Soudabscook Stream, not far from the old clubhouse, which burned last February. The new clubhouse will be about 70 feet above the water.

The plans are by Wales & Hoyt of Boston, specialists in that line of work. The design is in the bungalow style, with wide piazzas and a “crow’s nest” or lookout on the top, which will command a most beautiful view.

The house will be 40 feet by 35 feet on the sills, or 60 feet by 35 feet outside of the piazzas built on three sides.

The main room will have a large fireplace of fieldstone. Back of this will be two rooms, one for the use of the women members, and the other will be the “galley.”

Over the main entrance will be the chart room where signal flags will be kept. A boathouse will be built on the shore, with a step extending beyond low-water mark.

The club membership now numbers 80 and the “navy” represents about every kind of craft from the small paddling canoe up to the big schooner yacht Speranza owned by Hon. F.W. Hill, and the magnificent steam yacht Aria of Hon. E.H. Blake, the finest pleasure craft owned in Maine.

.

BUCKSPORT – Capt. L.A. Wood of the three-masted John M. Honson now loading in Bangor, arrived in port in his new 24-foot gasoline launch built for him by Cobb Brothers of Brewer. Many were examining it and all were much pleased with her build. Capt. Wood made the run from Bangor here in one hour and 30 minutes.

.

BANGOR – The friends of Chief T. Herbert White of the police department have recently presented him with a slight ceremonial of their esteem in the form of a .44 caliber, automatic magazine revolver capable of firing eight shots without reloading, and a beautiful club for service on full-dress occasions.

The revolver is of gun metal, highly burnished, and is about the handsomest weapon that has ever decorated the hip of a chief, past or present.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin