Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Sept. 22, 1995

BANGOR – Richard Hill isn’t long-winded, but he does like sustained winds.

As an alternative to fossil fuels and as an addendum to nuclear power in Maine, wind power shows promise, Hill told an audience of 75 businesspeople in Bangor.

An energy specialist and professor emeritus at the University of Maine, Hill joined Charles Frizzle, chief executive officer of the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, in discussing issues in the state at the monthly breakfast meeting at Husson College.

For Hill, a proposal to build 639 windmill turbines in the Boundary Mountains in western Maine makes more sense than other alternatives, such as solar power.

Hill said that the wind power project, like a lot of alternate power sources, has its drawbacks – primarily that it has to be large to trap sufficient power.

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BANGOR – Bangor area businesspeople sought the support of a state loan guaranteeing authority to stem what they see as opportunities, jobs and great ideas leaving the state.

Addressing a board meeting of the Finance Authority of Maine held in Bangor, representatives of a handful of area businesses urged the authority to take steps to improve the economy in the retail-dependent Bangor area.

Steve Rich, a partner in a Bangor architectural and engineering firm, expressed concern that without help, Bangor’s economy could slide further.

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VEAZIE – Concerned that the familiar yellow-and-black “Children Playing” signs might lull parents and children into a false sense of security, Veazie officials decided to pull them all out.

Town councilors voted unanimously this week to take signs down – all 21 of them, said Town Manager William Reed.

Reed said the councilors’ decision to remove the signs followed a review of a national study distributed by the Maine Local Roads Center, a unit of the state Department of Transportation.

Among the reasons that “Children Playing” signs don’t work are that the sign is unclear and unnecessary, suggesting to some that if no sign is there, children are not playing there – while others might interpret the sign to mean that children are playing in the road.

25 years ago – Sept. 22, 1980

BANGOR – Some 300 disappointed people were left at a wharf in Bangor as the 109-foot cruise vessel Viking Queen, loaded to capacity, began a four-hour trip to Bucksport and back with 385 persons crowded onto her decks. Many of them carried picnic baskets.

Passengers for the first-come, first-served cruise aboard the Portsmouth, N.H.-based vessel began showing up at 6 a.m.

“There were flocks and flocks of people,” said Mrs. Hugh Parrish of Penobscot, who with her crewman husband and first-mate daughter, Mollie, was helping run the vessel for its owner, Capt. Arnold Whittaker.

It was the first time since 1935 that a passenger vessel has arrived in Bangor looking for customers.

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HAMPDEN – It is probably a common misconception that taxidermists simply stuff the animals and birds that they mount and preserve.

But Forest O. Hart, a Hampden taxidermist, considers taxidermy akin to sculpting, and his business card says he is a taxidermist-sculptor.

“You do the same thing as a sculptor and put a skin over it,” Hart said, “but taxidermists aren’t recognized as artists the way sculptors are.”

An effort to demonstrate that taxidermy is an art was made when an art show featuring wildlife paintings, sculpture and taxidermy was held in conjunction with a taxidermy competition. Hart was one of six taxidermists invited to exhibit in the show.

He also was the top performer in the competition, capturing four blue ribbons in the mammal category, with one mount named Best of Show.

50 years ago – Sept. 22, 1955

BANGOR – Buster Crabbe, movie Tarzan, television star and former Olympic swimmer, will be in Bangor to appear at the Park Theatre and attend a banquet at the Penobscot Hotel.

His local appearance, which is part of a nationwide tour, is sponsored by the John J. Nissen Baking Corp. While here, Crabbe will tour the new Nissen plant in Brewer.

A member of the 1932 Olympic swimming team, Crabbe held the 400-meter title for several years, as well as 16 other world and 35 national swimming records.

A veteran of 170 films, Crabbe starred as Tarzan for several years. Before his television career, he traveled through Europe and the United States with his aqua-parade.

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BANGOR – A solution is in the works for the traffic problems Bangor has endured for a year, City Manager Joseph R. Coupal Jr. told the Bangor Kiwanis Club.

Coupal listed the problems Bangor faced last year as “traffic, parking, schools, sewage, swimming pools, water, addition to the library, a housing code expansion of the health department and industrial development.”

In the fall of 1955 the traffic program included construction of the relocation of Hammond Street, the bypass from Hammond to Main Street and plans for Sunset Drive, Coupal said.

Today, the manager went on, the relocation is under way, the state has informally assured him they will consider the bypass in the 1956 budget, and the planning board has recommended that Sunset Drive be placed on the official map.

The parking problem, he said, is still great, but two projects are now being planned to relieve the situation. One is a fringe parking area at Bass Park, with shuttle bus service to carry shoppers downtown. The other is the demolition of the Harlow Street block of city-owned houses and the expansion of the Abbott Square parking lot.

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BANGOR – The Penobscot County Chapter, American Red Cross, has moved its headquarters from 15 State St. to 104 Hammond St., where the agency has taken over the entire three floors of the building, which is the property of Charles Murray Inc.

The first floor of the building will be used for administrative offices; the second floor for the work of volunteers in production sewing, which had previously been carried on at the Bangor City Hospital; and the third floor for home nursing and first aid.

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ORONO – Maine folk singers Gordon Bok and Dave Mallett will be the featured performers at a benefit concert for the Wabanaki Alliance newspaper.

Proceeds from the concert will be used to pay for the direct costs of publishing the newspaper for the American Indian community. It is being sponsored by American Indians at the University of Maine.

100 years ago – Sept. 22, 1905

ORONO – About 50 Greeks who will be quartered in the big red barn on Water Street were expected to arrive in tow on Thursday evening.

They are in the employ of the Orono Water Co., which is straining every nerve to get the river work done before the fall rains come and the Penobscot, now so easy to encounter, becomes a raging torrent.

The two divers have practically got the trench across the river excavated, and as soon as they have finished they will immediately go to Basin Mills and begin excavating in the main channel between the mainland and the island. The Basin drive has nearly reached its destination, the rear of the drive having crossed the Orono line.

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BANGOR – A visitor to the roller skating rink at the auditorium remarked on the unusually large number of fine skaters who were gliding over the rink surface. Among the crowd were discerned very few poor skaters. This demonstrates to a marked degree the simplicity of roller skating and the ease with which one masters the sport.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin