Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Dec. 8, 1995

ORONO – Last week, on a wintry afternoon in the town of Baumholder, Germany, Martha Estabrooks of Orono listened anxiously as 4,000 American soldiers preparing to go to Bosnia got a pep talk from President Clinton.

In the crowd that day was her fiance, Capt. Thomas Wetherington of Windham, a member of the Army’s 1st Armored Division. A logistics officer, he expects to be in the Bosnian town of Tuzla for the next few weeks to help set the stage for the arrival of the 20,000 U.S. servicemen who will take part in the massive NATO peacekeeping mission.

Estabrooks had gone to Germany to marry Wetherington, but those plans were postponed because of unfinished paperwork.

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BANGOR – Bangor’s latest national celebrity curled up in an armchair, oblivious to the media interview his publicist, Barbara Grant, presided at.

He yawned, stretched and blinked a few times, but offered no comment on his recent rise to stardom, leaving the public relations work to Grant.

Mittens – the silver award winner of CATS magazine’s The Best Cat in America contest – emerged this month No. 2 from a field of nearly 1,700 competitors.

Grant entered Mittens, who is 21/2 years old and from the Patten area, in the contest this summer for a lark. While she knew Mittens was the pick of the litter, Grant was unsure she could convince judges on the basis of the required 3-inch by 5-inch photo.

In his award-winning photo. Mittens, who sports a velvety gray coat with touches of white on his paws and chest, is pictured against a background of fall foliage that picks up the gold of his eyes.

25 years ago – Dec. 8, 1980

BANGOR – Joe Giard says he’s not trying to walk in his father’s footsteps. But the two of them have tracked up plenty of sawdust together on the floor of the aging shop at Fifth Street Junior High School.

Bert Giard, Joe’s father, began teaching in the new industrial arts classrooms in 1946 – four years after the school was built. In those days, people came from all parts of the state to see a modern junior high school in action, he recalls.

Joe, fresh out of college, took over the job after his father decided it was time to retire because of health reasons. Joe returned to the same classroom where he had learned to sand and saw under his father’s tutelage while a junior high student between 1971 and 1973.

The dark, faintly gleaming corridors and rooms at Fifth Street remind one of another era in education when students were more decorous and teachers played the role of benevolent despots.

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BANGOR – Sherlock Holmes is always a marketable commodity – and certainly he is so during the holiday season in the Acadia Repertory Theatre’s presentation, “Sherlock Holmes.”

Although we’ve heard all his cliched deductions many times over, he still commands a fascination that we somehow cherish.

There is a mystery to him. He is the Nietzschean superman, the fellow who holds us in awe and in thrall. And, as he is interpreted by Ray Pellerin in the Acadia Theatre’s latest production, he is a man apart, a mysterious stranger – even, perhaps, to Watson, his greatest intimate.

50 years ago – Dec. 8, 1955

BANGOR – Some of the problems confronting Bangor industry came to light when the Bangor Industrial Development Committee met in the city manager’s office.

The questionnaires the committee sent out were opened and revealed that the major problems are parking, lack of warehousing space and a shortage of skilled and unskilled labor. Five firms revealed that they plan expansion, but indicated that they were not aware that there was so much industrial area in the city in which to expand.

The committee learned from the building inspector that there are more than 1,600 acres of land zoned for industry and business in the city which is within a stone’s throw, for the most part, of highway and rail facilities.

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BANGOR – More than 200 families in the Bangor Jewish Community will join Jews around the world Friday night at sundown in the eight-day observance of Hanukkah which marks the victory of the Maccabeans over the Greeks in the second century B.C.

This mid-December holiday is an important occasion in Jewish life for it recalls a struggle for freedom more than 2,000 years ago. As told in the Book of Maccabees, Matathias and his sons revolted against Greek domination, which was destroying their people and religion. Overcoming great odds, the small army of the Maccabeans succeeded in freeing the country and the temple in Jerusalem.

The holy celebration is also known as the Festival of Lights because of the miracle that occurred when the Maccabeans rededicated the temple after their victory. According to tradition, a small jug of olive oil lighted in the temple, sufficient for only one day, lasted eight days. In commemoration one additional arm of an eight-branched candelabrum is lighted on each of the days of the observance in homes and synagogues.

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BREWER – Work is progressing daily on the construction of three public skating rinks in Brewer, City Manager Donald J. Waring announced.

The three skating areas are located at Washington Street school, on Glidden Street and at the old Eastern ball park on South Main Street. The Washington Street rink is already in use although not entirely completed.

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BANGOR – The Rotarians had a 28-minute glimpse into the future, 1975 to be specific, via a color film shown at their luncheon at the Bangor House.

The film, “Peoples, Places and Products 1975,” was produced by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In the prologue, the narrator points out that America will have a population of 221,000,000.

In 1975, 13/4 acres of land will produce all the food needed for one person whereas now we need 2 1/4 acres.

Automobiles will not need drivers – everything will be done by electronics.

There will be no doors on stores, the film explained. A curtain of circulating hot and cool air will be all you feel, not see, when you enter your favorite shopping place. Windows and blinds will shut automatically when it rains.

Moving sidewalks – now in operation in New York City – will be commonplace.

Trees growing in the forests will be fireproofed as they grow and will be cut with electronic rays.

100 years ago – Dec. 8, 1905

ORRINGTON – Mr. Leonard Patterson recently purchased a valuable fox hound and took him up to Bald Hill, where Mr. Fox dwells, and who has kept Patterson and his old dog Sport guessing for the past two months, having “started” him several times. But new snow left tracks so fresh that Mr. Fox could not escape. Mr. Patterson put old Sport on his tracks. Mr. Patterson will sell the fox skin, which is a beauty, for $3.75.

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ORRINGTON – The death of Almon Rogers occurred this week. He was 85 years, 5 months old. He was one of Orrington’s oldest and best-known citizens, an honest man in all his dealings. He was interested in all affairs of his town that were for the best interest of the people and always gave liberally for the support of the church, in the case of charity. He was a practical and diligent man, and all his business ventures were successful, by which he attained comfortable circumstances.

Mr. Rogers was born in Frankfort, coming to this place when quite a young man. He married Miss Mercy A. Nye, daughter of Richmond Nye, of this place, who survives him together with two daughters and four sons. They are Mrs. Olive Lane, Mrs. Nettie Hoxie, Mr. Cyrus A. Rogers, Mr. Frank E. Rogers, Mr. George C. Rogers and Mr. Arthur Rogers.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin