A tough life, but one lived well and fully

Ernest “Tom” Douglas, 77, can remember when the intersection of routes 17 and 90 in West Rockport was the hub of the entire area.

“There was the Margaret Andrews Store, the Blueberry Association and the Leeman Oxton Store. Everybody had cows or cattle and they all bought grain, a lot of grain,” he said.

Now there is an antique store, a fire substation and some shops, but no traffic like the old days, Douglas said. The retired highway department worker has watched the town and the same crossing change since the early 1940s when he moved into his Park Street farmhouse. “They said then that the house should be torn down,” he laughed.

Douglas is a familiar visitor to the local dump in Rockport. He is one of those guys who brings a lot more home than he leaves. He built a shed from items salvaged from the dump. There is a fancy plaque on the door from his foundry-operating neighbor, Richard Remsen. It notes that the entire building was built for $114, with the rest coming from the dump. Not a bad deal.

There is another shed nearby. That one cost “about $10 in nails” he said. The rest came from the dump.

He added a porch to the old farmhouse, with virtually every stick, window and beam rescued from, you guessed it …

There are weather vanes on the roof and the lawn and a few cow sculptures. You could figure out where the raw materials came from.

There has never been a whole lot of money in his life. If it bothers him, it doesn’t show.

Douglas grew up in Rockport, where his father worked at Beauchamp Point on a working farm. “My father had to quit school at 12 to keep his brothers and sisters together. The state was going to take them. He said, ‘No way.’ Can you just imagine a 12-year-old kid quitting school today to raise his brothers and sisters?”

His first memory is living in the attic of a farmhouse on Route 90, near Route 1, with the water streaming through the roof. Later, he remembers a house on School Street in Rockport with pasteboard covering missing windows.

Then things got worse.

His mother died of tuberculosis and his father lost his farm job and the family moved in with a relative on a Union farm.

“I was 8. My brother was 10. For Christmas, we got new axes. We were expected to chop the wood for the house. I can remember the time we had a five-cent soda pop. It was the only time we had one in five years,” he said.

Douglas went back to Rockport for high school. “The Rockport kids didn’t like me cause I was from Union. After I was beaten up five times, I said that was enough of that and I quit high school.”

Douglas then worked on and off in the woods for decades. “I remember when it stormed and stormed one winter and we couldn’t work. I got $3 for two weeks work. You would work for anyone that would hire you. It was tough, but you managed to live through it,” he said.

He worked for minimum wage at Hart’s sawmill, then for the Krep’s dairy. Medical problems started when his legs went numb while he was shoveling manure at one farm or another. He kept working, because that’s what you did in those days. If you didn’t work, you didn’t get paid.

Years later, a doctor explained that if your legs go numb, it means your discs have serious problems. There was no insurance and he just kept working. Over the years, his medical problems have escalated. He has had hip replacements, knee work, and a spectacularly broken elbow that needed surgical screws to repair. One time, they wanted to cut off his hand. Another time, they wanted to cut off his arm. For a two-year period, he hardly left the floor of his farmhouse.

“Maybe I’m accident-prone,” he said.

He has a lifelong negative attitude toward doctors. “You have to go to 10 doctors to get one good one,” he said. Many of his medical-related comments cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

He worked at North Lubec sardine plant and at the Knox Mill, later inhabited by MBNA. “I would quit one job after another trying to get more money,” he said. Actually, the Knox Mill job wasn’t too bad. “You would stand here and oil the machinery. You didn’t have to work too hard. But you would get tired, working on that cement floor.”

Douglas later toured the mill rehabilitated by MBNA. “I am not sure it’s even the same place,” he said.

The best job was working on the state highway crew.

His friends will relate how Douglas has his sister make the loudest shirts anywhere. The sleeves will be polka dot, the chest paisley and the pockets something altogether different. “I design them myself. I get the material at Wal-Mart and my sister sews them,” he said.

He is happier than most now, living in a West Rockport farmhouse without cable television, with a converted wood furnace and a remarkably healthy attitude.

It has been a hard life. “You managed to live through it. Now, I am only good for an hour at a time. But you have to get up and go. You can’t sit here and rot.”

Tom Douglas, 77. Tougher than most.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.