Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – May 11, 1996

BANGOR – Detours were put into effect in Bangor and Brewer in the areas where construction for the new bridge connecting the two cities across the Penobscot River is under way.

The old bridge will remain open, but traffic coming off the bridge or headed for it will be rerouted around the closed part of the street for six or seven weeks.

“There’s a ton of work to do in there, and the city has agreed to let us close that,” said Bob Zimmerman, engineer for the bridge project for the Maine Department of Transportation.

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HAMPDEN – The Maine State Police named Hampden native Rick Fowler its Trooper of the Year for 1995. He is only the second detective to be selected in the 32-year-old history of the award, which was named after Trooper Charles Black, who was killed during a South Berwick bank robbery in 1964.

The 32-year-old Fowler, a 1982 graduate of Hampden Academy, served as a trooper at the Orono-based Troop E from 1987 to 1995 before being promoted to the Southern Criminal Division about a year ago. Before joining the force in 1986, he spent four years in the U.S. Air Force.

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ORONO – The University of Maine students in front of the Bumstock stage appeared to have too many cups of coffee running through their veins as they danced and jumped around with almost unrestrained enthusiasm.

It wasn’t caffeine that was driving this frenzy, but rather a dose of the unpredictable music of Cana’ Joe.

“I love seeing people having a good time,” says Brendan Reilly, bass guitarist for the band.

Cana’ Joe, which performed at the recent Bumstock music festival on the UM campus in Orono, is one of the area’s best-known college bands.

Although the band delivers a powerful, booming sound from the stage, it is made up of only four college students in their early 20s.

None of the UM students making up Cana’ Joe, however, can be described as Joe College.

Reilly is a music major from Hampden; Mike Billings, an aquaculture major from Eddington; Karl Larson, a psychology major from Winterport; and Mike Cahill, a forestry major from Danvers, Mass. All four have music experience dating back to days spent jamming in high school bands.

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BANGOR – In the chant of a monk, the wailing of the bereaved, in the streams of color that flow from the stained-glass window, sound and light signify something spiritual for human beings.

For Harold Spaulding and Brian Catell of Bangor, sound and light are twin aspects of God.

Both men are Eckists, part of a spiritual community in Maine and elsewhere called Eckankar, which means something akin to “co-worker with God.”

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ORONO – “This is what makes my job really fun,” said Norman Poirier, director of Orono Parks and Recreation, as he surveyed the dance floor filled with little boys bopping up and down energetically, more or less in time to the music.

Their dates for the night were more restrained – but not by much. Moms, grandmas, aunts and other special women in the boys’ lives held their own while dancing to a mix of tunes from the ’50s through the ’90s.

The annual Mother’s Day Dance, now in its third year, has outgrown its original site in a second-floor function room at the Keith Anderson Community Center. This year’s event was moved to the more spacious Asa C. Adams School gymnasium to accommodate the roughly 30 couples (or triples) who attend each year.

25 years ago – May 11, 1981

ORONO – “By our own narrow interest and apathy, we have in effect offered up this greatest of democracies for sale,” former Maine Gov. Kenneth Curtis told an estimated 8,000 people attending the 163rd commencement of the University of Maine.

Large numbers of Americans don’t vote, while thousands of political action committees representing special interest groups contribute more money to candidates than political parties do, said Curtis.

“How can we expect to prosper and be well as a nation when we yield our opinion, our voice, our vote … to narrow interests who will spend millions to throw leaders out of office – or put them into office over one issue?” the former Canadian ambassador asked the approximately 1,600 graduates and their friends and families.

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BANGOR – No, the large disk that sprouted on the roof of the Bangor Daily News building after the recent rains is not a magic device that somehow scoops up hot news stories from the streets below – but that’s not far from the mark.

The gleaming white aluminum dish is a satellite antenna that, like a great hand-cupped ear, detects a perpetual stream of silent electronic signals from the firmament. The 10-foot-wide antenna is on the receiving end of the new Associated Press satellite distribution system. Under the system, some 900 ground-based stations like the one at the NEWS will receive – via a communications satellite – all the news and sports stories transmitted by the AP.

The satellite antenna is aimed at a spot in the heavens where, 22,300 miles out, the Westar III, a Western Union communications satellite, hangs in a fixed orbit above the equator.

50 years ago – May 11, 1956

BANGOR – Church school teachers need more than a knowledge of the Bible, they also must have background on the scientific findings of our day, the Rev. William B. McGinnis told 100 members of the Bangor-Brewer Council of Churches.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the group held at First Baptist Church, McGinnis discussed “Christian Education vs. Academic Knowledge.”

“We assume,” Mr. McGinnis said, “that a fundamental knowledge of religious faith is important, but we need to teach it in such a way that we make sure that what we teach is accurate and historically correct in the light of recent discoveries and modern inventions.”

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BANGOR – Anywhere in the world, anytime – that sums up the worldwide capability of the Strategic Air Command’s communications system. KC-97 air refueling tankers at Dow AFB, whether flying a regular training mission across the country or deploying to an overseas base, are never beyond the control room directing their mission.

Dow is one of the important links in SAC’s communications. People, working three shifts around the clock, keep Dow in constant touch with the vast systems of air bases making up the SAC complex. In peak operations, messages arrive at the rate of three per minute.

100 years ago – May 11, 1906

ORONO – In order to handle the output of the pulp mill, which has increased by the improvements made last year, the Orono Pulp and Paper Co. at Basin Mills is making several alterations in the paper mill. The beater room will be rebuilt, a new sprinkler has been installed and is now in operation, and the capacity of the mill machines will be increased by the addition of new dryers.

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BUCKSPORT – The salmon fishing has not improved in the past few days. Some of the fishermen say the reason for the light catch is the high water and the mud that is washed into the river and discolors the water; they say that salmon will not be plentiful until the water settles and becomes clear.

But there are other fish in the Penobscot. In the last few years, cod have been quite plentiful. Last year several parties on Verona fished for cod with trawls and the fish seem to be more plentiful this season than ever. Seba Heath took two codfish from his weir, the largest weighing 18 pounds.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin