(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – June 29, 1996

CASTINE – Separate stairways for the sexes, the skunk who came to class and the student caught smoking a corncob pipe while dangling from a flagpole below the principal’s office – memories of youthful innocence resonate in the high-ceilinged rooms of the old Abbott School building.

As its transformation nears completion, however, the nearly 200-year-old structure stands ready to reveal a new side of itself. It reopens for public view as a highlight of Castine’s bicentennial celebration.

A $400,000 building project has transformed the school on the Town Common into the Castine Historical Society’s new home.

The Abbott School was built in 1802 and named for noted attorney William Abbott, who also was known for his role in reforming Bangor schools.

25 years ago – June 29, 1981

BANGOR – Rabbi Alan Kalinsky of the Beth Israel Synagogue, who is leaving Bangor in July, was feted in the synagogue’s vestry with a breakfast reception arranged by the congregation.

Rabbi Kalinsky, who has served the Beth Israel Synagogue since 1976, will assume an orthodox pulpit in Schenectedy, N.Y. During his five years in Bangor, Rabbi Kalinsky was a member of the Bangor Area lergy Group, the chaplain’s advisory committee of the Eastern Maine Medical Center and a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve.

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CARMEL – The pleasant thought of a few quiet hours with a companion at a movie, chatting over a leisurely meal at a restaurant or visiting with friends can turn into a frustrating one as you try to dial up one sitter after another, to find no one available to watch the children. It is a difficulty that almost every parent or person with a dependent in the household faces at one time or another.

Linda Maynard of Carmel hopes to solve that problem. She at least will offer a tool to tackle it and at the same time perhaps stir up a little business for those interested in caring for young or elderly dependent folk.

With her babysitting directory of the Bangor area, Mrs. Maynard will try to put the seekers in touch with the searchers. The booklet grew out of her own difficulties in keeping sitters for her children.

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BANGOR – More than 60 pupils in the sixth-grade class at the Fruit Street School in Bangor participated in the school science fair this month, assisted by elementary school teachers Julie Burns, Paula Tingley and Sandi Welch.

Samantha Grantham was among the pupils participating. Her project was a solar greenhouse demonstration. Each pupil devoted 30 hours to his or her project and received a certificate of recognition.

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DEDHAM – It’s the building nobody wants.

Sitting on the Upper Dedham Road, unused for a number of years, the old three-floor Dedham Town Hall is a favorite target for vandals. Many of its windows are broken, the building is in disrepair. Last year it was the site of three suspicious fires.

The town council, agreeing that restoration would be too expensive, decided to put the removal of the structure, its wood furnace heating system and storage shed, out to bid. The selectmen hoped to use the cleared site to store winter sand and salt for the town’s roads.

April came and the town fathers opened the two bids they had received on the removal of the hall. Both were for $500. In the interest of fairness, the selectmen put the structure out for bids a second time. But no one came forward.

“We can’t even give it away,” said Town Clerk Ruth Munson.

50 years ago – June 29, 1956

HAMPDEN – At the United Baptist Church in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Miss Sunny Starr Picket, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm G. Picket of Hampden Highlands, has become the bride of A. Melville Thornton Jr., son of Mrs. Ella Thornton of Milford.

Given in marriage by her father, the bride wore a ballerina-length gown of white nylon lace with matching lace bolero with Peter Pan collar and long, pointed sleeves. Her fingertip veil of illusion was caught to a circlet cap of sequins and seed pearls. Her only ornament was a pair of pearl earrings, and she carried a pearl-covered prayer book topped with sweet peas and streamers of sweet peas.

The bridegroom’s mother chose a ballerina-length gown of orchid over taffeta with a lace bodice and jacket. She carried a colonial bouquet of mixed flowers. The bride’s mother chose an afternoon ensemble and white accessories. Complementing her attire was a corsage of yellow carnations.

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BANGOR – The new municipal swimming pool at Dakin Park was being filled with water Thursday evening in preparation for its opening Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile, the public works department is busily engaged cleaning up and preparing the parking area adjacent to the pool and putting the first coat of paint on the bathhouse.

Those familiar with recreational facilities regard Bangor’s new pool, which is regulation size for recognized swimming meets, 82 feet and 6 inches by 42 feet, as one of the best in Maine.

The opening of the pool is the culmination of several years of effort to have a municipal pool. It cost approximately $60,000.

100 years ago – June 29, 1906

BANGOR – Hundreds of patrons wandered amid the bright lights and profuse decorations of the food fair at City Hall. There was a novelty Thursday night in the shape of a genuine Georgia barbecue.

Two young and tender pigs were roasted whole – one in a gas oven supplied by the Bangor Gaslight Co., and the other in an electric oven, which came from the Bangor Railway & Electric Co.’s elaborate booth. Then the pork was served, with hoe-cake and applesauce in the booth of the John P. Squire Co.

One booth at the fair which attracts attention is occupied by the Bangor Biscuit Co., and in it is displayed the firm’s line of Bangor-made goods. The Bangor Biscuit Co. is the only factory in Maine in which is manufactured both sponge and sweet biscuit – over 100 varieties, and every biscuit and cracker made right here under the most sanitary conditions.

All visitors to the exhibition are presented with samples of the celebrated Hampden Creams, a biscuit representing the best that there is in wheat.

The typewriter contest hasn’t been decided yet, although a number of young Bangor women are making splendid records.

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BANGOR – On Thursday night a plump and healthy hedgehog was found wandering in Elm Street. He was treed by all the small boys in the neighborhood, and was eventually dispatched by an Elm Street resident. Walter L. Main’s circus, the Fourth of July and the Democratic State Convention all rolled into one couldn’t have furnished a fractional part of the excitement that hedgehog did – as long as it lasted.

There was a rumor on the streets that the hedgehog was the famous original of Dutton’s Woods, who had come out to make a forecast of the political situation. The report, however, proved to be unfounded. As a matter of fact, it was only a country delegate who got lost in the wicked ways of the big city.

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BUCKSPORT – A telegram was received on Tuesday by Mrs. Hagerthy announcing the safe arrival of her husband, who is captain of the schooner Sedgwick at Fazardo, Puerto Rico, to take a cargo of molasses.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin