(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – Dec. 7, 1996

CASTINE – While the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen may be all it takes to raze a post office, to preserve one will take the concerted effort of an entire village.

So say local residents mobilizing to safeguard Castine’s historic Main Street facility, the oldest continuously operating post office in the nation.

Federal and local postal officials said the facility has become overcrowded and unsafe.

Former Castine Historical Society president James Day presented Terry Brooks, U.S. Postal Service real estate specialist, with a petition bearing signatures of more than 600 residents, asking the feds to explore every possible alternative to relocation.

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BANGOR – Two summers ago, Laura Nicoll was on stage in a children’s show at a summer camp on Mount Desert Island. She was 11 and exhibited unforgettable poise, remarkable and unusual for a girl her age.

Two months ago, the directors of the Robinson Ballet Company in Bangor picked her out of a roomful of dancing girls and cast her as Clara, the most coveted girl-role in “The Nutcracker” ballet.

This is the third time Laura has danced in “The Nutcracker,” but the first time in the lead.

Now 13, she admits that it’s not a sugar-and-spice dream of hers to be a prima ballerina.

25 years ago – Dec. 7, 1981

BANGOR – It was to be a battle of the cheerleaders as well as a game between two of the best basketball teams in Maine – when the 16th annual Paul Bunyan Invitational Tournament’s championship game rolled around in Bangor.

USM had arrived with an impressive 4-1 record and 16 uniformed men and women cheerleaders who had come up from Gorham more or less on their own to mush the Huskies to the crown. Husson, being the host team, had its own squad of 15 cheerleaders, additional vocal support from the TKE Fraternity and a bunch of ball players who saw no reason why they should not win their college’s tournament for the third straight year and the seventh time since 1973.

When all the shouting had died down, however, it was a young, dark horse team from Castleton State College in Vermont which had won the Bunyan championship with a 77-73 victory over Husson’s Braves.

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ORONO – Women of the World, an organization founded at the University of Maine to help those from foreign countries adjust to American customs, will sell Christmas crafts. Mary Jo Sanger of Canada, and Yayoi Cornell and Yasuko Estabrook of Japan will be among those showing dolls and selling ornaments made in their countries.

50 years ago – Dec. 7, 1956

MILFORD – There were two very unhappy little girls here tonight, all because their pet beagle was a victim of a cruel case of “dog-napping” right under the eyes of one of them.

And despite tearful searching by Linda Howe, 7, and Jane, 3, the 6-month-old pup, who answers to the name of “Baby,” still is among the missing.

The culprit was a passing motorist who yesterday morning enticed the friendly beagle into his car, just as Linda was returning home from school, and sped north on the Bradley Road.

The father of the girls, Wallace Howe, reported tonight that the girls made a search without finding any trace of the little fellow.

Linda, who saw the beagle enter the car, can’t recall much about it except that it was “blue.”

How can “Baby” be identified? He’s black and white, with a few spots, very large ears, and large paws.

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BANGOR – Walter W. Daggett, a student at Bangor Theological Seminary, has just completed two months of specialized training at the Brethren Volunteer Service Center at New Windsor, Md., and has been assigned to Europe to work in the field of relief and reconstruction where he will work for the next 22 months with refugees. He will leave the United States today, sailing out of New York aboard the freighter, SS American Importer.

This is not the first experience for the Bangor young man in this sort of work, for during the summer of 1952 he served with a work camp program of the Congregational churches in North Carolina, and in 1955 worked on a construction project of this same group in Puerto Rico.

The trip will be made on an ocean-going freighter, and the Bangor man will be in the company of 55 heifers that the Church of the Brethren is shipping to Austria to be distributed among Austrian farmers.

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OLD TOWN – In addition to a talk on world affairs by former U.S. Sen. Owen Brewster at a Ladies’ Night sponsored by the Old Town Rotary Club at the Penobscot Valley Country Club, the program included solos by Mrs. Kay DeWitt of Bangor accompanied by Miss Helen Silsby of Bangor, and dancing to Lew Pearson’s Orchestra.

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BANGOR – Christmas shoppers are following their usual habits this year, according to Norbert X. Dowd, executive secretary of the Bangor Chamber of Commerce.

The stores were packed the day of the Christmas parade, when out-of-town visitors and local shoppers, downtown for the annual event, took advantage of the brisk weather to get a head start on their shopping. Dowd said that the stores were equally crowded the following Saturday.

Merchants expect to handle the heaviest crowds next week. Stores will remain open every night until 9 o’clock starting Monday and continuing through Dec. 22. During that time, buses will run at night to accommodate shoppers.

100 years ago – Dec. 7, 1906

BANGOR – The Auditorium Fair, for whose success nearly 1,000 people have worked, and in which the entire city is interested to a greater or lesser degree, opened in City Hall. Despite the storm, several hundred persons – mostly women – patronized the various booths, admired the handsome decorations and had the comfortable satisfaction of knowing that they were deriving much enjoyment and at the same time contributing to a most excellent and worthy cause.

The hall is exquisitely decorated, the booths being draped in scarlet and green, while between each booth stands models of tall red tulips, made brilliant by electric lights – a stunning effect.

On entering the hall, the patron is attracted first by the large doll booth occupying the rear of the hall. Here the display of gaily dressed dolls is enough to make grown ups wish to renew their childhood. The dolls sent by Mrs. Chapman are clad in silk attire, with reams of lace and furbelows in true New York style.

The presiding geniuses of this place are Miss Mae Silsby, Mrs. H.W. Libbey, Mrs. R.A. Kingsbury, Miss Harriet Stewart, Mrs. E.T. Wasgatt, Mrs. George Wescott, Miss Robena Waterman, Miss May Noyes, Miss Josie Wiggin, Miss Isabel Noyes, Miss Carrie Watson, Miss Hilda Hennessy, Miss Fannie Peters and Miss Elizabeth Firth.

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OLD TOWN – The Maine Central train which leaves Bangor at 11:40 a.m., while standing in the Great Works yard, was struck in the rear by a shifting engine.

The semaphore of the block signal system was down, signaling a stop and the train was waiting for a clear track when the shifter backed into the rear end of the train, telescoping the baggage and passenger car and smashing about 10 feet of the car to kindling wood. None of the train passengers were injured although all of them were extremely shaken up.

The engineer in charge of the shifter stated that he was unable to see the train ahead on account of the heavy snow.

A wrecking train was immediately sent to the scene of the accident and the wreckage was soon cleared away.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin