ONE YEAR LATER: OLD TOWN AFTER G-P

Like many who lost their jobs, the Feeros can’t believe it has been a year since the Old Town mill shut down.

The past 12 months have been tough for the Glenburn couple, but they consider themselves luckier than some and still have hope the mill will recover.

In the meantime, they have given up some personal luxuries and traded their 20-plus years of mill shift-work for a classroom and homework.

“I’d rather my world be back to normal,” said Jeff Feero, 47. “I’m up to my neck in homework.”

Jeff is an Eastern Maine Community College electrical technologies program student in a class created specifically for about 12 laid-off Old Town millworkers.

“From what I see, every one of them is trying,” he said. “I don’t see anybody there that’s just looking to get out of trying to find work.”

Jeff spends Monday through Wednesday in class and “the rest of the time is for homework, and there isn’t enough rest of the time,” he said.

His wife, Sheila Feero, 51, also is in school, studying to be a medical secretary.

But their homework isn’t the only paperwork that must be completed each week.

A mound of forms has to be filled out in order for the Feeros to receive unemployment checks, Jeff said, shuffling through a stack of paper.

“Sundays are spent getting all the paperwork ready from the week before,” Sheila said.

Despite a continuous battle to balance the bills, the couple remains positive.

“I think we’ll be all right,” Jeff said. He is slated to finish school Dec. 15.

“We have been lucky,” Sheila said. “As soon as we heard [the mill was closing], we went into emergency mode.”

The only nonessential things they continue to pay for are cable TV and the Internet.

House projects have been put aside, Jeff waits three times as long between haircuts, and Sheila no longer gets a perm.

The couple’s new snowmobiles are sitting unregistered beside the garage and have never seen a trail.

“We know that when we worked [at the mill], we were lucky,” Sheila said.

Losing health benefits also was a big blow, and without Dirigo health care and state assistance, the Feeros and others likely wouldn’t be insured.

“As hard as it is for us now, I still feel like we’re better off than a lot of other people,” Jeff said.