10 years ago – Nov. 15, 1997

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

BANGOR – Cars and buses dotted the ditches along eastern Maine roads, sending police and rescue workers into high gear as drivers attempted to negotiate snow-covered slippery roads. The season’s first substantial snowstorm hit southern Maine early in the day, and snow was falling steadily in Bangor by mid-afternoon.

At 4:30 p.m. Bangor police were having trouble keeping up with the onslaught of fender benders throughout the city.

Some Russian men came to the aid of a Bangor woman whose car skidded off Kenduskeag Avenue during the afternoon. The Russians are in the area to learn business and trade techniques from area businesspeople. The woman said the Russians did not speak English well, but knew how to push.

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ORONO – The math classes may be more demanding. The fish may be more raw. But there’s never been a reason to think that Japan is quieter than the United States. Except, perhaps, when looking at a collection of contemporary Japanese art given to the University of Maine this month.

The Museum of Art’s first significant Eastern acquisition, the 75 pieces were donated by Dwight Holmes, a 1952 university graduate in Connecticut.

There are a few bold reds and exaggerated cartoon figures among the etchings, woodcuts and other prints propped in the museum’s cavernous new Alumni Hall storage room.

But the noisy works are silently outnumbered by pale, quiet images in beige and white and gray. Like snow against a white sky, some of the prints are a step short of invisible.

25 years ago – Nov. 15, 1982

BANGOR – Officials at Husson College report that interest among high school teachers and guidance counselors in the Husson-Eastern Maine Medical Center nursing program has been greater than expected. Progress has been made in preparing the four-year program for the first class, which will enter in September 1983.

According to Dr. Jay L. Fennell, vice president and academic dean, Husson has received more than 400 inquiries from throughout Maine. He attributes most of the early interest to “word-of-mouth.”

50 years ago – Nov. 15, 1957

HAMPDEN – More than 30,000 feet of standing lumber has been removed from a wood lot owned by a Hampden man in a broad daylight operation involving the use of bulldozers, chainsaws and trucks, according to Police Chief Richard Johnson, who has the matter under investigation.

The valuable trees had been earmarked for lumber to be used by the owner in building a new home.

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OLD TOWN – Former Sen. Owen Brewster told officers and guests at the annual meeting of the Boy Scout University District that the main hope of combating Communism and retaining the American ideals was through a strong promotion of Scouting.

He termed the Boy Scout movement the backbone of youth and explained that a country with such Scouting principles could never be destroyed. Destruction of religion and moral principles would mean destruction within, he told the group.

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BANGOR – “Operation Mad Ball,” starring Ernie Kovacs of television fame, opens at the Bijou Theatre. The comedy spins around the efforts of a group of U.S. soldiers stationed in France after World War II to give an elaborate party for the nurses in the camp. The complications that pile up at breakneck speed – from their difficulties in finding a locale for the festivities to a fanciful stunt to prevent the colonel from restricting the nurses to the base on the night of the big affair. This picture is reportedly one of the top comedies of the year.

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BANGOR – Three retired Bangor men, after nearly six weeks of voluntary services and many a blister, have laid aside carpentry tools until spring to put the finishing touches on a 30-foot-by-30-foot dining room addition at Camp Jordan.

Raeburn B. Smith, Lewis Gray and Ernest R. Savage, all members of the local YMCA Triangle Club, using building materials purchased by funds from their club’s money-raising events, began the last of September to build a much-needed addition at the Y’s camp for boys on the shores of Branch Pond in Ellsworth.

Smith is a former district manager of the Gulf Oil Co. and the 1947-48 president of the YMCA. Savage was the first president of the Y’s Triangle Club, established in 1930. Gray has long been chairman of the Triangle Club’s Camp Jordan committee.

100 years ago – Nov. 15, 1907

BUCKSPORT – The fishing schooner Hiram Lowell, one of the fleet owned by Capt. T.M. Nicholson, cleared Thursday morning for Newfoundland after a cargo of herring.

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EAST ORLAND – On Wednesday there were shipped from the fish hatchery 800 brook trout that were from three to four inches long, in car No. 0, which is in the charge of P.M. Stump to Bethel, where they are to be placed in the waters of that vicinity.

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BUCKSPORT CENTER – Floral Grange No. 158 met at its hall. After recess a very interesting entertainment was in order. A gramophone concert, reading recitations and singing were presented.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin