Yesterday …

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(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – May 8, 1998

WINTERPORT – Ah, spring: birds singing, trees budding, dogs shedding everywhere.

The shedding part might be a nuisance for some spring cleaners, but it’s a bonanza for those of us who know how to knit with dog hair.

Excuse me, you say? Those who do what? Knit with dog hair. You mean you didn’t know you could?

At home in Winterport during school vacation, fifth-grade teacher Judy Faust showed off hats and scarves soft as baby bunnies, warm as polar fleece, in colors as rich and natural as honey and sweet cream.

The winter wear was knitted without contributions from sheep. Instead, Faust’s yarn was made with help from man’s best friend – big, drooly Newfoundlands, maybe, or obedient golden retrievers.

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BANGOR – There are many ways to welcome a boat new to the Penobscot River. A bottle of champagne can be smashed across the bow and a name painted on the stern. Or, if the boat is operated by a brewery, pouring a pitcher of beer over the bow might be the proper blessing.

For Penobscot Indians, the appropriate tradition is a smudging ceremony – filling the air with smoke from burning sage or sweet grass, and reciting a series of quiet prayers. Neana Neptune of Indian Island brought the tradition to Dock No. 2 on the Waterfront, chasing away negative spirits and welcoming the good ones in a smudging ceremony of the 65-foot-long, double-decked cruise boat the Sea Dog Brewing Co. has brought to Bangor.

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ORONO – A roundabout is a diversion, as in something that impedes you from getting directly to your destination.

However, in Orono, a roundabout is being touted as a solution to improve the efficiency of movement, specifically the movement of cars up and down Stillwater Avenue.

In the morning, exiting Interstate traffic – much of it bound for the University of Maine – backs up trying to get onto Stillwater Avenue. At the end of the day, the same drivers clog up the road getting back to the Interstate, making it near impossible for other traffic to get onto Stillwater Avenue.

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BREWER – An alumnus of Brewer High School himself, photographer Thomas Morelli tries to give seniors who flock to his studio the portraits they want, whether it’s a girl in a polka-dot dress leaning on an apple tree, or a guy in grease-splattered blue jeans and Ray-Bans leaning on his Harley.

Often the seniors need two sets of photos: a traditional package for the relatives and a funkier set for their friends.

25 years ago – May 8, 1983

BANGOR – Bangor Hardware Co. in Penobscot Plaza and Peavey Manufacturing Co. in Eddington are both family-owned enterprises that are feeling the economic recovery in eastern Maine.

Fred Hanson and his sons Tom and Dick look forward to what the second quarter of 1983 holds for the Bangor Hardware Co., a business founded in 1914.

Diversification has been the key to success for an Eddington company that didn’t even shiver while the rest of the nation caught cold during the recent recession.

Peavey Manufacturing Co. deals in everything from peaveys to croquet wickets. Dowels are the meat of the manufacturer’s business, but logging tools, construction tools for utilities and fireplace tools are all made at the company that traces its roots back to 1857 and the invention by Joseph Peavey of the logging tool that bears his name.

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BANGOR – Bangor Public Works crews have put the utilities in at the public dock site off Front Street along the Penobscot River.

The next steps will be to grade the lot, build a cement bulkhead to attach a gangway and ready the site for the arrival of the floating dock in late May, according to John Frawley, city engineer.

The project cost $150,000, of which half came from the federal government.

Downriver, work also is progressing on the marina in Hampden.

50 years ago – May 8, 1958

BANGOR – Miss Nancy Jane Quigg, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul H. Quigg of Brewer, was named winner of the second Miss Bangor Pageant at Husson College. The event is sponsored by the Bangor Junior Chamber of Commerce and was attended by 250.

Miss Quigg was presented with a trophy, a white evening gown, a swimsuit and a $100 college scholarship.

Runner-up was Miss Judith H. Carmichael, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Carmichael of Hampden, receiving a trophy.

Other contestants were Janina Dougherty, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dougherty of Bangor; Mary Ann Laurynite, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Willard Violette of Bangor; Rachel Ann Smith, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Smith of Brewer; Jeanette Ann Sullivan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Timothy Sullivan of Bangor; Helen Tracy, daughter of Mrs. Mary Tracy of Bangor; and Jacqueline Wood, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Wood of Brewer.

Miss Quigg was selected from five finalists after a series of questions.

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ORONO – A 17-year-old Orono High School senior entertained members of the Brewer Kiwanis Club with a discussion of his activities as a delegate to Boys Nation in Washington, D.C., last summer.

Theodore “Ted” Curtis Jr. explained the program in which the delegates participated during their week’s stay in the nation’s capital. He supplemented his talk with colored slides of the session.

100 years ago – May 8, 1908

BANGOR – Maine’s log crop, harvested last winter and now on the way to booms and mills, amounts to about 750 million feet, exclusive of countless small lots cut in local operations away from driving waters and not entering into commerce.

The cut on the Penobscot is about 250 million feet, including 115 million on the West Branch.

In addition to its 9 million to be driven down the West Branch, Great Northern Paper Co. has 10 million feet to come to its mills by rail. This company has employed 2,700 men and 800 horses on the Penobscot and 1,300 men and 400 horses on the Kennebec, making a total force of 4,000 men and 1,200 horses, the payroll amounting to nearly $500,000.

The Maine log harvest, including spruce, pine, hemlock, cedar and poplar, amounts this season to about 750 million feet. These logs placed end to end would reach around the globe at the equator and leave enough over to make a continuous string from New York to St. Petersburg; or they would fill Broadway 100 feet deep, wall-to-wall, from Grace Church to the Harlem River.

The natural increase of the forest, with careful forestry methods, about offsets the withdrawals from this sylvan treasury.

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BREWER – The motor boat “I’m Comin’,” owned by George McNally of Bangor, was launched yesterday afternoon. The boat was wintered at Warren’s dock.

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BUCKSPORT – Additional street lights are being installed about town, long-needed, but not possible under the old system. The new plant at East Orland, however, gives plenty of power.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin