(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

10 years ago – July 3, 1998

These people in the Bangor area passed the Maine bar examination: Amey Gentile of Bangor, Debra McCue of Hampden, Amy Newton of Castine, Tamar Perfit of Bangor and Gregory Poitras of Orrington.

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CASTINE – The widely smiling woman with a swath of curly black hair, sea-blue eyes and infectious laughter greets another customer near a buffet of her home-baked muffins, scones and cookies.

Business is good at Bah’s Bakehouse, owned by Bah Macomber. There, at the epicenter of activity in Castine, there is much to observe, taste, smell and hear.

Die-hard Bah fans stop by to get their daily dosage of free unscheduled therapy in the guise of satisfying a sweet tooth. It’s also the place where tourists go to get the local flavor and where summer dwellers make plans with their friends for a day of sailing or a round of golf.

25 years ago – July 3, 1983

ORONO – Japan has been flooding the market with automobiles, cameras – and little violinists.

The last have been turned out by something called the Suzuki Method, after its founder. For the third consecutive year the University of Maine is hosting the Suzuki Institute.

The “twinkies,” so-called because the first tune they learn is the ancient “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” range in age from 5 to 15.

“The kids learn a language, a musical language,” said Werner Torkanowsky, music director of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. “They overcome hang-ups in what becomes a game.”

Torkanowsky said the method uses a family structure in which the first three or four years are spent overcoming musical inhibitions. Then students are ready to address style.

“This system frees them from the effects of bad teaching,” Torkanowsy said, “but the fact is that the system does not, by and large, produce artists.”

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Joanna Duley, a student at John Bapst High School and Robin Smith, a student at Hampden Academy, placed third and fourth in a recent art competition with 80 other high school students throughout Maine’s Second Congressional District. U.S. Rep. Olympia Snowe sponsored the contest.

The watercolor done by Duley, a freshman, and the still life painting by Smith, a June graduate, are on display in Snowe’s district offices.

50 years ago – July 3, 1958

ORONO – A savage, 10-minute hail, wind and rain storm scoured a narrow path through Orono and Old Town, snapping trees and power poles and wrecking at least two buildings.

In the Penobscot valley, the storm, heralded by a violent wind, blew half-dollar-size hailstones and heavy rain horizontally across Orono and parts of Veazie and Old Town.

In Orono at 413 Park St., a combination television shop and home owned and occupied by John Haverlock sustained heavy damage when half of the 30- by 45-foot roof was lifted off the building and blown 60 feet across the lot smashing into a neighbor’s newly constructed garage.

Numerous trees were down throughout the area blocking off parts of Main and Park streets in Orono and Spring Street and Bennoch Road, which felt the worst of the storm.

Orono Police Chief Augustine Dall said that some 70 panes of glass had been smashed in his greenhouse while Orono patrolman Thomas Hashey, who worked along in the worst of the storm clearing the town’s Main Street of debris, reported a large picture window in his home on Park Street had been blown out. It was unbroken.

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CASTINE – Lt. Minot C. “Tom” Morse, assistant head of the Maine Maritime Academy Naval Science Department, is an ardent bird-banding enthusiast.

Morse, who sends his records to the Bird Banding Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., reports that he has banded 1,055 birds, comprising 46 species in the first six months of this year. He banded 1,100 birds and 55 species for the entire year of 1957.

He has banded more than 400 cow birds and about 100 purple finches, song sparrows and Savannah sparrows.

His recoveries include a robin banded in Castine on June 6, 1957, and found dead in Moore Haven, Fla., in February of this year. A junco banded last October flew against a window in Raleigh, N.C., in February 1958. It was stunned but recovered and was released.

He has banded a mourning dove, a tow-hee and 250 types of warblers.

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BANGOR – The first ground was turned in preparation for the construction of the new Diagnostic and Treatment Building at the Eastern Maine General Hospital, which will be constructed at a cost of $598,500 with the equipment for the building bringing the total cost to $700,000, a spokesman for the hospital said.

Taking part in the groundbreaking were Frank C. Curran, director of the hospital; Robert N. Haskell, president of the board of trustees, who operated the bulldozer; Edwin Webster of Crowell, Lancaster, Higgins and Webster, architects for the new building; and George F. Peabody, chairman of the building committee. Plans call for the building to be ready for occupancy in December 1959.

100 years ago – July 3, 1908

BANGOR – Bangor will have not have an official celebration of the Fourth, but there will be no lack of entertainment.

At Maplewood Park there will be two league baseball games, three racing events and music by Russell’s Band.

The Bangor Band will give two concerts at Riverside Park and three concerts at Centre Park. Selections will include “The Teddy Bear’s Picnic,” waltzes from “The Merry Widow, “Yankee Patrol” and “Moonlight on the Swanee.”

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EAST CORINTH – Harold Towle is enlarging his shop with a two-story addition.

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CASTINE – The Unitarian Sunday school of Belfast came on the steamer Golden Rod and took a ride on buckboards about town and had a picnic at Witherle Park.

Schooner Nelson T. McFarland was in port loading empty gasoline tanks and empty barrels for Boston. The numerous motor boats make the gasoline trade brisk.

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BUCKSPORT – Leslie C. Homer, of Homer’s Bucksport and Bangor Express, will give to every good boy and girl in town, under 15 years of age, a bunch of firecrackers on the morning of July 4th if they will call at his office on Main Street. This is a practice Mr. Homer has carried out for many years.

Frank Maxfield is having plenty of work at Verona Park. He is now completing the cottage of Mrs. Alice Sanborn and will soon commence on a chimney for Mrs. Emma Mayville’s cottage.

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OLD TOWN – The little children of Old Town will commence to celebrate tonight, and many of them are planning on staying out all night to do things up in a manner befitting the greatest of all holidays.

City Marshal O.B. Fernandez has issued a proclamation forbidding any and all from noise-making on the night preceding the Fourth.

Not for some years has Old Town been without some sort of celebration and the people who stay at home will rest comparatively easy this year. A large number of people are planning on attending celebrations in different parts of the state and the city will look like The Deserted Village on the Fourth. Many of the stores will close all day and all of them will close part of the day.

Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin