Ghosts haunt memories of Main and Limerock

Main and Limerock.

My friends are an undependable lot, prone to being fashionably late or, in the case of Jefferson Phil, not showing up at all. So I arrange to meet them, when I must, at bars and restaurants where, truth be told, I don’t care whether they show up.

Today, the gathering place is the Black Bull on the Rockland corner of Main and Limerock streets. It may not be Hollywood and Vine, but it has its own rich history.

As I sit alone on the barstool, drinking a Smithwick’s beer fresh from Ireland, I watch the 20-somethings gather with their friends and dates. They stare at the hi-def television, watching “SportsCenter.” But I stare out the windows where the show is much better.

It was here, in three different and visible Bangor Daily News offices, that I spent what I laughingly call my “career.” It could have been worse, I suppose.

It started in the same building as the Black Bull, where Gregory’s Clothing Store used to be. We had an office at 410 Main St. on the second floor above The Coffee Shop. I loved the job, but part of the duties included sitting around until 11 p.m. or so, waiting for high school basketball scores. On Feb. 15, 1976 (could it have been that long ago?), a blasting cap was placed in a gasoline can on the floor of The Coffee Shop right under my desk.

My father had suffered a heart attack, and I was called to Boston. My seat was occupied by the son of Ted Sylvester, the bureau chief.

In later testimony, it was reported that the blasting cap was erroneously placed in the gasoline. If it had been placed a few inches higher, out of the liquid, about half the block would have exploded, experts said. If I had been sitting in my chair, I would have been blasted through the roof, they tell me.

It was the story of the decade, and the coffee shop owner and his accomplice went to jail. I survived.

I was sitting in the second office, across the street at 419 Main St., on May 30, 1979, when the call came in that a Downeast Airlines plane had crashed in Owls Head. Now, you have to understand that only a small percentage of these calls ever ended up to be accurate. Because it was so foggy that night, I found it hard to believe that anything was flying. I doubted the report until the moment I called the terminal. The airline confirmed that its DeHavilland Twin Otter had crashed in the woods just south of the runway with 18 people aboard.

Sylvester was off at the scene, and I stayed in the office, working the phones. The police shut down Main Street, anticipating the flow of ambulances from the crash. But only one ambulance came through Main and Limerock that night. We thought that was strange.

That was because only one passenger survived while 17 passengers and crew were killed.

On one lazy afternoon, June 22, 1981, I was staring out the window at Main and Limerock when I saw Safet Likay walk across the intersection. I said to Cynthia Robinson, our chain-smoking secretary, “There’s the guy who shot at Steve Peterson.” Likay was getting divorced and was represented by several different attorneys, including Peterson. Likay, in broken English, told a Belfast judge that he had money when he started his divorce and now he had none. He was so mad at Peterson that he took a shot at him in his Camden office. The bullet, if memory serves, ended up in a law book.

Likay was out on bail and now was represented by attorney Peter Sulides, who had an office at Limerock Street a few feet away. What I didn’t know was that Likay had shot Sulides a few seconds earlier and was making his escape. Sulides lived, but was crippled for the rest of his life. Likay was captured, tried, convicted and sentenced to the Maine State Prison.

When they brought Sulides back from the hospital, the ambulance stopped at Main and Limerock. They emptied out that same coffee shop for that one as Sulides waved weakly to his friends and neighbors.

Eventually, we had to move out of 419 Main St. The radio station that owned the building needed the space. We moved to 7 Limerock St., the same office where Sulides was shot. The landlord, James Brannan, eventually put a plaque on the building so no one would forget the shooting.

I sat in the Black Bull with all those ghosts, reliving the history that happened right outside those windows.

I watched the young crowd partying and wondered whether my friends would ever show up.

At Main and Limerock.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.