10 years ago – Aug. 25, 1995

(As reported in the Bangor Daily News)

HAMPDEN – If your taste buds are steering you toward steaks, or your stomach is rumbling for some buffalo meat, or you’re hankering for a bite of alligator that won’t bite back, Mainely Meats Inc. in Hampden has got you gastronomically covered.

Mainely Meats features a variety of unusual and hard-to-get meats and specialty items alongside more traditional foods such as lamb, pork, veal and seafood.

Operated by Ernest Caliendo Jr., Mainely Meats opened in May and specializes in Angus – the beef cattle, not the governor.

In one refrigerator, potential predator and prey sit side by side: A large piece of alligator meat is sandwiched between a stack of ground buffalo patties and a tuna steak. Nearby are buffalo steaks, elk, venison chops, veal, and mahi-mahi and monkfish filets.

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BUCKSPORT – Imagine a bed that makes itself at the click of a computer mouse. “Not in this lifetime,” you might conclude, sighing wistfully.

Yet 18-year-old Brandee Worcester of Bucksport can envision such sweet liberation, thanks to her immersion in a seven-week computer program that emphasizes creative thinking rather than keyboarding.

Worcester was one of a dozen students who, in effect, strutted their new stuff this week at an open house of the Technology Works program held at the Training and Development Corp. office in Bucksport.

Creative juices were in full froth as the students put computerized cars they built from Legos through their paces, and demonstrated other projects they had created, such as several types of computer games and even a garage door opener.

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CARMEL – It was the idea of those little baking sets with the packaged mixes, tiny pots and pans and electric ovens sold nowadays in toy stores that made Ina Jarvis, a Carmel grandmother of two, compare her childhood with that of kids today.

She didn’t like what she saw.

“Kids today have lost the ability to use their imaginations,” she mourned. “They don’t know how to fantasize anymore. They don’t know how to play unless there’s something tangible in their hands. They don’t know there’s more to life than what’s in the toy catalog!”

Then she got to thinking about the fun she had as a child making mud pies – real, honest-to-goodness mud pies – created the old-fashioned way, using dirt from the garden as the main ingredient, spoons and tins from the kitchen to prepare them and the sun to cook them.

The lost art of mud-pie making must be revived, Jarvis determined. And what better way to do it than with a party – a How to Make a Mud Pie Party – for kids and their grandparents.

25 years ago – Aug. 25, 1980

PENOBSCOT – Have you ever wanted to step back into time and experience what life was really like, say, in the 1860s?

Alice Motycka of Penobscot, the first and second grade teacher at Castine’s Adams School, did just that in a teacher recertification course this summer.

Motycka said a four-day research and living history course, called the Washburn Norlands Live-In, is held four times a year on the Washburn Norlands property in Livermore Falls.

Each participant became a member, a parent or child, of the Waters family or the Pray family, she said, and lived his life during the course.

“We didn’t know each other’s given names,” she said of the 14 people in her group that week. “We knew each other by the name we were given. I was Albert Pray.”

The group was taken to the sites of the Waters and Pray homes, which are now gone. They also were taken to the cemetery and told to find themselves.

“I didn’t find myself,” Motycka said. “I began to assume I had perished in the Civil War. But my assumption was wrong. Doing research, I found I had migrated to Ohio.”

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EDDINGTON – Townspeople voted to spend its $32,000 in federal revenue-sharing funds to renovate the East Eddington Town Hall.

The town agreed at its annual town meeting to accept the deed for the building from the Public Hall Corp., which had owned the building. It was felt by those who favored renovation that the building could serve a number of municipal purposes.

50 years ago – Aug. 25, 1955

BANGOR – The Rev. Arlan A. Baillie, who has been minister of All Souls Church for the past 12 years, and Mrs. Baillie were honored at a farewell party in the Hearth Room of the church. More than 300 members of the church joined in honoring Mr. and Mrs. Baillie in a delightful informal affair. Mr. Baillie has accepted the pastorate of the First Congregational Church of Wilmette, Ill.

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OLD TOWN – Public Works Director David Seymour said that 3,000 gallons of tar were used to tar and mulch some of the city streets.

Streets tarred and mulched include Brunswick Street from Middle to Davis, Willow Street and a section of Bosworth Street near the Treat and Webster Island Better Youth Club house.

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BUCKSPORT – The East Bucksport Methodist Church, for many years known as the East Bucksport Meeting House, will hold a centennial celebration.

Built in 1855 on a hill overlooking Hancock Pond, with a view of the mountains in the distance, the church has served this area for 100 years. During this time, the church has been closed for short periods.

The first pastor, the Rev. J.G. Pimbree, served 1856-1858.

100 years ago – Aug. 25, 1905

BANGOR – The ladies of Bangor and vicinity will be interested in knowing that extensive preparations are under way for a reception for their special benefit. This entertainment is in the hands of the reception and exhibition committee, comprising 15 representatives of the National Biscuit Co., who are now in the city.

The reception is one of a series which the National Biscuit Co. is holding throughout the state.

As far back as history traces, crackers in one form or other have been valued as an article of food. But the biscuit of the Romans was hard and tasteless. The crackers of our forefathers were soggy and unpalatable.

Indeed, the cracker at its best was never known until Uneeda Biscuit was given to the world by the National Biscuit Company. That was only six years ago, but since then more than 300 million packages have been sold.

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VERONA – The Grangers in the vicinity of Bucksport had a clambake, a picnic dinner and a literary entertainment at Verona Park.

Some 15 bushels of clams were baked on the shore and carried up to the green grass, where nearly 200 patrons had gathered with their lunch baskets to enjoy their contents and the delicious clams fresh from the shores of Verona. After the dinner hour, they assembled in the pavilion where ice cream was served and, where the different Granges contributed to a fine literary entertainment.

Grange members from 10 different towns attended the event.

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ORONO – Miss Frances B. Mosher, one of the most popular and successful teachers of the town, is passing a most enjoyable outing at Seboeis.

Miss Mosher and Mrs. Ada A. Pierce of Bangor went fishing in Seboeis Lake. They caught a handsome string of 71 white perch. One of the fish caught by Miss Mosher was 141/2 inches long and weighed 11/2 pounds, the largest white perch that the local fishermen said they had ever seen. The good luck of Orono girls is proverbial – whether they be fishers for fish or fishers for men.

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ORONO – A crew of workmen in the employ of Orono Water Co. is now engaged in making preparations for the laying of the pipe across the Penobscot River.

The trenches will extend across the fields in Bradley from Blackman’s Pond to a point on the riverbank just below the residence of Samuel Nutting, and thence down the riverbank to a reef of rocks that juts out into the river just back of the residence of William Rowell. From that point a hawser has been stretched across the river to indicate the proposed location of the line of pipe.

– Compiled by Ardeana Hamlin