Insight: A mentor and a friend

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

On the night before Thanksgiving in 1977, I was more than 5,000 miles from home, it was raining all the time, and I didn’t know anyone there. I had just been sent to my first duty assignment in the U.S. Air Force at the age of 23, at a remote location near Frankfurt, Germany.

Daryl Green was a longtime friend
of Ed Pierce and they served
together in the Air Force
in Germany and in Washington,
D.C. during their military careers.
COURTESY PHOTO

It was not what I had hoped for. My unit’s barracks were at Drake Kaserne in a U.S. Army housing building surrounded by a tall stone wall. My third-story room contained a cot, a closet and a window looking out over the stone wall onto a city street below. It was a 7-minute walk to the mess hall for a meal and by the end of my second week there, I was wondering if I had made the right decision in wanting to see if things looked any different on the other side of the world.

For the Thanksgiving holiday, my unit had been given four days off. I wasn’t envisioning having a fun time eating my Thanksgiving dinner alone in the mess hall and without receiving my first paycheck yet, I was unable to afford to use a payphone to call my family back in America.

Then something unexpected happened. Another member of my unit who lived across the hall from me in the barracks invited me to listen to music in his room and that simple gesture renewed my spirit. His name was Sgt. Daryl Green and meeting him turned out to be one of the best things to ever happen to me.

He was originally from Brooklyn and had been in the Air Force for almost four years. He was single and had some of the most expensive stereo equipment I had ever seen. Although I did not share his love for jazz music, I discovered that sitting and listening to his jazz albums in his room was as close to attending a jazz concert as in person.

All his record albums were jazz greats such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane and he introduced me to more contemporary jazz musicians such as the Brecker Brothers, Idris Muhammad and Herbie Hancock.

Even more impressive was Daryl’s turntable. It was a $2,000 Jean Francois Le Tallec linear turntable that electronically sensed the album tracks, and the turntable’s tone arm was self-contained. Each record played on it sounded incredible.

As I got to know Daryl, I found that we both loved college basketball and were both writers. He was working in Aerospace Ground Equipment in Europe, but his next duty assignment was to be the editor of the base newspaper at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C. When he was eventually transferred out of our unit, I shook his hand goodbye, thanked him for being my friend, and sensed that it wouldn’t be the last time I would see him.

About 13 months later, I was reassigned to a squadron at The Pentagon in Washington and soon thereafter reconnected with Daryl. He asked if I would write some articles about events at The Pentagon for the newspaper that he was editing called the “Bolling Beam.” Over the next two years, I produced more than 200 articles for Daryl’s newspaper, and we went to a few college basketball games at American University and at the University of Maryland. I was with him when we ate lunch at the first Wendy’s Restaurant to open in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

By August 1981, I was reassigned from The Pentagon to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona to work for the base newspaper there and Daryl learned that he was being transferred in January 1982 to Beale Air Force Base in California. Before leaving Washington, I had dinner with Daryl and his wife Taryn at their home in Maryland and we talked about what it was like to serve as an editor of an Air Force newspaper.

We spoke on the phone almost weekly for four years and he congratulated me when I was promoted to serve as the editor of the Luke Air Force Base newspaper in 1982. He called me several times in New Mexico in 1986 after I had gotten out of the military and was in the process of earning my degree in journalism at the University of New Mexico.

In 2009, Daryl and I became Facebook friends, and he mentioned that he was retired from the military and was seeking a job in Las Vegas, Nevada as a card dealer in a casino. Despite sending him several more messages, I didn’t hear from him again. But earlier this year I noticed that his brother Vinnie was on Facebook and sent him a message asking about Daryl.

He told me Daryl had passed away in 2012 at the age of 56 in Maryland and I couldn’t believe it. He had retired as a Master Sergeant from the Air Force and had served in Vietnam and in the Gulf War and was one of the smartest people I have ever known.

It was more than mere coincidence that led Daryl Green to invite me to listen to music with him in 1977, and I will always remember his kindness and guidance in serving as one of my mentors and a great friend.

Andy Young: Exploring current (and future) centennials

By Andy Young

I’ll be umpiring a Little League baseball game this coming Monday evening, which is oddly appropriate, given it’s the exact date that a ballplaying American icon, Yogi Berra, would have turned 100 years old.

Yogi Berra played on 10 teams 
that won the World Series and he
is immortalized in the Major
League Baseball Hall of Fame.
COURTESY PHOTO   

In addition to putting together a remarkable Hall of Fame career that saw him play for more World Series-winning teams (10) than any other player in history, Berra was the embodiment of the American dream. Born Lorenzo Pietro Berra, he grew up in the hill district of St. Louis, the son of Italian immigrants. Quitting school as a teenager, he joined the United States Navy, ultimately becoming a gunner’s mate who survived the Normandy landings on D-Day.

After the war concluded he doggedly pursued a baseball career despite possessing a 5-foot-7-inch, 185-pound frame that looked anything but athletic. Neither of the then-existing major league teams in his hometown, the Cardinals or the Browns, saw fit to offer him an acceptable contract, so he ended up signing with the New York Yankees, and subsequently spent all but the final four contests of his 2,120-game career wearing the black-and-white pinstripes of the perennially powerful Bronx Bombers.

By nearly anyone’s definition Berra’s life was an extraordinary one. He had a beautiful family, achieved unquestioned success in his chosen field, and attained material wealth through a combination of endorsement deals and wise investments. His adopted New Jersey hometown is the site of the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center, which is adjacent to Montclair State University’s home baseball field, Yogi Berra Stadium. He also appeared on a US postage stamp.

Unfortunately like every other individual granted that particular tribute, he had to die first in order to qualify for it.

Casual noticers of Yogi Berra’s would-have-been 100th birthday may think that starting an 11th decade of life isn’t that unusual; after all, accomplished people like Jimmy Carter, George Burns, Bob Hope, Henry Kissinger, Grandma Moses, Kirk Douglas, and Olivia de Havilland all reached that particular milestone.

And while a significant number of well-known folks who were, like Yogi, born in 1925 (or MCMXXV, in the land of his ancestors), didn’t make the century mark (Paul Newman, B.B. King, Barbara Bush, Johnny Carson, Angela Lansbury, Malcolm X, Margaret Thatcher, Rock Hudson, Medgar Evers, Robert F. Kennedy, Sammy Davis, Jr., William F. Buckley, Jr., and Laura Ashley, to name just a baker’s dozen), at this writing there are still a few noted 1925 natives hanging around, like Dick Van Dyke, June Lockhart, and, uh … Jiro Ono, the retired sushi chef who owns a restaurant in Tokyo, Japan. (Thank you, Wikipedia.)

According to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank and trusted public opinion polling organization based in Washington D.C., people aged 100 years or older currently make up .03 percent of America’s population. More detailed statistics reveal that while there are currently around 101,000 people of triple-digit age in the United States, that number will increase to upwards of 422,000 by the year 2054.

The folks at Pew also report that America currently houses more centenarians than any other nation, but the number of individuals who’ve lived beyond the century mark is actually higher per capita in Japan and Italy than it is here. Projections suggest that by 2050 China will lead the world in centenarians, followed, in order, by Japan, the United States, Italy, and India.

Statistics such as these are fascinating, but are they accurate? After all, the Pew Research Center wasn’t founded until 1990. Why would anyone trust findings regarding longevity from a callow organization that’s only 35 percent of the way to reaching the century mark itself? <

Tim Nangle: Helping towns enforce laws and protect our lakes

By Senator Tim Nangle

Sebago Lake provides clean drinking water to over 200,000 people in southern Maine. It’s one of the cleanest lakes in the country, and one of the few sources in the nation that requires no filtration before it’s delivered to the tap. But Sebago is more than just a water supply. It’s a defining feature of our region, supporting local businesses, drawing in visitors and offering year-round recreation for thousands of Mainers.

State Senator Tim Nangle

Sebago isn’t the only important body of water in Maine. Across our state, lakes, rivers and streams serve as environmental, economic and cultural lifelines for their communities. From fishing and boating to wildlife conservation, these waters touch every part of Maine life. They’re invaluable. But at the same time, they’re vulnerable.

That’s why we have shoreland zoning laws that protect our waters from overdevelopment, erosion and pollution. These laws are critical to maintaining water quality and preserving public access, but they only work if they’re enforced. And too often, towns are left without the resources to enforce them effectively.

Last year, I sponsored a bill to strengthen Maine’s shoreland zoning enforcement laws, and I was proud to see it signed into law with bipartisan support. That legislation, LD 2101, gave towns the authority to deny or revoke building permits for properties that violate shoreland zoning rules – something they couldn’t do before, even when violations were blatant.

These were meaningful changes, and they’ve already helped shift the balance back in favor of towns trying to uphold the law and protect our shared natural resources.

However, one major challenge remains: legal costs.

Although shoreland zoning laws are established at the state level, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection has delegated enforcement responsibility to local cities and towns. Municipalities are left to carry out this work on their own and at their own expense.

Pursuing a shoreland zoning violation through the court system can cost a town hundreds of thousands of dollars. Some towns, particularly smaller ones, simply can’t afford that risk. Meanwhile, wealthy violators can drag out the process, betting the town will back down to avoid the expense.

That’s why I’m introducing a new bill this session to create a revolving legal assistance fund specifically for shoreland zoning enforcement. Here’s how it would work: If a town needs help covering legal costs to pursue a violator, it could apply to the fund for assistance. If the town wins the case, it repays the fund using the court-awarded legal fees and costs from the violator. This keeps the fund self-sustaining and ensures that help is available for the next municipality that needs it. The fund would also be non-lapsing, meaning any unspent money stays available from year to year.

This proposal builds on the momentum we created with LD 2101. It’s a practical, targeted way to support local enforcement of zoning laws and ensure no community is left powerless when someone breaks the rules.

We passed LD 2101 to empower municipalities to uphold the rules. Now it’s time to make sure they can afford to do it.

The bill is LD 1904, “An Act to Establish the Municipal Shoreline Protection Fund.” The public hearing has not been scheduled yet, but I’ll share updates as it moves through the legislative process.

For the latest, follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/SenatorTimNangle, sign up for my e-newsletter at mainesenate.org, or contact me directly at Tim.Nangle@legislature.maine.gov. You can also call the Senate Majority Office at 207-287-1515.

The opinions in this column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or views of The Windham Eagle newspaper ownership or its staff. <

Insight: Irreconcilable and parochial

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

If I had to do it all over again, there would be quite a bit that I’d do differently if I was back in Catholic grade school again.

Ed Pierce in fifth grade at Our Lady
of Lourdes Catholic School in
Brighton, New York in 1963.
COURTESY PHOTO  

My father had been hospitalized for a broken leg after falling off a ladder while hanging outdoor Christmas lights on our house and when a priest came to visit him, he told him about me. With my birthday falling one day after the established date for public school kindergarten, my father thought I could excel in first grade instead of waiting a year to go to kindergarten, and the priest agreed and enrolled me at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School.

From the age of 3, I was reading books that were intended for students in Grade 3 and so when my First-Grade teacher, Sister Felicitis, started lessons to learn the ABCs, I was uninterested and bored. She passed on to other teachers at the school that I was a problem student, and it created a reputation for me there that followed me from year to year.

The school itself was on three levels and the stairwells were on each end of the building. You could climb the stairs up to the third level and look down at the people coming and going from the school entrances unobserved, unless someone happened to look up.

One day when I was in third grade, my friend Patrick O’Brien and I climbed to the third level before school started. He dared me to lob a gob of spit down from over the balcony to see how fast it would travel. Unfortunately for me, I did this while a nun who taught at the school was entering the building. The nuns were from the Sisters of Saint Joseph order and wore traditional black habits and a headdress with a flat top.

My gob landed on top of her headdress with a thud, and she immediately looked up and saw me. For my wrongful action, the principal assigned me a month’s duty of raising the U.S. flag each morning at the school flagpole and lowering it after school every day. I also had to apologize to both the nun and my classmates for my thoughtless action.

In fifth grade, I was involved in another incident and my parents both had to attend a meeting with the principal. When the quarterly report cards were issued, I was given a C in math, and I knew that my mother would throw a fit seeing that grade. I never showed it to her or my father and paid my younger brother 25 cents to sign my mother’s name acknowledging that she had seen the report card.

The nun teaching our class suspected the signature was a forgery because it was done in blue ink while all the previous report card signatures were in black ink. She asked if I had forged my mother’s signature. I said no. With that, she turned me in for disciplinary action to the principal. The principal asked me repeatedly to admit that I was the one who forged my mother’s name and since I physically did not do it, I denied it every time.

During the meeting with my parents in her office on a Saturday morning, she said I had lied time and time again to her about signing the report card. She painted a bleak future for me to my parents and insisted that unless I admitted that I had signed the report card, I was in danger of being expelled.

My father took me out in the hallway and asked me to be honest and tell him the truth. He asked if I had signed the report card, and I told him I had not done that. When he asked that if I hadn’t signed my mother’s name, who did? I explained to him that I had paid my brother a quarter to sign the report card, but the principal wanted me to admit to physically doing something I hadn’t done.

We returned to the principal’s office and revealed the facts. I told the principal that she had not asked me if someone else had signed the report card and if she had, I would have admitted that. She gave me a month’s chore of sweeping the hallways after school and picking up litter on school grounds when I was done with that.

The next year I inadvertently broke a window while trying to unlatch it and even though it wasn’t my fault, I was back on flagpole duty for a week as ordered by the principal. That same year I was given a classroom job of maintaining the classroom aquarium filled with tropical fish.

One Friday before a blizzard was supposed to hit the area, I bumped the fish tank heater up what I thought was a just few degrees to try and keep the fish warm during the snowstorm. Back at school on Monday I was sickened to discover I had made a mistake, and the heater was set on high, and all the tropical fish had died.

My Catholic school experience is not something I fondly remember, but without it, I wouldn’t be who I am today. <

Andy Young: Solving a cold case reveals a new mystery

By Andy Young

Last summer my oldest child and I traveled up to Newfoundland, where we camped and hiked in Gros Morne National Park; trekked up to L’Anse aux Meadows, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where Vikings established a settlement more than a millennium ago; and explored the town of Gander, which houses the airport where most of North America’s airplanes were grounded in the days following the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Our expedition was unforgettable for all the right reasons, save for one thing: the puzzling disappearance of a recently acquired family heirloom, the Yachats, Oregon (population 1,010) cloth tote I had purchased as a souvenir of a one-day visit to the picturesque Pacific Coast village a few summers ago.

I had taken it to Newfoundland not only for use as a handy, environmentally responsible shopping bag, but also so I could take a photo of it and myself overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and send it to the friend who, in addition to being the primary reason for a memorable luncheon in Yachats, is one of the town’s 1,010 most prominent citizens. My son snapped the desired picture on a clear, sunny morning on a cliff at Cape Spear, North America’s easternmost point. Mission Accomplished!

But then, tragedy struck. When I dropped my son and his gear off in Orono at the tail end of our journey, there was no trace of the Yachats bag anywhere. We tore through his belongings and mine but came up empty. Even the reassuring thought of my lost tote being used by some ecologically conscientious Newfie was of little consolation.

The mysterious disappearance of an item that was attractive, practical and likely the only one of its kind in the state of Maine was distressing, but thanks to the passage of time and also to two special angels, each of whom went to the trouble of obtaining a brand new Yachats tote bag and sending it to me as a gift, the palpably paralyzing grief I felt began to slowly recede.

What brought the Yachats bag to mind last week was my son’s cat, who currently has permission to live in my previously animal-free residence for as long as my son does, but not a moment longer. Normally a healthy eater, Marina seemed a bit reluctant to consume her supper one night last week, and a closer inspection revealed why – a swarm of tiny food ants, the type that seem to show up at this time every year, were scurrying around her bowl of kitty food.

Clearly steps needed to be taken, so I decided to temporarily relocate the couch that was adjacent to the cat’s food dish in an attempt to discover the source of the insect convention.

Thankfully there wasn’t a swarm of ants (or any other vermin) beneath that couch, which clearly hadn’t been moved in quite some time. There were, however, some dust curls, several sheets of poster board, and … the original Yachats bag that had disappeared in Newfoundland last summer!

While unexpectedly solving this particular cold case is equal parts rewarding and delightful, I now have an even more baffling mystery on my hands: how did an inanimate object that wasn’t anywhere to be found in my son’s effects, my own luggage, or in our car when we returned from Canada last June end up reappearing in the dust beneath a couch 11 months after it had seemingly vanished forever?

I may never learn the answer to this newly discovered enigma. But it’s nice knowing I now possess what are likely the only three Yachats tote bags in the state of Maine. <

Rookie Mama -- All along the Apple Watchtower: A hostile takeover

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

Here’s one to file away in the “I just can’t make this stuff up” folder.

And boy, 13 years into this boy-mama life, that folder will soon become an entire file cabinet.

Because every time I’m confident I know my cabinet of sons and the ways of this inner circle, it’s in that moment my day quickly goes from a well-oiled “ah” to awry.

And here was a first, orchestrated by my last-born.

A recent Saturday morning began with all the makings of a rainy day with no sunshine in sight.

I’d just successfully hosted a teenage sleepover extravaganza for my oldest, and the morning that quickly followed included timely meal prep tasks, errands and so forth.

In a busy household with six kids for the moment – two of them pals – I quickly felt myself needing a moment to just take five.

Dave Brubeck would agree.

But alas, five became 20 minutes.

I’d laid down on my bed, face-first, arms out, with full intention to rest a mere moment.

As I dozed, I felt my 4-year-old climb up and snuggle next to me a bit.

And that, my friends, is about all I remember.

Because precisely 20 minutes later, my husband exclaimed from the other room, “What does this text mean?”

Curious, I turned my head to see my littlest still perched atop my back, sitting up now, and tapping at my wrist.

He looked at me, smiled that impish, sweet grin, and sweetly exclaimed, “I made your man run.”

My what now?

Then I froze.

Instinctively, I looked to my Apple Watch, where my littlest dude had somehow managed to click the “running person” icon and thus activated an outdoor run workout.

Time had elapsed; mileage had not, of course.

I was bleary-eyed, but my mind was spinning with other possibilities of what he could have accomplished in those few minutes.

And what had my husband just exclaimed about a text?

To my horror, I scrolled through various text conversations to see my kiddo had done more than just make my “man run.”

He had managed to “dislike” comments from friends and family with a thumbs-down icon and sent various emojis of taxicabs followed by autogenerated messages like “BRB” to a selection of group conversations.

I don’t even know how to do any of that from my watch.

Fortunately, the recipients of these mysterious memoranda were kindred enough spirits that I didn’t need to backtrack too much on my damage-control mission.

All it took was a “My 4-year-old took over my watch. I can’t make this stuff up.”

I sensed the understanding, sympathetic nods through their replies.

A 4-year-old’s unwitting sabotage.

But what big power the little guy wielded, for 20 little minutes.

And there’s just no 90s-kid experience I can equate to such a thing, because we all lived the analog life. Only Penny from Inspector Gadget had a smart watch.

If you know, you know.

We’re all just learning as we go and working to keep up with tech as quickly as our kiddos do.

And on this day, I learned there’s no such “you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all” approach to having a fourth little one. Because each of them is a different flavor, and each flavor certainly keeps me on my toes.

And as for today, folks, no harm done.

So, while I’m on my toes, I think I’ll dance to some Dave Brubeck and just take five.

­­– Michelle Cote lives in southern Maine with her husband and four sons, and enjoys camping, distance running, biking, gardening, road trips to new regions, arts and crafts, soccer, and singing to musical showtunes – often several or more at the same time!

Insight: The simplest thing not everyone has

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

When I was growing up, I used to receive compliments for my manners but to be honest, the credit belongs to my parents who drilled into me the basics of etiquette.

My father would describe etiquette to my younger brother and me as like traffic lights for our interactions with others and he said that courtesy was simply a way to show respect for others. My mother was a stickler for proper manners and believed that displays of improper etiquette required immediate corrections.

She was “hands-on” with her corrections of bad manners and many times the lobe of my right ear was yanked as she made a point. Her understanding of good manners also made her mandate that children should not place their elbows on the table when seated for dinner.

According to my parents, exhibiting proper manners included always being mindful of other people’s feelings, beliefs, and expectations and helped to create more positive relationships with everyone in our lives. That included teachers, grocery clerks, bus drivers, aunts and uncles, the mailman and the doctor.

I thought of this last Saturday night while I was sitting alone at a table at a Rock n’ Roll dance waiting for my wife to return from the restroom. I was scrolling through my iPhone looking at Major League Baseball scores. When she arrived back at the table, she immediately informed me that looking at my phone was bad manners and anti-social.

Here are some of my parents’ basic manners tenets:

Wait to eat until everyone is seated and served. During my U.S. Air Force Basic Training experience, if I was to arrive at a vacant table for four in the dining hall, I was required to stand at attention with my hand raised indicating how many seats were left at the table. Once all the seats were filled, you could sit down and eat your meal. To this day no matter if I’m sitting in a restaurant or at home, if I’m served first, I won’t start eating until everyone’s food is at the table.

Respect the personal space of others. My father stressed that I never stand too close to people and insisted that I always ask before touching someone. That included always asking before reaching into someone else’s refrigerator or cupboards when visiting friends or neighbors. Years ago, I had a boss at the newspaper I was working at who would come up from behind me when I was sitting at my cubicle and working on my computer. He wanted to see what I was typing and would creep up so close to me to catch a glimpse of my computer screen that I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. It was a disregard for my personal space and the other reporters in our department to whom he did the same thing.

Being punctual means you’re never late. My mother explained to me that it shows respect for other people’s time when you are on time or early for appointments and meetings. To this very day, I try to arrive for my appointments in advance of the scheduled time not only for my own peace of mind, but also to let the person I have the appointment with know I’m there. Once I was attending a press briefing for an author who had written a popular book and the author had noticed I had arrived early and was so impressed by that, he offered me an exclusive interview after the other reporters had left.

Always tip service workers well. My father came from a family of nine kids during the Great Depression. He worked for 19 cents an hour every day after high school classes at a company that made tin cans. He understood that no matter what a person’s job or social status was, they deserved to be singled out for the exceptional service that they provide. He went out his way to thank waitresses, janitors, or garbage men with a generous tip as appreciation. My father said that leaving a tip is a polite way of saying thank you while recognizing and acknowledging the value of contributions that service workers make to our lives.

Offering to help others is a sign of courtesy. Whether it was helping an elderly woman carry a bag of groceries to her car or returning shopping carts to the proper collection area, my mother demanded that I do something useful for others when I was out in public with her. She told me when I was a paperboy that I should always bring newspapers I was delivering to a subscriber’s front steps, rather than pitching them in their driveway as I rode past their homes on my bicycle. She would often send me over to a neighbor’s house to help rake leaves for them or shovel snow from their sidewalk. Years later, I still push the shopping carts back neatly in the collection spot instead of just leaving it for someone else to push there.

The way I see it, good manners are a way of showing other people that we respect them. Sadly, it seems to be disappearing in today’s world. <