Tim Nangle: Remembering 9/11, Honoring first responders

By Senator Tim Nangle

On September 11, we honor the memory of all those innocent lives tragically lost that day twenty-three years ago. We also remember the bravery and sacrifices of our first responders, who, without hesitation, answered the emergency call. While we hope never to experience an emergency to that scale in our communities, when we do call 9-1-1, we are counting on someone being there to respond. The events of 9/11 put a spotlight on the critical relationship between our communities and first responders, the role they play and the short- and long-term risks they take to keep us safe.

State Senator Tim Nangle

I’ve spent my life dedicated to public safety, first, as a 9-1-1 dispatcher, firefighter, and a police officer. I became a paramedic in 1998 and worked in cities north of Boston. I moved to Maine almost 35 years ago and started a family while serving in the Portland Fire Department for 27 years. While at Portland Fire, I started a blood drive program called “Roll Up Your Sleeves and Remember,” which was held on September 11. Because of this experience, I know how difficult and important is to ensure we have safely staffed, trained, and equipped personnel across police, fire, and emergency medical services so all can respond together. While some communities in my district rely on volunteers, all departments are struggling to keep services running with limited town, state and federal support.

Recently, there has been significant discussion about new federal emergency response standards from OSHA. While improving safety for EMS personnel is a valid goal, these regulations must consider the unique challenges facing Maine’s underfunded, volunteer-dependent departments. For example, Casco, with a year-round population of about 3,700 that swells to over 20,000 in the summer, could face severe challenges in complying with these standards. Chief Brian Cole of Casco Fire Rescue has raised concerns about the feasibility of meeting these requirements without additional financial support. Casco’s department handles up to 900 emergency calls a year with a combination of per diem and volunteer staff and doesn’t have the budget or staff time to implement these new regulations.

With already thin budgets and growing call volumes, our EMS departments are stretched to their limits. Any new federal regulations must support rather than strain these vital services. We’ve made some progress on these issues in Augusta, but we need bipartisan cooperation to allocate the necessary money.

Last year, we made a historic $31 million investment in EMS to sustain at-risk services statewide, ensuring that rural and underserved communities continue receiving emergency medical care when they need it most. We secured funding for the Length of Service Award Program, offering benefits to volunteer firefighters and EMS personnel, and invested in fire training facilities to keep our firefighters well-prepared.

This year, we passed legislation to increase MaineCare reimbursement rates for EMS providers. This simple change would have brought over $22 million in federal funding and allowed providers to be reimbursed for non-transport calls, vital to the public, but costly to the local taxpayer. Despite being supported by lawmakers in both chambers, the Appropriations Committee did not fund the bill. I’m committed not to giving up because we must ensure our EMS departments have the resources they need to serve their communities.

In the next legislative session, I will continue to advocate for our first responders in Augusta and beyond, ensuring they have the money, tools, training, and support they need to do their jobs safely and effectively. Whether through increasing MaineCare reimbursements, improving pay and benefits for first responders, or securing additional federal funding for departments, I remain committed to ensuring that no community is left without the emergency services they depend on.

As we honor all the lives lost on 9/11, let it also be a reminder of the tireless work of our first responders right here in Maine, who protect us every day, and how we must continue to support these essential services.

Contact me directly at Timothy.Nangle@legislature.maine.gov or call the Senate Majority Office at 207-287-1515. For the latest updates, follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/SenatorTimNangle, and sign up for my e-newsletter at mainesenate.org. <

Insight: Beyond My Wildest Dreams

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

There’s an old Kris Kristofferson song called “Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends,” and for me, it perfectly sums up where I’ve been for the past 20 years.

Nancy and Ed Pierce by Lake Ontario in 2006.
COURTESY PHOTO 

Back in 2004, I had been living in the same one-bedroom apartment for almost a decade, had been single for 13 years and poured myself into work because I had very little else going on. At the age of 50, it was depressing to come home each time to an empty apartment without much optimism for the future.

Then my life was totally turned upside down. Some of my co-workers at the newspaper I worked for thought that I should try internet dating and asked if they could create a profile for me. I reluctantly agreed but after a negative experience, I edited out much of the personal details from my listing. All that remained listed my gender, my age and the city I lived in. I thought nobody in their right mind would answer that ad and that my internet dating participation would come to an end.

Was I ever wrong. A woman living in the next town over sent me a note late in the month of May and asked how I could ever expect to get to know someone based upon the scant info that I had put out there on my listing. I answered her note with a lengthy reply about who I was, what my occupation was, and some of my likes and dislikes. I fully expected that to be the end of it and went back to my normal routine.

That evening, I received a reply, and it intrigued me. First, this woman could express herself in an email and she could spell correctly. I learned that she was an elementary school teacher and had moved to my area recently. We had similar tastes in music, food, politics, movies and a mutual love of ice cream.

Exchanging numerous emails, I learned that she had been divorced after 23 years of marriage and had three grown sons. She was originally from Burlington, Vermont and had a college degree in education from the University of Vermont. I looked forward to each subsequent email from her, and each one I received from her was the highlight of my day.

Before we ever shared photos of what we looked like, we had a few long telephone conversations, and I asked her if she would like to go out on a date with me. She thought that would be nice and agreed to meet me at a Friendly’s Restaurant after work on a Thursday. I pulled into the restaurant parking lot in my 1995 Pontiac Firebird and wondered how this would go. A few minutes later, a huge blue 1985 Ford Bronco pulled in next to me and this attractive woman stepped out wearing a handmade sign around her neck that read “Hi Ed.”

It broke the icy nervousness of meeting for the first time and as we sat down at a table in the restaurant, I started to realize how much I liked everything about her. She ordered vanilla ice cream, had sparkling blue eyes, lots of freckles and reddish-brown short hair. But the most important thing about her that I noticed was her incredible sense of humor and sense of sarcasm that matched mine perfectly.

Simply put, it was the best first date of my life, and we made plans to do something else again soon. We spoke on the phone for the next four days, but on the fifth day, she told me that I probably wasn’t going to want to date her anymore. She told me that she had found a lump in her breast and was going to have surgery after having been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Being a cancer survivor myself, I did my best to reassure her that she would be OK and that I wouldn’t give up on her so easily. Over the following weeks, I spent a lot of time at her apartment bringing her vanilla milkshakes and making sure that kept her spirits up. I went with her to her radiation and chemotherapy treatments. And I met her youngest son, Danny, who spent several weeks with her that summer to assist as she recovered from her surgery.

The longer I knew her, the closer I felt to her. She has three brothers and a sister, and one of her brothers, Rick, lived nearby and had played guitar for a band I liked in the 1980s called “Dr. Hook.” Meeting him for the first time, he asked me to rattle off how many Dr. Hook songs I could name, and he also asked me if my hair was real. I laughed as I had never been asked previously if my hair was my own, and it certainly is.

By that Christmas in 2004 she had moved in with me and brought along her dog. We were married on June 11, 2005, and our life together has now included homes and jobs in Florida, New Hampshire and Maine.

It’s said that love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place and that rings true for me. I am perhaps the luckiest man ever to have found Nancy.

Andy Young: The mystery of the vanishing civility

By Andy Young

I began last Saturday morning by refereeing three youth soccer games. The participants were second and third graders.

After each contest had been completed, several different spectators went out of their way to thank me for refereeing their child’s (or in the case of people who look similar to me, their grandchild’s) game. I really appreciate being appreciated, so just for fun I started counting the individuals whose kindness made me feel good. Alas, I lost track after the 10th person, since I didn’t want to take off my cleats in public.

For the past decade or so I’ve been umpiring Little League baseball, and the post-game comments I receive are generally similar to those I get at soccer games. The players are a little older (up to age 12), but by and large the respect for (and appreciation of) adults in general and officials in particular is consistently good. Occasionally, a coach becomes over-excited in the heat of the moment, but on those infrequent occasions he (or she) always apologizes afterward for temporarily letting competitiveness get the better of them.

I mention this because I’ve attended numerous soccer, baseball, hockey, football and basketball games involving older kids over the past decade-plus, and in several different area towns. The children participating in those contests are anywhere from five to ten years older than the players in the games I currently officiate, as are, one assumes, their parents. When I go to these events I watch, with a reasonably unjaundiced eye, the game, the athletes playing in it, the people in the crowd, and the officials. It probably comes as no surprise that what I observe there is radically different from what I see each week at the second and third grade soccer games.

The skills of high school players are significantly greater than those of their pint-sized compatriots, and because of that the level of play involves a good deal more aggressiveness. But the biggest difference between youth sports and high school sports is the behavior of some of the adults, which quite naturally trickles down to many of the youthful and impressionable players.

Suffice it to say that I don’t see a lot of people going out of their way to thank the officials following pay-to-play travel team games, or after the conclusion of high school athletic competitions. I have, however, seen outwardly rational-looking individuals mutter or shout their disapproval throughout a game, then go out of their way to heap verbal abuse on referees and umpires afterward. The irony is that the vast majority of those people getting abused are far more accomplished at officiating youth sports than much-appreciated amateurs like me are.

Not every spectator at pay-to-play travel team games or high school athletic events foams at the mouth while directing comments toward officials (and occasionally coaches and/or players) that can’t be published in this or any other newspaper. After all, these aren't professional sports. There’s no prize for winning any particular game aside from the satisfaction of outscoring that day’s opponent.

The percentage of youthful athletes in Maine who’ll ultimately get athletic scholarships is small. The number who’ll ever make a living playing a sport professionally is far tinier.

Why, where youth sports are concerned, does civility begin vanishing as the participants age? When does this unattractive metamorphosis begin taking place? Who thinks supplanting unadulterated enjoyment with aggressiveness and antagonism is a good idea? And most mysterious of all, where do kindness, appreciation, respect and joy go after they’ve been supplanted by hypercompetitiveness?

Where are Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, and Hercule Poirot when we need them? <

Jane Pringle: Medicare Savings Program expansion will help lower costs for older Mainers

By State Rep. Jane Pringle

Everyone wants to be able to age with dignity. But when I speak with many older constituents in our community, I often hear from people who are struggling to make ends meet. They’re worried about affording to age in their own homes, paying for groceries and keeping up with their monthly bills. One of the biggest concerns I hear from folks is about the high prices of the medication they need.

State Rep. Jane Pringle

In the Legislature, we’ve made it a priority to do everything we can to provide relief and lower these costs. This included passing legislation to expand eligibility for the Medicare Savings Program (MSP), which helps older people with lower incomes pay for some or all of their out-of-pocket costs for Medicare premiums, deductibles and copayments. It can also pay for the Part B premium, which is usually deducted from Social Security – putting real money back into people’s pockets.

This expansion is expected to affect more than 45,000 Mainers. While the amount of the benefit varies depending on the individual, it typically averages around $7,300 – which has the potential to be a lifeline that provides substantial relief. It won’t solve all of the concerns about costs, but it can hopefully help alleviate some of the anxiety that some older people are experiencing.

Making these changes to MSP was more than just good policy – it was simply the right thing to do. To learn more, you can reach all of the local Area Agencies on Aging by calling 1-877-elders-1 or 1-877-353-3771.

State Rep. Jane Pringle is serving her second, non-consecutive term in the Maine House and is a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services. <

Rookie Mama: Spending time over money – The most fantastic currency

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

We’ve turned that curve toward summer’s end – It’s ‘round the bend amid stacks of school supplies; color-coded folders and one-subject notebooks.

And that’s one subject for which I wish I could have procrastinated when August hit, but alas – It was go time.

Perhaps there’s no better time than now, in this season of transition, to remind ourselves to stay still when we can, in spite of constant motion and hair-on-fire parking spot searches coming in hot to soccer practice. (Guilty, on all counts).

Teeny, peaceful moments – the in between – can, and do exist.

Soak in moments, even though opportunities to soak sunlight’s slowly drawn its seasonal late-day curtain.

My family and I traveled to Quebec right before August’s intense ramping up of school-supply-shopping commenced into high gear, and I reminded myself silently to let points in time permeate a bit. To really live in the moment.

To not think ahead to school days and golden rule days, but to rather let these golden days rule.

Of our whole crew, I’m often the most destination-focused; we get to our point of disembarking, snap the photo with my right selfie-stick-style arm and inadvertently crop part of my head, then it’s go, go, go – Trek on. Next stop.

During this venture, I endeavored to mentally capture moments, remember the smells, the sights, the feelings, the sounds, the inevitable impromptu moments unscripted we’d all laugh about later, arm in arm with my husband and linked with our sweating, joyful children.

Quebec’s motto, ‘Je me souviens’, means ‘I remember,’ after all.

But what have I historically truly remembered beyond photographed evidence?

Upon returning home, I caught part of a video that upped this challenge ante – To not leave the house, even for a simple, mundane errand, without at least one child in tow.

Theoretically, solo focused time spent with one of your children allows for intentional conversations that wouldn’t otherwise take place at home with the whole herd – I have four children, and individualized, focused dialogue is a rarest luxury.

Speaking in complete sentences – What is this?

None of us are immune in a crew of six.

I tested this focused-time theory one recent afternoon as I shepherded my two middle guys up to camp for a quick luggage drop off. The otherwise totally un-glamorous task of unloading swim towel totes and Donettes into our camper was strikingly more memorable with the little ones than if I were solo, indeed.

They each had space to share stories and thoughts and opinions on life without being sandwiched figuratively and literally, conversational oxygen depleted and valiantly fought for.

I took notice of and thanked them for their helpful behaviors.

They loved the attention; I loved the assistance.

These moments – whether the intentional soaking up memories as my family trekked all over French-Canadian territory, attempting cringe-fully to speak French, poutine gravy dripping constantly in hand – or deliberate conversation with my little humans during an otherwise unremarkable errand – are important.

Small moments are lost if we only hold out for the grand.

And we only have 18 years with each of our little guys.

It’s easy to keep busy, and this autumn season gives us all the reasons to be.

But I’ve been trying to be smarter about the busy-work – Buying groceries more in bulk, planning ahead, stocking up on school snacks and organizing them in our downstairs pantry during quiet times where I’m not accompanied by my kiddos.

My own little haul of fame, if you will.

So live in the meaningful, cherish-able moments as they roll out with your little ones – tiny as the moments may be – and strategize your meal planning and bulk shopping list buys around this so your future self may thank you.

Spend more time, less money.

But buy the French poutine to share.

And to all you soccer mamas – I hear you, and I see you.

Let’s do this, September. I’ll see you on the other side!

­­– 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: Man on a Mission

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I was watching a baseball game last weekend when a special guest in the broadcast booth completely changed my opinion of him and made me think about what he had to say.

Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete of
all-time, winning 28 Olympic medals, including 23 gold
medals. COURTESY PHOTO 

During the fifth and sixth innings of Sunday’s game between the visiting Baltimore Orioles and the host Colorado Rockies in Denver, former U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps joined broadcasters Kevin Brown and Ben McDonald for a light-hearted discussion about Phelps’ connection to Baltimore, his Olympic career, and how closely he follows the Orioles.

I wasn’t aware that Phelps was born in Baltimore and grew up in nearby Towson, Maryland. His mother enrolled him in youth swimming at the age of 7 after his two sisters did well in the sport. He said that he only took swimming lessons initially because his mother, who was a middle school principal, insisted that he do so.

At first, Phelps was just an average swimmer but when his parents divorced when he was 9, swimming became an outlet for him. He struggled in school and by age 11, he was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) while in sixth grade.

One of his teachers then turned his life around by telling him that “he would never amount to anything.”

That’s when he poured his heart and soul into swimming and began to train at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club under Coach Bob Bowman, a former collegiate swimmer whose approach to swimming was as Phelps puts it “exactly like a drill sergeant.”

He could not train under Bowman if his grades were poor, so during the school year, Phelps hit the books and then spent hours of training sessions in the pool. His work ethic and desire to win were so strong that he never missed a day of swimming training under Bowman’s direction for more than 20 years.

By age 15 in 2000, Phelps became the youngest swimmer to ever qualify for the U.S. Summer Olympics team. He didn’t win a medal in those games but finished fifth in the 200-meter butterfly. With an eye on the 2004 Olympics, he became the youngest swimmer to set a world record for the 200-meter butterfly during the World Championship Trials for the 2001 World Aquatic Championships at the age of 15 years and 9 months.

During the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, Phelps captured six gold medals in six different events and two bronze medals in two others. In the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, Phelps competed in eight events and brought home another eight gold medals.

Competitors and doubters in the media suggested that Phelps might be on drugs, and continuing to win gold medals because of steroid use. Phelps responded by passing every drug test that was administered to him throughout his entire career.

He said he never let negative remarks bother him and that he attributes his success to always working harder than anyone else.

“While others were doing something else or celebrating the holidays, I was working and training,” Phelps said. “I never missed a day, and nobody was going to outwork me, and it helped me to achieve what I did.”

In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, Phelps won four more gold medals and two silver medals. Following the games, he was ready to retire and done with swimming after racking up 18 gold medals and being honored as the winningest Olympian of all-time.

Yet less than two years later, Phelps decided to unretire, and set out to convince Bowman that he wasn’t trying to show anybody up or to prove anything.

“I wanted to swim for myself and to enjoy the journey,” he told the Orioles broadcasters.

At the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Phelps was the U.S. flag bearer for the Opening Ceremonies and then shattered his incredible Olympic medal total by winning five more gold medals and a silver medal, before retiring from competitive swimming for good.

Now married and the father of four children, Phelps lives in Paradise Valley, Arizona where he volunteers as an assistant coach under Bowman for the Arizona State Swimming Team. Now 39, he covered the recent Summer Olympic Games in Paris, France as a broadcaster for NBC Sports.

In retirement, he founded the Michael Phelps Foundation, the Michael Phelps Swim School, and helped to develop a national pilot swimming program for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He says his goal is to teach children the importance of being active and healthy by focusing on swimming.

During his career in competitive swimming, Phelps established 39 world records, and he amassed a total of 28 Olympic medals, with 23 of them being gold medals, which is the most ever for an Olympic athlete.

He said that his teacher’s comment inspired him all those years ago and that he believes his dedication to training propelled him to his monumental accomplishments in swimming.

Until Sunday’s baseball game, I never knew what made Phelps the fantastic swimmer that he was and I came away from listening to him with a greater appreciation of what it takes to reach the pinnacle of Olympic success and then stay at the top after getting there. <

Andy Young: Ben and Wayne’s recipe for a fruitful school year

By Andy Young

The most significant date on a high school’s annual calendar isn’t graduation day, the open house, the homecoming football game, or prom night. And it certainly isn’t any of the ones when students take a battery of standardized tests that allegedly evaluate their aptitude and/or achievement, but actually just measure who’s best at taking standardized tests.

For better or worse, the most important day of the 2024-2025 school year for students, educators, and parents/guardians is the very first one.

That’s because the best chance for teachers to plant the seeds of interest and curiosity in their students is on the inaugural day of class. And by happy coincidence, that is precisely the same day on which students get their first and only opportunity to make a good initial impression on the person(s) who’ll be standing at the front of their classrooms for the remainder of the school year.

Like every other teacher, I need to prepare for Day One, since according to amateur philosophers ranging from Benjamin Franklin to Wayne Gretzky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW_qtpPo-DU), “By failing to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.”

Like everyone else, young people appreciate honesty, so each year on the first day of classes I inform my incoming 12th graders that “College Prep English” is in reality “Life Prep English.” Not every senior will opt to continue their formal education after high school, but regardless of what comes next, they’ll need to be effective communicators. Once they accept that, impressing upon them the need to hone their reading, writing, listening, speaking, and thinking skills on a daily basis is an easy sell. I tell them that if they’re open-minded and willing to work hard they’ll get significant benefit from their final high school year. However, giving less than their best effort will be a waste of both their time and mine.

I’ll explain how they’ll be evaluated, since while I much prefer teaching to grading, part of my job involves assessment. And as is the case in “real life,” they won’t get credit for work they don’t do, or for classes they don’t attend.

I’ll let them know I insist on students treating one another with respect. That means no belittling or disparaging of anyone, and listening thoughtfully to what others have to say. In short, they’ll need to live by “The Golden Rule.”

I’ll encourage them to treat every written assignment like it’s vitally important, recommending they approach it like they would a college application, or for an unusually attractive employment opportunity. A job worth doing is worth doing right, so if they have to perform a task anyway, why not do their best job the first time? After all, there aren’t always second chances outside of high school. That’s why proofreading everything they author meticulously and out loud is essential. I’ll suggest they approach each written assignment like they’re preparing a letter to their parent(s) asking for a later curfew, or an important note to a significant other.

I’ll also truthfully inform them that the first impression I get of each individual student on Day One is accurate about ninety percent of the time. That’s a nice way of saying I’m dead wrong the other ten percent of the time, which is why I’ll advise them that while it’s okay to inwardly make initial judgments, it’s imperative to avoid acting on them, or sharing them with others.

If Day One’s plan goes well, I’ll know for sure that the coming school year will be a successful one for all concerned parties.

That is, assuming I can come up with a decent plan for Day Two. <