Insight: Yard Sale Confidential

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Sometime around 2003, my life took a radical turn when I discovered a new way to save money, explore my surroundings, meet new people and acquire treasures I could only dream about finding previously. For the first five decades of my existence on this planet, I had never attended a yard sale, garage sale, church rummage sale or stepped inside of a thrift shop and was proud of my choice to avoid such a thing.

But 22 years ago in October, a friend asked if I would go to a neighborhood sale and help carry items that she was going to purchase to her car. My first impression of walking through this massive sale was sheer astonishment about what some people were selling and the next-to-nothing amount that people were paying for what they were buying.

I made my first purchase for just $2, and it was a nice working wristwatch easily worth 50 times what I paid for it. I asked my friend if this neighborhood sale took place every weekend and she said no, this was an annual event. But she did inform me that just about every weekend, people hosted various yard sales and garage sales throughout the county we lived in.

On the following weekend, I drove to a different town after seeing an ad in the newspaper for a “Huge Sale.” This one wasn’t like the neighborhood sale at all. The driveway was strewn with baby clothes, children’s toys, cat perches and an old set of encyclopedias from the 1950s. I went through everything, said thank you to the seller, and left.

Once more a week later, I was driving to Dunkin Donuts when I saw a sign tacked up on a telephone pole advertising a garage sale on the next street over. I stopped and could not believe what the guy who lived there was selling. It was a bunch of men’s argyle sweaters in just my size, and he only wanted $3 for each one. Because I wanted three of them, he told me I could take the fourth and last one he was selling for just $1. I walked away from there thinking it was a steal and perhaps the best $10 that I had ever spent.

After years of paying full price for clothing, I decided that if I could find those nice sweaters, there must be other available bargains out there. Lo and behold, I discovered $4 pairs of pants, $3 men’s dress shirts, $3 leather belts and an array of like-new jackets and coats substantially less expensive than when purchased brand new. Years later I can confess that most of my wardrobe comes from this method and the only new clothing items in my closet are either Christmas or birthday gifts from my wife and family.

When I tried to explain my yard sale excursions on Saturday morning to my elderly mother, she looked at me quizzically and asked, “Why would you want someone else’s used underwear?” I explained that I wasn’t looking to purchase anyone else’s underwear, but I was turning up some interesting things at these types of sales.

For example, have you seen how much retailers want for new table lamps these days? When my wife and I had purchased a home and were setting about to furnish it, we went to many different furniture stores and department stores trying to find just the right one for several different spots both upstairs and downstairs. Nothing was to our liking, and the cost we were looking at was exceeding $100 – for a small lamp.

Our next trip to the Habitat for Humanity Restore used furniture store was successful and we found just what we wanted for a fraction of what we would have paid for a new lamp. The same thing happened when we found a like-new 20,000 BTU large window air conditioner in the box there for just $20, or a slightly used Amana microwave that has served us admirably since 2018 for $25.

The real clincher for me was when I visited a church rummage sale and found a shoebox full of more than 200 Topps baseball cards from 1963 in excellent condition for $6. This year my wife Nancy and I went back to that same church rummage sale, and she found a large box of fabric and sewing patterns. None of the items at this year’s sale were individually priced, so you had to make an offer for things you wanted to buy. I suggested to Nancy that she start by offering $5. She did and the seller accepted. We walked away with a treasure trove of fabric, some of which have already been transformed by Nancy and her sewing machine in clothing for the grandchildren.

We’ve found so many used books, dog toys, Christmas and Halloween decorations, an antique soup tureen and record albums in fantastic shape this way. Two weekends ago, I found a brand-new Mac Davis album from the 1970s for $2.

And after years of bargain-bin shopping, I can honestly say having visited garage sales, yard sales, rummage sales, thrift and discount shops that I have never even once spotted someone’s used underwear up for sale. < 

Andy Young: Time to re-christen America’s capital cities?

By Andy Young

Everyone savors three consecutive work-free days, and in northern New England Columbus Day weekend provides the perfect opportunity to spend quality time with friends and family, enjoy the foliage, and, weather permitting, savor the last vestiges of summer.

Oops.

I’ve just inadvertently revealed my age. Since LD 179 was signed into law on April 26, 2019, the holiday celebrated annually on October’s second Monday is officially “Indigenous Peoples Day” here in Maine. But for those of us who attended elementary school a half-century (or more) ago, the upcoming holiday still involuntarily registers in our brains as Columbus Day. Learning is challenging, but unlearning what was drummed into our youthful brains decades ago is significantly more difficult. What’s been securely stored in a human brain for decades can be awfully tough to dislodge.

Youngsters of my vintage learned that Christopher Columbus braved a wide variety of hardships en route to becoming America’s discoverer. Portrayed by history texts as an intrepid adventurer who surmounted daunting climatic, technological, and fiscal challenges, he and contemporaries like Ferdinand Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci and Vasco da Gama were the astronauts of their day. They were Indiana Jones before George Lucas’s fictional archaeologist ever existed.

But over the last half-century historians have begun taking a more nuanced look at Columbus, and consequently his legacy has become a bit murkier.

Okay, a lot murkier.

Not long after landing on Hispaniola, the Caribbean island which today houses Haiti and the Dominican Republic, Columbus and his men subjugated the locals, beginning several hundred years of often-brutal European colonialism. They also brought diseases like influenza, measles, and smallpox, effectively bringing about what some researchers believe caused 90 percent of the island’s indigenous population to be wiped out within 100 years of Columbus’s arrival. That catastrophic loss of available labor helped bring about one of mankind’s darkest hours, the transatlantic slave trade. The tragic (and seemingly eternal) repercussions of that shameful era arguably still impact our nation today.

It’s understandable why statues of dictators, confederate generals, and slaveowners get taken down. But altering the names of holidays is a whole different business. “Indigenous Peoples Day weekend,” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, possibly because it contains half again as many syllables as “Columbus Day weekend” does.

I get why names need to change from time to time, and particularly in Columbus’s case, since genocide is far less popular today than it was in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. But if annihilators are going to be de-emphasized, shouldn’t slave owners get the same treatment?

Presidents Andrew Jackson, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson all owned human chattel, which most contemporary human beings understandably see as morally repugnant. So how about reconsidering who some of our nation’s state capitals commemorate? Native-celebrating cities like Tallahassee, Florida and Cheyenne, Wyoming are fine, but others clearly need rebranding.

Here’s a thought: let these places keep their current names but add an appropriate prefix to them. How do Mahalia Jackson, Mississippi, Oscar Madison, Wisconsin, and George & Weezy Jefferson City, Missouri sound? Forward-thinking elected officials are needed to get the ball rolling on such changes, but hopefully someone in Congress (located in Denzel Washington, DC) possesses the spine to do just that.

While there’d likely be some initial pushback from traditionalists, eventually Americans would accept having their cities renamed for people who weren’t oppressors. And nowhere would those name changes be more celebrated than in the rechristened cities themselves.

Surely the citizens of Johnny Carson City, Nevada and Stone Cold Steve Austin, Texas would embrace their community’s extended new names.

As, undoubtedly, would the denizens of Indigenous Peoples, Ohio. >

Tim Nangle: Progress, but still too many cracks in Maine’s child welfare system

By State Senator Tim Nangle

In September, the Health and Human Services Committee received a quarterly update on the state of Maine’s child welfare system. I’ve been on the committee for nearly a year now, and I’ve seen several of these briefings. But this one landed a little differently.

State Senator Tim Nangle

It was the first one since the passing of my predecessor, The Honorable Bill Diamond.

Bill was relentless in pushing for transparency, accountability and stronger protection for kids and he wasn’t afraid to say DHHS wasn’t doing enough. I think he’d have said what I’m about to say: DHHS is still failing in ways that matter. Kids are still sleeping in hotel rooms. Families are still overwhelmed and under-supported. And staff — although passionate and committed — are still being asked to do too much, with too little.

That said, there is some progress. The department has filled a number of long-vacant positions and reduced turnover, which is certainly encouraging. The department has launched a new strategic plan with clearer values and more accountability. They’ve rolled out something called “Intensive Short-Term Homes,” a 30-day model to get kids out of hotels and into stable placements while permanent solutions are found. They shared one story of a seven-year-old with autism who began sleeping through the night and communicating more clearly after moving into a supportive home and out of an isolating hotel room.

We also heard about efforts to better differentiate between poverty and neglect. A new law now requires that families be considered “neglectful” only if they have the means to provide for their children and choose not to, or if they’ve been offered help and still cannot meet basic needs. Too many families are being dragged into and overwhelming the child welfare system when what they really need is safe housing, heat or help paying for food.

If the department can implement and operate these plans successfully, it will be a major step forward.

But for every step forward, there’s a reminder of how far we still have to go.

At the briefing, I asked how DHHS is recruiting and approving the 270-plus "community sitters," who are now helping to supervise children in emergency departments and hotel rooms. I asked what kind of information and support new foster parents get when they take in a child. To be blunt, the answers lacked substance. They weren’t reassuring enough to say with confidence that every child is being placed into a setting that understands their specific needs.

I also asked whether staff feel the new sitter program is helping ease burnout, especially after last year’s controversial changes to overtime. Director Johnson acknowledged that staff were previously “very unhappy” and said adjustments were made, but I’ll continue to watch for morale and retention issues.

The bottom line is that this system is moving in the right direction, but it’s not moving fast enough.

Bill Diamond understood that urgency. He made it clear that when the state takes custody of a child, that child becomes our responsibility; yours and mine. We owe it to Bill’s legacy, and to every child in the system today, to keep the pressure on.

We need to understand that both state and federal law rightly protect the privacy of these families and their children. However, I’ll continue to ask tough questions in these briefings. I’ll keep listening to foster families, parents, and case workers. I’ll keep pushing for a system that doesn’t just survive scandal and tragedy but one that prevents them from happening in the first place.

If you’re a parent, a foster family, a mandated reporter or someone trying to navigate the system, I want to hear from you. Real change doesn’t come from a committee room in Augusta. It comes from communities speaking up and leaders listening.

Let’s keep pushing forward. There’s a long way to go, but we don’t get there by pretending everything’s fine.

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: Repaying a simple gesture of kindness

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

On the day after Labor Day in September 1966, I walked through the doors of Carlton Webster Junior High School in Henrietta, New York and into an entirely different life.

Jim Quetschenbach and his wife Peggy attended
the Rush Henrietta High School Class of 1971
picnic on Sept. 26 in Henrietta, New York.  

I was in a new school, and it was a new experience for me attending a public school, after I had completed seven grades at a Catholic school in a neighboring town. But at my new school, I didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the teachers or have one friend. I was starting over at age 12 in eighth grade and wary about how I would fit in there.

In my Physical Education class, we started out the school year doing exercises in the gymnasium. I looked around and observed how lacking I was in athletic talent compared to my classmates. Many were showing the ability to stand out on the football field, and as wrestlers, and future baseball stars, but at less than 5 feet in height at that point and weighing all of 90 pounds, I just wasn’t in their league.

After one week of school, I had not made any friends, was very shy, and my lack of coordination made me the last student chosen for volleyball or softball teams during gym class. I was frequently bullied or harassed by larger and stronger students and it didn’t do wonders for my self-esteem.

One afternoon after gym class, I sat on a bench in the locker room and just felt totally dejected at my situation. But a classmate that I didn’t know walked over to me, put his hand on my shoulder and told me to cheer up and that things would be OK. His name was Jim Quetschenbach and his kind words made me feel like things might improve after all.

Jim Quetschenbach was everything I wasn’t, so his kind gesture that day took me by surprise. He was tall, good looking and excelled at many sports for Carlton Webster Junior High.

As the school year unfolded, he was right. I slowly made friends in my new surroundings and although I didn’t improve significantly as an athlete, I focused on academics and started to develop a talent for writing. One of my teachers asked if I could create a school newspaper and serve as its editor.

As we completed junior high and moved on to Rush Henrietta High School, Jim Quetschenbach was one of the most well-liked students in our class. As a sophomore, we elected Jim as vice president of our class, and he showcased his athletic abilities throughout his high school career as a member of the varsity football, basketball and baseball teams, including throwing a no-hitter once.

After graduating from high school in 1971, Jim became a registered nurse and went on to serve for 15 years in the U.S. Air Force as a flight nurse and captain, providing care for Air Force personnel and their families. He was following in his father's footsteps, as his dad had served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Later, Jim also coached 15-year-old baseball players to the New York State championship and has worked in organ donation and transplantation for many years.

Several years ago, my wife and I were at a flea market in Scarborough, Maine. I was there looking for used record albums but stumbled across a vendor selling old magazines. He had stacks of 1950s Life and National Geographic magazines, along with other literature. Looking over his tables, I spotted a 1971 Section V New York State Basketball Championship Tournament Program laying there on one of the stacks. I opened it and saw a roster of my high school team from that year and recognized the name of Jim Quetschenbach in it.

For 50 cents, I took the program home and then made sure I took it with me last week as my wife and I drove over to Rochester, New York for a gathering of Rush Henrietta High School Class of 1971 alumni.

During a picnic on Friday afternoon, I sat down with Jim Quetschenbach and his wife, Peggy, who had traveled to Rochester for the event from their home in North Carolina. I asked Jim if his parents had gone to the basketball championship tournament games in 1971 and he said yes. I asked him if they had purchased a program and he said he didn’t know. I then asked him if they had given him a program from the games or if he had a program from that year, and he answered no.

I then presented Jim, a father of three and grandfather of six, with the program I had discovered at the flea market. Tears welled up in his eyes and he leaned over, gave me a big hug and thanked me for doing such a thing for him.

It may have been sheer luck that I found that program at the flea market that day, but I would like to think otherwise and believe that the universe placed it there for me to find and repay the act of kindness that Jim had shown to me almost 60 years ago. It’s true that every act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. <

Rookie Mama: Fall hauls and soccer balls and budgets for the win

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

And here we are again, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve been winding down another season –turn, turn, turn – as the next ramps way up. It’s fall hauls and soccer balls; buttoning down garden beds and prepping our harvest residuum for winter storage as we crank up the sports-o-meter to 11.

We’re still in that odd seasonal transition, the autumnal Venn diagram of falling leaves and bubble wands.

I’m reminded of two things as I’m running soccer carpool and running hair-on-fire wild all at once – things that essentially point to being kind to your future selves in small ways now that will pay dividends later.

The first ongoing charge is to take the time to properly preserve any of your remaining garden harvest for the winter months ahead when you can – A big ol’ storing up of nuts, if you will.

For those of you who garden and may have bonus harvest such as tomatoes, peppers, beans, gourds galore, there are several ways to pack it up, pack it in to enjoy farm fresh – and free! – taste all winter long before we do it all over again next spring.

If your harvest is past peak, you can sometimes save non-hybrid seeds for next season.

My kiddos love to shell peas and beans while watching a comedy, like a modern-day Waltons’ front porch, but with Pixar.

Your garden is as full of gifts as it is compost bits, after all.

Just another benefit of money savings in the garden game.

Some of you may also enjoy canning – It’s both literally and figuratively quite the process – and this is a classic method to preserve garden goods.

My crew cans one day out of the year, a massive family assembly line effort involving colossal quantities of applesauce. It takes an entire day and several background Christmas movies, a special October dispensation for that weekend.

But my go-to for easy weekend harvest preservation is freezing and blanching as needed.

If you’ve got yourself an unexpected haul of beans limping along, chop up and boil for three minutes, submerge in ice immediately, freeze flat in labeled freezer bags.

Extra tomatoes can be milled into sauces, also frozen flat once cooled.

Freezing as a preservation method is easy peasy for your peas.

Remove from the deep freeze in the months to come when you’re ready for your own tasty farm fresh goods to complement a meal.

The second ongoing charge is not unlike the first in practice, and involves budgeting for expenses that lay ahead – Storing up of nuts in another manner of speaking.

In recent years, my husband and I began harvesting proverbial greens in another sense of the word altogether by setting aside small funds monthly for various familial budget lines so that when ultimately needed, we’d be prepared and reduce any risk of debt.

We save now, a little at a time, as we do with the food preservation.

We have several checking accounts that serve as account lines for various expenditures including house projects, car repairs, plowing and Christmas, among others.

Costs associated with each of these, whether planned for, such as Christmas – or not, such as repairs – come faster than a speeding soccer ball, burdensome and fast.

Because they’re inevitable, we bank up a bit each month now to ready ourselves for that time.

For example, each January I estimate what I’ll spend the following Christmas, divide that total by twelve, and contribute that dollar amount to my Christmas checking fund monthly in the interim so I’m not faced with holiday expenses all at once.

It’s straightforward, and can be accomplished on a timeline that works for you, and ultimately will ease your mind in the future when your next car repair or otherwise comes around.

A small but meaningful habit change.

So turn a new autumnal leaf and start banking up to be kind to your future self, whether it’s by storing up garden abundance now for use in dreary months, or by contributing small amounts regularly to important expense funds.

We’re winding down to hibernation mode for a brief respite, a perfect time to reflect on habits and how we may plan ahead now for better outcomes later.

To everything there is a season, folks.

And ours will be probably filled with a minivan carpool full of kids.

­­– 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!

Andy Young: One of the five takes a vacation

By Andy Young

People who speak English employ 26 different symbols when they wish to exchange ideas in writing. However, while 21 of those generally recognized letters are classified as mere consonants, most knowledgeable lexicographers and polyglots see the others, the vowels, as the alphabet’s five most vital components.

That came to mind recently when I heard a soccer coach solemnly tell one of his pint-sized charges, a player who never seemed to pass to a teammate, “There’s no I in team.”

While that tired axiom might be the most ancient of old clichés, nevertheless it’s literally correct, since the alphabet’s ninth letter is indeed absent from the word “team.”

Mentors since the beginning of time have invented similar axioms by employing the simple “There’s no ____ in _____________” recipe. For example, aspiring realtors are told there’s no “D” in kitchen, no “H” in closet, and no “X” in garage, no matter what size abode they’re trying to sell.

Inexperienced cartographers learn early on that there’s no “E” in Bolivia, no “L” in Costa Rica, and no “T” in China.

Okay, technically there is tea in China. However, reasonable people recognize a semantic exception when they see one.

Persons who write and orate in English aren’t the only ones availing themselves of the 26-letter alphabet. Speakers and writers of Malay and Indonesian do so as well. It’s remarkable so many people can convey messages or other random notions, both verbally and in writing, when employing a mere 26 different characters.

While each letter is significant, the five vowels are by far the most indispensable. The chances of being able to write anything even moderately intelligible if they didn’t exist, are practically nil.

Here’s an interesting factoid: the Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters, all of which are consonants which can also serve as long vowels. A few other symbols are considered by some academics to be letters. However, they are not a basic part of that alphabet.

The Armenian alphabet is comprised of 38 letters in all, 31 of which are consonants. I had originally intended to list the seven vowels here for the edification of the Windham Eagle’s loyal readers. However, as was also the case with many of the Arabic symbols, few are available options on my keyboard.

In contrast, the Hawaiian remarkable alphabet consists of only 13 letters: H, K, L, M, N, P, W, ‘, and the same five vowels English speakers employ in order to correspond with their friends in writing. The ‘, the letter that transcribes the glottal stop consonant in Hawaiian, is called the ‘okina. For a better explanation of what a glottal stop (or glottal stop consonant) is, check with a syntax scholar, a prose professor, an expression edifier, or a terminology teacher. However, regardless of any odd-looking symbols, Hawaiians are getting by very well with an alphabet containing of only half the letters the one we’re familiar with does.

Getting back to the “There’s no I in team” thing, aspiring chefs and bakers are told both early and often by their learned and veteran advisors that there’s no “R” in cinnamon, no “M” in salt, and no “Q” in baking powder. There is, however, an occasional “B” in honey. (See “semantic exception” in this article’s sixth paragraph.)

Prominent clothiers teach their apprentices that there’s no “D” in socks, no “M” in shirt and, one hopes, no “P” in shorts.

Fledgling arborists are told, correctly, that there’s no “C” in Maples, no “E” in Oaks, and no “V” in Redwoods.

Which is something of a coincidence, since there aren’t any yews in this essay either. <

Insight: To Miss Silverman, wherever you are

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

In the fall of 1968, members of the Rush-Henrietta Class of 1971 started classes at the brand-new high school and life was never the same.

In 1968, Ruth Silverman taught English at
Rush-Henrietta High School in Henrietta,
New York where Ed Pierce was one of
her students. COURTESY PHOTO 

We were now sophomores who were seeking ways to navigate our way around the building and adjust to more challenging courses and eyeing successful futures.

Looking over my class schedule, I was less than thrilled. I had drawn Miss Bodak for Study Hall first thing in the morning, followed by World History with Miss Johnson, Biology with Mr. Gordon, PE with Coach Sykela, and Sophomore English with Miss Silverman before lunch. Then in the afternoon I had Sophomore Chorus with Mr. Hobin and wrapped up each day with Algebra with Mr. Luce.

A few weeks in, my homework had increased substantially, and I was falling behind in both Biology and Algebra. I also found myself at odds in Sophomore English with a fellow student named Joe Mastrantonio, who never failed to take the opposite viewpoint of mine during lively class discussions of books we were reading. And even though I was terribly shy, a few pretty girls in my homeroom were catching my eye.

After each school day ended, I would ride the school bus home and then set out on my bicycle to deliver the afternoon daily newspaper throughout my neighborhood.

If time permitted before dinner, I’d work on my homework and a good chunk of that involved reading novels for Sophomore English. Our teacher, Miss Ruth Silverman, was in her second year of teaching at our school and had recently graduated from college. She wasn’t much older than we were and as the school year went on, I discovered that she listened to the same music students my age did and was very knowledgeable about current events and popular culture of that era.

Although it was hard to read as many books as she wanted us to, I found her choices for us to be enlightening and thought-provoking. We started with “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles, which takes place 15 years after a tragic betrayal at boys’ boarding school when a former student returns to deal with his past actions and seeking forgiveness for hurting a friend. Then we read “The Red Badge of Courage” by Stephen Crane, a novel set during the Civil War about a young soldier who flees from the field of battle and overcome with shame, he longs for a wound – a "red badge of courage" to make up for his cowardice. Right before Thanksgiving we read “Flowers For Algernon” by Daniel Keyes about a mentally deficient man who undergoes an operation that turns him into a genius but also introduces him to heartache.

With each novel that our class read and subsequent discussions, Miss Silverman was broadening our intellectual horizons and turning each of us into young adults. I felt like she understood what it was like to be a teenager growing up in the 1960s overshadowed by the Vietnam War, violence and political assassinations, the Space Race and civil rights.

Over spring break, Miss Silverman had us read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” a fantasy novel about Middle Earth and creatures called hobbits. It wasn’t a typical book I was expecting her to assign for a school class and that made it all more enjoyable for me. She also told me after class one day that I had significant potential as a writer, and she envisioned my work being read by other people.

Our final project was to create a multi-media presentation and show it to the class and Miss Silverman. Coach Sykela let me use some slides he had taken of a Rush-Henrietta basketball player Bill Smith, who had gone on to play for Syracuse University. I used a slide projector and a carousel to move the slides back and forth to a musical background. I was stuck for a song to play for more than a week when I heard “Sooliamon” by Neil Diamond played on WBBF-AM radio. I liked the beat and tempo and selected that one to accompany my slide show.

When my project was shown to our class, I was bombarded with classmate questions about what meaning that I was trying to achieve, why I picked those slides for the project, and to interpret what the song meant and how it tied into the basketball player. Miss Silverman said she was impressed, and my confidence soared when she gave me an “A” for that project.

Miss Silverman moved on after my sophomore year. I asked but was told she was teaching elsewhere. Eventually I graduated from high school and earned a college degree before embarking on a professional career as a journalist in 1975.

I have tried without luck to find Miss Silverman for decades just to express my gratitude and share with her that she inspired me to earn a living as a writer. Unable to find her using multiple resources and technology, I may never be able to say thanks to her in person, so this column will have to suffice.

To Ruth Silverman – wherever you are – thank you. It seems the older I get, the more I appreciate what you did for me.

Andy Young: A sneak peek at the year’s best books

By Andy Young

This December distinguished literary critics will list 2025’s best non-fiction books. But why wait until year’s end to find out about the best available reads?

Rather than pay what current best-sellers cost, I prefer borrowing books from the library or purchasing previously owned ones at a used bookstore, where used books are sold. Used bookstores, in contrast, are just older, often decrepit buildings which formerly housed other businesses.

Distinguished critics and esteemed authors may possess impressive resumes, but in my view they’re no more qualified than anyone else to choose “Books of the Year.” I’ve never written a bestseller or qualified for any elite literary societies, but I scan written words fairly regularly and on occasion even absorb their meaning(s).

One Man’s Leg, by Paul Martin, originally published in 2002, is the moving memoir of a young man whose life changed drastically (and in his opinion, ultimately for the better) after a 1992 car accident cost him the lower half of his left leg. His story is buoyant, sobering, hilarious, tragic, and encouraging, and often all in the same paragraph.

The Wendell Smith Reader, which was edited by Michael Scott Pifer and published in 2023, is equally thought-provoking. An aspiring athlete whose dreams were short-circuited by racism, Smith was a promising black pitcher who had the misfortune to have been born in 1914. However, his journalistic accomplishments had a far greater impact than anything he (or anyone else) could have accomplished on a baseball field. Reading Smith’s best essays, many of which dealt with subjects that went far beyond sports, is like uncovering a time capsule from mid-20th Century America. This collection is a social historian’s treasure trove.

Some books can cause visceral reactions, and reading Poverty, by America does just that. Published in 2023, it was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning Princeton University sociology professor Matthew Desmond, who explores why the world’s wealthiest nation has significantly more poverty than any other advanced democracy. Desmond makes his case meticulously, eloquently, and convincingly, but be forewarned, the inherent (if unintentional) sense of entitlement in some of America’s most privileged citizens is a large part of the equation.

If Poverty, by America made me mad, Framed: Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions, made me furious. Co-written by bestselling author John Grisham and Jim McCloskey, the founder the world’s first organization devoted solely to freeing the wrongly-convicted, the book details ten cases involving innocent people who were unfairly found guilty of committing horrendous crimes thanks to corrupt law enforcement and/or elected officials more interested in getting convictions than obtaining justice. Each nightmarish miscarriage of justice chronicled in the book is horrific, and what’s worse is knowing these ten cases are just the tip of the injustice iceberg.

My blood pressure lowered significantly when reading Grandpa Pike’s Outhouse Reader (published 2017). Disregard the title; the writings of the late Laurie Blackwood Pike, a proud native of Newfoundland and lifelong resident of eastern Canada, have nothing to do with bathroom humor, or wash room humour, as the author himself would undoubtedly have written. His short essays are consistently absorbing, frequently humorous, and often moving. His second collection, Grandpa Pike’s Number Two, which came out in 2019, is just as good. Next up on my list: his third anthology, Pea Soup for the Newfoundlander’s Soul, which came out in 2021.

Those are, in my opinion, the best non-fiction reads of 2025 (so far). Pick one up at your library. Or better yet, purchase one at a used bookstore.

But whatever you do, steer clear of used bookstores. Despite modern medicine, decrepitude is still highly contagious. <

Becky Longacre: Seven health behaviors for people in mid-life

By Becky Longacre

I was once chronically sick, overweight and highly anxious. I had chronic back pain all day every day and was flaring on and off with ulcerative colitis for many years.

Becky Longacre

Since my 20s, I started on the long journey of health and wellness. I was not interested in being a full time or (even a part time) patient. I was interested in healing pain, losing weight and calming my ulcerative colitis and anxiety.

There was a lot of trial and error, and as a nurse, I noticed over almost two decades of practice there were certain common denominators in patients that tended to get better after illnesses.

Now, keep in mind, there are times when you do everything right and you still get cancer or another terrible disease. But for many illnesses we treat in the hospital, I noticed a correlation between certain health behaviors and illness recovery.

Here they are in a nutshell:

1.) Hydration. From assisting in temperature regulation to flushing out lactic acid from our muscles (so they are not sore) drinking enough water is critical to our health and wellness. It even reduces brain fog! Unless you are fluid-restricted by your doctor, drink at least 1.5 liters of water daily if you are a woman and at least 2 liters of water daily if you are a man. Most people are walking around pretty dehydrated.

2.) Healthy food. Due to limited space, I will not get into the specifics of a healthy diet plan, but according to the Mayo Clinic, diets that tend to include lean protein, fruits and vegetables and whole grains are associated with less disease than high fat, processed-carb diets. What is imperative for you to learn is: What diet or eating habits work for you? It is not a one size fits all. Aim to eat food with shorter ingredient lists and pay attention to serving sizes.

3.) Healthy Exercise. Harvard Medical School states that a comprehensive exercise program including cardiovascular activity, resistance training, balance and stretching will increase your endurance, strength, range of motion, and agility. Aim for 30 minutes of various types of exercise most days of the week.

4.) Sunlight and fresh air. When we get outside, the exposure to sunlight helps to stimulate us and wake us up during the day. This also helps us to sleep at night. Aim for at least 20 minutes of sunlight per day.

5.) Sleep and Meditation. Most of the people I talk to are sleep deprived. I can’t emphasize the importance that sleep has on our mental health, our hormones and our metabolism. Aim for eight hours per night.

6.) Community Connections. People who have strong community connections experience less perceived stress. This means that out of 2 people experiencing the same level of stress, the person who has a stronger support network will experience less stress than the person who is feeling like they are alone. So, nurture your family, friends and community relationships! Go out and have fun once per week.

7.) Spirituality/Joy. Take the word that resonates the most with you. Find a connection, an activity, an experience that is bigger than you, that gives you happiness, that connects you with others, that gives or receives love. This can be prayer for some and affirmations for others. Even praying or meditating 5 minutes per day has been shown to slow the brain down and increase relaxation.

Have more questions about health wellness, weight loss and personal development? Ask away! I will address them in future articles. Until I hear directly from you, may you be happy and healthy.

Becky Longacre is a Nurse Coach for Health Transformers LLC. Send her questions at becky@healthtransformersmaine.com or call her at 207-400-7897. Visit her website at www.healthtransformersmaine.com" <

Andy Young: The graveyard shift

By Andy Young

One afternoon long ago my brother, several of my cousins and I were stuffed into a Ford Falcon station wagon. My uncle was at the wheel. None of us were wearing seatbelts, which was understandable, since at the time such items didn’t exist, or if they did, they weren’t standard equipment on Ford Falcon station wagons.

Part of the beauty of being a child passenger inside an automobile during the pre-seatbelt era was having the freedom of motion necessary to covertly poke, pinch, punch, and/or kick whichever sibling(s) and/or cousin(s) they felt like pestering at the time. Similarly, the target(s) of such provocations, who were also unrestrained physically, were free to maneuver themselves around the inside of the car in order to evade the bullying of older, more aggressive passengers or, if the opportunity presented itself, to launch a counterattack.

If you’re worried this childhood recollection is going to end in some sort of horrific tragedy that could have been avoided had we only been wearing seatbelts, well, don’t be. My uncle lived to a ripe old age, and most of the youthful passengers who were in the car that day are still alive, hoping to do likewise. But my most vivid recollection regarding that particular outing was my uncle, who was desperately attempting to calm his rambunctious passengers, asking (or probably shouting, just so he could be heard) as we passed a graveyard, “How many people are dead in that cemetery?”

There was a pause. Then someone hesitantly chirped, “a hundred?” An older, slightly deeper voice scornfully retorted, “There must be at least a thousand in there.” The rest of us began chiming in with various estimates, but my uncle, having successfully gotten our minds on something other than torturing one another, urged us to keep trying. We spent the rest of the ride venturing further guesses about exactly how many deceased individuals there actually were in that graveyard. When we arrived at our destination my uncle finally revealed the precise number of people who were dead in that cemetery. The answer, of course, was “all of them.”

I’ve been thinking more about cemeteries recently, since there are several of them along the route I’ve been taking to work lately. South Portland is home to at least five graveyards, which seems like an awful lot for a place the size of Maine’s fourth-largest city. But the truth is there are more people buried in just one of South Portland’s boneyards, the 97-acre Forest City Cemetery (over 30,000, according to Portland’s Department of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities, which oversees the place), than there are living, breathing citizens in the entire city (26,498, according to the 2020 census).

However, South Portland is hardly the only place in America with more dead residents than live ones. Take, for example, Colma, California, which lies on the San Francisco Peninsula. Founded as a necropolis (burial ground) in 1924, the 1.89 square mile unincorporated town is currently home to, per the 2020 census, just 1,507 extant human beings. However, it also houses more than 1.5 million dead folks, meaning that Colma’s ratio of deceased inhabitants to living ones is somewhere around a thousand to one.

By utter coincidence, my current abode is located a mere mile from a burial ground that’s been there, if one believes what’s been etched into some of the older stones, for more than two centuries. Despite its age, though, I know for a fact the cemetery in my town is a truly high-quality one because, as my uncle would no doubt have gleefully pointed out, people are still dying to get into it. <

Insight: Imprudence on parade

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but sometime this summer my wife Nancy hooked me on watching YouTube videos of arrests from around the country captured on police bodycams.

It’s a non-stop parade of lame excuses, driving while impaired, know-it-all college students and angry people who believe that they know more about law enforcement than the men and women working in the profession do.

There are drivers who try to evade arrest by pulling away from traffic stops and then taking officers on high-speed chases. There are some women frequently described in these videos as “Karens” who shout and scream and resist and obstruct being arrested.

I’ve seen arrest videos on YouTube from as recently as two weeks ago and some even have a former police officer who narrates or explains why an officer takes specific actions when investigating criminal offenses and situations.

Many of these videos share one thing in common – drivers suspected of drunk driving. Once pulled over, the investigating officer will ask a driver for his or her driver’s license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance. Inevitably, the suspected driver will not have any of that and tells the officer that with slurred speech, glassy eyes or the inability to stand, let alone drive a motor vehicle.

Here is a sampling of some of my all-time bodycam arrest favorite videos that I have watched so far:

The owner of a self-serve car wash in Florida called police at 1 a.m. to report that a woman had been sitting in her SUV in the car wash parking lot since 7 p.m. and he found that behavior to be suspicious. Even though the car wash was open 24 hours, he thought she was using drugs there and asked police if they could investigate and get her to leave his property. He said he had video security footage of her being there that long.

Arriving at the scene, officers approached the woman’s car, and she was speaking with someone on her cell phone and ignored them. They banged on her car window until she rolled it down and instructed them to stop and go away. When one of the officers asked what she was doing there and told her that the car wash owner wanted her to leave, she refused, saying she hadn’t done anything wrong. She rolled up her window and ignored police asking for her identification and to get out of her car to talk to her.

Eventually, the police smashed her window and dragged her out of her car but before that happened she said she didn’t believe the officers in uniform were real police. She demanded to speak to a supervisor and a sergeant and as she was being handcuffed, she repeatedly asked why she was being arrested. The officer told her she was arrested for trespassing because she did not leave when instructed to by police.

Another weird incident was caught on bodycam video in Florida and involved a van, a topless woman, a medical student from Jamaica and barking sounds coming from the van during the arrest. Apparently, a homeless woman who lived in her van had stopped to pick up the medical student who was hitchhiking. All the seats in the van had been removed except for the driver’s seat. On the floor on the back of the van was a large mattress in which the woman had tied up the college student at gunpoint and made him lie there.

Officers had observed the woman speeding and swerving all over the roadway and chased her for miles. Her tires became flat when she ran over police stop sticks, but she kept right on going until one of her rims crumbled. She refused to get out of the van and started throwing mountains of trash out the van’s passenger door. She allowed the college student to exit the van and then started making loud noises sounding like a barking dog and then a clucking chicken.

She eventually threw her gun out the window and tried to run away to escape but was wrestled to the ground by officers. She wasn’t wearing a shirt and had to have a towel wrapped around her before being transported to jail for kidnapping, drunk driving, assault on a police officer and resisting arrest.

I’m always amazed at how much some of these suspects do not listen to basic commands. Even though they are told time and time again what they are being charged with, many say they’ve done nothing wrong and are not under arrest.

In yet another video, a fugitive from Vermont was living with seven other people in a Florida home. She had an outstanding warrant for theft and officers pulled her over for matching a woman who had stolen from a smoke shop a block away. When placed in handcuffs, she bolted and tried to run away but was captured. She told police she was seven months pregnant and started to cry and asked why she was being arrested. The woman denied having a warrant for her arrest and that she didn’t want to have a baby in jail.

These videos are like watching a trainwreck but you can’t look away.<

Insight: Not in Kansas anymore Toto

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

As I took my seat in the 28th row in the American National Government class at New Mexico Highlands University in September 1971, it began to dawn on me that I was now a full-fledged college student.

Just 17 years old and on my own away from home for the first time in my life, my high school days were behind me, and I was about to start a new chapter that would require focus and plenty of attention to detail.

My class schedule for that fall included American National Government taught by Dr. Ralph Carlisle Smith; Journalism 101 taught by Dr. Harry Lancaster; History of China with Professor Emmett Cockrum; along with Earth Science, and English Composition.

Looking at the reading list passed out by Dr. Ralph Carlisle Smith that first day, I surmised that a great deal of my time would be spent reading about government. His list was 18 pages long and I thought I’d never complete reading all the books he required in just one semester.

I vowed to do my best and had a strong desire to learn as much as I could about the workings of our government and how the federal system operated. I had thought I knew some aspects of government bureaucracy before that class, but Dr. Smith was an excellent teacher and experienced in all things federal.

He had co-authored a book “Project Y: The Los Alamos Story” and had served from 1947 to 1957 as Assistant Director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory which helped to develop the atomic bomb.

During our first Journalism class, students discovered our powers of observation. As Dr. Lancaster started to give his opening lecture to our class, he was interrupted by a man in a suit carrying a yardstick in his left hand and a red dictionary in his right hand. He walked to the front of the classroom and whispered something to our professor before leaving.

Dr. Lancaster then continued with his opening presentation to us, telling us that the first paragraph in a news story should always contain the “5 Ws” for readers, or Who, What, When, Where, Why and sometimes How.

But then he stopped and told us that a journalist’s job is to provide as much detail as possible about a subject when writing an article. He asked us to pull out our class notebooks and to jot down as many details as possible about the person who had interrupted his lecture just 15 minutes earlier.

He wanted to know what color the person’s suit was (blue), what color his shoes were (brown), his hair color (black), and what he was carrying (yardstick and a red dictionary). He even wanted to know what color the person’s necktie was (yellow).

Going around the room, he asked us one by one to reveal our answers and it just happened that I was the only one of 15 students in the class to get all the details correct. Dr. Lancaster praised my powers of observation and told our class that we needed to be aware of how difficult a job that a police investigator may have because we all see things differently and sometimes an eyewitness to a crime fails to get the details right. He said that if we wanted to become effective journalists someday then we needed to always be aware of our surroundings and those around us.

My first class for History of China was something I vividly recall 54 years later. Professor Cockrum had served in the U.S. Marines after World War I. He told us that in 1927, the 4th Regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps had been ordered to China with a mission of protecting the lives, property and commerce of American citizens in Shanghai.

Cockrum described his life as a U.S. Marine in China and how he found that nation’s history fascinating and why we would too. He told us that when the Japanese Army invaded Manchuria in 1931, war broke out between Japanese troops guarding their settlement in Shanghai and Chinese troops at Chaipei, a district to the north of Shanghai. The 4th Marines and Cockrum were called into action, maintaining a defensive perimeter and protecting the Shanghai international settlements.

As part of Cockrum’s Marine Corps duties, he said he was assigned to oversee his unit’s caissons, or small horse-drawn wagons carrying ammunition. He pointed out that caissons were still in use by the U.S. Army’s Old Guard unit to bring caskets of military personnel to Arlington National Cemetery for burial.

In his first class, I could sense Cockrum’s passion for Chinese history and it ultimately led me to complete a concentration in Asian studies for my college minor in history for my Bachelor of Arts degree.

My other two classes as a freshman, Earth Science, and English Composition, were not as memorable. I can’t remember the professors for those classes. I must have liked them because my college transcript shows I received an “A” grade in both Earth Science and English Composition that first semester.

Reflecting on my first days of college so long ago, it amazes me that I was able to not only survive but thrive at that challenge. <

Andy Young: Time to change a (very) dated item

By Andy Young

I’m not advocating that America switch to the Hebrew, Islamic, Coptic, or Bengali calendar but the fact is there’s little about the one currently in use that makes any sense at all.

The long-since-outmoded Gregorian model needs a radical facelift. It’s been impractical and obsolete for some time now and my guess is the only reason it wasn’t overhauled long ago is that no one knows who exactly is in charge of making such changes.

The most obvious imperfection: what dimwit decided to designate January 1 as New Year’s Day? That’s pretty arbitrary, if you ask me. Why change over to a brand-new year in the midst of winter, or, for the folks in the southern hemisphere, in the heat of the summer?

September 1 would be far more appropriate, as it, for many people, marks the tangible turning over of a new leaf: the beginning of a fresh school year. That portends far more significant changes than going from December 31 to January 1 does. The start of an academic year impacts anyone attending school, working at a school, or parenting and/or grandparenting someone in the midst of getting their formal education. Bus drivers, crossing guards, and people involved in coaching school sports start their new year in the fall as well. So it’s settled: from here on in, New Year’s Day should be September 1.

Better yet, let’s swap January 1 with Labor Day. There are already enough good-weather three-day weekends; why not give America’s workers a Monday off when the meteorological conditions are more likely to be unfavorable? I for one wouldn’t mind not having to commute to work on a day when the likelihood of the roads being coated with snow and/or ice is significantly higher than it is on the first Monday of September.

A healthy society evolves over time, and the Gregorian Calendar has been in use since October 1582. No one I know is suggesting that people should go back to living in mud huts or log cabins. Reading by electric light bulb rather than by candlelight isn’t just better for the eyes, it causes fewer fires as well. I for one prefer traveling distances of greater than a mile via bicycle, motor vehicle, train, or airplane rather than on foot, on horseback, or in a birch-bark canoe. And I don’t hear anyone recommending going back to getting their nourishment solely from unrefrigerated foods that they’ve grown and/or killed themselves, either.

Also, why just a dozen months? Thirteen, with 28 days each, sounds far more equitable to me. True, having 13 four-week months each year would leave one extra day to account for, but solving that problem is easy. I propose the extra day be given to the new month of Thirteenuary, given that it’s been deprived of having any days up until now and thus deserves to be retroactively compensated.

I admire reformers like the people who want to re-christen the fifth month as “No-mow May.” Designating five-ish weeks where people don’t pollute the air with gas-powered lawn mowers or tractors is a great idea, although this year I’d have preferred “No-mow August,” since I didn’t have to mow the lawn even once last month anyway.

Besides, if the main idea behind the “No-mow May” movement is to help support bees and butterflies by allowing flowering plants to bloom naturally, why not just go the whole hog and say “No Lawns?” That’s already being tried, albeit involuntarily, in places like Phoenix, south Texas, and southern California, where many residents are customarily even thirstier than the increasingly rare blades of grass are. <

Insight: Scent O'Mental

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

It’s kind of funny when I think of things I can remember vividly from my childhood more than six decades after they happened.

In a way, our memory is comparable to a computer in which our brains capture sensory information, store it away, and then can bring it back to the forefront when needed. In my case, I have been blessed with a great memory and even in my advanced age, I can recall trivial and insignificant events from years past.

I happened to think of this the other day when I was shopping at the supermarket and was in the dairy aisle. Passing by the refrigerated cheese section, I recalled a certain type of cheese was the brunt of many jokes when I was a child. The pungent odor of limburger cheese smells terrible and was the source of an ongoing Three Stooges comedy routine on television. I can recall smelling it myself at school and remember how bad it was even though that was close to 65 years ago.

Despite the passing of time, I haven’t smelled limburger cheese since, yet I can remember that experience and consider that to be truly amazing. As an adult I have never purchased limburger cheese and haven’t seen it at any of the stores I have shopped in. It might be on the shelf there somewhere, but it isn’t a commodity I would go searching for.

The arrival of every spring in Rochester, New York where I grew up is marked by the blooming of lilacs in Highland Park and the annual Lilac Festival. Our family used to go every Memorial Day Weekend to see more than 1,800 lilacs in majestic shades of purple and white at the event. Along with the visuals, one of the things I remember the most about the Lilac Festival was the sweet smell of the lilac flowers. It wasn’t an overpowering aroma, but a pleasant one that captivated my senses, and one I still enjoy.

My sense of smell is directly connected to my memory and it’s more than recalling the odor of limburger cheese and lilacs.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, my mother was a stay-at-home mom who did all the cooking for our family. When I was in first grade, she instituted something she called “Vegetable of the Day,” introducing us to as many different types of vegetables as she could find, one at a time with each supper.

My younger brother and I were not allowed to opt out of this program. We were made to try each one of them we were served, and it has led to a dislike of the taste of many vegetables for me that persists to this day.

Under the “Vegetable of the Day” regimen, I recall eating asparagus, spinach, artichoke, broccoli, beets, carrots and cabbage. We also ate cauliflower, eggplant, corn, green beans, wax beans, kale, lettuce, collard greens and peas. Our mother prepared squash (both orange and yellow), rutabaga, radishes, green peppers, rhubarb, sweet potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, brussels sprouts, and zucchini.

But one afternoon when I was in second grade, I got off the school bus and raced home to hit up the cookie jar on the kitchen counter. As I entered our house through the back door to the garage, I caught a whiff of a smell that instantly turned my stomach.

Dear old mom was frying some parsnips in a pan on the stove for “Vegetable of the Day.” The rank smell became indelibly imprinted upon my brain that afternoon and continues to strike fear in me even years later. The foul odor of fried parsnips also evokes having to sit at the dinner table and having to eat it.

My mother would watch us and our dinner plates to ensure that my brother and I consumed every last bite of her vegetables each evening, and I struggled mightily this time with her heaping serving of fried parsnips. I think the reason I remember eating those after six decades have passed is that when dinner was over and I was excused from the table, I stepped out into our backyard, and I remember being ill to the point of projectile vomiting chewed pieces of fried parsnips into the grass.

Once when I was serving in the U.S Air Force in Germany, I went to a local restaurant and was waiting for my meal to arrive when I began to smell something that I hadn’t experienced in many years. Apparently, the couple dining at the next table had ordered and were eating fried parsnips, and that smell had wafted over to my table. Just like years previously, the smell started to make me feel sick to my stomach, so I got up from the table, left money for what I had ordered on the table and then departed quickly. Being outside and away from the smell, mu stomach slowly seemed to recover.

Scientific research has shown that memories associated with smell carry more emotion than visual memories and that’s something that I can certainly assert as fact.

Some of my childhood memories are directly linked to certain smells and I suppose one could say that fried parsnips are my personal kryptonite. <

Rookie Mama: Motherhood Bureau of Investigation

By Michelle Cote

The Rookie Mama

‘Tis that season of reading and ‘riting and ripping through kiddos’ wardrobes as we inventory school clothes and checklist what fits.

I don’t know about you, but investigating what lies beneath, on top, below, and squished between all the garments in all the drawers of the bureaus makes for quite the bureau of investigation, indeed. And not a federal one.

Sorting through clothing in my household is nothing short of an Olympic sport. The tears, the emotions, the absolute refusals to part with faded pants that have knees holier than a church, too-small shirts that ride up for all the world to see one’s belly button – when the shirts were definitely not designed that way – and socks whose significant others have long since been rendered to an island of misfit socks and are worn beyond darning.

Darn it, indeed.

More tears, more emotions, more attachments to clothes that just don’t fit.

Last weekend, I forced a fashion show from my teen who insisted his pants still fit loosely.

One would think that, as an oldest, he’d handle the inevitable sizing up best.

But alas, no.

He posed, he strutted, he insisted that shirt after shirt, shorts after shorts, pants, the whole ensemble fit fine.

I had no choice but to teach him a lesson.

Steve Martin.

You may recall the classic scene that plays out in ‘Father of the Bride’ in which his titular character insists on saving money by wearing an old, ill-fitting tuxedo from two decades earlier that fits him, well, as his daughter remarks – ‘like a glove!’

He poses, he struts – like my son had done – before a dusty attic mirror in his tux with too-short pants, crooning, ‘What’s new, pussycat?’

I pulled up this scene on my iPhone and showed my son, who rightfully remarked that any scene with Steve Martin is solid gold.

But the maternal point I made was that it was time to let go of some of his favorite clothes.

After all, he has three younger brothers.

As it turns out, breaking up with favorite threads is hard to do.

Letting go is emotional for me, too.

As I gently fold and place outgrown clothing from my youngest child’s wardrobe into storage totes, I regard them tearily as memories flood back.

When said shirts were once worn and loved by my oldest.

My secondborn.

My thirdborn.

My last.

How did time pass so rapidly in too-fast-forward motion?

When did the switch flip off babyhood directly to strutting like Steve Martin before a mirror?

Time flies when we’re having fun, and apparently clothing flies too – Because ready or not, clothing sizes stay put while the kiddos keep on growing, and will eventually be handed to the next in Cote boy line.

So clothes keep on flying right to storage; I’m tossing them more rapidly than my athletic eldest can cause pass interference and cling to what’s outgrown.

And so we’ll continue to focus on packing away the old; hand down to the next, so we can make room for what’s new. Pussycat.

­­– 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! <

Andy Young: The secret(s) to good writing

By Andy Young

The 2025-2026 school year has begun, which means I'll again be trying to convince high school students of the importance of writing, and then attempting to help them become better at it.

But strong writing skills are beneficial to people of all ages, and with that in mind I’ve generously decided to share 30 vital writing tips with a select group of adults, specifically the thoughtful readers of The Windham Eagle.

1. Proofread your writing carefully and do it OUT LOUD! That way you’ll avoid any awkward or repetitive sentences.

2. When you take a break, DON’T DELETE ANYTHING! Some of the best writing you’ll ever produce will involve completing something you had started weeks, months, or years earlier.

3. Write early in the morning when your mind is clear, and drink 20 ounces of water (spiked with a teaspoon of vinegar) before you start. That way you’ll stay hydrated and regular, even if you have Writer’s Block.

4. Notice things around you and meticulously jot down what you observe. Ordinary events often make great writing material.

5. Essays on politics and current events have short shelf lives. Also: you’ll never, ever change anyone’s mind about any president, even with the most thoughtful, carefully researched, and reasonable writing.

6. Proofread your writing carefully and do it OUT LOUD! That way you’ll avoid any awkward or repetitive sentences.

7. Always Avoid Alliteration. Unless you think it looks or sounds cool. Then go ahead and use it.

8. Never plagiarize or use trite, overused cliches, like I just did on the previous tip.

9. Don’t edit your first draft as you go, unless doing so helps control your OCD.

10. Only write when you are enveloped by silence; it’ll help you focus. Unless you like noise. Then turn up the volume and start creating.

11. Proofread your writing carefully and do it OUT LOUD! That way you’ll avoid any awkward or repetitive sentences.

12. Don’t assume your reader’s attention span is (or readers’ attention spans are) any longer than yours.

13. Don’t assume that you’re any smarter than the people who’ll read your writing. But don’t assume they’re any smarter than you are, either.

14. Be aware of the audience you’re writing for. Baby Boomers don’t care about Kendrick Lamar, Megan Thee Stallion or Killer Mike any more than Gen Zer’s do about Kate Smith, Perry Como, or Soupy Sales.

15. Keep in mind that a 1.000-word essay is pretty long. Twelve-hundred words constitutes a short story. Anything over that is technically a novella.

16. Sometimes it’s best to write your opening and your conclusion first and then fill in the middle.

17. Except for those times when it’s not.

18. Always try to attempt to avoid using too many extraneous, superfluous, unneeded, redundant, extra unnecessary words in your writing.

19. Avoid using pompous, grandiloquent, pretentious, bombastic verbiage and utterances when simple, uncomplicated, straightforward, basic words and phrases will do.

20. Proofread your writing carefully and do it OUT LOUD! That way you’ll avoid any awkward or repetitive sentences.

21. Ask a friend, parent, child, employer, or hitchhiker you picked up to proofread your writing. (Note: this tip is not intended to be an endorsement of picking up hitchhikers.)

22. Ask someone you trust for feedback, but only if you’re prepared to absorb honest feedback.

23. If you’re having fun, you’re probably working on a good essay. And even if it’s not so good, who cares? You’re having fun!

24. Journaling is great therapy. It’s also a lot cheaper than regular therapy!

25. Proofread your writing carefully and do it OUT LOUD! That way you’ll avoid any awkward or repetitive sentences.

26. Never promise people 30 helpful writing tips when you can only think of 26 of them. <

Insight: A story of persistence

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

In the days before digital, newspaper articles were written on a typewriter and much harder to produce.

Computers simplified that process but not the interactions between reporters and the subjects of articles. For me, I take hand-written notes and use them to create the stories I write.

Back in January 1980, I was new to my duty assignment with the 2044th Communications Group at The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., where I was serving as a Public Affairs representative in the Air Force. That meant I was reporting on the activities and airmen who were also assigned to the unit.

I would compose articles and then drop them off in person or mail them to weekly military newspapers that my commanding officer thought would be interested in publishing them.

My duties had me cover everything from special events being hosted by the 2044th Communication Group to welcoming new personnel. If I wasn’t out of the office interviewing someone, or typing stories up at my desk, I could be found taking photographs at The Pentagon or discussing potential articles with the editors of several nearby military papers on the phone.

In just my second week of duty at The Pentagon, a Senior Master Sergeant who supervised the 2044th radio section stopped by my office and asked if I would write an article about a young airman who had passed a proficiency test for radio repair with a perfect score. I agreed and called to arrange a time to do that.

Three days later, I met the young airman at his office workstation and started asking him questions about the test.

His name was Airman First Class Billy Catalina, and he grew up as an only child of a family in Queens, New York. He told me that he used to watch airplanes taking off and landing at LaGuardia Airport as a boy and wanted to become a pilot someday.

Billy’s father had died when he was 8 and his mother struggled to put food on the table for her son. As Billy got older, he paid less attention to school and spent more time with neighborhood friends. He got a part-time job in the evenings at a warehouse and dropped out of school with failing grades when he was a sophomore in high school.

His mother pleaded with Billy to return to school and to please her, he signed up to attend night adult education classes at a nearby high school for several years trying to earn his diploma. When his boss at work changed his hours, Billy had to give up night classes but he then spent almost a year on Saturday mornings studying and he eventually took the high school equivalency test and earned his GED diploma.

That was his ticket to enlisting in the U.S. Air Force where Billy trained as radio repairman and was assigned to the 2044th Communications Group. The test he took was to advance from an apprentice-level to a proficient-level in his job and consisted of tough technical questions.

He said he was a bit apprehensive and not very confident prior to taking the test since he was such a poor student in school. But he dedicated himself to reviewing the radio repair manual in advance of the test and was the first person in the examination room to finish the test.

Several weeks later, Billy received notification in the mail that not only had he passed the proficiency test, but that he had achieved a 100 percent perfect score.

I wrote a small 400-word article about Billly’s accomplishment, and it appeared several weeks later in the Air Force Communications Command’s newspaper. Billy stopped by my office a few days later to pick up a few copies of the newspaper and to thank me in person for taking the time to interview him.

Less than a year later, I was reassigned to Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for duty as editor of the base newspaper. By the time I had completed four years of duty there, I had written hundreds of stories and was preparing to return to civilian life and restart my career as a newspaper reporter.

At Christmastime in 1990, I was shopping at the Winrock Mall in Albuquerque, New Mexico when someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was a man pushing a baby stroller and holding the hand of another small child under the age of 5. He asked me if my name was Ed and if I remembered him.

To be honest, his face looked familiar, but I didn’t recall his name. He said he was Billy Catalina and reached into his wallet and retrieved a faded yellow article that I had written years before about him.

He told me that his mother had died of cancer not long after it had been published. In cleaning out her house, Billy found a clipped copy of the article in her bedside nightstand, and another one tacked up on her refrigerator. He hugged me and thanked me for making his mother so proud of him.

I try to keep that in mind with each article I write and hope they impact lives positively like the one about Billy Catalina did. <

Andy Young: Discovering good fortune(s)

By Andy Young

Recently while in the midst of yet another abortive attempt to de-clutterize my living space, I picked up a piggy bank I found hidden under some old shirts in the back of a seldom-opened drawer. However, when I shook it, I didn’t hear coins jingling, but rather paper rustling. I briefly found myself hoping I had stumbled onto a cache of $20 bills I had squirreled away and forgotten about some years before, but it turned out what was producing the noise was something even more valuable: a veritable gold mine of good fortune!

Or, more accurately, good fortunes. Seventy-nine of them, in fact. Years (or perhaps decades) ago I began saving the messages from inside the cookies my dinner companions and I polished off after finishing our Chinese takeout.

Sadly though, not every fortune comes to fruition. For example, one that said, “August will bring you financial success,” has yet to do me much good, although to be fair, it didn’t specify in which year I’d be moving up a tax bracket or two. Other date-specific messages included, “An exciting opportunity will knock on your door this Friday,” “An act of kindness on a Saturday will have a ripple effect,” and “Your career will take a positive turn in April.”

If you eat enough fortune cookies, it’s inevitable you’ll start getting some repeat messages. For example, I have two separate fortunes that declare, “A secret admirer will soon send you a sign of affection.” I’m not sure which one to believe: the one printed in red ink or the one in blue, so I logically kept both of them. I also have two fortunes that say, “August will bring you unexpected surprises.” But that one doesn’t really excite me, because really, aren’t all surprises unexpected?

I’m convinced some people who write those fortunes are moonlighting from their regular job of authoring the daily horoscope that runs in newspapers. I swear I’ve read “The time is right to make new friends, “This is the month that ingenuity stands high on the list,” and “Your hard work will lead to greater happiness” before; the only question is which of the 12 signs of the zodiac these generic lines were written about.

Evidently some amateur philosophers are employed as fortune providers. Anyone who can write, “There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness,” “It is easier to fight for principles than it is to live up to them,” or “Those who love rumors hate a peaceful life,” clearly possesses insightfulness that many of the rest of us do not.

It’s also likely that some folks who currently churn out fortunes for a living aspire to be comedy writers. That would explain, “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end; it’s already tomorrow in Australia,” “A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory,” and “Oops……Wrong cookie.”

Some fortunes just defy explanation, like, “You are the mast of every situation.” The author of that one is probably still learning English. The same goes for whoever wrote “Une personne que vous connaissez attend votre louange.” Fortunately. that one had a translation on the back (“Someone you know is waiting for your praise”).

I’m not sure if keeping those fortunes guarantee that they’ll come true, but throwing them out would almost certainly negate whatever magic they might possess. Those tiny pieces of paper aren’t taking up much space, and who knows, maybe one of these days a secret admirer will send me a sign of affection, in either red or blue ink.

That would be most delightful.

Not to mention, an unexpected surprise. <