Barbara Bagshaw: A Government That Forgets Who It Works For

By State Rep. Barbara Bagshaw

Our state is at a crossroads. I’ve spent my time in Augusta standing up for your rights, our Constitution, and the principle that government exists to serve the people –not the other way around.

State Rep. Barbara Bagshaw

Right now, the majority party controls the governorship, the House, and the Senate. With that level of power comes responsibility, yet what we’re seeing instead is unchecked spending and misplaced priorities. Too often, policies seem to favor those here unlawfully over Maine’s hard-working citizens who struggle daily to make ends meet.

At the same time, lawmakers recently voted to remove the cap on how much municipalities can raise property taxes each year. For years, increases were limited to the rate of inflation. Now, local governments can raise taxes without limit – and many are doing just that. Property taxpayers should brace themselves; this could easily become an annual trend unless voters demand change at the ballot box.

I come from a family of “Kennedy Democrats.” My parents and I still share many of the same values – fiscal responsibility, fairness, and belief in opportunity for all. But what we see in Augusta today bears little resemblance to that tradition. The current leadership has drifted far from the principles that once united Mainers across party lines.

Government is meant to be a vehicle driven by the people. Somewhere along the way, many in Augusta have forgotten that. They work for us, not the other way around.

Recently, I attended a local school board meeting that reminded me how far off course we’ve drifted in education. It has become clear that too many school policies are written to protect institutions rather than students and parents. Legal advisors seem to hold more sway than families or educators. Even the Education Commissioner has acknowledged that “academics will have to take the back seat.” Unfortunately, Maine’s declining test scores confirm it.

We need to get back to the basics – reading, writing, math, and science – and prepare our children to think critically and contribute meaningfully to society. Social and emotional programs can play a role, but not at the expense of fundamental learning. The federal government has even warned Maine that it must refocus on academics – yet little has changed.

In the Legislature, I sponsored LD 252, a bill to withdraw Maine from the National Popular Vote Compact. This agreement, narrowly approved by the House in a prior session, would tie Maine’s Electoral College votes to the national popular vote – effectively allowing large urban areas like New York or Los Angeles to determine Maine’s voice in presidential elections.

Beyond the fairness issue, the Constitution is clear: Article I, Section 10 prohibits states from entering into interstate compacts without congressional consent. I believe this compact violates that clause. My bill to withdraw passed the House twice but failed in the Senate – by a single vote each time. That’s how close we came to restoring Maine’s independent voice.

Elections have consequences. I encourage everyone to research the candidates on the ballot this fall – not just in state races, but local ones as well. We need leaders who remember that they are elected to represent the people, not to advance an ideology.

The challenges ahead are real, but so is the opportunity to steer Maine back toward accountability, balance, and respect for the values that built this state.

It is an honor to represent part of Windham in the Legislature. If there is any way that I can be of assistance, please contact me at barbara.bagshaw@legislature.maine.gov. My office phone number is 207-287-1440. You can find me on Facebook. To receive regular updates, sign up for my e-newsletter at https://mainehousegop.org/

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: Tilting at Windmills

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Like Don Quixote, I believe in tilting at windmills because sometimes persistence does indeed pay off.

Bill Smith played for the Portland Trail
Blazers in the NBA for two seasons
after a stellar college career at Syracuse
University. COURTESY PHOTO

A few days after Christmas in 1966, my father suggested that I get out of the house and do something fun instead of sitting around watching television. I had just turned 13 and was in the eighth grade at Carlton Webster Junior High School in Henrietta, New York when I decided to walk to Rush-Henrietta High School and attend the championship game of a varsity basketball Christmas tournament.

I stepped through the door of the gym and then stopped dead in my tracks. I could not believe that right in front of me on the basketball floor warming up for the game that night was the tallest human being I had ever seen in person. His name was Bill Smith, he was 6-foot-11-inches in height, and as I was about to observe, a very talented basketball player. He scored 35 points in that game and just a few months later, Bill led our high school to its first-ever berth in the New York Section V Basketball Championship Game.

Although Rush-Henrietta lost that game, I came away with a deep sense of pride for my school and town, and it kindled a lifetime love of basketball in me. As I got into high school, I continued to follow Bill Smith’s career. He went to Syracuse University and became one of only three players in Syracuse history to average more than 20 points a game in his career there. The Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association drafted him in 1971, and he became the team’s starting center, competing against some of the NBA’s finest big men including Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

Just when his professional basketball career was taking off, Smith sustained a devasting knee injury. Medical technology back then was not as sophisticated as it is today and after just two NBA seasons, Smith was out of basketball and onto a different career and a new life as a husband and a father.

Through the years in my journalism career, I often thought about what a great player Bill Smith was and how fortunate I was to see him play in high school.

Then in 2000, the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame was created, and I eagerly awaited Bill being recognized with that honor. But it never happened. I watched as a few Rush-Henrietta players were inducted into the Hall of Fame and wondered when it would be Bill’s turn. In 2007, I nominated my own Rush-Henrietta coach, Gene Monje, for the honor, and he was inducted a year later.

I sat back and waited as the years went by and was disappointed that this honor was never presented to Bill Smith. The final straw for me came when his name was not on the list of inductees in 2021. It motivated me to correct that oversight so I tracked Bill down at his home in Oregon and asked if I could write a nomination for him.

He agreed to that but told me others had tried previously and suggested that it might be a lost cause. Unfazed, I pressed on, gathered data and facts, and sent in the nomination paperwork in June 2023. That fall the new induction class for the Hall of Fame was announced and once again, Bill’s name was absent. I sent an email to the director of the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame Selection Committee, and he informed me that Bill’s nomination was submitted six months after the committee had made its choices for the 2023 induction class. He agreed to hold Bill’s nomination paperwork for the next cycle, which falls every two years.

In the meantime, I encouraged Bill to remain confident and positive, hoping that 2025 was his year. We became good friends through this, and Bill was appreciative of my efforts in trying to obtain this honor for him. I told him I believed that many members of the selection committee were unaware of his basketball accomplishments because they hadn’t yet been born when he played and never saw him play like I did.

I didn’t have to be so persistent in Bill Smith’s case, but it was the right thing for me to do.

On Dec. 22, 2024, I received a phone call from the director of the selection committee, telling me that Bill Smith would be inducted on Nov. 1, 2025 into the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. I called Bill immediately once I learned the good news and he told me it was one of the best Christmas presents that he has ever received.

Next weekend I will fly to Rochester, New York and join Bill, his wife Mary, and some of his high school teammates at his induction ceremony at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Inn and Conference Center.

For all those individuals out there right now tilting at windmills, my advice is to keep it up, eventually things might work out, no matter what the cause is you are pursuing.

In the end, redemption is truly about righting a wrong, and in that pursuit, it's really all about trying. <

Andy Young: That foreboding feeling

By Andy Young

There are different degrees of adversity which human beings have to deal with from time to time. Stubbing a toe or hitting one’s thumb with a hammer are, in the grand scheme of things, mild mishaps that most rational people can deal with. However, the severity of the aftermath can vary, given the circumstances. For example, a small hammer hitting an exposed thumb is a temporary annoyance, but an inconveniently located foot getting pounded by a careless sledgehammer-wielder is a calamity.

Losing one’s phone or wallet can seem like the end of the world in the moment, although those sorts of things tend to work themselves out eventually. The same goes for certain physical setbacks, like sprained or fractured limbs. But some bits of ill fortune have lasting consequences, like domestic violence, divorce, natural disasters, or chronic and/or terminal diseases.

When something unfortunate happens to me, the first thing I do is honestly ask myself if I deserved it. For example, let’s say an important appliance stops working for no apparent reason. If I’ve been unfair to someone, not alerted the cashier at the grocery store when she gave me more change than I was entitled to, or teased someone because they’re a New York Jets fan, well then, I had it coming.

However, if I genuinely cannot come up with a single reason why misfortune has befallen me, I begin quivering with anticipation, because I firmly believe that: A) over time, the breaks even up, and B) sooner or later karma, both the good and the bad variety, eventually impacts people judiciously. If I’ve been unlucky and there’s no justification for it, I know for certain that something good is coming my way.

An instance of this happened not long ago. My furnace had stopped working, which was four digits to the left of the decimal point worth of bad news. But I truly couldn’t remember doing anything to deserve it, and lo and behold, a week later I got a call from the new bookkeeper for someone I had done business with, wondering why I hadn’t cashed the substantial check they had sent three years earlier. The answer, of course, was I had never gotten it, so after double-checking their records and apologizing profusely, they sent me $3,000.

A similar example: my car got a flat tire at a time that was extraordinarily inconvenient. (Which begs the question: is there ever a convenient time to get a flat tire?) On that occasion I again searched my memory for reasons I might have merited misfortune but found none. Shortly thereafter, a local grocery store sent me a $50 gift certificate for some silly contest I had long since forgotten entering.

I haven’t had much bad luck lately; in fact, the opposite has been true. Just last week I found a dime in the parking lot at school, and two quarters at the gas station when I was filling up my car. Then the next morning the New York Rangers wristband I thought I had lost weeks ago tumbled out of a clean shirt I was putting on. Why wristbands feel the need to hide inside larger articles of clothing while they spin in the dryer is anyone’s guess, but the fact is they do so far too frequently for it to be coincidence.

The only problem with this spate of recent good fortune: I’ve meticulously combed my memory but haven’t come up with a single reason I deserve all of this good luck. And, as mentioned previously, in my experience the breaks ultimately always even up.

Uh oh. <

Insight: Reminiscing about home

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Finding home for me is much more than the advice Dorothy received in “The Wizard of Oz” film of closing her eyes, tapping her heels together three times and thinking to herself “There’s No Place like Home.”

Ed Pierce stands by his boyhood home in
Brighton, New York in September. He lived
in that house from 1958 to 1966.
PHOTO BY NANCY PIERCE  

A few weeks ago, my wife Nancy and I drove to Henrietta, New York where members of my high school class were gathering for a picnic and reminiscing about the old days. I was back in the place where I grew up almost six decades ago and for some of my classmates, it remains home as they never left.

For me, although a great deal has changed there, it’s essentially the same place. We stopped and took photos outside our family’s old residence in Brighton, New York where I learned to ride a two-wheel bicycle in the driveway and where a neighbor’s boxer dog crashed through a glass storm door trying to get at one of our dachshunds in the mud room connecting our kitchen and the garage when I was 7.

As we drove away, Nancy had me stop and she selected a book from a Little Free Library on what used to be the corner property of the people who owned that boxer dog.

Back in 1966, we moved from the home on that street to a brand-new house in the next town over because my father didn’t like driving in the snow in the winter for four miles to get to his job as a mechanical engineer. Our new house was less than a mile and a half away from his job and so I wanted to take a drive there and show Nancy where he worked. But unfortunately, the building where he worked had been torn down years ago and now a U.S. Post Office is there.

In checking into our hotel, neither of the desk clerks were aware that at one time the property the hotel was on was a large landing strip for Cessna and other small aircraft. In fact, Hylan Drive is named for the man who owned the airfield back when I was a child.

Later during our visit to the area, we were driving after dinner to see my Aunt Barbara a few towns away from our hotel and I showed Nancy a building by the bridge in Fairport, New York where my mother’s friend opened an Italian restaurant called The Cottage. It had fabulous food, and it was the first restaurant I ever ate at that served Eggplant Parmesan and I liked it. The place closed early in the 1970s and I don’t know what’s in there now.

Across the road from there was the old gas station that my cousin Pete operated in the early 1960s. He eventually opened his own car repair business in East Rochester and now his son runs the business.

We passed the location where I would ride my bike with my brother as a major shopping center called Pittsford Plaza was under construction in 1963. It’s still there and next to a small brick building in the parking lot where my parents would visit their bank on Friday nights is a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore.

Landmarks are the same. I spotted the old smokestack of the long-closed Iola sanitarium where my mother would threaten to drop me off if I continued to argue with her. That’s only a short way from the Rochester airport, and my backyard where I was playing after school in 1962 and I heard a large “Boom” only to watch on the 6 o’clock news that an airplane had crashed there while landing.

On that Saturday afternoon, we stopped by the Catholic school that I attended from first grade to seventh grade. It’s still a Catholic school but has a different name. The east side of the school is now a playground, but students had none of that when I went there in the 1960s.

Before leaving we drove to Sea Breeze by Lake Ontario and visited a restaurant called Don’s Original. When I was a kid, it was Don & Bob’s but now both of those men are gone yet the building looks just as it did when my mother went there as a small child in the 1920s. The food was to die for and tasted just like it did in 1977 when I stopped there while in the U.S. Air Force on my way to my new duty station in Germany.

Nancy and I left early on Sunday morning and we made good time traveling back, first on the New York State Thruway to Albany, then over to Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts and through Portsmouth, New Hampshire and back to our house in Maine.

Despite being nostalgic for the places I lived long ago and knowing that many of the people I knew back then are no longer around, I came to realize that home for me is not dredging up some vivid memories of my past existence, the things I did way back when, or how much things have changed at locations I used to know decades ago.

The plain and simple truth is that home for me is what I have taken with me, not what I have left behind. <

Andy Young: Healthy, wealthy, or wise?

By Andy Young

Everyone, regardless of age, can use a positive role model, and I chose mine some time ago. For years now I’ve endeavored to live my life by following the advice of my carefully selected exemplar, Benjamin Franklin.

As one of the Founding Fathers of
America, Benjamin Franklin is
revered and celebrated but his
impact upon us all continues to
this day. COURTESY PHOTO

Why emulate someone who died over 200 years ago? Let me count the ways.

Justifiably celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean during his lifetime, Franklin remains revered by most knowledgeable historians today. He helped edit Thomas Jefferson’s original draft of the Declaration of Independence and was one of the document’s original signers. America’s first postmaster general, he later, at age 81, was the oldest delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He’s likely the only person in our nation’s history who could accurately list “Statesman,” “Publisher,” “Inventor,” “Scientist,” “Diplomat,” and “Writer” as experiences on his resume. Who knows; he might have invented the resume!

I’m not the only one holding Franklin in such high esteem; clearly the people in charge of the Treasury Department feel the same. Using the face value of American paper currency as a barometer, Franklin, whose visage adorns the $100 bill, was twice as essential to America as Ulysses S. Grant, five times as significant as Andrew Jackson, 10 times as influential as Alexander Hamilton, 20 times more valuable than Abraham Lincoln, 50 times as important as Thomas Jefferson, and a full 100 times more vital than the nominal father of our country, George Washington.

The only flaw in this method of evaluation; using this same system, Franklin’s value to America was only 20 percent of William McKinley’s, whose face graces the $500 bill, and 10 percent of Grover Cleveland’s, who was on the $1,000 note.

Many of Franklin’s keen insights have been meticulously documented and passed down verbatim, which makes it easier for contemporary people like me to attempt to mimic his actions. It was Franklin who said, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” I’ve been rising before 4 a.m. for nearly two decades now, but getting to bed early wasn’t always easy. However, after obtaining reliable information that Franklin never owned a TV, I removed the television from my home, which subsequently made retiring at an earlier hour far less difficult.

Other Franklinisms worthy of repeating (and living by) include: “It’s easier to prevent bad habits than to break them; ”Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody;” “He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals;” and “He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.”

Anyone can nod their approval at Franklin’s wisdom, but I’ve decided to consciously put some of his best suggestions into practice. While “A penny saved is a penny earned” seems a bit dated, given the current value of one cent, “Better to go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt” still seems relevant to me. Universal adoption of that advice would deal a crippling blow to the restaurant industry, but fortunately for Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders, that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Another of Franklin’s memorable aphorisms worth living by is, “When in doubt, don’t.” Some find that philosophy limiting. However, the subtle but significant difference between spontaneity and impulsiveness can be a life-altering one. Thinking before acting is never bad policy. Bottom line: those considering trying something they wouldn’t want friends or family to find out about should always consider exercising caution.

And how has “Early to bed, early to rise” worked out for me?

Well, one out of three’s not bad. <

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. <