Insight: A story worth remembering

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

As a journalist with a long career, I’ve had many interesting stories to tell, but none has affected me more than the saga of George Nichols.

George Nichols throws out the first pitch before a baseball
game between the Detroit Tigers and the Boston Red Sox
on Armed Forces Day at Fenway Park in 2014.
COURTESY PHOTO    

I was interviewed earlier this month by students in the Katahdin program at Windham High School about my military career for the Veterans Project by the Library of Congress. During that discussion, I told the students about how I reported the story of George Nichols and why it still resonates with me after more than a decade. I’ve probably told this story before, but it’s still worth hearing again.

While working for the Laconia Citizen daily newspaper in New Hampshire in 2014, I was covering the governor’s visit to the New Hampshire Veterans Home in Tilton on St. Patrick’s Day. As the governor stopped and shook hands with veterans lining the hallway that day, an older veteran in a wheelchair stopped me and said he wanted me to write a story about him.

His name was George Nichols, and I told him I would come back after the event, but I was on deadline and forgot about returning to speak to him. The next morning, I went back to see George, and this is what he told me.

He was 89 years old and a U.S. Army veteran who had served as a medical corpsman during combat at Anzio Beach in Italy in 1944. He had been wounded in the knee by German shrapnel and was told he was going to receive a Purple Heart medal but did not receive it by the time the war ended a year later. He grew up in Boston and attended his first game at Fenway Park in 1929 and wanted to be a pitcher for the Red Sox until he joined the Army. He returned to Boston after the war, married, and had two daughters. Upon retirement, George and his wife moved to New Hampshire where their daughters lived.

At the age of 65, George applied to the VA to receive a Purple Heart medal, but he was denied by the VA some 24 times. The reason was his military medical records were burned in a fire at a storage facility in St. Louis, Missouri in 1973. For George to receive the medal, the VA told him that he needed to submit three affidavits from individuals swearing they saw his wounds 70 years before in 1944.

It simply wasn’t going to happen, so I thought maybe by writing a story about his plight, a politician would do the right thing and help him achieve what was rightfully his. I subsequently learned that the Purple Heart is the hardest medal to earn because your blood must be shed to be awarded it, and the VA needs verifiable proof it happened. Even the President of the United States can't order someone to receive the Purple Heart medal. It must come from the VA and they must authenticate it.

The article ran on the front page of Saturday’s newspaper and then was picked up by the Associated Press and circulated all over the country. About a week or so later, I was in my office working and the telephone rang. Someone was calling to say that he wanted to speak with me about George. I told him that I was simply the journalist who wrote the article and that he would be far better off speaking to the Veterans Home about him. He said no, he wanted to speak with me and that he had read about George's plight in his newspaper. I asked him what newspaper that was and he said that I didn't understand, in fact, he owned the newspaper.

I asked what newspaper, and he said it was the Boston Globe, and his name was John Henry. He told me not only did he own the newspaper, but he was also the owner of the Boston Red Sox. He said he wanted to give me another story and that was that he had invited George and his family to Fenway Park and he wanted George to throw out the first pitch on Armed Forces Day against the Detroit Tigers.

Before that game, the door to the outfield fence opened and David Ortiz of the Red Sox wheeled George to the pitcher's mound, and he received a standing ovation from the crowd as he tossed the first pitch.

Because of my story, George received dozens of letters from people who wanted to give him their Purple Heart or give him their son's Purple Heart after they had died in Iraq or Afghanistan. He politely declined all such offers, saying he had earned the medal and wanted what was rightfully his. He told me that even if he never received the medal, I had done something that he had dreamed of his entire life and that was throwing a pitch at Fenway Park.

He died the following winter without ever receiving his medal. At his memorial service, I stood in the back and when George's grandchildren noticed me, they all gave me a hug and thanked me for trying to help their grandfather.

It confirmed for me why I became a journalist to begin with. <

Andy Young: They’ve outlived their usefulness

By Andy Young

If numbers had a stratified civilization similar to the one that human beings operate under, there’s little doubt that 24 would be one of numerical society’s elite.

Omitting the first Sunday in November and the second Sunday in March, each day of the calendar year in the United States consists of precisely 24 hours. And for people living in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and the portions of Arizona that aren’t part of the Navajo nation, every day has 24 hours, since those folks don’t do Daylight Saving Time.

A standard human body has 24 ribs in it.

The purest gold is rated 24-karat.

Four factorial (4 times 3 times 2 times 1) comes out to 24.

For event planners, gym teachers, camp counselors, human resource managers, group dynamics facilitators, harried parents, or anyone else needing to split people and/or items into perfectly balanced groups from time to time, 24 is the ideal number. Twenty-four cupcakes, 24 pencils, 24 marbles, 24 Pokémon cards, 24 cherry tomatoes, 24 Easter Eggs, 24 pineapple life savers, 24 pickup hockey players, or 24 of anything else needing to be distributed uniformly can be evenly divided into 12 pairs, eight trios, a half-dozen tetrads, four ensembles of two trios, three octets, two dozens or, if all those involved agree, one gaggle of 24.

After brief, early-career flirtations with numbers 8 and 14, baseball’s most accomplished center fielder, Willie Mays, wore uniform number 24 in every contest he participated in, from May 28, 1951 to his final game on Oct. 16, 1974. Another elite athlete whose jersey was Number 24: basketball legend Kobe Bryant.

Anyone who has ever eaten broccoli, potatoes, beef, mushrooms, turkey, bananas or apples is connected to 24, since that’s the atomic number for chromium, an element found in all the above-mentioned items. And those who eschew broccoli, potatoes, beef, mushrooms, turkey, bananas and apples are indebted to 24 as well, since chances are they’ve used, directly or indirectly, things with chromium in them. This list includes items such as cement, eyeliner, cutlery, leather belts or wallets, certain cleaning products, and the stainless-steel items necessary to prepare whatever foods not containing broccoli, potatoes, beef, mushrooms, turkey, bananas or apples they actually do eat.

English-speaking peoples have long and justifiably emulated the ancient Greeks, since they originated the pillars of the scientific, medical, philosophical, artistic, and logical foundations of today’s society. They also pioneered such vital elements of modern western civilization as civic debate, and rule by democracy.

And even more remarkably, they accomplished all of that with an alphabet consisting of just 24 letters.

The current English-language alphabet contains 26 letters and has for as long as anyone can remember. But it’s abundantly clear we’d be better off with 24.

To get the English alphabet down to the ideal number two letters need elimination. But which pair have to go?

Deciding which two letters to vote off the alphabetic island is easy. Looking over a random 600-word essay and seeing which two letters never appear would suffice. A kwick ecksamination of this one makes things kwite clear. There’s no kwestion the first letter needing ecksizing is cue, and the other is ecks.

Ecksassperated Tecksans and New Mecksicans will probably kwivver with vecksation at this criteek. They’ll no doubt want two different letters acksed, but such skwauks are easily kwashed. Who would even notice if these two letters ecksitted from our alphabet? Let’s face it: ecks and cue are both eckstravagances. These two antikwaited anteeks should both kwiyettlee eckspire. They’re no longer reekwired in America’s lecksicon. <

Insight: Everything old is back again

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

While looking at a You Tube video recently, I saw an old newspaper clipping of mine from a missing person case in 1987 that was used in a podcast from New Mexico.

An old newspaper clipping from 1988 of an article written
by Ed Pierce was recently used in a podcast from
New Mexico. COURTESY PHOTO 

Somewhere in my basement is a box of clippings that I saved from that time but seeing this one again online after almost 40 years made me think that some stories that I have written over the decades will survive long after I am long gone from this life.

One of those articles, a column for The Windham Eagle called “List of pet peeves continues to grow” published on June 19, 2020 does deserve a second look though.

Things I pointed out in that column continue to happen. It was a list of pet peeves of mine regarding driving, smokers and social media attention seekers.

In the column, I mentioned that traffic coming from the other direction made the driver in front of me attempting to turn left needed to wait. Therefore, I had to wait for him to turn left before I could proceed in a straight direction. However, two other drivers in line behind me decided to go around me and the turning vehicle in front of me by driving past us using the small gravel shoulder on the roadway to our right.

As soon as the driver in front of me made his left turn and as I slowly hit the gas pedal to move forward, another car trying to race past me suddenly attempted to swerve back into my roadway lane. I braked and let that driver in but wondered why drivers do that because it is dangerous and risky operation of a motor vehicle, especially if a pedestrian is walking on the roadside shoulder.

I discussed in that column about how I dislike that some smokers throw their discarded cigarette butts on the ground or flick them out car windows. I once knew a man in Florida who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day and he told me a story about driving on the interstate with the windows to his car rolled down one summer and he flicked his lit cigarette out the window at 70 mph. Some 10 miles or so down the road after doing that, he smelled smoke and saw flames coming from the back seat of his 1978 Buick. Apparently, the lit cigarette he flicked out the window landed on his back seat and caught the upholstery on fire. He said he immediately pulled over and watched as his car went up in flames before the fire department could arrive and extinguish the blaze.

And can anyone explain to me the desire to post a selfie photo on social media with the same pose once a week only wearing different clothes every day for the photos? Then there are the people who feel compelled to post photos of what they are about to eat for lunch or the decorations they are bringing to their nephew’s 9th birthday party.

Maybe it’s me but I don’t know why some internet photo gallery marketing genius posts a provocative photo of a female celebrity saying “see the secret her ex says destroyed her” only to click through 48 different photos and there’s no further mention of that person and the secret you were curious about.

A new pet peeve of mine on social media are those annoying AI-generated then-and-now videos of what the cast of television’s “Charlie’s Angels” used to look like in 1976 and how they look now. The deceased actors and actresses are shown with angel wings but if you look closely, sometimes they don’t even look like the real person. I thought AI was supposed to generate lifelike imagery.

I can update my pet peeve list after seeing the old newspaper clipping of one of my articles from 1987 used in that recent podcast online. The missing person who was the subject of that newspaper article has never been found, yet the podcast participants never mentioned that.

Add a few other pet peeves too. Why must the volume on some television shows be near maximum level while on other shows you can hardly hear what people are saying at all? If anything, I am constantly having to adjust the volume up and down on the television remote while watching different programs. You would think a Smart TV set would have figured that one out by now.

A magazine article I read while waiting for a haircut mentioned that retro fashion styles are not a passing trend but a way for us to reconnect with the past. It said many people turn to vintage clothing instead of purchasing new clothes for its quality, uniqueness and timelessness, that’s why it’s popular in a modern fast-paced world.

It said that retro fashion evokes positive memories and emotions and wearing older styles allows us to express ourselves in a way that feels meaningful and unique. It described those who wear vintage clothing as wanting to stand out and showcase clothing that’s bold, expressive and culturally relevant.

As for me, I have no desire to return to the days of platform shoes, butterfly wing collars, leisure suits or Nehru jackets. <

Tim Nangle: Preventive Care Is About Showing Up Early

By Senator Tim Nangle

February is National Cancer Prevention Month. It’s a reminder that some of the most important health care we can invest in isn’t emergency treatment after something has gone wrong – it’s the screenings, check-ins and conversations that help us catch problems early, when they are most treatable.

State Senator Tim Nangle

Preventive care saves lives. And here in Maine, we’ve taken meaningful steps this year to strengthen both physical and mental health services through preventive care.

Recently, Governor Mills allowed a bill from my colleague, Senator Donna Bailey, to become law, that expands access to specialized cancer and cardiac screenings for first responders. Firefighters and police officers face elevated health risks because of the work they do to keep our communities safe. Firefighters, for example, are regularly exposed to dangerous chemicals like arsenic, asbestos and sulfuric acid, which are known to increase cancer risk. National data shows firefighters have a 9 percent higher overall cancer risk compared to the general population, with even higher risks for certain cancers.

The new law does not mandate insurance coverage for these screenings outright, but it creates an important tool: if coverage is denied, the burden shifts to the insurance company to justify that denial. That matters. It means the brave men and women who protect us don’t have to shoulder that burden alone.

The same commitment to early detection and timely care applies to our approach to mental health as well.

Last month, the Health and Human Services Committee unanimously advanced my bill to formally recognize the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in Maine law.

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is a simple, three-digit, nationwide number that connects individuals to compassionate, skilled support for anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts, mental health-related distress or substance use-related concerns. Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, people who call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org are connected to a national network of more than 200 local crisis centers that provide judgment-free support, crisis de-escalation and connections to additional resources.

988 is already operating, answering calls and texts from Mainers in crisis. But it still does not have a permanent place in statute.

By passing my bill and placing 988 into Maine statute, we’re ensuring it becomes a permanent part of our state’s crisis response framework. While the service is already up and running, codifying it provides long-term stability and clarity in law, helping protect it from uncertainty and laying the groundwork for stronger coordination and support in the future.

Just as we encourage regular cancer screenings to catch illness early, we must also make it easier and safer for people to reach out before a mental health crisis becomes a tragedy. Prevention in mental health means removing stigma, increasing awareness and ensuring services are stable and accessible.

Whether it’s a firefighter getting a screening that detects cancer early, or a young person texting 988 in the middle of a difficult night, preventive care is about showing up early. It’s about building systems that respond before the worst happens.

As we observe National Cancer Prevention Month, I’m reminded that our work in Augusta is not only about roads and budgets and policy debates. It’s about people. It’s about protecting lives in quiet but meaningful ways.

Prevention may not always make headlines. But it saves families from heartbreak. And, that’s work worth doing.

988 offers 24/7 judgment-free support for mental health, substance use and more. Text, call, or chat 988.

It remains an honor to work on your behalf in Augusta.

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. <

Andy Young: 52

By Andy Young

Feb. 21 is the 52nd day of the calendar year.

There are 52 playing cards in a standard deck.

A piano has 52 white keys.

Professional Football Hall of Fame member Ray Lewis wore jersey number 52, as did Baseball Hall of Famer CC Sabathia, Basketball Hall of Famer Jamaal Wilkes, and Hockey Hall of Famer Dave Andreychuk. There may not be anyone who wore 52 on their shirt in Soccer, Lacrosse, Volleyball, Softball, or Roller Derby Halls of Fame, but that doesn’t matter. The point is, if you want your child to stand out athletically, get them into uniform number 52.

William Shakespeare died the day he turned 52. Actor Christopher Reeve, who was born in 1952, died at age 52.

Also born in 1952: Vladimir Putin, Mr. T, Paul Reubens (AKA Pee-Wee Herman), and Harvey Weinstein. Make of that what you will.

Further 52-related significance: a standard 365-day year contains that many weeks, plus one leftover day. That’s why, shortly after 3 a.m. this coming Sunday, the first seventh of 2026 will be history.

Fifty-two is also the name of a diabolical poker game. It begins with each player anteing up and getting dealt five cards. There’s no further wagering; everyone assesses their hand and declares, in order, whether they’re “in” or “out.” Those remaining get two more cards; those opting out wait for the next deal. Then each participant who stayed simply lays down their finest quintet. The best hand wins the pot. The also-rans who stayed all have to match it. That means if there are four losers of a one-dollar pot, the next hand gets dealt with four dollars in the middle of the table. If there are three losers in that round, the following hand’s fee for the loser(s) increases to $12. The pot continues growing until only one player stays “in,” everyone else folds, and the game mercifully concludes.

The odds of any particular hand winning a round should be the same regardless of how much money is in the middle of the table, but for those without a six-figure annual salary or a trust fund, the strategy changes as the stakes grow.

Years ago, I got into a game of 52 with five other twenty-something adolescents. The pot started at $1.50, but quickly rose to six dollars, then 24, then 72, then 144, then 288, and finally to one last hand before someone stayed “in,” went unchallenged, and walked away with $864. My hands were shaking when the pot hit $24; when it reached triple digits, I wouldn’t have considered staying in with anything less than four of a kind.

Watching some of the other guys at the table get peer-pressured into making ill-considered decisions they’d have never made if they’d been thinking rationally confirmed for me that gambling can be every bit the toxic life-ruiner that alcohol, tobacco, opioids, or any other addictive-by-design scourge is.

There’s nothing wrong with an occasional low-stakes poker game amongst friends. But even when most of the faces around the table are familiar, having some common-sense helps. Years ago, a fellow who wasn’t the smartest guy in the world dolefully recounted losing the previous evening’s second-to-last 52 hand. Thankfully it only cost him fifty dollars, since before the game began everyone agreed to a $50 pot limit.

“I got dealt a full house, aces over kings, so of course I stayed in,” he said, continuing, “I can’t believe I got beat.”

“What’d the other guy have?” I asked.

“Four kings,” he replied glumly.

Forrest Gump was right. Stupid really is as stupid does. <

Insight: Paws for thought

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I can confirm that I’m officially old after recognizing the tune being used in a television dog food commercial as one that I danced to while attending junior high school.

The Troggs were a British band from the 1960s who had 
huge hits in America with 'Wild Thing,' and 'Love is All
Around.' Their 1966 song "With a Girl Like You' is now
being used in the U.S. in a dog food commercial. 
COURTESY PHOTO 

When I was in eighth grade at Carlton Webster Junior High in Henrietta, New York in the fall of 1966, one of my favorite British bands was called The Troggs. They had huge hits with songs such as “Wild Thing” and “Love is All Around.” I loved their distinct and unique garage band sound which later inspired a generation of punk rockers, but way back then, just a month away from becoming a teenager, I would turn the volume up whenever “With a Girl Like You” came on the radio.

The other night I was watching “Jeopardy” only to find that the 1966 hit song "With a Girl Like You" by The Troggs is now used to pitch a healthy dog food brand called “The Farmer's Dog.”

Somewhere the late Reg Presley, lead singer of The Troggs, who died in 2013, is laughing all the way to the bank. He wrote all the huge hits that The Troggs had and lived long enough to see “Love is All Around” be the basis of the film “Love Actually” and sung in the 2003 film with Christmas-themed lyrics by actor Bill Nighy.

The band’s name, The Troggs, is said to be short for "Troglodytes," or cave dwellers, and reflected their raw, primal caveman rock sound. Presley, whose real name was Reginald Ball, said the name was inspired by a suggestion from their manager and sounded earthy to fit their primitive musical style.

The Troggs were formed in the town of Andover, England in 1964 and its original lineup consisted of Presley, guitarist Chris Britton, drummer Ronnie Bond, and bassist Pete Staples.

Now their upbeat, classic rock track “With a Girl Like You” is the soundtrack for promoting dog food and uses its nostalgic feel-good beat to pitch the product to millions of television viewers who probably never heard the song before. “With a Girl Like You” was written by Presley and was a follow-up to the band’s smash hit “Wild Thing.” It became the group's first and only Number 1 song in Great Britain and ultimately reached Number 29 here in the United States.

Believe it or not, at that school dance I went to in November 1966, I can recall dancing with my classmate Gloria Van Gelder to “With a Girl Like You.” Later that same night, I asked another classmate, Janet McGraw, to dance but instead of a tune by The Troggs, it was a song called “Listen People” by another band from England called Herman’s Hermits.

I told that to Herman’s Hermits’ lead singer Peter Noone when I interviewed him before a concert in Laconia, New Hampshire in 2016 and he said he hears the same thing from people all the time. 1960s music remains wildly popular, and I still listen to it even today.

The Troggs aren’t the first classic rock performers to have had their songs used for commercialized purposes and probably won’t be the last.

Bounce fabric softener has aired televised commercials using “It’s a Beautiful Morning” by The Rascals. Windex continues to use “I Can See Clearly Now” by Johnny Nash to sell glass cleaner.

AT&T once had a commercial that featured “Sweet Melissa” by the Allman Brothers and another using “The Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkel. Kohl’s department store used “Do You Believe in Magic?” by the Lovin’ Spoonful in a commercial and “Strange Magic” by Electric Light Orchestra in another.

The ad agency creating televised spots for Burger King seems to be caught up in the pop music soundtrack craze too. At one time, BK used “You Sexy Thing” by Hot Chocolate in a commercial and another time it used “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers.

The Rolling Stones had “Like a Rainbow” featured by Apple in a commercial and their “Start Me Up” appeared in a Ford televised advertising campaign.

Chevy Trucks used “Like a Rock” by Bob Seger. Heinz catsup used “Anticipation” by Carly Simon and Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Taking Care of Business” was used by Office Depot.

Swiffer Brooms and Mops is known for using “Who’s That Lady” by the Isley Brothers, Player’s “Baby Come Back” and The Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” in commercials for its products. Recent Hyundai car commercials have featured Blondie’s “One Way or Another.”

Songs by The Troggs though have been used for decades in commercials. “Wild Thing” has been used by Pepsi, Bud Light, Miller Beer, Applebees, 7-Up, and Geico Insurance. Geico has also creatively used “I Can’t Control Myself” by The Troggs in a spot plugging motorcycle insurance for viewers.

“Love is All Around” was the musical backdrop for a Gap TV commercial with Orlando Bloom and Kate Beckinsale, directed by Cameron Crowe. It was also showcased in a television commercial for Subaru.

If the purpose of using an old song like “With a Girl Like You” is supposed to evoke nostalgic feelings in me, it worked. Placing a tune like that made me notice the dog food commercial and sing along with it.

Isn’t that an advertiser’s dream? <

Rookie Mama: From candy canes to garden gains and moments in between

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

Just ask the question, ‘When do you decorate for Christmas – before or after Thanksgiving?’ has slowly seeped into classic familial controversies ranked up there with choice to discuss religion, politics, and whether ketchup goes on tourtiere, the great debate of when to remove said decorations can be just as touchy a subject – as delicate as a baby’s-first-Christmas ornament dangling by its last thread.

While I’m just as eager to regain bonus living room square footage post-Noel as the next mama, our family tends to simmer down the ramped up Yuletide energy on low and slow; eking out the last cozy seasonal movies we didn’t get to view in the hubbub as we snack on festive goods bordering on stale and soak in the last chords of a Bing Crosby standard.

But a stalemate is what we come to around Epiphany – the Christian feast day celebrating the Magi’s visit, which takes place roughly 12 days after Christmas.

Twelve. Whole. Days.

Rather than honoring three wise men, it’s four wise guys who inevitably team up against me, negotiating – pleading – to keep the tree and decorations up longer.

I mean, I’m almost in Easter mode by this point.

I blame myself and the overt festive eagerness that takes over my very soul in sugarplum fashion throughout the months of November and December each year.

Clearly the pinecones didn’t fall far from the Christmas tree.

Or something like that.

Now I have a gaggle of children circling me in protest like I’m the Grinch – their words, not mine – who is killing the Christmas vibe by insisting decorations come down.

Twelve.

Whole.

Days after Christmas.

Alas, it’s time, my good fellow kings of Wenceslaus.

As we gingerly pack every item back up, each delicate ornament wrapped in yellowing newsprint, every stocking removed, every Balsam-scented taper and nutcracker mug and light-up village and painted kid craft carefully packed away in its time capsule trove until next time, I hold it together, knowing it’s hard for the boys to close this chapter.

But here’s the rub – It’s hard for me, too.

Saying goodbye to our favorite season and the massive magical anticipation that came with it on a one-horse-open-sleigh is a tough one.

But here’s where we must understand that each closed décor box only means it’s time for new gifts of a different sort.

January and February don’t have to be the ol’ doldrums we set them up to be, poor cold misfit months.

Rather, they present an opportunity for next traditions to be hashed out.

Make a king cake for Epiphany.

Host a sledding party.

Hike in the snowy woods.

Have a Valentine’s fondue party.

Go to an ice hockey game and shriek in unison when opposing players slam up against the glass before you.

Make a snowman and use the finest pine boughs for fabulous eyelashes on a snow lady.

Plot out February vacation day tripper plans.

Show acts of kindness for your friends and neighbors.

No matter what your pick, it’s a great excuse for hot cocoa in these frigid Maine temps.

For my family, we gleefully pivoted to opening up gifts of another kind – we sorted and classified seeds stored from last fall’s harvest in anticipation of our growing season soon to begin.

My thirdborn delighted in cracking open bean and pea pods, removing precious dried legumes ready for the planting.

I’d dried seeds and tea on screens in the cool basement dark months earlier, waiting for the right time to discover garden wonders of things to come.

I separated sunflower and zinnia seeds from their stubborn heads and pried dried melon and gourd seeds from their drying towels on which I’d placed them months earlier.

These are gifts not wrapped in silver paper but in the promise and hope and compost that these months ahead shall bring.

We’re saving monetarily on seeds we won’t have to purchase when plotting our plots.

We’re holding tight to these teeny kernels with highest of sweet hopes they’ll grow into something marvelous from which we can harvest many a vegetable, and continue to feed our growing crew the so-fresh-and-so-clean goods.

We’ll be soon dreaming of a green garden – not a white Christmas – with gratitude for all the mini traditions in between as life continues to roll on, and seeds grow into next season’s colorful sprouts of bounty and joy.

So set your traditions big or small as that Yuletide cheer fades to a whisper, a promise to reunite once again next winter.

The present tense is the present to be unwrapped.

Just don’t forget the hot cocoa.

It goes fabulously with leftover candy canes that have nowhere else to go.

The sunshine is coming, folks – keep calm and tradition on!

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 Super Bowl was last Sunday!

By Andy Young

When I heard late last week that the Super Bowl would be played on Sunday, I immediately prepared a shopping list. Few ordinary but necessary chores are more stress-free than stocking up on groceries during the NFL championship game. There’s never congestion in any of the aisles, and long checkout lines (or any checkout lines, for that matter) don’t exist. Most of the beer, chips, and salsa have been purchased by that time, but those items are rarely on my list.

I currently live where there’s a washing machine in the basement. However, when I resided in more modest surroundings, doing laundry meant going to the laundromat, which was a nightmare. Except, that is, after 5 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, when I could count on having the place to myself.

By late afternoon on Super Bowl Sunday just about all the streets are deserted. They’re so empty, in fact, that I was tempted to start walking the four miles from Biddeford to Saco in the center lane of the Maine Turnpike at 6:15 p.m. I know I could have made it, but I was talked out of it by friends concerned that I’d get hit on the return trip by someone who left their football-themed gluttony fest at halftime.

The first time I intentionally missed a Super Bowl was when I was living in North Carolina and had a chance to go on a date with an attractive young woman who clearly had no interest in football. I jumped at the opportunity, even though she proposed getting together at 6 p.m. on the night of the big game.

Things obviously didn’t go so well because there was no second date. But they went a lot worse for the San Diego Chargers, who were slaughtered that night by the San Francisco 49ers. And after some sober reflection, I concluded the results would have been the same even if I had been parked in front of a TV stuffing my face and watching other people at the Super Bowl party that I was attending swill beer and obsessing over the commercials.

I began losing interest in pro football around the time the TV ads became more of a story than the game itself. I have a pretty low pop culture IQ, which may be why watching much-ballyhooed spots featuring famous people I don’t recognize leaves me cold. I was tempted to tune in to this year’s game when I heard who’d be providing the entertainment since I’d actually heard of both of the headliners. But it turned out I had misunderstood. Green Day is a band, not Doris’s son, and Bugs Bunny wasn’t going to do the halftime show.

Almost everyone in these parts is in love with the New England Patriots, a group of abnormally large, prematurely wealthy young mercenaries that nominally represent our region. And make no mistake, these youthful gladiators are worth every dollar they’re paid, particularly given their courage in knowingly playing Russian Roulette with their immediate and long-term physical and mental health.

On a related note, sensible Patriots rooters shouldn’t mention how difficult the last seven Super Bowl-less years have been to fans of the Cincinnati Bengals, Minnesota Vikings, or Buffalo Bills, teams that have never won the Lombardi Trophy, or the New York Jets, whose last (and only) Super Bowl appearance came in the waning days of Lyndon Johnson’s presidency.

And if they value their lives they’d never complain about New England’s recent “dry spell” to fans of the Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns, two teams that, through LX Super Bowls, have never even been to 1. <

Insight: A celebration of love and laughter

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

As I’ve gotten older, it’s been hard not to think about what life will be like for my family and friends when I am no longer around. But recently the death of a cousin I was close to growing up jarred me and made me reflect upon my own mortality.

Roger Pierce, left, and Ed Pierce were second cousins who
were close growing up during the 1950s and 1960s. Roger
passed away on Dec. 15, 2025 in Rochester, New York
at the age of 70. COURTESY PHOTO 
 

Roger was about a year younger than me and we were second cousins. My parents and his parents were close and almost every Friday night we would visit Roger’s house and while our parents would play cards or talk and drink coffee, Roger and his younger sister Marcia would spend time with me and my younger brother Doug. If we weren’t outside catching fireflies, we were on the living room floor playing a board game or watching an old black and white classic horror movie on television.

I enjoyed visiting with Roger, and we would hang out as teenagers reading comic books and looking at my collection of baseball and football cards. On summer break from attending college, Roger had a car and he would pick me and my brother up and we would drive downtown to watch Rochester Red Wings’ minor league baseball games. That team was loaded with future major league stars such as Don Baylor, Bobby Grich and Terry Crowley and after the games we would stop for a late-evening meal at a local burger joint.

Our paths took different turns in life, but Roger and I remained in touch through the years as I got married and went to work for a newspaper in New Mexico after college. Roger became engaged but it didn’t work out and they split up which devastated him. He went to work at Eastman Kodak and eventually got laid off along with thousands of other employees as the company faltered and struggled to survive.

Despite living thousands of miles apart, Roger would call me at least once a month and let me know how he was doing. He reveled with the resurgence of the Buffalo Bills football team in the early 1990s, and our monthly phone calls became weekly once Doug Flutie became the Bills’ quarterback in 1998. Roger was convinced that Flutie would lead the Bills to a Super Bowl victory and he spent months saving up for a flight to San Diego, a game ticket, and a hotel room there one season when the Bills played the Chargers in California.

I eventually moved to Florida and got a job at a daily newspaper there while Roger went in a different direction, moving to the state of Washington. Inevitably I would be sleeping at 2 a.m. when the phone rang, and I knew it was Roger calling. He always forgot that the time on the West Coast was three hours behind that of the East Coast.

By then Roger had become deeply religious and chose to change his life by doing something radically different. He rented an apartment and worked cleaning fish for a seafood packer and when he grew tired of doing that, he took a job as a custodian at a church. Roger told me he loved that job because he felt closer to God by working for a church.

The last time I saw my cousin was on a trip to Rochester with my wife Nancy in 2008. Driving to his mother’s house to spend the day with her, we drove down a hilly section of her road. Nancy and I both noticed a man walking up ahead of us carrying a huge rock about the size of a suitcase in his arms. As we passed him, I told Nancy I thought it was Roger and it was. We stopped and asked him if he wanted a ride and he answered no, telling us that he was going to carry the rock to his mother’s house and that carrying it there was good exercise for him.

We arrived at his mother’s house and were visiting for more than 30 minutes when Roger finally arrived and placed the large rock on a steep hill in his mother’s backyard which he had transformed since I had last seen it into a beautiful space filled with flowering bushes and plants. He had a knack for landscaping and said being outdoors in fresh air was his favorite thing in life.

When Facebook came along, Roger and I connected and he would always be one of the first individuals to post a positive comment on one of my newspaper columns or other articles with my byline that I would post online. That continued until last summer when he stopped commenting on my posts.

In December, Roger’s sister informed me that he had passed away at the age of 70. A memorial service was held in January for him in the Rochester area, but I was unable to attend. I did send his sister something to read from me at his service which I felt I needed to do given how close we were growing up.

Roger Pierce was more than just a cousin. He was a part of my foundation in life and brought laughter and love to me. For that, he will be forever missed. <

Andy Young: Halfway done

By Andy Young

Some quick and decidedly unscientific research I did recently reveals that Mainers comprising the NSNSNSNS (non-skiing, non-snowmobiling, non-snowboarding, non-skating) portion of the state’s population have reason to take heart this weekend. That’s because their least favorite season has, at least by the astronomical definition, passed its halfway point. The current winter began with the solstice this past Dec. 21 at 10:03 a.m., and will conclude with this year’s vernal equinox, which arrives at 10:46 a.m. Eastern Time Friday, March 20. That makes Feb. 4 the start of winter’s second half.

Historically the 35th day of the year hasn’t always been worth celebrating. No fewer than five major earthquakes have occurred on Feb. 4. The year and location of these cataclysms: Sicily (1069), Ecuador (1797), Guatemala/Honduras (1976), Iran (1997), and Afghanistan (1998). The best available estimates put the combined death toll of this quintet of natural disasters at nearly 100,000.

It’s not just seismic events that are responsible for Feb. 4’s less-than-desirable reputation. John Rogers was burned at the stake on that date in 1555, becoming the first of more than 280 Protestant martyrs who met their fiery demise under the rule of Queen Mary I (AKA “Bloody Mary”) of England. Nippon Airlines Flight 60 plunged into Tokyo Bay on Feb. 4, 1966, ending the lives of 133 unfortunate souls. On Feb. 4, 1938, Adolf Hitler appointed himself supreme military commander of Germany’s fearsome Wehrmacht, a move destined to have catastrophic consequences for much of the world in the decade or so that followed.

To be fair, a few notables were born on the 4th of February, like Charles Lindbergh (1902), Rosa Parks (1913), Betty Friedan (1921), Dan Quayle (1947), and Alice Cooper (1948). All in all though there doesn’t seem to be much about Feb. 4 worth celebrating.

Feb. 5, on the other hand, is unquestionably worthy of commemoration. The world’s first synthetic plastic was introduced on that date in 1907. The Apollo 14 astronauts landed on the moon on Feb. 5, 1971. The world’s largest-ever gold nugget, which weighed 241 pounds and ten ounces, was discovered in Victoria, Australia on Feb. 5, 1869. And that’s appropriate, given the gold mine of Hall of Fame athletes born on that date. They include Baseball Hall of Fame members Hank Aaron (1934) and Roberto Alomar (1968), American football’s Roger Staubach (1942), Jose Maria Olazabal (1966), a winner of over 30 professional golf tournaments on multiple continents, and current soccer stars Cristiano Reynaldo (1985) and Neymar (1992).

That list, however, pales in comparison to the number of impact makers born on Feb. 6. There’s Japanese emperor Daigo (885), American vice-president (and, for serial fault-finders, killer of Alexander Hamilton) Aaron Burr (1756), baseball legend Babe Ruth (1895), American president Ronald Reagan (1911), archeologist/anthropologist Mary Leakey (1913), socialite/actress Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917), journalist/author Tom Brokaw (1940), and Jamaican singer/songwriter (but not Maine-based comedian) Bob Marley (1945). Also born on Feb. 6: three 1980’s-era assistant baseball coaches on the staff of the legendary Jim Dolan, Hall of Fame mentor at Joel Barlow High School in Redding, Connecticut; two current difference-making educators at Maine’s Kennebunk High School: and hundreds of other world-changers too numerous to mention in an essay of just 600 words, and who aren’t famous enough to rate their own Wikipedia page.

I had hoped to further explore whether or not the start of winter’s second half is having the same uplifting effect on members of the NSNSNSNSNSNS community as it is for NSNSNSNS Mainers but unfortunately, I was unable to locate enough non-smoking Nova Scotians to yield any truly meaningful data on the subject. <