Insight: The Master of Disaster

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

When you work for a large daily newspaper, as I have done previously in my career in journalism, you learn that it takes many different skills to obtain a great story, but sometimes just being resourceful can make a difference too.

The April 1, 2011 sports section of
Florida Today newspaper featured
a story by Ed Pierce about a local player
competing in the NCAA men's basketball
tournament Final Four. COURTESY PHOTO   

In March 2011, I was working as the Community Sports Editor for a daily newspaper in Florida coordinating coverage of Little League baseball, youth football, youth soccer and youth basketball for our seven weekly newspapers. When needed, I would be asked to assist the daily newspaper by covering prep sports games or other community sports events like a triathlon or Iron Man competition.

At 10 a.m. on a Thursday morning, the daily newspaper’s sports editor stopped by my desk and asked if I could do a final search for an athlete possibly from our area who was about to play in the NCAA men’s college basketball Final Four. The sports editor explained to me that he had tasked several sportswriters to develop an article about this athlete and they both had come up empty.

While watching Virginia Commonwealth University’s NCAA Tournament game on television the previous weekend, the newspaper’s executive editor had observed a crawl note at the bottom of the TV screen that listed the hometown of VCU point guard Joey Rodriguez as Merritt Island, Florida and within our coverage area. Neither sportswriter knew Rodriguez from high school sports games nor were they able to find out anything about him.

VCU was flying to San Antonio, Texas that same day and players would not be able to be interviewed, so I was kind of the last hope for the newspaper to see if we could obtain details about this athlete.

I started by speaking with both sportswriters to see what methods they had used to track down Joey Rodriguez. Our newspaper had extensive digital archives, and the sportswriters had searched for his name in our database in high school basketball box scores without success. They had also checked with Merritt Island High School’s basketball coach, who was in his first season and had been hired after coaching at another school across the state, and said he didn’t know Joey.

My next step was to inquire from the newspaper’s Information Technology department how far back our digital archives went. I was told this was the fifth edition of the archives and it was updated every 10 years or so, so I asked how I could access the fourth edition. I searched for his name and found one listing for him and that was as a player on a winning 3-on-3 youth basketball tournament team from 12 years in the past.

But I also spotted a name I recognized as one of Joey’s teammates on that youth basketball team by the name of Danny Verpaele. I had covered Verpaele when he was a star quarterback for Merritt Island High School a few years before. I wondered what he was doing now and so I googled his name. I learned that he had played college football at the University of South Florida and had just been named to the coaching staff at Jacksonville University.

I then went to the website for Jacksonville University football, searched the coaching directory, found his name and sent him an email asking if he knew Joey Rodriguez. To my surprise, he was in the office and on his computer at that very moment. He answered me right away and said I should call him right then. I did and he said that at one time, his family lived next door to Joey’s family and they were best friends.

He said Joey’s father worked for NASA and had been transferred to Houston as Joey entered high school. The family moved there for a year before Joey’s father was transferred again to Kennedy Space Center. Back in Florida, Joey’s family returned to Merritt Island, but Joey attended a high school in Orlando trying to earn a college basketball scholarship.

Verpaele gave me Joey’s father’s cell phone number. I called and interviewed him, and he told me Joey was currently on the bus to the airport to take the VCU team to the Final Four. He asked if I wanted to speak with Joey and said he could include me on a three-way call with his son.

I thanked him and agreed to his offer and 15 minutes later I had finished interviewing Joey for an article appearing on the following day’s sports section front page.

By then it was 11 a.m. on Thursday morning and it had taken me just an hour to obtain the facts and quotes to put together a story that the other sportwriters were unable to.

What I learned from that experience is persistence truly does matter in journalism but so does knowing what resources to leverage when working on a tough story.

One of my former colleagues at that newspaper, the late Ernie Arico, gave me a nickname that has seemed to follow me ever since. He called me “The Master of Disaster” and would preface that by adapting a line from the introduction to the “A-Team” TV series. “If you have a problem, if no one else can help and if you can find him, maybe you can hire The Master of Disaster.” <

Andy Young: On the road again

By Andy Young

Planning ahead before traveling is imperative. That’s why my daughter and I packed our bags the night before leaving on our four-day, three-night sojourn to New Brunswick.

Andy Young and his daughter stop for a 
photo during a recent four-day,
three-night trip to New Brunswick.
COURTESY PHOTO 

Walking through the world’s longest covered bridge, touring downtown Fredericton, coasting down (or perhaps up) Moncton’s Magnetic Hill, visiting Saint John City Market, exploring Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, and, if the tides cooperated, driving across the ocean floor to Ministers Island in Passamaquoddy Bay were all on our activity-filled docket.

Knowing I’d safely stowed my toothbrush, shaver, and four days’ worth of clean underwear, socks, and shirts in the car ahead of time gave me a secure feeling. I’d also tucked Canadian postage stamps, a chart listing New Brunswick’s July high and low tides, and the addresses of the three hotels where we’d be staying (along with the confirmation number for each reservation) into the book I’d brought along for bedtime reading. There’s great satisfaction in starting a trip knowing everything’s been planned, and that nothing can go wrong.

About 10 minutes after leaving Wednesday morning, I realized I hadn’t brought my phone. “Want to go back and get it?” asked my favorite female child. Not wanting to backtrack, I replied, “Why bother? You’ve got yours, right?”

Four hours later, after crossing the border at Houlton, we parked on Hartland’s Main Street, strolled over the St. John River to Somerville via the aforementioned 1,282-foot covered bridge, and then returned to have lunch. The seafood chowder was excellent, but my credit card getting declined (in both Canadian and American funds) was a bit of a downer.

Oops. Apparently, I’d neglected to alert the bank about my impending whereabouts, so when a charge showed up from Hartland, New Brunswick, their fraud alert went off. “No problem,” I thought. “I’ll just call them on my, ummmm … daughter’s phone to straighten things out.”

That problem solved, we paused just outside Moncton to grab the paper with our hotel information printed on it. Oops! Apparently, I had forgotten that, too. Thankfully the restaurant where we’d stopped had free Wi-Fi. That allowed us to retrieve the information from my computer, which against all odds I had remembered to pack.

The following morning began at Magnetic Hill, where for a mere $10 Canadian you can put your car into neutral and subsequently experience it seemingly roll uphill. I’d been there many years ago and been underwhelmed, but my child wanted to see it, and this time it worked. Amazing!

Next up: a 60-mile drive to Amherst, Nova Scotia, so my daughter can now accurately say she’s been to seven different Canadian provinces. From there it was back to New Brunswick and Hopewell Rocks Provincial Park, where, at low tide, we walked beneath the towering sea stacks, marveling at what nature has accomplished through multiple millennia of tidal erosion. I’d expected to be awed, but somehow those ancient rock structures were even more impressive than I’d anticipated they’d be.

The next morning, we drove to Saint John to check out Canada’s oldest continuously operating farmer’s market. From there it was on to St. Andrews, where, at low tide, we drove to Ministers Island, site of the palatial summer estate of Sir William Van Horne, the American-born architect of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.

I experienced three significant epiphanies on our trip.

The first was four days aren’t nearly enough to fully enjoy all New Brunswick has to offer.

The second was it’s possible, though occasionally a trifle inconvenient, to have a terrific smart phoneless vacation.

But by far the most important takeaway is at any age, spending quality time with one’s offspring is quite literally priceless. <

Insight: A Summer and Fall to Recall

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

The year 1977 was pivotal in my life as I moved from chasing career dreams to the reality of serving overseas in the military. It significantly helped to shape my future while at the same time, I stayed grounded tackling the responsibilities we all face in our daily lives.

Ed Pierce is shown on his next to last day of U.S. Air Force
technical school at Sheppard Air Force Base in Texas in
October 1977.  COURTESY PHOTO 

Back in June 1977, I had enlisted in the U.S Air Force at the age of 23 and spent a large chunk of the summer in basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Upon graduation from basic training, I boarded a bus along with my friend Keith Gilstrap and we rode north to Wichita Falls, Texas, the site of our tech school training at Sheppard Air Force Base.

I had become friends with Keith when we were both assigned to the same squadron in basic training. We were both married and looking to rent apartments and bring our wives to Wichita Falls after spending the summer in basic training.

By then it was mid-August. Gasoline was 65 cents a gallon and the “Son of Sam” killer had just been arrested. Keith had found some furnished one-bedroom apartments across the road from the Air Force base that were renting for $175 a month with all utilities included. I took the one situated at the end of the building and Keith rented the one right next to me. Our wives drove there and we settled in for several months of technical training for our Air Force jobs.

My wife and I went with Keith and his wife to the movies not long after arriving in Wichita Falls to see a new film called “Star Wars.” I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about and never thought that many sequels would be made afterward to that one movie.

Wichita Falls itself was an interesting place to live. It was in a dry county, so very little alcohol was permitted. All beer sold there was 3/2 consisting of three parts water and two parts beer. It also was smack dab in the middle of what is known as Tornado Alley, a stretch of land prone to tornado formation. One of the extra duties that Keith and I were assigned to was to watch the overnight skies around the base from the roof of a tall building on the base and report immediately if we spotted tornados moving in our direction.

We had brought some sandwiches, potato chips and soda pop with us on the night of Aug. 16, 1977 for that tornado watch duty. I also had a small portable transistor radio with me so we could listen to music during our eight-hour shift on top of the building that evening. While listening to that radio, we heard the news that Elvis Presley had been found dead at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee.

A few days later, I watched a space launch on television of a NASA spacecraft called Voyager 2 on a mission to explore the outer reaches of the solar system. Several weeks later NASA also launched Voyager 1 for a similar mission.

Not long after Labor Day in September, I received military orders that upon completion of tech school and time on leave at home, I would be assigned to an Air Force unit in Bonames, Germany near Frankfurt. Keith was going to be assigned to an Air Force base stateside in Georgia.

I had never lived outside of the United States before, so I had no idea what to expect. It was exciting to think of the possibilities and to open a new chapter in my life. Because military housing was based upon rank, my wife and I knew that as I was an E-1 Airman Basic, we would have to rent an apartment and saving up my military pay for that would take some time. It would be tough to be apart for months but eventually it would all work out.

By mid-October, our tech school studies were wrapping up and Keith and I said our goodbyes. My wife and I drove my 1974 Mercury Capri loaded with our belongings from Wichita Falls back to Los Lunas, New Mexico where I would enjoy the next 30 days on leave getting ready to spend the next two years overseas.

About 17 months after we left Wichita Falls in April 1979, a tornado classified as an F-4 with winds reaching an estimated 250 mph destroyed those one-bedroom apartments that we had once rented. After flying by planets in our solar system, the spacecraft Voyager 1 crossed the heliopause into interstellar space in 2012, followed by Voyager 2 in 2018 and they’re still going today. That first Star Wars movie is now known as Star Wars Episode IV – A New Hope and boosted the careers of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford.

When I look back now at the late summer and fall months of 1977, what stands out for me is the determination I showed in forging a new life in the U.S Air Force. It was beneficial in the long run for my career and instilled a sense of personal responsibility that I carry with me to this very day. <

Andy Young: A changing view of professional sports

By Andy Young

I’ve had an epiphany thanks to the recently completed World Cup soccer tournament.

I am actively repelled by professional sports.

That’s ironic, since whatever attractive characteristics I possess can be traced to my involvement with team sports. Childhood participation in baseball, football, and basketball kept me physically fit and helped me develop social skills.

In my 20s I coached multiple high school teams and later made a modest living doing radio play-by-play for minor league baseball and hockey clubs. On road trips I carried sneakers so I could play pickup basketball wherever I’d find a playground or a YMCA. My involvement with athletics kept me surrounded with positive, motivated, kind people, many of whom became lifelong friends.

So why the disenchantment with something which was for decades an integral part of my life?

Even experienced adolescents grow up sooner or later, and as I approached nominal maturity, I began noticing that while actively participating or coaching I hated losing far more than I enjoyed winning. A second, far more significant realization: for me, playing any sport was far more enjoyable than watching others do so.

Sooner or later everyone’s athletic capabilities begin to decline. I was fortunate, because unlike many others I got that message without first tearing an Achilles tendon, blowing out a knee, or breaking any large bones.

But the more I watch contemporary professional sports, the less I find attractive. When I was young, sluggers like Hank Aaron celebrated home runs by trotting around the bases head down, shaking hands with whoever was up next, and returning to the dugout. Jim Brown handed the ball to the referee after one of his many touchdowns, Bill Russell hustled back on defense following a made basket and Gordie Howe skated to the bench or to center ice for the ensuing faceoff after scoring a goal. Back then overly demonstrative self-promoting athletes were as common (and popular) as pork chops at a Bar Mitzvah.

Kids today are just doing the same thing we did – imitating their athletic idols. Only now they see preening, chest-pounding prima donnas point Heavenward as they Cadillac around the bases after home runs, diva wide receivers initiating choreographed celebrations with larger, equally attention-starved teammates after touchdowns, basketballers hanging on the rim and primal screaming after they’ve “posterized” (dunked on) an unfortunate opponent, and hockey players riding their sticks like Kentucky Derby jockeys after scoring.

But that’s small potatoes compared to soccer, where play stops for at least 5 minutes after a goal while the scorer’s teammates (and everyone in the stadium) react as though he’s just saved Tokyo from Godzilla. And don’t get me started on the players who feign being mortally wounded after an opponent has made contact with (or passed within 3 feet of) them during a match.

Sadly, I don’t see things improving. “Walk-up music” at Little League games, organized sports for pre-kindergartners, and increasing abuse of officials by irrational parents and coaches are just three signs of the ongoing sports apocalypse. And whoever decided nine-year-olds need names on the back of their jerseys should be sentenced to life without parole.

Contemporary pro sports are less about actual athletic competition than they are about generating additional revenue from corporate sponsors and wealthy patrons willing to pay the perpetually rising costs of fandom.

My decreasing ardor isn’t coincidental; no successful business, except those selling remedies for erectile dysfunction, targets the 65-and-over demographic with their marketing efforts.

Over time my interest in professional sports has morphed from moderate, to keen, to obsessed, to casual, to disinterested, to actively uninterested.

And the term for that, I believe, is evolution. <

Tim Nangle: New laws strengthen support for Maine communities

By Senator Tim Nangle

On July 29, many of the laws passed during this year’s legislative session will officially take effect. While no single legislative session can solve every challenge facing our state, these new laws represent meaningful progress for Maine people, families and communities.

State Senator Tim Nangle

I was proud to sponsor four of the laws taking effect this month. Each law responds to a real need brought to my attention by people doing important work in our communities.

One of those laws, LD 2136, ensures survivors of human trafficking can continue accessing critical services while Maine waits for delayed federal funding. For more than a decade, Preble Street’s Anti-Trafficking Services program has helped survivors find safe housing, receive medical and mental health care, access legal assistance and begin rebuilding their lives. An unexplained federal delay forced the program to begin placing survivors on a waiting list. LD 2136 provides temporary state funding to help bridge that gap. People seeking safety after experiencing unimaginable trauma should not be told that help is unavailable because Washington failed to act.

Another new law will help Maine veterans find and maintain stable housing. LD 2135 establishes a fund to support nonprofit organizations that work directly with veterans facing barriers such as past rental debt or landlords’ concerns about financial risk. No person who served our country should be left without a safe place to call home. This law gives local providers another practical tool to prevent homelessness before it happens.

LD 1904 will help municipalities enforce shoreland zoning laws without placing enormous legal costs on local property taxpayers. This builds on a law I sponsored during the previous legislative session that gave towns stronger enforcement tools when property owners violate shoreland zoning requirements. Those stronger protections are important, but they only work if communities have the resources to enforce them. The new Municipal Shoreline Protection Legal Fund will help towns cover substantial legal expenses so they can hold violators accountable, protect our lakes and rivers and avoid passing the cost on to local taxpayers.

Finally, LD 1216 formally recognizes the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in Maine law. Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts, mental health distress or substance-use-related concerns can call or text 988 at any time to connect with trained crisis counselors. Establishing 988 in statute helps make it a stable part of Maine’s crisis-response system and provides a foundation for strengthening those services in the future.

I am not the only one to see laws I sponsored come to fruition. I’m proud to have supported efforts by my colleagues to address several other challenges facing Maine people.

A new medical debt law will prohibit debt collectors from garnishing someone’s wages or by placing a lien on their primary residence because of unpaid medical bills. Illnesses and emergencies are difficult enough without putting a family’s paycheck or home at risk. This law builds on our earlier work to prevent medical debt from damaging consumer credit reports.

We also took steps to make it easier and less expensive to build more housing. Maine needs more homes, but lengthy planning and inspection processes can add time and cost to projects before construction even begins. Several new laws will help communities improve local planning, expand inspection capacity and move appropriate projects forward more efficiently while maintaining important health and safety standards.

These laws address very different issues, but they share a common goal: making government responsive to the real challenges Maine people and communities face. I am grateful to everyone who shared their experiences, testified before a committee or helped us improve these proposals along the way.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and questions. You can reach me at [email protected] or 207-287-1515.

State Senator Tim Nangle represents District 26 including Windham, Raymond, Casco, Frye Island, and part of Westbrook.

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: Sad Saga of a Smelly Sonata

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

With no car payments over the past seven years and more than a decade of great gas mileage, buying my 2011 Hyundai Sonata in 2014 turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Yet in the last month or so, that car has tested my ability to overcome a pungent problem.

Several small holes in the plastic cowl of Ed Pierce's Hyundai
Sonata allowed a chipmunk and mice to enter and die there,
leaving behind an overpowering stench of death in the car's
interior that has been hard to remove. PHOTO BY ED PIERCE

It all started about three winters ago, while I attempted to remove thick and hardened ice from my windshield with an ice scraper. I somehow punctured several small holes about the size of a silver dollar in an area called the cowl. It’s a vented piece of plastic sitting between the car hood and the windshield with space for the windshield wipers.

My stepson laughed when he saw those holes in the cowl and said he had never seen that happen before. I didn’t think it was too funny, but I kept driving the car and it didn’t affect the vehicle’s performance one way or another in snow or rainy conditions.

I truly never thought about the cowl holes very much until one Saturday morning about a month ago. My wife and I used my Sonata to ride around visiting yard sales and upon entering the vehicle something reeked badly inside it. It was an overpowering stench of death that was tough to inhale.

My wife couldn’t stand the odor, and I suggested we roll down the windows to air out the car’s interior. It didn’t help.

Then on a trip to Walmart before driving home, I purchased a pack of those pine tree air fresheners that hang from the rearview mirror. I opened the package and left one hanging inside with the windows rolled up. When I got in the car again several days later, it smelled like a combination of pine trees and the pungent funk smell resembling the odor of death.

Suspecting that maybe something had gotten into the cowl through those small holes, I asked my auto mechanic to replace the plastic cowl piece and see if he could discover the source of the bad smell. When I arrived at his shop, he said he could smell the odor while standing 6 feet away from the car and that he’d try his best to remove the smell.

Arriving home, I noticed that my clothing and my hair both smelled bad just from driving the car to the mechanic. My clothes went straight to the laundry and I hit the shower.

The mechanic kept the Sonata over the weekend, and he replaced the plastic cowl piece and the cabin air filter. He discovered four dead mice and vacuumed away the remains of what he thought was a dead chipmunk. But the bad odor persisted, even with the windows open for several days.

He wiped interior surfaces with white vinegar, removed the floor mats and washed them. He sprinkled baking soda on the carpet and seats and vacuumed that up, but the bad smell persisted.

Nearing the end of what he could do for me, I began to think that after 12 years, I might have to purchase another vehicle.

Looking online, I replied to several people who were selling vehicles. I wasn’t looking to finance a newer car, rather I was looking for a low-mileage car priced under $5,000. I was shocked by how much new vehicles cost and ruled out leasing options too. 

At least three individuals selling used cars told me that their vehicles had rebuilt titles, a term I hadn’t heard of before. I then learned a rebuilt title is designated for a vehicle that has previously been in an accident and declared a total loss by an insurance company.

Discouraged by the expense of obtaining a new-to-me used vehicle, but also by how much more my car insurance would rise and not wanting to go into debt, I put that option to the side and thought I’d try resolving the stench issue in the Sonata again.

Watching YouTube, I saw a video promoting a product featuring volcanic rock bags which supposedly remove odors when placed under a car seat. I ordered two bags on Amazon, rolled up the car windows and let the volcanic rocks work for several days with the car parked directly in the hot sun all day.

Entering the vehicle after 48 hours had passed, I found the car’s interior now smelled like baking soda, white vinegar and the bad funk smell.

My wife had discussed my car issue with her hair stylist, and she recommended that I purchase an air purifier called “EDENPURE Thunderstorm Oxileaf.” It was created to be effective at eliminating stench and bad odors by changing the molecular structure of the source through converting oxygen to ozone.

I was skeptical, especially at a cost of $129 on Amazon, but being desperate to save my Sonata, I ordered it and it arrived Friday evening. On Saturday, I set it up and let it run inside the car for a two-hour duration and then later that day for four hours. To my surprise, I estimated that 98 percent of the bad smell was gone and wiping the door seals with Clorox cleaner took care of the rest.

A whiff of skunk, rotting trash or mold wouldn’t even come close to that funk.

Andy Young: Going picnicking isn’t always a picnic

By Andy Young

I’ve don’t consider myself a picky eater.

However, since I fully control the acquisition and preparation of everything edible where I live, it’s not surprising that I enjoy virtually everything I consume.

Speaking of food consumption, July is ideal for picnicking, provided you’ve got a shady, ant-free spot, the temperature is in the mid-60s, and there’s breeze sufficient to discourage horseflies, yellowjackets, mosquitoes, seagulls and other flying pests from stopping by.

It’s been a while since I’ve been on a real picnic where the attendees unfurl a tablecloth, pour cold drinks out of an insulated jug, and carry their food in the sort of pick–a-nick basket Yogi Bear schemed to filch from tourists at Jellystone Park, often from right under the nose of Ranger Smith, the animated lawman whose incompetence rivaled that of Barney Fife.

I’ve been living a picnic-less existence for quite some time, and not just because of the difficulty I have getting off the ground once I’ve plunked myself down on it.

There are several picnic-related foods others enjoy which I do not. I’ve never liked hot dogs. Cheeseburgers are out, too. I detest cheese, particularly the melted kind. I’m not sure which is worse: its smell, its texture, or the sight of it, but regardless, if there’s cheese involved, I’m not ingesting it.

Condiments in general don’t do much for me. Friends and family know they can keep me from mooching their french fries by simply covering them with ketchup. I have no use for mustard or relish either and I’m not crazy about salad dressing. One of my pet peeves is attending an event where the salad comes pre-dressed. If I want something atop my salad, I’ll apply it myself. All salad dressings, particularly creamy ones or those having the consistency of motor oil, are on my “do not consume” list. But the vilest add-on of them all is mayonnaise. My aversion to that heinous substance stems from an incident some years ago which I cannot effectively forget, no matter how hard I try.

My brother and I were spending an idyllic Saturday with our grandparents at a beautiful state park, and at around mid-day we found a conveniently located picnic table at which we could consume the lunch Grandma had lovingly prepared for us.

I’m not sure whether the mayo-slathered sandwiches had been in the sun too long or the loathsome spread itself had passed its “safe-to-eat” window, since expiration dates on food packages may not have existed back then. However, both my brother and I became violently ill shortly thereafter, creating a lifetime (and completely justifiable) aversion to that contemptable substance. 

One picnic food I love is potato chips, but they’re got to be the right ones. Plain chips are fine, although I prefer rippled ones. Not the ones with the little ridges though as they’re a little too salty. “Wavy” chips, the ones with the BIG ripples are beyond heavenly! I particularly enjoy the huge, oak-leafed-sized ones at the top of the package. Unless of course the person who packed the groceries did something dumb, like put the bananas or some similarly heavy item on top of the Wavy Chips bag.

However, with or without waves or ripples, flavored chips are a crime against humanity. Sour-cream-and-onion, ranch, barbecue, salt-and-vinegar, Jalapeno pepper and/or several even more repulsive varieties of chips are abominations which not only taste nasty, but they make their consumer’s breath reminiscent of an open sewer. There’s only one decent flavor of potato chip: potato!

Hmmm. Upon further review, perhaps I am a picky eater.

I hereby retract the opening sentence of this essay. <

Insight: Dopplegangers and Palominos

Around the age of 12, I came to a somber realization regarding a popular television show and that was I was doomed forever to live with it.

The show was called “Mister Ed” and it was a comedy about a talking Palomino horse named Mister Ed who was voiced by actor Allan “Rocky” Lane and only spoke to his owner, a character named Wilbur Post portrayed by actor Alan Young. When Wilbur would ask Mister Ed why he never spoke to anyone else, the horse said that Wilbur was the only human he ever met who was worth talking to.

Entering eighth grade at Carlton Webster Jr. High School in Henrietta, New York in September 1966, classmates and students at my school quickly made the connection between my name and the “Mister Ed” television show.

At first, it was funny when someone would come up from behind me while I was standing at my school locker and whinny and neigh like a horse or point at me in the hallway as I made my way between classes and shout “Oh Wilbur.” It happened so frequently that it became routine for me to look the pranksters in the eye and say, “how original of you” or “can I have a carrot?”

Once, I walked to my locker to find that some joker had taped five covers of a TV Guide magazine featuring a photo of the palomino horse and Alan Young to the front of it. While walking through the hall that same day, Mr. Daboll, the school principal, saw the TV Guide photo collage and immediately summoned me to his office.

He instructed me to take the TV Guide photos down at once. I did as he asked but a tiny bit of scotch tape remained near the top of my locker for the rest of the time that I attended junior high before moving on to high school.

Eventually the “Mister Ed” gags pulled on me by classmates subsided when the television program was canceled and the show appeared less frequently on television in reruns on Saturday afternoons.

But about the time I was glad that the running joke was finally over, my mother suggested that I happened to be a doppleganger for a popular singer and guitarist whose songs were climbing the charts and made frequent appearances on television. That celebrity was Glen Campbell and although I had only heard a few of his songs, I would absolutely cringe when discussions came up at the dinner table between members of my family about how much I looked like him.

Campbell seemed to be everywhere at the time. When we went to the movie theater to see “True Grit” starring John Wayne, and there he was acting in the film alongside the famous cowboy actor. I’d turn on the radio and one of Campbell’s songs such as “Wichita Lineman” or “Galveston” or “Try a Little Kindness” or “Where’s the Playground Susie” would be playing. He hosted his own weekly TV show called “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” on CBS.

My father would be out in the garage and if I needed to ask him a question about something, inevitably he’d be whistling Campbell’s “By the Time I get to Phoenix” song. Detaching myself from the constant comparisons was quite the mission.

Avoiding Glen Campbell became a daily ritual for me as I graduated from high school and started college in the fall of 1971. I wouldn’t buy his records or watch his television show. When he appeared on the “Tonight” show with Johnny Carson, I would switch the channel. I did sit through a movie called “Norwood” at the drive-in theater while on a date as a college freshman because legendary football quarterback Joe Namath of the New York Jets co-starred, but the movie’s main character was Campbell as a country bumpkin trying to become a radio singer in New York City.

As I got married and started my professional career, the comparisons with Campbell became fewer and it no longer bothered me for people to mention that I resembled him. When his song “Rhinestone Cowboy” was released in 1975, I broke my self-imposed rule and purchased the album. To my surprise, Glen Campbell was one of the best and most distinctive guitarists I ever listened to and I found that I genuinely enjoyed his music.

Through the years, I’ve always had a copy of “20 Greatest Hits” by Glen Campbell with me whenever I need to drive long distance on a road trip and my memories of disliking him have long since faded. The same thing holds true to a lesser extent for the “Mister Ed” television show, although I still wonder about how the show’s production staff got the Palomino horse to learn the rhythm of conversation and to move his lips on cue as the actor providing his voice spoke the dialogue that was required in the scripts.

More than 60 years removed from my angst about being compared to Glen Campbell or teased that my name was the same as a famous talking television horse, I can only laugh about it today. But back when I was a teenager, it wasn’t very amusing. <

Andy Young: Why not an alabaster jubilee?

By Andy Young

The pomp and ceremony of last week’s 250th anniversary celebration of the birth of the United States is just one example of how fixated people are with numbers that end in zero. Is the 250th anniversary of America’s beginning really any more impactful than the 247th was or the 264th will be?

It’s not just mathematicians who are fascinated with numbers ending in zero. Ordinary folks eagerly anticipate social gatherings celebrating the 10th, 20th, 30th, 40th, or 50th year after some shared experience, like a high school or college graduation. Similar events, like reunions of fraternities, sororities, military units, or particularly memorable athletic teams, generally take place after some number of years that’s divisible by ten. The same goes for celebrations of impactful historical occurrences.

With each passing year, most happily married couples justifiably do something special to mark the exact date on which they were wedded. But a numbered anniversary ending with a zero is generally seen as being far more significant than the previous nine were. According to happy-anniversary.com, the traditional gift for a 20th anniversary is china. Couples married for 30 years are traditionally given gifts made of pearl. Fortieth anniversary presents come from ruby, 50th are made of gold, 60th are crafted from diamond, and a 70th anniversary calls for gifts made of platinum.

But why are multiples of 10 so valued? Shouldn’t other annual celebrations matter just as much? It doesn’t seem right that virtually nobody knows what the traditional gift for a 14th anniversary is, or for the 37th, for that matter.

The only figures people obsess over more than numbers ending in zero are ones concluding with two zeroes. It’s a virtual certainty that next May media outlets on the internet, broadcast and cable TV, and still-extant print newspapers will be chock full of retrospectives trumpeting the 100th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, which took place on May 20 and May 21, 1927.

But if Lindbergh’s feat was so important, why isn’t it celebrated every year? Are 99th anniversary t-shirts, key chains, coffee mugs and refrigerator magnets commemorating the Lindbergh flight really that much less marketable than the 100th anniversary-themed schlock that will undoubtedly be available for purchase a year from now?

There aren’t any ceremonies in the immediate future likely to cause any undue level of temporary national obsession because they happen to commemorate something that happened 100, 200, or 300 years ago, but be prepared for 2029. That will be the centennial year of, among other things, Martin Luther King Jr’s birth, the stock market crash, and the initial Academy Awards.

Given the fervor involving centennials, bicentennials and the recent national sestercentennial, one can only imagine the excitement that would accompany the numerical anniversary of some event that ended with three zeroes. But history gets a little sketchy with the passage of a few centuries. That’s particularly true on the Atlantic Ocean’s western shores, since European “settlers” pretty much wiped out every pre-existing civilization, and in the process destroyed all previously recorded historical archives shortly after arriving in what latter-day chroniclers of history routinely and somewhat arrogantly referred to as “The New World.” Because of that it’s hard imagining much hoopla in North America when the millennial anniversary of the Battle of Hastings arrives in 2066.

Exactly why people get so fired up because something of significance happened a number-that’s-evenly-divisible-by-10 years ago is hard to comprehend.

Thankfully some things are still knowable. Like, for example, traditional 14th wedding anniversary presents should be made of ivory. And 23 years after that, gifts of alabaster are most appropriate for a 37th anniversary, according to happy-anniversary.com. <

Insight: Keeping cool under pressure

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

While serving in the U.S. Air Force, I learned that training to handle emergency situations is essential but staying calm in a potentially disastrous situation can be of help too.

On Saturday morning May 28, 1983, I was at home listening to music in my apartment in Avondale, Arizona when my phone rang. That happened to be my weekend for CQ duty, which meant I was the Public Affairs representative on call in the event of an emergency development at Luke Air Force Base. The Air Force lieutenant on the other end of the telephone told me to report to the base immediately as an emergency was about to unfold there.

When I arrived at the base’s Command Post, I learned that the crew of a civilian DC-9 aircraft had requested permission to land on our runway as it only had seconds of fuel left to remain in the air. It was a Republic Airlines flight with 86 people on board that had left that morning from Fresno, California bound for Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix about 22 miles away from Luke Air Force Base.

The Brigadier General who served as the base commander was notified of the Republic crew’s request to land, instructed our air traffic control personnel to let them land and was on his way to the command post to assess the situation.

When the general arrived, I briefed him about what had transpired. While on approach to Phoenix, the Republic Airlines pilots radioed that they needed to land because aircraft gauges showed they had “zero fuel” remaining and they were concerned that the jet’s two engines would stall and shut down.

Once on the ground, logistics became another question for our Command Post team. The flight was supposed to arrive at Sky Harbor International Airport, but how would the passengers get there and did we want to allow members of the public onto the Air Force base to retrieve them. Because the DC-9 was out of fuel and the temperature outside had reached 105 degrees that morning, the air conditioning system for the aircraft wasn’t operating and the heat inside the airplane was rising.

The first thing I did was make a call to the base recreation officer and I briefed him what was going on. He advised that he could have two Air Force buses and drivers ready to transport passengers to Sky Harbor International Airport in 40 minutes. He also told me that the base Officer’s Club could be opened for passengers to wait in air conditioning until the buses arrived. Passengers were offered water and soft drinks as they waited.

As the passengers got off the airplane and gathered at the Officer’s Club, the general told the passengers about how we planned to get them to the airport. Many passengers were angry or had questions about their baggage. My job was to answer their questions the best I could.

I had at least 10 passengers yelling and screaming at me for ruining their day. I told them I understood and it was the best plan we could come up with when all the Air Force did was allow the aircraft to land at the base and save lives.

About the same time that the passengers were leaving the base on the buses, I received notification that the media, including reporters and film crews from three television stations, four daily newspaper reporters and photographers and two staff members from the Associated Press were waiting for me at the base’s front gate seeking information about the incident.

The general told me to be candid and up front with them and he instructed me to allow them only to take photos of the Republic Airlines jet on the tarmac. My mission was clear and that was to cast the Air Force’s involvement in this situation in a positive light and emphasizing that our humanitarian concerns prompted our response.

I was bombarded with questions from reporters and shared what details I knew about at that time. I gave them the time that the DC-9 had asked for permission to land, the reason they had asked to land, and how many passengers and crew members were on board the aircraft. I discussed how the base had opened the Officer’s Club for them and how we had transported the passengers and flight crew to the airport.

The subsequent National Transportation Safety Board investigation revealed that the jet’s three fuel tanks had just 4 5/8 gallons of fuel left after landing at the base. The plane had flown from Phoenix to Fresno the day before with the same two pilots. It had left Phoenix with 15,000 pounds of fuel. Before taking off Saturday, the pilot had inquired about fuel and was told that no fuel had been added overnight and there was 15,000 pounds on board.

About 65 miles west of Phoenix, a master caution warning light came on, followed by a low pressure fuel light. The pilots discovered a circuit breaker in the fuel system had tripped and when reset, the fuel gauge indicators dropped to zero.

It was certainly a tough day but one I am proud to have played a role in. <

Andy Young: Why not Uncle Julius?

By Andy Young

While enjoying a steaming bowl of rice and vegetables for breakfast last week, I had an epiphany. Just because it’s summer vacation doesn’t mean learning has to stop for students, teachers, parents, or any other pulse-maintainers who plan on remaining extant for the foreseeable future.

A bust depicts the likeness
of Julius Caesar of Rome.
COURTESY PHOTO 

For educators like me, a two-month respite from rising before dawn, daily lesson planning, assessing student work, and trying to look stern while on cafeteria duty provides an ideal opportunity to explore intriguing subjects that I’m genuinely curious about.

For example, I’ve always wanted to know how July and August originated. They obviously weren’t part of the original Roman calendar, because anyone moderately familiar with Latin knows the prefix “Sept” signifies seventh, just like “Oct” means eighth, “Nov” indicates ninth, and “Dec” tenth. So how come, I wondered, aren’t September, October, November and December the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months of the year, but rather the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, respectively.

Oops! It turns out July and August were there all along, albeit under different names. The Roman calendar originally consisted of 10 months. However, in 713 BC, Rome’s king decided to add January (named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, transitions, and endings) and February (in honor of an ancient Roman purification festival) to replace the previously nameless 61-day winter gap. February fell at the end of the year until 153 BC, when Roman officials moved the two newest months to the front of the annual line in order to coincide with the start of a consular official’s term. That’s why the last four months of the calendar year seem misnumbered. July was originally called Quintilis, since it was the fifth month. That changed in 44 BC, when the month was renamed to honor the just-assassinated Julius Caesar, whose birthday was during Quintilis. Thirty-six years later the Roman Senate renamed Sextilis (originally the sixth month, but by then the eighth) August as a salute to Augustus, Rome’s first emperor.

Another random thought I had while lunching on some savory mushroom rice pilaf: why doesn’t anyone get named Julius anymore? The aforementioned Julius Caesar was obviously a man of distinction, as was basketball superstar Julius Erving and US Open-winning golfer Julius Boros. Julius isn’t a societally taboo name like Adolf or Osama. But two renowned Juliuses, Groucho Marx and J. Robert Oppenheimer, apparently preferred keeping their given first name closeted, so perhaps there’s a stigma to Julius I’m unaware of.

Another thing I wondered about while dining on garlic rice one evening last week: what’s the word for a 250th celebration? Everyone knows a centennial is a 100th anniversary and a bicentennial is the 200th, but what’s this year’s 250th birthday of our nation’s founding called?

There are, I learned, several acceptable one-word terms for “250th,” including semiquincentennial, sesquicentennial, and sestercentennial. I prefer the last of these options, since it’s the only one I can pronounce with any degree of confidence.

Later, while snacking on salted salmon rice balls I discovered the global food conglomerate which owns Uncle Ben’s Rice changed the product’s name to “Ben’s Original” six years ago. My curiosity piqued when I saw the “Best Before” date on the bottom of the elderly box of Uncle Ben’s I was about to prepare read, “March 2023.” Thankfully it turns out if one carefully follows the directions, rice that’s three-plus years past its “Best Before” date comes out just as perfectly as the more-recently-boxed kind does.

I also learned one other practical lesson last week. Cooking the entire contents of a one-pound box of Uncle Ben’s yields a whole lot of rice. <

Rookie Mama – From Tulle to Thule: Retooling storage before it gets unruly

By Michelle Cote
The Rookie Mama

As a continually aspiring minimalist – amusingly so – I understand fully that keeping life clutter-free is a persistent challenge that’s real in a full house of six.

By poker definition, a full house is only five, so we’re all the more extra for it.

I’ve somewhat wired my brain to recognize that our memories are in our mind, not in our stuff, and so we don’t need to clamor for clutter which only leads to chaos.

But alas, our children feel particular connection to their treasure troves of classroom valentines and goody bag trinkets of years gone by.

Nothing but fluff and filler, like the tulle of one of my old prom gowns.

Because each item appears to hold a memory, where in reality, our boys – not these things – are the ones truly keeping said memory.

Keeping it clean is a massive effort to which we continue to work toward.

But in the meantime, how do we manage to store the items we legitimately do need to operationalize daily living – specifically here, summer camping?

As any family with young kiddos can attest, packing up to go anywhere for even a couple of hours can make the back of one’s family-mobile look like they’re packing up for camp.

So how do we manage when we really are packing for camp?

Our dearest darling family minivan – she’s 20 years old, steel gray and tough, naturally and appropriately named Millenium Falcon – is filled to the brim with our assembly line of items each time we pack to go upta camp.

It’s a massive Tetris effort to assemble the normally shaped items – such as coolers – with awkwardly shaped ones – We’re looking at you, fishing poles.

Typically we make it fit and it’s a team effort; our boys even each get to hold something on their laps.

They get the routine.

We’re all in this together, as the High School Musical kiddos sing.

But we’ve bordered on packing in so sardine-tight that our rear-views have become nearly obscured at times.

When we’re facing a safety hazard, we’ve got to loosen up the sardine-tightness and return to Goldfish crackers as our choice fish.

Enter the Thule cargo box.

A dear friend of ours whose kids had grown offered us a rooftop storage unit for our beloved Falcon.

It was a generous offer, but did we need it?

Purchasing storage units of any kind must be considered thoughtfully, because our ultimate goal is to de-clutter, not simply organize our clutter, as is the true purpose of storage shelves and boxes.

My husband and I immediately accepted, because we knew that the alternative included potential driving hazards.

Getting an askew fishing pole to the head or being blocked by a sleeping bag posing as the object-in-the-mirror-closer-than-they-appear as we go into hyperspeed toward Tatooine?

Nah, I’ll pass.

This rooftop storage unit has truly been a game changer, and keeps our bonus items safe and sound. It was easy to install, and offers a bit more breathing room in the family van for the win.

Peace of mind and full on visibility is key when we’ve got the most precious cargo of all – the full-house-plus-extra buckled into safety belts and whatever combination of car seats and boosters.

This handed-down gift has seen much – Bumper stickers naming universities where the former owners’ grown children attended adorn the Thule unit, and we’ll blink and be in the same place before we know it.

Because we can store camp gear safely away from blocking side mirrors to our heart’s desire, but one thing we can never slow down is our children’s fleeting time with us.

Talk about time coming at us, that end date of all kiddos under one roof being closer-than-they-appear.

Hyperspeed.

And in the meantime, we can look on the bonus bright side –

The Falcon’s easy to spot in a parking lot.

­­– 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!