North To Allagash
March 13th, 2008By Tom Remington
My very good friend and Maine humorist, Joe Perham, describes in one of his stories about visiting is Uncle Vern in the country. He depicts his trip in vivid details about each of the roads he has to travel to get there. Each successive road gets bumpier, narrower and full of more ruts until finally he reaches a point where it is impossible to navigate an automobile any further. From here he walks uphill and downhill. Finally having to swing by rope to get over the brook that acts like a moat around the family farm, he can see the house. At this point he says that his Uncle Vern’s house isn’t at the end of the world but you can see it from there. Read the rest of this entry »
I was born in 1952 at Rumford Community Hospital in Rumford, Maine. The Androscoggin River flowed through Rumford after it had left Bethel where I grew up. For those of us living on this river, it is no secret that the river was a disgusting mess. Needless to say, it is next to impossible to erase that firmly etched vision from the minds of the locals from my generation and older.
I was recently checking out my favorite haunts on the web, when I got an email from an old fishing friend asking about prospecting. His questions were a little tenuous, obviously not wanting me to think he was nuts! He also included the names of two other old friends and former customers of my sporting goods store. They wanted to know about prospecting for gold!
I became interested in wood carving about a year after my retirement, in 1989. A friend, Don Demarest saw me one day and said; “I know how much you enjoy working with wood, and I think you might enjoy wood carving”. He elaborated by informing me that he attended Adult Education wood carving classes at Telstar Regional High School in Bethel, Maine. A retired aeronautical engineer, and professional woodcarver, Arthur “Mike” Murphy was the instructor. I accepted Don’s invitation to attend the next class with him and at age 63 years, I became a wood carver, and fifteen years later, I’m still at it. The ensuing story details the efforts involved in one of my many carving projects.