©062107

Brother

My oldest brother Walt, was four years old than me and always an enigma to the rest of the family. He was what you might call a loner. He liked people all right and he loved a good book but he much preferred his own company.
Walt was already a senior in high school by the time I reached the eighth grade and not only was he was on the cross country team but he was quite a good basket ball player too. Walt really only played basketball because he liked Mr. Grant who was the junior varsity and varsity basketball coach and was a much loved teacher at Ashland High School. Mr. Grant possessed a very dry wit and infinite patience and drinking secretly also helped him cope with all of his students and their problems.
It was only because of Walt that I passed eighth grade math. You see, Mr. Grant was also my math teacher and after tryin and failin numerous times to get me to comprehend simple math and compound fractions, he finally heaved in the towel. “Stevens,” he said in a hopeless voice to me. “If your brother Walt wasn’t such a good basketball player, I’d flunk you! As it now stands, I’m going to give you a C- and I sincerely hope you can find a career which doesn’t involve math of any kind!”
Walt stood about five feet ten and he had mother’s deep brown eyes and her auburn hair which he wore slicked back in the duck tail style, the latest fashion of the day. Dad had been bald since he was nineteen and this worried Walt excessively. He’d stand in front of the kitchen mirror day after day and comb his hair over and over again tryin to git it jist right while he whistled the latest Elvis Presley tune.
Since our house was located about five miles from the town of Ashland, we had to ride the school bus all year round and one cold, winter’s day we had a new bus driver who was actually a cousin of ours. Not a well-liked cousin but a cousin anyway. As we were boardin tha bus at the high school for tha journey home one afternoon, our cousin waited impatiently for all of us to stop pushin and shovin and yellin as teenagers are want to do and then he turned around in his seat so that he could git a real good look at us.
He slid his cold, blue eyes over every last one until we’d stopped yappin and then he announced that tha next person he caught talkin would be immediately kicked off and would have to walk the rest of tha way home. Surveyin us as though we were a bunch of hardened criminals, he waited for our response and gettin none, with a final glare at all of us, he snapped his mouth shut and turned around to drive.
That particular afternoon the temperature was hoverin around minus twenty degrees and the wind was gustin out of the Canadian north between fifteen and twenty miles per hour. It was not a good night for walkin!
Now Walt was a lover of all females and he jist couldn’t resist talkin to the pretty Gendreau girl who was sittin across the aisle from him. He made some snide comment about the driver’s announcement and the second time he opened his mouth, the bus driver slammed on his brakes and the bus came to a reluctant lurchin stop. His angry eyes flashed fire in the rear view mirror and lookin directly at my older brother, he yelled! “O.K. Stevens, I warned yah! Git your sorry ass off my bus!”
Walt, looked back at our cousin for along moment and indecision about what to do roiled through his brain and then deciding that a fight jist wasn’t worth it, he kind of shrugged his shoulders in a nonchalant manner, picked up his basketball gear, sauntered down the long isle and stepped down into the road. Walt knew that with his running ability, he’d make it home long before the bus had made it all the way up the Fenderson Road to tha turn around at the Rushinall’s house. But that wasn’t good enough for the bus driver. He looked at the rest of us sheepishly sittin there and he yelled again, “I mean all you Stevens!” Surprised, Jake and Bub and I all looked at each other and we too got off the bus.
It was a long, cold walk on a freezing winter afternoon and all the way home; we plotted and schemed about how we were going to get our revenge on Walt and the bus driver. We never did make good on any of our plans but, the energy generated by all our planning and scheming kept us from freezin to death. We never did catch up with Walt because as soon as he got off the bus, he quickly set his cross-country runnin pace and he sailed over the hills and valleys and was home long before we were.
Walt had discovered girls early and he especially loved the pretty French girls who lived in the small settlements in and around Ashland. He had the unique ability to learn and imitate any other language that he heard and before we knew it, he was speakin quite passable slang French and he was especially proficient in swear words. Walt was quite gifted and a voracious reader and our family didn’t really know just how gifted Walt was until much later on in his adult life.
When Walt was in his junior year in high school, he fell in love with a lovely French girl by the name of Jessie, who lived in the Portage Lake area of Aroostook County which was about thirteen miles from Ashland. Walt would hitch hike the thirteen miles to visit Jessie for a little while and then he’d hitch hike home again. It became a well-known joke around town that when Walt complained to Coach Grant that the basketball warm-ups were really gittin tiresome and Coach Grant would eye him closely for a couple of seconds, grin and reply, “Hey Stevens, don’t complain to me. Jist pretend that you’re runnin out to Portage Lake to visit Jessie. Oh, and Stevens, make that another four laps for all your complainin!” All his classmates would have a good laugh as Walt continued runnin laps around the gym.
By the time Walt became a senior, he realized he was losin ground where Jessie was concerned and he turned his attention further north. It wasn’t too long before he discovered the little Town of Eagle Lake. As Walt and his best friend Jimmy soon discovered, it also had many beautiful French girls. The other attraction was a road house named Peter Pan, where even if you were underage, on most any night of the week, you could still git a watered down drink.
Come Saturday night, Walt and Jimmy could usually be found down by the corner of Saint Mark’s Catholic Church in Ashland, all spruced up and tryin to hitch a ride to Eagle Lake. Ashland and Eagle Lake were strong rivals in the interschool basketball games along with Fort Kent and the Allegash. Boys from Ashland were not exactly welcome to come and check out the girls in Eagle Lake and vise versa.
Whenever the competin teams from all around “tha county” came to Ashland to play a game, win, lose or draw, they’d write graffiti on the locker room walls, kick in the shower room doors and do other unmentionable things to the changing rooms at Ashland High School. Consequently, there was great hostility between the teams and every slight was recorded for later retaliation. Competition was keen durin basketball tournaments but it was even keener when the prize was a lovely French girl.
One particular fall evenin, Walt and Jimmy set out for a “man’s” night out in Eagle Lake. They were dressed to the hilt in new jeans and sneakers and their hair was combed back in the popular “Duck’s Ass” style. They considered it a good omen when after havin hitch-hiked for only ten minutes; they were picked up by a sympathetic Canadian truck driver and deposited right outside their desired goal.
Peter Pan’s was already jumpin as Walt and Jimmy hurried through the door and they quickly latched on to a couple of girls and started dancin. Walt was just beginnin to enjoy himself when Jimmy suddenly punched him in the arm and motioned for Walt to look over his shoulder. Walt adjusted his steamed up glasses and whistled as his breath was involuntarily sucked into his lungs.
Standin at the edge of the long bar were five of the basketball players that they’d played against the previous night. Walt vividly remembered the sore feelins and muttered threats after the hard-won ball game and his head began tellin him that a situation was about to happen. Jist as he began slidin his eyes around the smoke-filled room looking for a possible escape route, the leader of the group suddenly pointed at Walt and Jimmy with a cry of recognition.
Walt and Jimmy ditched the girls and began a fast shuffle towards what appeared to be the rear exit door. Walt grabbed the handle and pulled the door open and he and Jimmy rushed in. To their surprise, they discovered it was the men’s toilet. Jimmy slammed the door shut and locked it. “God damn it all ta hell! How’re we going to git out of here Jim?” Walt asked. Jimmy pointed to a small window located just above the toilet. Walt shrugged and stepped onto the toilet seat then he reached up and shoved the window open. It slid upwards with a dry screeching sound and with a quick thrust of his hand, he dislodged the rusty screen.
“Jaysus, Jim, give me a boost, will yah.” Walt ordered and Jimmy grunted as Walt climbed onto his shoulders. Walt twisted and struggled and finally slipped headfirst through the window and disappeared. Jimmy stared at the empty darkness of the window and at that moment, there came a sound of splintering wood from the bathroom door behind him. This was all the impetus Jimmy needed and he didn’t wait to see what fate had befallen Walt. As he later said to Walt, “My mother didn’t raise no fools en my ass was gonna burn!”
Jimmy jumped onto the toilet seat and lunged for the open window. He groped for the windowsill with his fingers and his fingernails made scrabbling noises against the dried out wood. He cursed and lunged again and with the desperation of a condemned man, he connected. He pulled his body up and he was teeterin half in and half out of the window. Jim called out to Walt and he heard a muffled reply and that was all he needed. He didn’t wait to hear anything else, he let go and fell headlong to the ground below.
Jimmy grunted as his body hit the hard ground and then he suddenly found himself sliding very rapidly downwards. “Not too bad,” he thought to himself and in the next instant he became aware that his senses were bein assaulted with a multitude of data and it was all bad! He felt and smelled things at exactly the same instant and a feelin of clingin wetness overrode all the other feelins. He felt wet right up to his neck but, along with the wetness came a clammy, slimy feelin. Whatever he’d landed in didn’t just cling, it oozed and slid too. He pulled his hand out of the muck and tried to wipe off his face so that he could see where he was and he gagged as he brought his hand up and the powerful stench hit him full in the face.
“Walt! Walt! Where tha frig are yah?” Jimmy whispered. Off to his right Jimmy heard a sucking sound and then came a sloshin kind of movement in his direction. He gingerly turned and finally he saw Walt for the first time. Only, Walt didn’t look like the same person who’d disappeared through the window just a few moments before. He was covered with black, slimy shit from one end to the other. They were now “swimmin” in Peter Pan’s cesspool.
“If you laugh Jimmy, I swear tah Christ I’m goin to kill yah!” Walt whispered hoarsely as Jimmy lost control and fell over with laughter into the muck. Walt grabbed Jimmy and pushed him face down in the cesspool and Jimmy gagged and tried desperately to pull away. After Walt let go of him, Jimmy did his best to wipe tha muck off his face and all he managed to do was smear tha stuff sideways. Walt took one look at his best friend and in his best southern accent said, “Smile Jim, so I can see where you is.” That was all they needed, they doubled over with laughter and shit flew in all directions.
A few seconds later, there was the sound of the door breakin open in the bathroom above and the sound of angry voices floated down to them on the damp night air. Knowin that they were sittin ducks, Walt grabbed Jimmy and they began making their way to the edge of the septic tank. Walt found the edge of the grass and quickly pulled himself up out of the mess, then he reached behind him and grasped Jimmy’s outstretched hand and pulled him free of the oozing muck.
They furtively crept along the edge of the building and slipped between the rows of parked cars until they reached the main road and then they headed south at a pretty fast clip. They ran until they couldn’t run anymore and about a couple of miles down the road, they slowed down to a fast walk so they could catch their breath. Jimmy kept moanin and repeatin over and over, “Oh God!” “Oh Jaysus!” “Oh God!” Every now and then, he’d reach up and wipe the oozing, putrid stuff of his face with the back of his hand and fling it into the dirt at the side of the road.
They’d been walkin for about five miles when they finally heard the sound of an automobile approachin from behind. Walt grabbed Jimmy and pushed him down into the nearest ditch and they lay where they were as the car rushed on past them into the dark night. “Jayus Walt, why’d yah do that?” Jimmy asked. “I thought we needed a ride!” “It might have been those guys back at the bar and I didn’t want tah take any chances because they know we’re from Ashland.” Walt replied. “Oh yah, I forgot about that,” Jimmy mumbled.
They pulled themselves up out of the ditch and trudged on down the deserted road. After what seemed like miles, they again heard the sound of an automobile approaching in tha distance. Walt moved to the shoulder of the road and stuck out his thumb and as tha car slowed to a halt, Walt pushed Jimmy forwards towards the car. Walt yanked open the door, shoved Jim in and climbed in beside him. The driver looked at the two of them in disbelief, and gittin a strong whiff of how they smelled, he covered his nose with his hand and screamed, “Out! Out! Get out!” Walt wrenched open the door and stumbled out pullin Jimmy after him. The driver slammed the door shut and took off with a squeal of tires.
Walt, who loved Elvis with a passion, always wore his hair in the “duck tail” fashion and his dark auburn hair was usually combed until it was absolutely perfect and he always had a comb in his pocket ready to fix any hair that fell out of its coifed arrangement. Since tha fall into tha cesspool had completely undone his locks, Walt felt tha need to fix his hair. He dug around in his shirt and whipped his comb out of his shit-filled pocket and began combing his matted, slimy hair. He combed and patted until he had every strand back in place and it felt jist right! Then, he turned to Jimmy and with a smile in his voice said, “You know Jim, shit sure makes a good hair settin gel, don’t yah think?” Jimmy jist ignored him and walked on.
Tha shit-encrusted boys walked on for miles and miles and as the wan moon was slidin towards the western horizon, Walt turned to Jimmy and said. “One good thing to remember Jim, mosquito’s jist never bites a shitty man!” Jimmy merely groaned and kept on walkin with his head down. The only sound that could be heard in the pitch-black night was the sound of their basketball sneakers hittin the pavement and the squish of the muck between their toes. They’re feet seemed to be mocking them saying, shit… shit… shit… shit… shit, as they placed one tired foot in front of the other on the long journey home.
Walt survived that ordeal and went on to graduate with the class of “59.” In search of a better life than Tha County had to offer, he promptly joined the army and was sent to Fort Deven’s, Massachusetts for basic training. It was there that Walt was “discovered,” so to speak. Not only was he a sharp shooter with a rifle but, he could look at a document that was upside down and sideways and memorize it in a matter of seconds. He had total recall. He also had an undeveloped linguistic ability. Walt was sent off to Officer’s Candidate School, Protocol School and various other agencies of the United States Army. It didn’t take them long to realize that they had a rare specimen on their hands.
Walt traveled all over the world during his career with the military. He even got to “visit” Vietnam not once but, twice. He sometimes came home for short visits before he was assigned to another tour of duty. Walt was on his way up and there was no stoppin him.
Walt worked hard and he was very happy about his success and whenever he acquired a new possession, he never failed to call mother and dad to tell them about it. It took Walt quite a while to settle down with one woman and when he finally tied the knot, he called to tell us that he was bringin his wife home to meet everyone. Walt arrived home in a flurry of excitement and he couldn’t wait to show off his beautiful new wife, Ginny and his shiny new Cadillac.
A couple of mornings after he’d arrived, Walt went outside to admire his dream car only to find that his brand new automobile had a flat tire. He opened the trunk to discover that there wasn’t a spare tire inside. He slammed the trunk shut and stormed into the house to call around to try and find another tire. He didn’t bother to call the local garage in Ashland first, he called garages in Presque Isle, Caribou and even down to Houlton, to no avail. He hung up the phone and slumped dejectedly into a chair. “God-damned hick town!” He muttered under his breath. Mother, hearin his retort, stopped washin dishes and turned and looked at him. “Did yah try Michaud’s Garage in Ashland?” She asked. “No,” he replied. “What makes you think that they’d have that size tire if all the other garages didn’t?” He asked.
Mother slapped the dishtowel down on the counter and marched over to the telephone. She quickly dialed a number and after a few minutes, she turned to Walt and asked him, “What size tire did you say you needed?” “Why?” Walt asked. “Well,” she replied. “Michaud’s Garage has not one but two! They used to keep them on order especially for old Lizzie Gallup’s Cadillac. You can pick one up any time you want.”
Shortly before dad died in 1982, Walt came home for a short visit. Walt was now living in Virginia and had a nice job with the National Security Agency in Washington. Dad was lyin on his bed and Walt was sittin in a chair across from him. Every so often the lulls in conversation were broken by the sound of a car as it passed our house on the way to town.
Walt stretched and said to dad, “God dad, I don’t know how you stand it! Doesn’t all this silence and boredom git to you sometimes?” Dad lifted his head and looked at Walt. “I guess a feller gets used to it after livin here sixty-eight years.” “Not me!” Walt retorted. “I’d never git used to it, that’s why, right after graduation, I joined tha army to have a look at the way the other half lives and now that I have a little of what the other half has, I can’t understand why anyone with half their faculties would ever stay in this God-forsaken place. Look at you, dad, what have you got to show for all your years of hard work and honesty? Why, you can’t even get social security for a job that you held for twenty-five years! When I retire, at least I’ll have something to show for it!”
Dad painfully raised himself up on one elbow and looked more closely at his oldest son. “Well, you might be right Walt. I don’t seem to have too many of those material things that you seem to value so much but I do have things that your money could never buy.” Dad took a long breath and went on. “I did work like a dog for twenty-five years for Maine Seed Potato Growers and when the company closed, I didn’t git a dime. I couldn’t collect Social Security for all those years because the Social Security Act wasn’t even passed until the nineteen thirties. A man can’t change the time of his birth now can he? I’ve lived a long and hard life and I don’t have any regrets. I still git up every mornin at four am and build a fire for your mother and I went to work every day, even when I was sick, so that you and your brothers and sisters would have food to eat. I did an honest days work for an honest day’s pay en I never cheated anyone en I never hated anyone either. I don’t claim to understand what’s goin on in the world atall but for all those friggin educated fellers down there in Washington, I don’t see how they’ve managed to screw up the world as much as they have. And when everything is said and done, it will all come back to the little towns like this one and to people jist like me to get everything back on an even keel again and don’t yah think it won’t!”
“Dad, I… “Never mind son,” Dad replied. “I always knew that yah were way too smart and had ideas much too grand to ever to stay in a place like this one for too long.”

Dad is gone now and Walt is still working in Washington. He doesn’t come home much anymore but he still calls on Sunday.

By Martha Stevens-David

Great Aunt Cassie

She was our great aunt but us Stevens’ kids always called her Aunt Cassie. She only stood about five feet tall in her stocking feet but she had more drive and energy in her little finger than most people had in their whole body. There wasn’t anything that she couldn’t or wouldn’t do if she put her mind to it. To me, she was the epitome of the true American spirit.

The word impossible just wasn’t in her vocabulary. If the old Farmall tractor needed a new part that wasn’t available at the local Ashland parts store, she could always be relied upon to know where one could be found, bought or borrowed.
Long after Uncle Hal, had thrown down his wrenches in disgust and stormed off, swearing at the top of his lungs, Aunt Cassie would calmly come out of the house, wipe her hands on her flour sack apron, pick up the abandoned tools and proceed to repair the tractor.

Aunt Cassie was a woman who not only loved Uncle Hal, she also loved life but the thing she loved the most was a good dose of gossip. From time to time, she’d go to visit all the neighbors and after downing numerous cups of tea and ferreting out all the latest, juicy story, she’d return home, anticipating the first chance she’d have to pass on the slightly embellished stories.

Aunt Cassie was an inveterate pack rat. She never threw anything away and she couldn’t stand for anyone else to throw anything away either. She often made secret, furtive excursions to the local dumps where she’d joyfully spend the entire morning sorting thru other people’s trash. She never came home disappointed either. She’d immediately cart everything she’d found up to her attic that was located directly over her kitchen. Year after year, as Aunt Cassie slowly but surely accumulated more and more “treasures,” the kitchen ceiling began to curve noticeably downwards. Everyone who knew her began making side bets as to when the ceiling would finally cave in.

By the time we were born, Aunt Cassie’s three kids were all grown up and on their own. So, we, her great nieces and nephews became the ones to replace her own kids in helping, from time to time, with chores around their farm. Aunt Cassie missed her true calling when she became an Aroostook County farmer’s wife at the age of fifteen. She really should have gone to work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Central Intelligence Agency. She had an uncanny way with a chocolate chip cookie that would make you spill your guts about all the gossip you’d ever heard and even some you haven’t. If you told her some story that she hadn’t previously heard before, her eyes would light up and she’d hastily shove another cookie into your grubby hand. Then, she’d lean a little closer and with her voice scarcely above a whisper, ask, “And then Tooter, what happened?”

Then came a day when Aunt Cassie thought she’d died and gone to gossip heaven. She’d finally acquired what Uncle Hal commonly referred to as “That God-Damned thing,” the telephone. She finally got the phone by begging and pleading with Uncle Hal about how it would save them so much time and money not to have to run into town every time they needed a new part for the tractor or for the other farm equipment. She finally convinced him when she said that she’d call over to Presque Isle and have the parts they needed mailed out to them.

From the day it was installed, Aunt Cassie was beside herself with joy. From the very beginning, she had been connected to a six family “party-line.” Each family was assigned a certain number of rings and when the phone rang for any family on the line, it also rang at all the other houses. It wasn’t too long before she’d memorized all the neighbor’s rings and upon hearing the phone begin to ring, she’d immediately drop whatever she was doing and run into the parlor and pick it up. She could be found most anytime of the day or night, leaning over her old desk, with the telephone receiver cupped under her chin, listening in on someone else’s conversation. Uncle Hal constantly complained that her cooking had gone to hell in a wheelbarrow ever since she’d gotten that God-damned thing!

She got into trouble quite a few times when she overheard some real juicy gossip and forgot that she was the rubberee and not the callee and she’d joined right in on the conversation before she realized what she was doing. Over the years, the habit of holding the receiver cupped under her chin while she listened in on other’s phone calls, began to take its toll. She took to holding her head at a slight angle as though she had a crick in her neck. Whenever anyone asked her about her health, she’d gingerly rub her neck and complain of a touch of arthritis here and there. Hearing this, Uncle Hal would snort and laugh that it wasn’t “arthritis” but “telephoneitis.” She certainly wasn’t going to get any sympathy from him!

Aunt Cassie had a way of getting you to do something terrible by making it seem like a great big adventure. One day, when I went for a visit, she was happily washing her breakfast dishes when suddenly she knelt down and began rummaging through the cabinets under the sink. When she stood up, she was holding two small, empty lard pails in each hand. She spun around, looked me right in the eye, lowered her voice to a whisper and said, “Tooter, I found the biggest patch of strawberries this morning… Let’s go!” With a big smile on her face, she’d hand me the two dainty lard pails, grab a huge milking pail for herself and off we’d go to the secret place where the wild strawberries were calling her name.

Or, she’d sit you down in her cluttered kitchen, with the wood stove stoked to the brim, hand you a couple of freshly baked molasses cookies and ask you how you’d like to earn a quarter. In nineteen fifty-two, that was a lot of money to most people, and especially for us Stevens’ kids, so we usually said yes. It certainly didn’t take us long to catch on to her ways.

She was a master of suspense too. She’d never tell you right away what the job really was. She’d hand you a hat, boots, gloves and an old jacket and then she’d take off at a fast clip towards the barn and you’d have to run to keep up with her. Before you knew it, you’d rounded the corner of the building, past the outhouse and you were out behind the barn. It didn’t take overly long to get the gist of her plan, what with a huge smelly pile of cow manure staring you in the face! After you’d swallowed deeply several times, to keep all those cookies down that she’d just fed you, she’d thrust a three pronged pitchfork into your hands and say, “I jist need, oh maybe three or four trailer loads of manure for the flower beds and my garden. And oh yes, I nearly forgot, I guess we can’t forget the lawn, now can we?” You knew right then that this was going to be an all day affair! God! How I hated that smelly, disgusting job! But, Aunt Cassie would work right alongside you and she sang all the while she was slinging forkful after forkful of “poor man’s fertilizer” into the manure spreader. You can’t say all this stuff wasn’t “educational” though. To this very day, I know how to grow a pretty mean garden and my flowers are to die for and oh yes, I can still sing “Mockingbird Hill” all the way through.

After the garden had been thoroughly covered with rich, black manure and the earth turned over, then the lawn and flower beds had to be covered. Then everything had to have a good dose of water and she’d move on to another important task.

For the next couple of weeks, we’d be extremely careful not to visit Aunt Cassie unless we absolutely had to. If the Aroostook River had receded off Uncle Hal’s flats on the island, we’d take the long way around to go fishin down to the island. Instead of going straight down the road past her house, we’d run down over Mr. Beaulier’s property to the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad tracks and cross them and go down thru the woods to get to the river. It took us a great deal longer and added miles of walking to our fishing trip but we knew that she couldn’t see us.

If her “eagle” eyes happened to catch us slinking past her house to go fishing or strawberrying, she’d thrust her curtains aside and shout from her kitchen window, “Jake!” “Tooter!” “Bub!” “Helen!” And we’d all have to go and see what it was that she wanted. God!, didn’t the weeds grow huge in Aunt Cassie’s garden what with all that good rich cow manure on it and Lord!, didn’t the grass grow fast on her huge lawn!

Aunt Cassie considered herself an “expert” in givin home permanents. All any of her female relatives had to do was to mention that they “needed” a new perm and Aunt Cassie would whip out her old Marcel waving kit and begin. It was fascinating for us kids to sit in her kitchen and watch this mysterious, malodorous event take place. Aunt Cassie would saturate each clump of hair with a poisonous, smelling liquid then she’d wind the hair up in a rusty roller and clamp the roller into place with an aluminum clip. Once the victim’s entire head was rolled up, a kind of chemical reaction would take place and blue, sulfur-smelling smoke would drift into the air and we’d hold our breath, half expecting the victim’s head to burst into flames or for them to be electrocuted!

God forbid that Aunt Cassie received a telephone call at that moment of if she heard the phone ring on the party line for someone else, because she’d be gone. She’d abandon the unwitting person in a heartbeat, leaving them sitting in her kitchen with blue smoke rolling off their head, while she rubbered in on the latest news.

After an indeterminate amount of time, she’d reappear as though she hadn’t ever left and begin removing the perming paraphernalia. Sometimes, only half of the hair had taken properly and the other half had been fried to a crisp. Upon seeing the look of horror on her latest victim’s face, Aunt Cassie would grasp the dead hair in her hand, laugh and say, “Ain’t that jist like the fashions in gay Paree!” Usually, it took at least a year before anyone’s hair had grown in enough for them to need another perm. Few were ever foolish enough to mention that they “needed” another perm in front of Aunt Cassie again.

When things got too boring at our house, we’d always sneak off down the Goding Road to Aunt Cassie’s house to see what was going on there. Usually, we were never disappointed. The farm was always filled with new and exciting creatures and experiences.

When spring finally rolled around, off we’d go to see all the new piglets, baby calves and chickens. The new calves were so cute, especially the ones that had just been born and were trying to stand on their wobbly legs. Aunt Cassie would allow us to pet them and brush their coats only after we’d agreed that the stalls would be so much “nicer” without all that smelly old cow shit all over the place! The deal was, that we could pet and brush the calves tour heart’s content, after we’d cleaned out all the stalls. It sounded like a fair deal to us at the time.

We also loved to look at and hold the soft yellow chicks and this was ok with Aunt Cassie too if we agreed to pound up a few old crockery jars into feed for the hens. We’d sit down on the ground around a large rock that she called her “chicken” rock. It had a deep indentation in it from all the years of pounding bits of broken crockery on it. We’d always fight over who got to use the hammer first and hearing us argue, she’d chide us from her kitchen window, “Kids!” “Kids!” “I’ve got more than enough broken dishes from the dump to go around. Now don’t be fightin over that old stuff!”

As Mark, her oldest grandson grew; he often came to visit his grandparent’s farm. When we knew that Mark was there visiting, we’d drop everything and head down over the hill to play with him. We used to call him the “city” kid because he lived in Ashland which was about five miles from our house.

To say that Aunt Cassie doted on her grandson was putting it mildly. We knew that if Mark was with us when we took it into our heads to chop down a “few” trees or if we just “happened” to pull up some of Uncle Hal’s potatoes, then we wouldn’t get into too much trouble. Mark was our “insurance” policy, so to speak.

Mark didn’t get to visit his grandparents too often because his parents thought that Uncle Hal’s swearin and other vices might had a bad influence on him. When he did get to visit, Mark would act like a kid let out of jail. He’d want to do everything that he wasn’t allowed to do at home. He wouldn’t even take a bath unless Grampy Sutherland took one too and he’d imitate his grandfather in every possible way.

Uncle Hal knew full well that Mark wasn’t allowed to swear and he’d wait with baited breath until Mark’s next visit and then he’d purposely try out every cuss word that he knew and a few that he’d made up. Mark soaked up all these new and different experiences like a sponge. All the while, Uncle Hal would smile to himself and he’d wait to hear the explosions that were sure to come from the direction of Station Hill after Mark had gone home.

Mark’s last name was Michaud but as soon as he got to the farm, he’d insist that we call him “Sutherland.” He’d always tell us that if we didn’t call him that, he’d blame everything that we’d done on us. Being a bunch of kids, we didn’t care what we called him. If he wanted to be called Sutherland, that was fine with us.

I’ll never forget that fine summer’s morning when Jake, Bub, Helen and I were down to Aunt Cassie’s. Mark had just arrived the night before and he was going to stay for a week. We were sitting in the grass on Aunt Cassie’s lawn arguin about what we were going to do for the day. Jake wanted to go down to the island, steal dad’s boat and take it on a fast trip around the island. Bub wanted to go out to the back fields and smoke some Indian tobacco. Helen and I wanted to go strawberrying in the overgrown hay fields across the road. Mark wanted to go down to the railroad siding and find some snakes to put on the tracks before the next train came through.
Aunt Cassie looked out her kitchen window where she was washin dishes and yelled out to us to ask us what was wrong. Jake lied to her and said that we were thinkin of goin down in the wood to chop down some trees to build a log cabin. Hearing this, Aunt Cassie stopped what she was doing and looked at us for a couple of seconds, then with a shrewd look on her face, she said, “I don’t know about you, but if it was me, I wouldn’t go down in them woods right now, what with all those skeeters and mingies around. And it’s God-awful hot today too!” We all looked at each other and waited. “Why don’t you play right here?” “Where?” We all yelled. She looked out through the screened in window with a big smile on her face and she knew that she had us.

“Well,” She said. “You know that I have that old chicken coop right over there behind you and it’s empty right now. I think that it would make a perfectly fine playhouse, don’t you?” We turned and looked where she had pointed and sure enough, there it was! Reeling us a little closer into her trap, she continued. “There’s only one problem though kids. It really ought to be cleaned out before you play in there. It ain’t been cleaned in years!” “No problem!” We all yelled. Jake ran to get the wheelbarrow, Bub and I ran to get the shovels, Mark ran to get some gloves and Helen went to get us some drinking water from the hose. We scurried up the small incline to the shit-filled chicken coop like an anxious husband on his honeymoon.

We pushed open the sagging chicken coop door and gagged at the sight that awaited us. The walls and floor were covered with chicken droppings and the smell was horrendous! We each grabbed a tool and we shoveled, we swept, we carted and we cleaned all morning and after about five hours, the “play house” was beginning to look pretty good well, we could finally see the floor anyway.

Suddenly, through the dust that hung in the air, I looked over at Jake. His red hair and face were completely covered with a fine, white dust. Beads of sweat ran down the side of his face like small rivers and he was thoroughly and systematically scratching himself. I looked at him for a moment and then I felt the sudden urge to scratch too. Mark, watching us, began to scratch and whine about feeling all itchy. Bub and Helen were standing in a corner and they looked just like the rest of us. We dropped everything and got the hell out of that hen house.

Mark ran screeching down the hill to where Aunt Cassie was watchin from her kitchen window. She looked out to where we were standin, scratchin and itchin and asked. “What, tired of playin already?” She asked and she seemed to be laughing a little as she said it. “Grammy,” Mark whined. “Do chickens have lice?” “God yes!” She replied. “But don’t worry kids. Chicken lice don’t stay too long on kids!” And she burst out laughing. Jake looked up at her face in the screen window and asked, “Well, how long do they stay?” “Oh, not more than two or three days,” She replied. We all looked at each other in horror and Mark shot into the house.

As we tiredly rounded the corner of her house, headed for home, we heard this parting shot from the direction of her window. “By the way kids, anytime you want to come and play in the other chicken coop, jist let me know. It ain’t been cleaned in a long, long time!” To this day, I swear that I could hear her laughter in the still afternoon air behind us as we straggled, filthy, itching and scratching, up the long hill towards home.

NOTE: I hurriedly finished this story so that I could present it to Aunt Cassie in honor of her ninetieth birthday on March 18, 2001. After she’d read it, a relative asked her how she’d liked the story. She mulled the question over for a couple of seconds and then she said. “I don’t mind that Tooter said that I liked to dig in the dump, because I do! I don’t mind that she said that I liked to gossip because that’s true too! And I don’t even mind that she wrote that I liked to rubber in on my neighbor’s telephone calls because I did! But I don’t like it that she wrote that I had a crick in my neck because I don’t!”

NOTE: July 7, 2004, as of this writing, Aunt Cassie is still alive and well and still living alone in her old house on the Goding Road and she turned ninety-four on March 18, 2004. May God Bless you Aunt Cassie. I will always love you.

NOTE: March 21, 2007. As of this writing, Aunt Cassie is still alive and well but she has moved into what she calls “Wrinkle Village” a (euphemism for the Home for the Elderly) in Ashland for the winter. I spoke with her yesterday and after a long and happy conversation, she asked, “Is there anything I can do for you Tooter?” “God no!” I replied. “You did more for me when I was a kid that I can ever repay you for.” “Well,” she said. “What were a few cookies? When I close my eyes, I can still see your little blond head as you walked by my house, goin fishin or you seated on the old Farmall tractor on Uncle Hal’s lap as you helped him cultivate the potatoes. You know Tooter, I hope I can move back to my old shack when warm weather comes and have a little garden. I want to plant a potato plant for Hal.” I hope you can move back too Aunt Cassie and plant a potato plant for Uncle Hal for me too. I will always love you, Aunt Cassie.

Note: May 15, 2007. As of this writing, Aunt Cassie is still doing well but she still had a little problem when I spoke with her last week. It seems that after having gone a lifetime without actually knowin what her age really was, she finally found her birth certificate and she called me in a state of panic. “”Tooter,” she said. “I finally found my birth certificate!” “Well,” Aunt Cass, “That’s good news.” “No,” she replied, “It ain’t.” “Why not Aunt Cass?” I asked. “Well, you know, these fools went and gave me a big birthday party because they thought I was ninety-seven and I’m not!” “Well, how old are you?” I asked. “I’m younger than I thought I was, I’m only ninety-six!” I had to laugh at that and then I asked, “Well, isn’t that good news?” “No,” she replied, “It ain’t!” “Why?” “Well,” these fools will think I lied and now I’ll have to give back all the presents!” “Oh” Aunt Cass, you may only be ninety-six but you’re still the oldest person in Ashland.” She had a think about it and then she said, “I guess you’re right.”

Note: During the Ashland Days Celebration on the Fourth of July, 2007, Aunt Cassie was honored again. She was awarded a cane and a plaque. After all the uproar had died down, she called me to tell me the news. “Tooter,” she said. “These fools went and made a big deal over me ahgin and they had a ceremony and they gave me a beautiful cane and a plaque with my name and age engraved on it.”.” “Oh,” Aunt Cass, that’s wonderful!” “No it ain’t!” she replied. “Why not?” I asked. “Well,” she said. “Tha damn fools gave me a beautiful cane and then the sons-ah-whores took it back!” “En if that wasn’t bad enough,” she went on, “They gave me a plaque and then they asked me where I was goin to hang it in my apartment. I looked that old fool right in the eye and said, “I’m not goin to hang it anywhere, I’m goin to put it under my bed!” She wasn’t at all impressed with the plaque but she sure did want that cane! She went on to say that her family had “surprised” her and hadn’t told her about the ceremony in her honor and when they’d come to pick her up, they hadn’t even allowed her to change her clothes. Then they’d taken her uptown and put her in a buggy that was hooked to a horse and had pulled her all over to hell and gone. She wasn’t happy or impressed with that ceremony either. She said that a newspaper reporter had come up to her and had taken her picture for the Presque Isle Star Herald and he’d asked her how she’d liked the buggy ride. She said that she had told him that at age fourteen, her father, Old Ock Bragdon, had told her that she was grown now and that she’d best be lookin for a husband to support her. So, he’d put her in his horse cart and they’d driven the long ride from Buffalo into Ashland. She said that she hadn’t liked the buggy ride with her father eighty-three years ago and she didn’t like this one either! Aunt Cassie went on to tell me that she sure hoped that they’d gotten this “honorin” thing out of their systems and that she sure to God hoped that she didn’t make it to one hundred because she dreaded to think what them friggin fools might do to her then! But I sure hope you do make it to your hundredth birthday Aunt Cass.

Note: February 18, 2008

Aunt Cass began losing ground right after Christmas and is now in a nursing home in Caribou. Today is her 97th birthday and she is going softly into her good night. I’m sorry to lose you, Aunt Cass but I certainly don’t want you to suffer. May God bless and keep you till we meet again.

Note: March 13, 2008

Great Aunt Cass left this earthly realm last night at 6:15. She’s not suffering anymore and I’m certain Heaven is a much brighter place now. I wrote the following poem just for her:

For Aunt Cass

I haven’t come to say goodbye
Because you didn’t really die…

You’re in the sky and in the trees
And all my lifelong memories…

You’re in all the things that grow
And in the very winds that blow…

So, I’m not sad now that you’ve gone
My memories of you go on and on…

So wait for me now that you sleep
For I have promises to keep…

“Life’s journey is not to arrive at our funeral all sweet and pretty, ours it to slide in sideways all used up and wrinkled, screaming Holy Hell what ah ride!”

“Rest in Peace, Aunt Cass.”

©Martha Stevens-David 0318008
An original poem by M. Stevens-David 031508

Aroostook County Memories

The sky, in Aroostook County, is a sharp, clear blue with large fluffy white clouds floating lazily across it and the slight breeze is so fresh and clean that the first thing one notices is that it doesn’t have any smell at all. The air sweeps across the close-cropped pastures and down through the acres upon acres of potato fields with barely a ruffling of the leaves. With the advent of autumn, the wild grasses have turned a deep gold and their stocks contrast deeply with the lush greenness of the potato plants.

The soft droning of bees is all that one can hear as they gather nectar from the multitude of flowers, which grow in wild profusion in the over-grown pastures as far as the eye can see. The patches of bright orange, red and gold Indian paintbrushes sway to and fro in the gentle breeze like the heads of sleepy children.

Down below what we Stevens’ kids called “Sutherland’s Hill” there is the shimmer of silver as the late afternoon sun is reflected off the slowly moving Aroostook River as it winds its way past Masardis, Garfield, Ashland and Sheridan on its lazy way through the county. If one ventures closer to the river, you can clearly see the ripple of the water, as the numerous fish rise to the surface to feed off the hoards of insects that are floating on it. The slap of a beaver’s tail on the water sounds like a cannon’s boom in the silent, fall air.

Across the river on the Garfield side, the stands of Pine, Spruce, Hemlock, Beech and Maple stand straight and tall like sentries in the army of the forest. In the lush coolness, there is ample evidence of the abundance of wild animals and one can readily see that rabbits, bear, moose, deer, raccoons, muskrats, mink and otter still occupy this vast area. The intermingling calls of bluejays, crows, ravens and woodpeckers echo in the quiet stillness of the fall day.

Off in the distance, you can also hear another sound, the sound of man and his chainsaw as its steel teeth rip through the white meat of the virgin timber. The snarl and smoke of the monster skidder permeates the air as the huge machine struggles to pull the slaughtered logs up out of a deep ravine and load them onto the steel bodies of the waiting logging trucks.

If you raise your head a bit and look off in the distance, your eyes will naturally be drawn to the southern horizon. There is an oft-repeated expression “On a clear day, you can see forever,” and from where our house stood on a high knoll on the Goding Road, we couldn’t exactly see forever but on a clear day we could see the majesty of Mt. Katahdin about seventy-five miles to the south.

When winter comes once again to Aroostook County the harsh realities of living confined, for the most part, in doors for the next six or seven months, is almost too much to bare. Another winter of bone-chilling cold, wet socks and mittens and long, woolen underwear are the realities of living in the county. Wet wool, Kerosene and the crackle of the wood burning stove are all too familiar smells and sounds to a true Mainer. This time of year is always a season of hardship, suffering and most of all great patience for those who live in the county.

Even with all this hardship, living in the two million five hundred thousand plus acres, Aroostook County is a place of great beauty too. On nights when the temperature hovers around zero, the Aurora Borealis, with its shimmering bands of rainbow colors, dances its way across the Northern sky as continued proof that it has been choreographed by the master choreographer himself. The Indians, who are older than time, called this magical event “The Dance of the Heavenly Spirits,” and this so aptly describes this atmospheric phenomenon.

At times, the cold is so intense that it completely freezes the sap in the trees and even the slightest wind will cause the swaying branches to break, with a sharp sound like gun shots in the frigid air. Cold sears the tissues of the nose and lungs and compels one to move about quickly on their appointed rounds.

Man is completely at the mercy of Mother Nature in this unrelenting season. The morning may dawn bright and clear but within the hour, the sky has turned a dull gray and the wind shifts out of the North with a vengeance. The wind-driven snow comes skittering across the desolate potato fields to pile-up in huge drifts across the roads. The only contrast to the barren whiteness is the leafless trees and fence posts as they stand like sentinels in the swirling snow.

In Aroostook County, in the dead of winter, the roads remain in alternating conditions of either deep-piled snowdrifts or frozen ribbons of steel blue ice and one ventures out of doors only under extreme cases of necessity. To live and survive in Northern Maine, year after year, requires not only extreme patience but also an indefatigable spirit or a combination of both are required in order to live in this, as our mother used to call it, “God-forsaken” place.

Visitors, who live in warmer climes, which to us Stevens’ kids, meant any place south of Bangor, often voiced the opinion that “The County” must be a wonderful place to live when there is so much snow. Upon hearing this, Mother would roll her eyes and mutter a few choice words under her breath and say, “Surely God protects dreamers, fools and children.”

By Martha Stevens-David @ lmdmsd@megalink.net

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