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News for May 15, 2008 Snow never melts in skiing history
Roger Adams who is a Bethel and Gould classmate of mine emailed me that he would like to work on a history of the Vernon Street Ski Tow which has passed its 60th anniversary. Norm Ferguson, a member of the same class, is also interested in getting names and details together. Others, who are interested, please join in. Email me and as the information is compiled it can be emailed for all to read and add to this part of Bethel's skiing history.
Affluent drivers drive to Telstar daily.
A reader has pointed out how very high gas prices have not cut into the number of Telstar students driving to school every day instead of taking the school bus. It was noticed that the parking lot is as full as ever. Also SAD #17’s high school drivers have not noticeably cut back based on the way Route 26 is jammed with cars every afternoon when classes are over. The same reader has wondered if budget pinches will show up as any reduction in school bus trip planning and the curtailment of long distance sports travel for games far from Bethel. Is there a priority system applied to town budget preparation?
At last week’s board of selectmen meeting the question came up as – do town appropriation accounts have a priority value given to them when allocating budget dollars? Don’t laugh; but the federal government has used a zero based budget process for some agencies and departments. I think the questioner last week, was asking the same type of question - does the town budget process start from scratch each year? If so, what town responsibilities come first?
Many, many years ago the top five appropriations that had to be met from real estate taxpayers were: State tax, county tax, schools, support of the poor and roads and bridges. Then added to this list was money to pay town indebtedness, money for town officer expenses, repairs for school houses, miscellaneous expenses, $50 for the Bethel Library and $50 for the Brown Post (now American Legion) for Memorial Day flags.
When Bethel was incorporated as a town in Massachusetts in 1796, it was immediately liable for running a public school system. Very early in Massachusetts history, towns were required to have public schools in order that the population could read – so they could read laws and obey them. Later on Maine added the provision that town’s could sell bonds to raise money for their economic improvement. Rules of the game were, “If you want it, pay for it!” Now-a-days, the first thought seems to be if we want something, write a grant application for the money – it is not coming out of my pocket. So the priority question on our budget is a two edged sword: The top priorities mean we have committed ourselves to reach into our own pockets and pay for our necessary expenses. When the budget includes nice-to- have items (like paved walking paths and skateboard parks), it means we have to dig more deeply into our pockets or find some other way to accomplish our personal preferences. News for and about Oxford County Democrats
Meeting at Telstar: The Obama for President Campaign will hold a special meeting for Oxford County delegates, alternates, and volunteers planning to attend the Maine Democratic Convention on May 30, 31 and June 1 at the Augusta Civic Center. The meeting will be held at the Telstar Regional High School Library on Route 26 in Bethel on Thursday, May 15 at 6:30 PM. The agenda will include responsibilities of delegates and alternates, the voting process, floor demonstrations, and the tasks for which volunteer help is needed. Obama coordinators will be leading the meeting. For further information call 207-650-8486 or email Maine@barackobama.com
At the Chamber awards banquet: The Oxford County Democrats were among the organizations and businesses sponsoring a table at the Bethel Area Chamber of Commerce Awards Dinner held
Attending were County Democratic Chair Cathy Newell of Greenwood, Sheriff Wayne Gallant of Rumford, Rep. Timothy and Jodi Carter of Bethel, Senator Bruce Bryant of Dixfield, Charleen Chase of Bethel, County Commissioner Candidate in District 1, Paul Dumas of Mexico, Candidate for Judge of Probate, Bruce Rood of Norway, Candidate for Register of Probate, Ginger Kelly of Bethel representing the Bethel Democrats. Rep. Carter participated in the program by presenting a Legislative Sentiment to Rocky and Lisa Freda of Sun Valley Sports congratulating them on their State Tourism Award. Are you into wood pellet boilers, yet?
Last week the Portland Press Herald and the Boston Globe ran articles about Les Otten’s startup company that will sell wood pellet boilers and supply wood pellets. I had already heard from one of my contacts, who is a huge heating oil user, that they had received a proposal from another company to install such a heating system.
The new company is named Maine Energy Systems. It has a comprehensive functional Website with excellent eye appeal that most importantly has a photograph of one of its wood pellet boilers. Find the site via Google – “Maine Energy Systems “or type the address yourself - http://www.maineenergysystems.com/. Harry “Dutch” Dresser is one of the partners in this company.
The Maine Energy pellet supply set up indicates that one of the company’s distribution areas will be the Rumford/Bethel/Paris area. There are a number of Websites that tell the story from a commercial point of view – that is they have boilers for sale. Also in looking through the list that covered more than three pages, I noticed that many were UK companies.
Some of the web articles point out that there are only three boiler manufacturers in the US and another factor in the wood pellet option is supply of pellets. Maine, according to this article, has only two pellet producing mills – Ashland and Corinth.
Another way to try out the use of wood pellets is by using a traditional wood stove that has been converted to wood pellets. There are a number of Websites that can help find these types of outlets. Probably the nearest one to Bethel is in Gorham, NH. The birds of Mayville
Bird watching reports in the Citizen prompted me to see how our flock of feathered visitors compares with others. Lately we have swarms of blue jays, juncos, chirping sparrows, song sparrows, purple finches, gold finches, doves, chickadees of course, nuthatches, an occasional woodpecker, and an occasional rose-breasted grosbeak. Two nights we had a bear ransack our bird feeding area and got into our can of sunflower seed. Our visiting brown lab, Freckles, did not like the bear smell on the morning after, she actually growled before barking. Also, this time of year, a hawk will usually be able to pick off one of the birds on the feeder by swooping through and grabbing an unlucky victim. We have moved the feeder so that the roof protects feeding birds from the hawk’s fly-by. Crows call in their minuteman police force to chase hawks away – free of charge. Who put the monkey in Monkey Brook Road?
Word got to me this week that there is a low-key search on for how Monkey Brook Road got its name. The brook is not named on a 1914 US Geological Survey map although Barker Brook is named. Over 100 years ago Augustus Littlehale who was postmaster of the Riley post office drew a map of the Sunday River settlement and named the brook that parallels the road, Monkey Brook. However, when Martha Fifield Wilkins compiled her notes of Sunday River Sketches, she refers to the road as “up the branch”. Randy Bennett speculated that the brook’s name might have been intended to be “Monday Brook” since it flowed into Sunday River. On Littlehale’s map, the Atherton home is labeled George Atherton; he died in 1889. So, Monkey Brook’s name may have come into use locally earlier than 1889. Finally, does anyone know another story about how the road was named? Mike Lynch did the Newry 911 road naming work in the 1995 period. He had to come up with names for un-named roads at that time.
Sunday River night skiing topic of public hearing
The Sun Journal ran an article last Friday about a public hearing held on Wednesday, May 7th, to float the details of a night skiing and lighting plan to the public for comment; it was scheduled by the town’s planning board. Apparently the reaction to this proposal is about the same as the Obama – Clinton race. Some of the comments, according to the article, fell into the category – there is a time to ski and there is a time to not ski. One sentence in the article suggests the lights and night skiing are expected to attract - meaning bring in more people at night (?)- 500 to 1,000 more skiers and riders. It is this part of the plan that apparently upset condo dwellers that were done for the day but likely to be hassled with more noise and lights.
Part Two of recording your family history
It is always nice to have a street address if you are looking for a house. We have a situation in Florida, where my Bennett grandparents had built a modest cottage in Orange City in the early 1950’s – and we have photographs of the cottage but no address. Meanwhile, Kathy’s Grandmother Katherine, for who she is named, retired with her husband to a home in Orange City at about the same time. But no one in her family ever kept a record of the actual address. So to show our scientific approach to finding at least one of the grandparent houses, we knew that the Bennetts played shuffleboard almost daily. We went to Orange City and found what looked like a possible old shuffle board park then walked around the neighborhood looking for houses that fit the photos. We found a couple of remodeled houses that could have been the ones but it would certainly have been more reliable exploring with known addresses.
If you have news for the Bethel column please email it to Donald@thebetheljournals.info or donaldbe@roadrunner.com or call 824-2094 or even mail it to PO Box 763 in Bethel.
The Bethel Journals PO Box 763 333 Mayville Road Bethel, Maine 04217 207-824-2094
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This week’s photos |
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Spring Photos from Our Backyard |
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Twitchell Brook meets the Androscoggin |