Missing Woman Was Visibly Intoxicated In Portland’s Old Port?
There have been numerous newspaper articles and TV reports about the 24-year-old woman from Massachusetts who was visiting her parents in Windham. She spent several hours in Portland’s Old Port area on Monday, Oct. 10, and has not appeared since then.
I am very upset in reading reports about her evening in Portland, and later in South Portland. The article with the headline that police were seeking tips, reported that she was seen walking on Market Street, and was in a store in the Old Port between 10 and 10:30 p.m., “visibly intoxicated and at times belligerent,” but the clerk didn’t think anything of it, although the woman was barefoot and “looked unkempt.”
Wasn’t that reason enough to call the police, or 9-1-1?
Such a call might have saved her life, for the worry now is that serious trouble must have befallen her.
She had left her mother’s car on High Street near Congress Street, and also she left her pocketbook and cell phone at a friend’s place on Market Street.
Woman’s Literary Union Oct. 21 Meeting
After the 10 a.m. meeting of the WLU’s Executive Committee and the 10:45 Board of Directors meeting at the Woodfords Congregational Church, a membership luncheon was held with a large attendance.
The excellent luncheon catered by the Daily Thymes, included pot roast, potatoes and carrots, a salad of lettuce, green pepper slices, red onions, and cherry tomatoes, and home-baked cookies for dessert. It was served buffet style. This store, on Woodford Street, has an inviting array of foods, for take-out, including soups, casseroles, and my favorite curried chicken, which I buy there frequently.
At our end of the table were Cay O’Brien, Doris Mallar, and Vera Carlson. I was pleased to see Marny Timberlake, my friend from Camp Kuhnawaumbek days, Margaret Robie of Westbrook and Gertrude Parker, who was at the reception desk, taking our reservations.
Cay and I had admired a pretty blue velvet jacket a lady was wearing at the next table to us. I spoke with her, Charlotte Cushman, who told me that she had bought that jacket years ago in Hong Kong, when she and her husband were on their honeymoon. She remembered me, also from many years ago, when she came into the Burbank Branch Library on Pleasant Avenue to borrow books; I was working there at that time.
The entertainment which followed the dinner was another treat – eight young girls in beautiful costumes, doing Irish step dancing.
Their costumes were stunning, in various bright and pastel colors, with short skirts and long sleeves. They wore white socks, above their ankles, and ballet slippers, laced from toe to ankle. They also wore little headbands, and their hair was in long curls, down to their shoulders in the back.
The whole group first danced together, always in unison, as they performed step dancing. Next two of the younger girls danced a jig. In later numbers, the girls were all wearing heavy black shoes, which their director, Carlene Stillson, explained to us, were like Scottish shoes. They then performed tap dancing, all eight girls taking part.
After the final number, club members gave the girls a stand ovation.
Carlene, whose grandfather was born in Ireland, gave us a detailed description of each dance the girls performed. The girls practice twice a week. They performed without a flaw.
We have all been upset with the recent October days, rainy and windy, and wonder if it will last much longer. That remarkable entertainment took our minds off the weather and cheered us all up, too.
Three Interesting Magazine Articles
I spent a happy hour last week reading articles in the June 2004 Opera News, the November 2005 National Geographic, and the Summer and Fall 2005 Appalachia.
The opera article was titled, “Northern Lily,” the story of opera star Lillian Nordica, from Farmington, Maine.
The article said that Lillian Norton, born in 1857 in Farmington, was not supposed to be the singer in the family. Her sister Wilhelmina, or Willie, attended the New England Conservatory, studying voice, but she unfortunately died in 1869 of typhoid fever. Her family realized that the younger sister, Lillian, had an excellent voice too, and she went to the conservatory in Boston to study. Next she studied in Europe. In Italy they had trouble with the name “Lillian Norton,” and rechristened her for the stage as “Giglio Nordica” for “Northern Lily.”
She became a noted soprano, singing in Covent Garden, the Paris opera, and in 1883, at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.
She died in 1914. Her farmhouse in Farmington is now the Nordica Memorial Homestead Museum and is open from June 1 through October 15. It contains her costumes, pictures, jewelry, souvenirs, and gifts given her by admirers.
The National Geographic article, “The Secrets of Living Longer,” tells us more details of the Okinawans and their longevity. With an average life expectancy of 78 years for men and 87 years for women, they are among the world’s longest living people. They have a fifth of the heart diseases, a fourth in breast and colon cancer, and a third less dementia than Americans.
Seniors who stay social are less prone to heart disease and depression. A group of Okinawan friends and neighbors get together regularly to provide reciprocal support – social, emotional, and financial.
When she’s not watching sumo wrestling on TV, a 100-year-old Okinawan gets her own exercise by growing onions, tomatoes, carrots and herbs in her garden.
A lean diet is also a factor. “A heaping plate of Okinawan vegetables, tofu, also soup, and a little fish or meat will have fewer calories than a small hamburger.” Okinawans who grew up before World War II never developed the tendency to over indulge. They still live by the Confucian-inspired adage, “hara hachi bu – eat until your stomach is 80 percent full.”
In the Appalachia article, “The Best Job in State Government,” Buzz Caverly reflects on his career as director of Maine’s Baxter State Park.
He was a young supervisor in the park in 1968, and was acting director of the park in 1981, but he was turned down repeatedly for the director’s position before he finally got the job 24 years ago. The reason for the delay? His highest academic degree was a high school diploma. The job posting specified that this director must have a master’s degree. The Augusta personnel office had refused even to file his application. He saw a report on TV that the U.S. Supreme Court had made it illegal to turn away an application based on the applicant’s education.
He took paperwork to Augusta, and heard again, “We told you, we can’t take this.” He went out and got a supervisor. Then they accepted his application.
Today he presides over the fourth-largest state park in the United States, Katahdin Mountain, and north and south of that imposing mountain, the rest of the park’s 204,733 acres.
The first time he led the operations at Baxter State Park, as a young supervisor in 1968, Caverly sent Percival Baxter, then 92, a birthday card. The reply, which hangs framed on Caverly’s office wall in downtown Millinocket, says, “In your position in the park you’re making good progress and I hear good things about you. I expect to be home all winter, and I shall keep in touch with you, for you have a most important position. I shall write you, and I want you to write to me. We are partners in this project. Please tell your associates that I depend on you and them to make the park successful.”
Caverly said, “You can imagine being in your twenties and getting a letter from the most important person in Maine!”
Baxter died a year after writing his letter to Caverly.
This final paragraph in the article, and a nice one, is Caverly’s statement about his position. Believing that he has “the best job in state government” – “I’ve never had a day I dreaded going to work. Even in the office here I feel a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for what I do. I tell people I’m halfway through my career. I really believe in what I represent here.”
RECIPE
Here is another recipe from the Nova Scotia cookbook, “From the Highlands and The Sea.”
DATE LOAF
1 cup dates, chopped
3/4 cup hot water
2 Tbls. butter
2/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
Combine and mix these ingredients well, then add:
1-1/2 cups white flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1.2 tsp. salt
Mix these well and pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.
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