BIDDEFORD — For a group of friends that grew up together in the Old Pool Road area in Biddeford in the 1960s, nostalgia for their past has forged a special bond that extends to this very day.

Old Pool Road (now known as Meetinghouse Road) and the old Cote dairy farm property there served as the backdrop last year for a reunion of friends and families who became lifelong friends while living as neighbors on the street. That gathering was such a success, it will return again in September and may very well become an annual event, organizers say.

Dana Peck is the president of the Biddeford Historical Society and along with his brother David was raised on Old Pool Road. Over coffee last spring with his childhood friend Richard Cote, they thought it would be great to hold a reunion for their friends.

“We all said, wouldn’t it be nice to get together with the old gang again,” Dana Peck said.

A total of 34 former neighbors showed up at the reunion, which was held in June.

“One friend, Richard Cotsifus, drove 700 miles on a motorcycle to be here for that,” Cote said. “This was truly a special place to grow up. We would all pitch in back then to help our neighbors, no matter how young or old they were. There was no crime there because we all genuinely cared about each other and helped each other.”

Cote’s father purchased the farm when Richard was 6 and it became a focal point for many kids living nearby.

“When you’re growing up you need to be grounded and the farm kept us grounded,” David Peck said. “The camaraderie of the farm kept us together.”

Dana Peck said everyone’s parents were respected and kids could visit any of the homes on the street and receive great advice and perhaps a welcoming plate of chocolate chip cookies or whoopie pies after school.

“Delivering the newspaper and picking up bottles was a major source of income for us back then,” he said. “My favorite memory from back then is bailing the hay on the farm. Getting the hay in was great work and helped us all develop a great work ethic, along with things like learning to drive a truck and a tractor.”

It was back in that neighborhood that Dana Peck learned to weld, a skill that would come in handy later in life when he had his own iron works company.

“We were taught to think for ourselves,” Cote said. “And we learned the satisfaction of doing a good day’s work.”

David Peck went on to spend more than 40 years working overseas before returning to Biddeford last year.

“There was something about living by a farm,” he said. “You learn about life and it really set our work ethic for the future.”

Although many of the neighbors took different paths in life and took advantage of the opportunities they were given, former residents wondered what became of their old friends and how their lives had turned out.

So when the prospect of holding a reunion arose, word spread quickly and the event drew friends some hadn’t seen or heard from in ages.

“It brought us all back to when we were in the era, but we found that people haven’t changed,” Dana Peck said. “It truly is a brotherhood. You can be out somewhere like Home Depot, turn a corner and see someone from the old neighborhood and the whole world stops.”

Cote said the reunion made him realize that all of his friends were and continue to be important parts of his life.

According to David Peck, the passing of time couldn’t erase so many wonderful memories of growing up there.

“Even though there was a lot of white hair and no hair, it was good to see everyone again,” he said.

— Executive Editor Ed Pierce can be reached at 282-1535 or by email at editor@journaltribune.com

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