A Westbrook Junior College, 1938 Gathering
A group of Portland-area friends who graduated from Westbrook Junior College in 1938 have been meeting informally together for several years. On Monday, Aug. 28, having lunch at the Norway Country Club were Alice Gamage Allen, Celia Galli Mooney, Kay Sullivan, Anne Blanchard Foote, Madge Rhodes Frost, of the ’38 class, and Florence Stinchfield Day, class of ’40.
Kay, well-known in Westbrook, where she grew up and was a very active member of the community, now lives in Chadds Ford, Pa., to be near her sister. Kay was in Westbrook on the weekend, visiting her friend Virginia Wintle, a neighbor of Kay’s when she lived on Larrabee Heights. Kay joined us all in Norway, and at Madge’s home in South Paris, and then Alice Allen drove her to her brother’s cottage on McWain Pond, East Waterford, where Kay was to visit for a week.
The Norway Country Club is high on a hill, overlooking the Oxford Hills. It is a beautiful location. The golf course is a popular one, I’m sure. I also admired the rocks in front of the parking lot. They were covered with green moss.
Specials on the menu included broccoli soup, ministrone soup, chicken a la king sandwiches, tuna melts and quite a variety of other sandwiches, each served in a large bowl, with a sauce and pieces of toasted bread. We were all surprised when the pleasant waitress asked our first names as we ordered, writing our names down to keep track of who ordered what. I don’t believe she could do that for a group from a men’s club, but it seemed clever to us.
I hope we can meet there again, even if it is a good hour’s drive from Portland.
Madge invited us to her home there for dessert and tea. Her zucchini cake was a treat. Also, we enjoyed seeing her home, which is surrounded by flowers. Above the driveway, as we entered, were many black-eyes Susans in bloom. Her husband, Stanley, cares for the spacious backyard, with a vegetable garden, a bird bath surrounded with a circle of flowers and a large expanse of law.
We are now all quite familiar with Route 26, from Gray to Norway Lake. Oxford County is attractive, with many open spaces, still. We also enjoyed our chance to get together and reminisce. Our college days are pleasant memories.
I’ve Enjoyed The May-June Guillemot Newsletter
Joan Ashley, a hiking friend from the days when Joe Kocknavate took us on those nice trips, has sent me another issue of the Guillemot, the interesting newsletter of the Sorrento Scientific Society of Bar Harbor. It is full of news of the latest sightings, with place and date, of mammals, invertebrates, fish, amphibians and birds, and also weather and astronomy notes. It is fascinating reading.
I was especially interested in the hummingbird notes: The Ruby-throats arrived on 5/5 with first sightings on that day from Bethel, Porter, Veazie, Hulls Cove and Falmouth. One in Winter Harbor was chasing a Blue Jay on 6/18″
The Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds says the ruby-throated hummingbird is “The only hummingbird breeding east of the Mississippi River, Habitat – Suburban gardens, parks, and woodlands. These smallest of all birds are particularly attracted to tubular red flowers such as salvia and trumpet creeper, as well as bee balm, petunia, jewelweed, and thistle. With their remarkable powers of flight they are the only birds that can fly backwards as well as hover in one spot like an insect. They are constantly in motion. They are tiny, metallic green above, white below; male has a brilliant red throat, needle-like bill.”
When our son Dan and his wife were here in August, they visited Pete and Jan Morelli in their Mabel Street home in Portland’s Deering Center section. They were excited to see hummingbirds, goldfinches and cardinals in their yard. Pete and Dan were classmates in Deering High School. After college Pete worked for us at the American Journal for a while, and Jan was our office manager. That’s where they met. Now Pete is director of planning for the city of Saco, and Jan is librarian at South Portland High School. And they still have time for a garden that attracts many birds!
RECIPE
We don’t have the recipe Madge Frost used when she served our Westbrook College group a delicious zucchini cake last week. But we have another recipe that we made a few years ago, and it was delicious, too.
MIMI’S ZUCCHINI CHOCOLATE CAKE
3 cups grated zucchini
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup margarine
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup sour cream or buttermilk
Melt chocolate and oil over heat. Cream margarine. Add sugar, eggs, vanilla. Add melted oleo and oil and then the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk, zucchini and 1/2 cup nuts.
Bake 40 minutes at 350 degrees in two greased layer cake pans or in an angel cake pan (Bundt pan).
There’s no need to frost this one – it is very rich.
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