There was a movie years ago about a small town in Indiana, and the tension there between college students and townies. Resentments, insecurities, yearnings to bond, feelings of inadequacy, mutual quest for respect and love. Great stuff.

That is Scarborough today.

We’ve gone from 6,500 people the past few decades to 22,000. We used to be fishermen, dairy farmers, carpenters, shoe workers and lobstermen. Now, we drink cappuccino, eat Brix, drink white wine (slightly chilled), and don’t worry about arriving tardy for work because UNUM is on “flex time.” Tra la tra la.

Bob Philbrick helped forge a peace between the old and new the past 25 years. He is dead now, though. Yuppies have lost an ally among the crusty dinosaurs that still roam the earth in the Land of 04074.

Bob was involved in American Legion baseball in Scarborough, and his home town of Gorham but in oh, so much more in the community.

He ended up being the Henry Kissinger of “town vs. gown” and other bubbling-over kettles in 04074, and nearby.

Darwinism is a great concept. It has manifested itself in Scarborough the past 20 years most vibrantly in youth sports. Meetings to decide who will manage Little League All Star teams can be rugby-scrum-like affairs.

It is easy for polite, genteel locals to resent the changes (which are not always successful, nor community-minded BTW. Remind me to tell you the one about the February clinic featuring Major Leaguer Ryan Flaherty that was boycotted by Hartford and Harvard transplant dads because they would not be “helping…”).

Bob Philbrick was like Joshua Chamberlain at Appomattox Courthouse to end the Civil War: “Chill, boys…I’ve got this.”

How? Here’s my favorite Bob Philbrick story:

A trend emerged in the late 1990s. New coaches would find, e.g., that Johnny Smith was not available to play Wednesday night if a rained-out game was rescheduled for then. Their “creative” solution? Tell Zone Commissioner Philbrick: “Bob, there is no field available.” Bob’s response? Tell them he knew what they were doing, lecture them that they are turning kids into their pawns in an ego-driven coaching mania? Nope.

“Not to worry,” he would say.”I just lined up the Morse High School field in Bath (his alma mater) for you.”

The yuppie coaches would be apoplectic. “Drive to Bath?! No way!!” They were Very Busy People. Could not be inconvenienced!

How would the Mexican Standoff be resolved?

The coaches would suddenly “discover” that, yes, there was a field available locally, after all…

I finally asked Bob: “Do you really get fields in Bath all the time?”

“Of course not,” he said, with that Jackie Gleason “Honeymooners” smirk. “I just tell them that.”

Can you do that? I asked (naively).

“Well, keep in mind, they are all lying to me. I respond by lying to them. They cook up stories about no fields available because they have certain players out of town.”

What is the moral of the story? “It all works out,” he said. “The kids get to play a baseball game.”

That will be on Bob’s tombstone, or should be.

“Here lies Bob Philbrick. He welcomed a new generation of families to Maine, saying, “If you understand the kids rule, the adults sit down, and we all sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” in the 7th inning, you and me are going to get along fine.”

R.I.P., Bob.

Dan Warren is a trial lawyer in Scarborough, and Libby-Mitchell Legion baseball GM. He can be reached either by Facebook private message to the Jones & Warren Attorneys at Law page, or by email at jonesandwarren@gmail.com.