NORTH WATERBORO — When Andrew Woodsome Jr. was a boy in the 1940s, he’d tag along with his father to the annual Town Meeting. His dad, Andrew Sr., was a selectman in the town, involved in the political life of what was then largely a farming  community.

“It gets in your blood,” the younger Woodsome said.

Like his father, Andrew Woodsome Jr. was a selectman, for about 18 years altogether, he said, and  over the years, has served on the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals — and was even deputized as a Town Clerk for one night — the reason why is lost to time.

He was selectmen, assessor and overseer of the poor, as the office was called, in the days when assessing was done by board members, and so, he recalled from a chair at his kitchen table on Tuesday, he and the other board members visited every property in town.

The boards of the time made advances — working on everything from smaller issues like changing the assessing system from a book to property cards, to bigger ones, like closing a landfill and opening a transfer station and dealing with various difficult pollution issues. There were some pleasurable tasks, like creating Friendship Park. And there were the fun times, during the town’s bicentennial, when he and the other selectmen donned powdered wigs and knickers and marched in the parade.

“If something had to be done, we were not bashful about rolling up our sleeves and doing the job,” he said.

That philosophy came early on. He was a kid when he went with his father to help the community build the North Waterboro Fire Station. 

There were disagreements on the selectman’s board, some more fiery than others. Dennis Abbott, chairman of the five-member selectman’s board now, was the junior selectman on the three-person board with Woodsome and the late Bob Fay.

Fay and Woodsome would “be at each other’s throats,” arguing about this or that issue, during a meeting, recalled Abbott. 

Woodsome recalled that Abbott’s role during the disagreements was to calm the storm.

Abbott said the two would argue vehemently, but after the meeting was over, they’d smile and laugh together.

Woodsome, the longtime owner of Woodsome’s Feeds and Needs, will be recognized for his contributions to the community on Saturday, at the “Friends of Andy ‘Bimi’ Woodsome 1st Annual Horseshoe Tournament.”

It is, appropriately enough, being held at Friendship Park, starting at 10 a.m., rain or shine.

“I’ve known Andy and his wife Gail forever,” said Bo Cobb, one of the organizers. He pointed out that Woodsome is the sponsor of the annual horseshoe tournament at the Ossipee Valley Fair in Hiram, near Cornish.

“He’s been doing it for 10 years, and puts up a $500 prize on it,” said Cobb. “It helps out the fair, a lot of people come to the fair for the tournament.”

The tourney at the fair is in memory of  Gordon “Doc” Carpenter, who was named 2002 World Class Champion in the sport and whose friendship with Woodsome goes back to their childhood.

“We pitched horseshoes together for years,” said Woodsome. “We were a tough team to beat.”

As boys, Woodsome and Carpenter played horseshoes at the back of an old blacksmith shop on the Carpenter property. A couple of years after his friend died, Carpenter’s widow was preparing to sell the property. When Woodsome dropped by one day, he saw the doors of the shop open and looked inside to find an old, old forge. 

He asked the price, but Mrs. Carpenter said she had a tentative offer on an online auction site. Woodsome told her he wanted it for the grounds of the Taylor Leavitt Frey House Museum, pulled out some cash and said “here’s your down payment” and the deal was sealed. Woodsome contacted James Carll of the Waterboro Historical Society, donations of time and cash were made by many, and the shop was moved to the museum grounds. The forge was restored, and work on the building continues. 

As a boy in Waterboro, Woodsome remembers the farms, and the saw mills. His parents, Andrew Sr. and Ellen Woodsome, raised broiler chickens in the 1950s. One of his jobs, he said, was to tend the chickens, for which he earned $10 a week — a good salary for a high school youth.

His father was also a logger. An early sign of the younger Woodsome’s drive to earn came when at age 12,  he took a pulp saw into the woods with his father and cut pine fence posts. which he later traded for three goats, though he doesn’t  remember why he wanted them. He bought a pair of calves and then traded them for a milk cow and his knack for “wheeling and dealing,” as he called it, continued. Later, he went to night school and learned to weld, earning certificates that enabled him to perform intricate aircraft welding.

He remembers the town buying the land for Friendship Park on Old Alfred Road, the work it took to build the ball fields there, and the call he made to the manager at Fenway Park to ascertain the right mix of grass seed required. 

These days, though he is coping with a serious illness, Woodsome continues his work at the feed store and around his property.

He and his wife Gail will mark their 59th anniversary later this year. The couple has three adult children, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Woodsome has two brothers, Alton and David.

His philosophy?

“Without good friends and good people, you’re nothing,” said Woodsome. “And family is number one. All the money in the world can’t buy any of it.”

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 (local call in Sanford) or 282-1535, ext. 327 or twells@journaltribune.com.