Starting over
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PublishedJanuary 10, 2019
George Smith, Winthrop: Fired at just the right moment
I was on a straight line toward working as an adult at Wilson’s Dollar Stores in Winthrop, where my dad was a part owner, and I’d started working when I was 12 years old. I enrolled in the business school at the University of Maine in Orono in order to prepare for working at the […]
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PublishedJanuary 10, 2019
Linda S. Lucas, Kennebunk: Honeymoon on the high seas
As a native Mainer, I’m descended from a long line of sea captains, mariners and ship carpenters who sailed from Searsport and Stockton Springs. According to the Penobscot Marine Museum archives, Searsport sea captains made up 10 percent of the merchant vessel masters in the United States in 1880. Seafaring careers were a family tradition […]
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PublishedJanuary 6, 2019
Elizabeth Dostie, Fairfield: Dancing into the future
‘What year did you graduate?” I asked him. “1964,” he lied. We were dancing the circle dance during which the music stops and you switch partners. We were at a dance hall in Fairfield. I lived in Camden. I was working on my conversation opener and the crowd did not appear to be college graduates. […]
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PublishedJanuary 6, 2019
Elizabeth Byrd Wood, Cape Elizabeth: Learning about Maine, hat hair and orange vests
‘What’s with all the orange posts lining the neighbors’ driveways?” I asked my husband a year ago last November, not long after we moved to Cape Elizabeth from Baltimore. “Um…maybe to guide the snowplows?” he guessed. So off we went to the hardware store to buy our own orange markers. We soon renamed them “plow […]
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PublishedJanuary 6, 2019
J. Lauren Sangster, Portland: Making our way through loss
I enjoy art exhibits, especially ones that document life stories. I recently visited Maine College of Art to see the exhibit “Making Migration Visible: Traces, Tracks and Pathways.” As I walked through the exhibit, I tried to imagine what it must feel like to start over in another country where the language, customs, beliefs, and […]
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PublishedJanuary 6, 2019
Petros Panagakos, Portland: All it took was a discouraging word
My choice of what I was to become in life came at an early age. One of seven children of immigrant parents, my family was very close and had strong religious and family values. The Greek community of Portland had its own Greek Orthodox church and supported a Greek language school that my brothers and […]