Growin' Up in Maine

Milk was delivered door to door in the 1950's Growin' Up in Maine, and a visit to a dairy farm allowed watching a John Deere at work. Horses pulled plows and hay wagons 100 years ago. I never witnessed that, yet the size, sound, and muscle of a tractor was certainly a thrill to watch as a small town youngster in Derby, Maine.

Rickers Dairy practically owned the market for fresh milk and cream around Derby and Milo, Maine. Imagine quart bottles of milk routinely delivered to your doorstep. Waxed cardboard containers with pictures of missing children had not been invented.

The driver of the milk truck was usually one of the Ricker brothers who owned, worked, and managed at least 3 dairy farms. Eddie and Carl Ricker lived in Derby. Eddie was around the corner on Church Street in the village near my home. Carl and his family lived on the first Ricker farm about a mile from town on River Road.

As far as delivery, empty glass milk bottles were left on the steps, and often with cash tucked inside as payment. You didn't have to worry about a thief swiping the money. Petty crime, disrespect, and greed were not commonplace because kids then were taught differently. We did not curse unless you classify "sons a buckwheat" or "baroid" as expletives.

Fresh milk in 1950 was not pasteurized or homogenized. Real cream floated and filled the top 4 inches or so of the bottle. The first glass of milk mixed with that cream was delightful. Another treat was milk and Ritz crackers served each morning at the Derby Grammar School. Those milk containers were half pint glass bottles without cream, and bring back fond memories of a simple yet tasty treat.

Years later as a teen, I enjoyed part time summer work for Rickers during haying season. Fresh cut hay was left to dry in various hayfields around the county until it was time to harvest the crop. The job involved a John Deere tractor pulling a hay baler that scooped up, baled, and tied heavy twine around each rectangular block of hay.

A flat hay trailer about 20 feet by 10 feet was attached behind the baler. The tractor, baler, and trailer was connected and pulled around the hay field like a mini railroad train.

The 75 lb. bales then fed off a conveyor while 1-2 other workers and I grabbed each one, and stacked them on the flat hay trailer. Imagine the hard work of keeping up while lifting hay bales over your head as the stack grew to 10 feet or more! It was a bumpy ride that required acrobatic skills including a sense of balance.

As each trailer load was done the next chore was a trip to the barn. A different and much larger conveyor belt carried bales to the top loft. One worker fed them onto the conveyor belt. Others in the loft stacked them again. We finally got a most welcomed lunch break. As a teen who loved milk, imagine "all you can drink" white and chocolate milk for free.

Watching a John Deere at work is one thing. Being part of the machinery doing the grunt work of haying season gives one a different level of respect for the hard work done by America's farmers.





TAGS: Maine stories tractor hay dairy

As a child in the 1950's and early 60's, our choices of Maine sports teams to support were limited to high school and college athletics. Imagine my Dad being born in Maine in 1920, and having lived 80 years without witnessing a pro sports championship while cheering for New England teams.

He did win at least one sports championship. The photo here shows Dad, Ted Degerstrom Sr. (top left at age 16), and other classmates on the 1936 Championship basketball team standing on the front steps of Derby Grammar School in Derby, Maine. No one would argue his love of sports.

The Boston Red Sox baseball team was the nearest pro sports franchise with favorite stars like triple crown winners Ted Williams who won in 1942 and 1947, and Carl Yastrzemski, winner 1967.

Williams was active before my time, and the last player to bat over .400 in a season. He had 20/10 vision, and once said he could see individual stitches on baseball seams spinning towards him, and then react to the type of pitch. Later in life he admitted that despite his remarkable eyesight, the earlier statement was exaggerated to intimidate pitchers.

The Red Sox won the 1918 World Series. They had won previously in 1903, 1912, 1915, and 1916 and never won again for over 80 years. The only World Series wins to date after 1918 were in 2004 and 2007. Again, my Dad was born in 1920 and passed away in 2000. He was a lifelong diehard Sox fan yet never saw them capture a World Series crown.

As far as NFL football teams near Maine in the 1950's and 60's, the NE Patriots did not exist. We cheered for the NY Giants and remember the glory days of Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle. I still favor the Giants in the NFC and Patriots in the AFC, and look forward to the rematch next month in Super Bowl XLVI, especially after the Patriots 3 point loss to the Giants in 2007.

Dad liked the Giants in the early years, yet favored the New England Patriots since they began in 1970. Again, he passed away before the Patriots Super Bowl wins of 2002, 2004, and 2005. However, he never lost his passion for sports despite that 80 year dry spell without a Red Sox championship, and the 30 years cheering for New England without a crown.

If fanatical is the definition of fan, Dad was a real fan of New England sports teams. I share the sentiment. Go Sox. Go Pats! The Celtics and Bruins are tops, too.





TAGS: Maine stories basketball sports

Christmas is a time of tradition, and throughout my early childhood I recall a certain Christmas gift that kept on giving. A fruitcake similar to the one shown here survived being passed around to close family members for decades.

This was a running family joke centered around one fruitcake that was giftwrapped and mailed just before Christmas to an unsuspecting family member on the Parkman side of Mom's family. The rules were you did not eat the fruitcake, but were instead the guardian of the wrapped gift for a full year until time to forward it to another close family member.

The Christmas gift that kept on giving arrived at our home one year sometime between 1955 and 1959 because I was probably at least 6 but not older than 10. It had already made the rounds for a decade or more, and certainly provided a lot of smiles as we learned the family tradition and why it was not for eating.

Mom fulfilled her obligation and shipped it out to another relative a year later.

From that time, the tradition may have continued for another decade though I believe it since stopped. I happen to like fruitcake. The recipe probably goes back at least several hundred years, and I believe a freshly made fruitcake is supposed to taste that old, too. Sorta like fine wine. Or not.





TAGS: Maine stories Christmas tradition fruitcake

For several days leading up to Halloween in the early 1960's in my hometown or Derby, Maine, several friends and I worked diligently to convert an upstairs barn loft into a Halloween Haunted House.

The Kinney home was the first house going up Derby Hill towards Milo, and their attached barn was more like a 4 car garage with a stairway to the upper level with empty storage rather than the layout of a traditional dairy barn.

Was our Halloween project hokey or any less sophisticated than a commercial haunted house? Nope.

We began with a layout of aisles by hanging blankets that provided a pathway for a guided tour with some very imaginative spooky experiences. The guide held a small flashlight, and would take local kiddies through the darkened barn for encounters with a variety of sights and sounds intended to give them goosebumps. It worked.

A couple friends remained out of sight in the dark and provided well timed Halloween noises including groans, howls, and clanking chains. In more than one place we strung a dozen or more vertical lines of thread across the path which brushed the youngster's face simulating spider webs.

In another spot we had an inflatable raft on the floor. Once the guest took a step or two and reacted to the squishy sensation, the guide would caution them to avoid stepping on any dead bodies. The howls and shrieks were priceless even though the best was yet to come.

The barn loft had no ceiling. The walls went perhaps 20 feet to the peak of the roof. The space between the inner and outer board walls was less than a foot, and some boards were missing near the very top. There were a few broken boards about chest high near the floor level, and the empty space between vertical studs of the inner and outer wall provided a rare opportunity for a grand finale.

The youngest member of the haunted house team was skinny and agile enough to enter the wall spacing at the very top and crawl down inside between the studs to the floor level. As the dimly lit exit of the haunted house tour appeared in sight on the last aisle, the guest continued to walk slowly just ahead of the guide while thinking the show was over.

With perfect timing the guide shined his flashlight on one of the chest high holes in the wall. Immediately a live arm shot out of the wall clawing at the air as our skinny pal let out a blood curdling scream. The startled guest screamed even louder.

In later years we never recreated the Derby Hill Halloween Haunted House. The memories, however, will last a lifetime.




TAGS: Maine stories Halloween

Memories of Growin' Up in Maine reveal flirting with death foolishly more than once. Readers may recall a previous close call while running spring river rapids on a log raft with 1 of my 4 brothers. He was also involved in the story about ice skating on thin ice to see who could make a skate mark closest to open water near the middle of the river.

After first reading about our idea of fun for the first time here, Mom was thankful our death defying childhood tales were kept secret for nearly 50 years. She did, however, ask "Which brother?" though I still refused to name names. I'd guess by now she figured it out or extracted a confession from my fellow conspirator.

Besides danger, those examples and this story of the torpedo incident of 1959 took place near the iron bridge over the Piscataquis River which forms the southern border of Derby, Maine. "Torpedo" you ask? Yes. Some friends and I found one and detonated it.

To better understand, the railroad used a warning device they called a torpedo which was an explosive device 3 inches wide and strapped to the rail by a flagman. The photo inset above shows a train torpedo with 2 lead straps attached to a rail. When run over by a train the explosion was a warning for the train engineer to slow down or stop.

The large granite block shown in the photo was one of several leftovers scattered near the railroad track embankment after construction of the iron bridge in 1927. After finding the torpedo, and considering fireworks were illegal in Maine, trying to set it off on the granite block seemed like a good idea.

One friend, a newspaper boy with experience tossing stuff, placed the torpedo on the granite and began throwing large rocks at it from 10 feet away. The other friend and I stood to the side and behind the pitcher. On about the 4th or 5th try it went off. The explosion was deafening. Literally. All 3 of us lost hearing temporarily, and spoken words sounded like the cartoon character Chipmunks.

The pitcher, being closest, took the brunt and besides hearing problems was later hospitalized for powder burns to his eyes. He healed just fine although it did take 3 days for normal hearing to return to all of us. This was one dumb stunt I couldn't hide from Mom, and a lesson well learned.

Being fortunate enough to survive the torpedo incident of 1959, and not counting military service, we never again tested our mortality with explosives.




TAGS: Maine stories torpedo

The joys of Maine fall foliage childhood fun begins when fall arrives and the outdoors comes alive in vivid color. My grandparents lived next door in my hometown of Derby, Maine, and there was a huge oak tree streetside at the front of their home.

Maple trees are especially colorful like the orange and red leaves in the photo shown here. Oak trees provide less color but more volume because they're generally larger.

What was especially memorable about the huge oak tree was the depth of leaves once the tree completely shed. More than a foot of leaves covered the lawn and provided a wonderful playground for innovative kids.

Piles of leaves provided a soft cushion for jumping, diving, or play wrestling.

We sometimes created a large oval path through the leaves with a rake including an intersecting cross shaped trail in the middle. It was perfect for a game of tag and the only rule was staying within the path. (Note: We used the same design making footprints in the snow during wintertime.)

Perhaps the most enjoyable and creative fall foliage game was taking large flattened cardboard cartons as slides placed on the slope of the front lawn. Leaves were piled on to add effect and then we'd take a long run into a belly flop.

The simple pleasure of just walking across the leaf covered lawn and hearing the woosh woosh sound of rustling leaves is a fond memory, as well. When it comes to seasons in Maine I can't say I have a favorite unless it's the one happening at the time.




TAGS: Maine stories fall

Looking back on my childhood I admit I liked all seasons Growin' Up in Maine. Yes, even the mud season.

With the arrival of fall, and less playtime because of weekdays spent at school, neighborhood boys were always ready for some football on weekends.

The photo shown is Clark's lawn on the corner of Church Street and Railroad Street in my hometown of Derby, Maine.

It was perfect for football unless you consider that large rock in the middle or the street sign and lightpole at the corner. I don't recall any serious injuries due to the rock.

However, the street sign did score a few head or groin injuries to any youth more focused on catching the football than any consequences.

In the early 1950's more than half of that neatly mowed lawn was a field. Back then it was a place to crawl, explore, and get dirty, or catch grasshoppers; yet it was only chest high, so all you had to do was stand up to find your way back to civilization.

Likewise at that time, lawns were mowed with a rotary blade push mower, so owners were reluctant to clear fields they'd later have to mow grunting and sweating. That changed around 1960. The field was replaced with that beautiful lawn shown with the introduction of mass produced lower cost gas powered lawn mowers.

Getting a dozen adolescent or teen boys together to form 6 player teams for a game of tackle football only took a few phone calls. There were no couch potato video games back then, so outdoor physical activity was a way of life that most boomers still enjoy to this day.

The football field layout was simple. Clark's driveway and Railroad Street formed the end zones. Church Street was one sideline and the other was the edge of Bushway's lawn though it lacked any physical out of bounds marker.

Our football games often started in the early afternoon and continued past dinner time as we played until dusk.

We didn't wear helmets. We didn't have padding. We didn't have uniforms. It was just energetic boys in shirts, sneakers, and jeans having the time of their life.

At days end we were bone tired and could feel the effects of extreme exercise taking hold as we dragged our feet or limped on home to a welcome, though perhaps cold, home cooked dinner.

That was Saturday. Come Sunday we'd do it again. Yes, we were always ready for some football.




TAGS: Maine stories games football

The Maine coast was 90 minutes away from home in Derby, Maine, yet may as well been 500 miles back in the 1950's. Trips to Down East were rare although I have fond memories of one lobster and clam bake near Bar Harbor with my aunt and uncle. Nothing beats a treat of Maine lobster and clams cooked in seaweed on an open fire right on the beach.

Toss in corn on the cob lathered in butter then wrapped in tin foil for a gourmet meal, and all you need are Twinkies for dessert.

The steamed clams and boiled lobster shown here were eaten more recently. The owner of the lobster pound who sold me those told a comical story of people from away who were obviously unfamiliar with Maine lobster. An older couple tried lobster for the first time and remarked about the incredible flavor to their son who was living in Maine at the time.

Remembering his parents' pleasure, he decided to ship them live lobsters overnight. A week later he called to ask how they enjoyed the gift. They replied, "They arrived in 24 hours but we tossed them in the trash because the lobsters had turned green and already spoiled."

Yes, they expected bright red fresh Maine lobster!




TAGS: Maine stories lobster clams

Watch here and listen, or view the text narration inserted below for persons hearing impaired.



Welcome to a video episode of Growin' Up in Maine entitled Down Back in Derby, Maine.

Down Back is a quarter mile stretch of the Sebec River in my home town that was perfect for swimming, fishing, and rafting. During the summers of my youth in the 1950's and 60's, most of my time was spent Down Back.

Why was it named Down Back? You went down some and back through the woods to get there, so it's been called Down Back by 4 generations of the Degerstrom family over 100 years.

Let's take a closer look at our summer playground.

This clearing at the edge of the Sebec River has grown in, yet back in the day the opening was about 40 feet square and clear of brush down to the edge of the water.

This is Swimming Hole Rock, the centerpiece of Down Back. The video and photos were taken in August 2011, so the river level is quite low compared to June and July.

Here's the Sebec looking down river, or south. Look closely in the center to see a bald eagle and their splash to the left where they just missed catching a fish.

In 1991 the town put in a snowmobile bridge across the Sebec River from Derby to the Milo side. This is just downstream from the Old Swimming Hole and (thank God) was not there during my childhood. The rock in the foreground is Diving Rock.

Here's another view of Swimming Hole Rock as if taken from the deck of a homemade log raft. Imagine running the length of that big rock then springing into a dive off the smaller slanted rock.

Zooming out, that's still Swimming Hole Rock in the center. A 2 foot wide tree above that sported a Tarzan rope swing years ago. Vandals cut the tree down with a chainsaw in the late 50's. What a shame.

Next up moving upstream is Diving Rock which provided our version of cliff diving. Note the low level at the top right and higher level to the left. To put the size in perspective the difference was 6 inches, so a high dive was considered extreme!

Across from Diving Rock was a spring brook that was ice cold and featured a clay bed. We made a new batch of log rafts each year for exploring, transportation, and sometimes clay ball wars.

Again, here's another view of Diving Rock as if taken from a raft. We made new ones every summer. Some were let loose by vandals. Winter or spring floods carried others away.

Next up is Sliding Rock which was a favorite spot to fish. A log could be set across the space from shore for crossing, or you could get there and dock by raft.

Here's the log raft view of Sliding Rock and the bigger rock to the right behind that is Sunfish Rock, and probably the tallest named rock Down Back.

This closeup is Sunfish Rock with yours truly. The most prominent rock to the right of my hand is Bass Rock, and the furthest set of smaller rocks in the distance is the Low Swimming Hole.

The Low Swimming Hole is the equivalent of a kiddie pool and gets deeper very gradually. Several generations of family toddlers learned how to swim in this spot Down Back.

Just upstream from the Low Swimming Hole and around the bend marks the upper end of Down Back. The top left would have been Gould's Pasture. It is now a forest. Around the bend is The Island, and both sides were excellent for finding antique bottles.

In closing, I must recognize my two best friends Growin' Up in Maine. Though I don't normally name names in my stories, Mark Kinney (left) and Mark Clark (on the right) were close best friends who shared long hours and great adventures Down Back during summer plus all 4 seasons - and yes, they are featured prominently in many stories of Growin' Up in Maine.




TAGS: Maine stories river scenery swimming

Growin' up in Maine in the 1950's included haunted lore besides my true stories.

A visit to the coast of Maine would not be complete without viewing the haunted headstone of Colonel Buck on US Route 1 which is also Main Street in Bucksport, Maine.

A historic plaque describes the legend of this cursed and haunted headstone. The outlined form on the photo of Buck's grave as shown is said to be a witch's leg!

The entire text transcript of the plaque with the Buck's grave curse history is as follows:

The Legend of the Buck Memorial

This monument was erected in memory of Colonel Jonathan Buck, founder of Bucksport, who died on March 18, 1795. The memorial, built of Blue Hill granite, was erected by his descendents nearly sixty years after his death.

Sometime after it's placement the outline of a leg appeared on the monument. Making their appearance as well were the stories which became legendary. The variations are many but common elements include Colonel Buck's condemnation of a woman for witchcraft and ordering her death by burning for sorcery. As the sentence is being carried out, the woman curses the Colonel and concludes with "...so long shall my curse be upon thee and my sign upon thy tombstone." As the flames consume her body, her leg falls away and rolls out of the fire. Her deformed son, rejected by the community, grabs the leg, further insults the Colonel, and flees into the wilderness. The curse is forgotten until sixty years later. The monument is erected; the leg appears. Attempts to remove the sign are futile.

Historians will note the era of Colonial witchcraft and the infamous witch trials in Massachusetts were over long before Jonathan Buck was born. Additionally, there is no record of ANYONE being executed for witchcraft in Maine. Stories that the monument has been replaced are untrue - this is the original. Stone cutters say it is not unusual for granite to contain a flaw such as this stain which appears only after cutting and polishing. The outline can be removed but reappears when air oxidizes the iron. (Note, too, the outline of a heart on the upper part of the monument.)

The facts surrounding the life of Colonel Buck are that he was an honorable, industrious man who founded this community and was a leader in its early development - building the first saw mill, the first grist mill, and the first boat. Notably, the "witch's curse" was unheard of before the flaw in the marker appeared.

Jeff Hutchins, Eagle Project, 1991

There you have it. The haunted headstone may be viewed at the edge of Buck's Cemetery on Main Street at the corner of Hinks Street in Bucksport, Maine. You may easily take photographs through the iron fence from outside the cemetery rather than risk taking a closer look. Note: You were warned.




TAGS: Maine stories Bucksport haunted grave