Radio Script #217
Little Talks On Common Things
March 7, 1954
Our constant contributor, One Ele’ven, recently let loose with such vigor against The economic planners that, whi Ie I can’t agree with all he says, I want you to hear It.
“Th is is the era of surveys, a II the way from the schoo I needs of a sma II town to The nation’s expenditures. It cost a small Maine town $625 to determine that they needed a new elementary school. There was a time in Maine when overcrowded classrooms made a school committee come to the obvious conclusion to add a wing to their present bui Iding. Now the small town must copy Uncle Sam, who spends $3 mi I I Ion to determi ne how to spend $70 bill ion. It is the age of planners, who think they are expert looker-inners to the future. These dreamers of Utopian thought are resolved that the push-button age is here and all efforts must be exerted to keep it here. The next generation will need only one toe to push down the car throttle. The world swarms with technicians, scientisTs and specialists of all sorts, but the need for diplomats, statesmen and just every-day, level-headed gentry remains urgent. Foreign nations have the I r own customs and methods of conducti ng the i r aHa i rs. They need our economic aid, but they resent having us tell them how to run their governments. If a HotTentot doesn’t want a quart of milk every day, why Insist that, according to a plebiscite, he must accept it even if he pours it on the ground in front of h is hut?”
I th i nk you may be i nte rested in stor; es to I d about a typ i ca I Ma i ne character ca lied Old Ed. In his younger days Ed worked for a lumber company in the Maine woods. One winter, when the snows were exceptionally deep and the thermometer continuously low, prolonged storms made it hard to get supplies Into the calJl). The woods boss de legated Ed to snowshoe four mi les to the nearest village and there ca II by telephone the cOIJl)any offl ce in Bangor and te II them the urgent need for food s upp lies.
Ed, always faithful, obeyed orders and relayed over the telephone to the Bi g Man in Bangor his boss’s list of needed supp lies. When -Ed reached the end of the list, the Big Man said sarcastically, ”You seem to be practically out of ‘everything up there. Isn’t there anything you have plenty of?”
Ten seconds of si lence, then came Ed’s soft reply: “We II, there is one thi ng — snow. That’s the on Ilest thi ng we ai n ‘t got nothi ng else but.”
This same Old Ed once found a man’s leather belt with a clincher buckle. On it was engraved the State of Maine seal. Old Ed wanted to keep that belt, but his conscience troubled him. So he made Inquiries among the cottage owners for whom he occasionally worked as a handy man, but no one had lost a belt. One day, to a group gathered at the local filling station, Ed said: “If I could find a certain man, I know this belt Is his’n.”
”How come you don’t return It, if you know it’s a certain man?”, one of the by-standers inquired.
“Cause I don’t know what he looks like”, said Ed, “but I know his name. It’s right here In plain English on the belt buckle.”
And Ed exhibited to his audience the engraved words “Pat. Pending”.
A third story about Old Ed Is, I think, the best of the lot. It Illustrates the way many old timers in Maine regard enough as a SUfficiency.
One season frequent rains kept Old Ed busy mowing the summer residents’ lawns up to the first of August. The grass grew fast, and Old Ed was kept on the Jump from one I awn to another. Then with August came a dry spe II. No one saw anything of Ed, and didn’t much mind, because there was little for him to do. Then came rain again, lots of it, spurring the languishing grass Into new life. When that didn’t bring Old Ed around to push the lawn mowers, the summer people, who were truly fond of the old fellow, feared he might be sick. So one of them agreed to go up on the nearly unused back road to Ed’s tumble down shack and see what was wrong. When the visitor arrived, he found Old Ed seated in a dilapidated rocker on what passed for a front porch.
“Hello, Ed ll , hailed the cottager. “Are you a I I right?”
“Sure”, said Ed, “right’s a daisy”.
“I thought you must be sick”, said the caller. “We haven’t seen you since the rains, and our lawns need cutting badly. What’s the matter? Haven’t we used you allright?”
“Sart insure you have”, sa i d Ed. “I a i n ‘t got no camp I a i nt • But you see It’s like this. It takes just 63 dollars to git me through the winter, and by Judas I got It.”
Recently I picked a clue as to the way students were induced to attend college a hundred years ago. In 1849 a young man named Colby Lamb from Lincolnvi lie entered Watervi I Ie College. He had attended Kents Hi I J. Who or what i nduced him to come to the little college in Waterville we do not know, but we do know from someone’s careful preservation of letters which Lamb wrote that it was not the Pres i dent and the ha I f dozen professors of the co liege, nor even the Baptist ministers in Maine and neighboring states who did all the recruiting for the col lege which was later to be named Colby.
Students themse I ves we re very act i ve recru it i ng agents. At Kents Hi I I , perhaps even before he went there, Lamb had known a fellow from Union named John Payson. On September 8, 1849 Lamb wrote to Payson as follows:
“I embrace this opportunity to inform you of my situation, which is in Waterville College free and easy, and I want you to come very much. You will find no difficulty about entering; you can come any time you please, but the sooner the better. You wi II like the order of things In general very much. We have formed a club for board I ng wh i ch, I f you were here now, you cou I d get into. We expect board and wash I ng to cost about seven sh i I Ii ngs per week, perhaps less. Most other bl lis you can get along wli.thout paying tl II next term commences. I have no church now. If you were here, you could go in with me In the college. I think you wi II not be sorry If you come. Come Immediate Iy, or write me on the receipt of this without fai I. I shall try and keep the room for you a few days if I can. We have here, it is said, the best freshman class that has ever entered this college. It now numbers 26, mostly good fellows, think. Watervi lie is a very pleasant place. Come and see for yourself. Give my love to al I my friends, Brothers Burrel I and Richards especially. I will write to them soon. Yours in haste. Colby.”
Payson made Immediate reply, unsatisfactory to Lamb. Apparently Payson Indicated that he was thinking of going to another college, but he left the door sufficiently ajar so that Lamb wrote him again and vehemently on September 20.
“I received your letter a short time since, but could not feel satisfied unti I I might write you again and urge upon you the superior advantages which you can enjoy here over other places. I think you wi” repent It if you do not come here. The faculty is probably as good as can be produced In the U. S., and they take more pains than in many other places, especially in X COllege. I know you would be highly pleased with our professors. The discipline is better than at X. Here is less rowdy i sm than there. Here the course of study is not so rapid but more thorough. Here the expenses are much less, Here the faculty manl fests more interest for the student in hi s lessons. Here the under classes are treated with more respect, especially the freshmen. Here there is but little difference in classes except among the few rowdies, a thing of no note. Our lessons are short and we II prepared. About one ha I f page in Greek and 2/3 In latin. We parse nearly all of this, and review it and review it.
“If you .only knew how well you would enjoy it, you would hardly wait to settle up where you are and cone here immediately. The colleges are situated about 1/5 of a mi Ie from the business part of the vi Ilage, on a delightful green, just as pleasant as anyone cou I d ask for. Hard by the co liege g I ides the beauTiful Kennebec. And on the other side, a few rods distant, are the depots of the K and A R. R.
“Another and stilI stronger reason thaT I shall urge is that this class would suit you far betTer than any you wi II ever find at X. If you cone soon you can have a room with me and beard in our club. Even the class sends their respects and wants you to ceme.
“You can enter the c I ass wi thout any troub Ie. We have been on Iy abeut 20 propositions In geometry. Bring a recommendation from Father Walsh and Mr. Gersey. Come along now, if you are coming, quick. Tell my leve te all my friends and then start right off. But If yeu are determined not to cone, please write as eppertunity offers. Yours in haste, Colby.”
lamb’s impertunities did net immediately prevail, but they evidently made an impression. Jehn Payson entered Waterville College, not in lamb’s Class of 1853, but in the following Class of 1854.
One item in that September 20 letter of lamb’s intrigues me. let ne quote the passage aga in: “On the other side, a few rods di stant, are the depots of the K and A R.R.” Although lamb had mentioned the river in his preceding sentence, “on the other sl de” means across the street; otherwise the expression “a few rods distant” would not apply, and we also know that across the street a few rods away were the buildings of Waterville’s first railroad.
Now comes the i nte resti ng po i nt. The fi rst ra I I road train ever to reach Watervl lIe arrived from lewiston over the new A and K tracks in Novermer, 1849.
Here is the first evi dence I have ever seen that, more than two months before the wh I st Ie of a Tra I n was ever heard in Watervi lie, the station and fre I ghthouse, both located near the present James Hotel and the land behind It? had already been bul IT. The decepTive point of Lam’s letter is our natural deduction from It that the railroad was then already operating. Perhaps he wanted his friend Payson TO think so.
I am one of Those fe I lows who I s a Iways on the look-out for pecul i arly appropriate or humorously incongruous trade names. remember, a few years ago, getting a chuckle out of a sign I noticed, as I drove through a Connecticut town. It read: “Ketcham Funeral Parlors”. With apologies to one of the finest retail fi rms in the Kennebec Va Iley, I have to admit that the Sk()Whegan sign “Blunt Hardware Company” strikes me funny. Old you know that down in lew- Iston Is a man named Dobbin, who deals In horse meat? can understand, can’t you, why friends of Dummer Academy in South Byfield, Mass. insist upon its full name,”Governor Dummer Academy”. Now who among our listeners wi II come up with some more samp les of these humorous names?
Let’s close the program tonight with a story that illustrates the old-time Maine attitude tONard debt. Of course the old timers got into debt; frequently they had to. But it troubled them, and they were anxious unti I they got out of it.
Two men out hunting on a cold day came to an abandoned cabin, In which was a little air-tight stove. There was no dry wood, and the green brush around the cab I n was too wet to bu rn • But th rown dONn i n one corne r we re th ree 0 I d newspapers.
The men put them into the stove, lighted them, and saw them quickly burn up. But one of the men said, “Isn’t it remarkable hON much heat a few pieces of paper wi II give?”
“Indeed it is”, the other replied. “I once had a piece of paper called a mortgage, and it kept me heated up for twenty years.”
Year: 1954