Radio Script #256
Little Talks On Common Things
March 6, 1955
know that this program has many listeners who are interest~d in rai 1- roads. So let’s begin the program tonight with a few odd Items about the i ron horse.
British locomotives carry no bells. There are Just two exceptions -the famous “Roya I Scot” and the “Ki ng George V”. Those eng; nes were sh I pped to the United States for the New York World’s Fair in 1938 and to go over the country in exh i b i tion tours, and a be II is requi red equi pment for any locomotive that travels in the United States.
In 1872 a man bought a rai I road ticket In Pennsylvania. In 1954 his daughter presented the same ticket to a conductor and it was honored without question. Believe it or not, the fare between the two stations named on the ticket was just the same as it had been In 1872. One of the shortest ra iI road lines in the wor I dis the most i nternationa I •
It is a line only 42 mi les long in the Dominican Republic. It was financed by the Dutch, b u I I t by the Be I g i ans, has b ridges made i n E’ng I and, I ocomot i ves made in Germany, cars made in the United States, is operated by Spaniards, and owned by Domi ni cans. Snow, snow, beautiful snow! It costs the railroads of the United States $30 mi I lion a year to keep their tracks clear of snow.
In the early ’90’s the state of Kansas banned the operation of freight trains on Sunday unless they carried livestock. So aboard each Sunday freight the Kansas rai I roads placed one mule.
Once when a rai Irudo wdS hdullng a circus train, a low overpass presented a problem. One flat-car of the train carried a giraffe in an open top cage. If the train went under the low bridge, the gi raffe’s neck would be snapped off. What did the train conductor do? He dropped a carrot on the floor of the cage, and when the giraffe dipped down his head to get the carrot, the train passed under the bridge.
So much for the rai I roads. Now let’s get back to our usual theme of local history.
From old pictures and written descriptions one can gradually get a glimpse of what Waterville looked like a hundred years ago. In 1890 the Hon. Josiah Drummond, then a venerable Portland attorney, wrote a letter to his brother in Waterville, in which he gives us an interesting glimpse of the area near the present City Hall as it was in 1852. “I remember”, he wrote, “when there was no fence there, and I reca II that afterwards a fence was bul It. have strad~’ died over that fence many times to get from the street to the town hall, instead of goi ng around by Common street, and after a time I recollect that a section of rai Is was taken down and posts set up so that one on foot could pass through but not a team. Then later I think there was a pair of bars, so that a team cou I d pass when the bars were taken down. th ink the fence between the town ha II and Ma in Street was very near the bui I di ngs over by the street.”
Like myself, the frequent contributor to this program who calls himself One-Eleven had experience in a country store. In fact his years were almost the same as mine. He dates his store experience from 1907 to 1915. Mine was a bit longer, 1905 to 1913.
I agree with One~Eleven that it was during those years that neny bulk goods began to appear in prepared packages. He thinks Barrington Hall SteelCut Coffee was early, if not fi rst of the coffees put up inti n. He may be right, but the oldest of my own recollection are White House and Excelsior.
Perhaps Chase and Sanborn In tin is just as old.
When One-Eleven says Barrington Hall was followed closely by Old Grist Mi II, I must object. Unless my memory has gone entirely astray about the old grocery store, Old Grist Mi II wasn’t coffee at all — but what was called a wheat coffee — a coffee substitute something like Postum but tasting worse.
Of course that was long before the day of products like Sanka, that preserve the true coffee taste without the caffeine.
One-Eleven wrote in a recent letter to me; “Packaging has come a long way since you and I wound string around half a peck of potatoes. In Vermont and the upper part of New Hampshire in 1920, the small storekeeper tied all bags around the neck, as a string saver.”
One-Eleven recalls an old nickname of Cascade Park on the Watervi lIe-Oakland trolley line. He says some of the young bloods of his day called it “Sawdust Sahara”. It wasn’t a desert, be i ng we II wooded, but the ground was covered with sawdust. I remember that was the case when I attended a show at the park in 1910. One-Eleven says: “Island Park at East Winthrop had its openair theater, Riverton Park near Portland had its swan boats on a placid stream, but “Sawdust Sahara” was the oas i s where chummy company found schedu led surcease from the everyday hum-drum of things we call life. One didn’t have to wander far from the trolley siding to be hidden by knolls and moss-covered boulders, well shaded by massive trees. It was a great place for trai ling arbutus, or Mary or Gladys, for that matter.”
It was One-Eleven who first called my attention to the sayings of Old Ed. Here’s a’new one he has passed on to me recently: “Don’t tell your trouble to nobody, ’cause they mi ght be g I ad of it. If
Why don’t we air on this program some unusual experiences with the old trolley lines? Many a Colby student of 40 years ago had the experience of taking a girl home to Fairfield, then lingering so long that he missed the last trol ley back to Watervi I Ie. That three mile walk late at night was no fun in mid-winter. One-Eleven tells me that he was once on a trolley that got stalled in a blizzard about 11 P.M. and didn’t get plowed out unti 16 A.M.
There were eleven passengers, all male. The current did not give out; so the car was kept warm, and the prisoners played High-low-Jack unti I morning. Hunger was partially assuaged by a big bar of Hershey’s chocolate which one fel low was taking home to his wife. Those ele,ven fellows held an annual reunion for years.
Did you ever hear the story about Augusta’s runaway trol ley car? A group of Augusta men chartered a trol ley to go to lake Maranacook for a chowder dinner.
Returni ng in the wee, sma II hours, some of them took turns at operat ing the car. AI I went wei I unti I they came to the long slope leading down into Augusta.
They were half way down Western Avenue before they realized that the brakes weren’t functioning. There were no air brakes on trolleys in those days, and the motor man struggled with the handbrake in vain. Even throwing the throttle into reverse did little to retard the downhi II speed. At the foot of Western Avenue, the track curved sharply into Grove Street. There the trol ley left the rai Is and came to a stop on a beautiful lawn near the front door of a big house. No one was hurt, and the tension was broken when a woman in nightcap and robe appeared on the porch and shouted, “You men take that car right off my nice lawn. What’s it doing here, anyhow?” Now surely many of the listeners to this program have had trolley experiences worth relating. Don’t keep them to yourself. Tel I us about them.
For the further nostalgic recollection of the old-timers who listen to thi s broadcast, here are a few cheri shed wi nter memories of the long ago:
1. The piercing squeak of sled runners on hard packed snow on a ten below zero morning.
2. Throwing snowballs at passing derbies from behind a huge elm tree.
3. Ice skating on river or lake, with reefer held wide open to form a kind of sa i I .
4. Home-made toboggans with the nose fashioned out of half a cheese box. and home-made skis with noses of barrel staves.
What does anybody recall about auto races against trains here in the Kennebec Valley? Augusta folk recall such an exciting race between Charles “11 1- likin, a lumber tycoon of half a century ago, against the Maine Central’s crack train “102”. In his Peerless touring car with the top down, Mi II ikin raced the train from Vassalboro to Augusta. A lot of people long contended that MI Illkin had bribed the engineer to let him win the race, but that was probably baseless slander. Anyhow the car did win, in the presence of hundreds of people who turned out to see the contest. One result was the boost in sales of Peerless tour i ng cars.
That grand old gentleman, Robie Frye, Colby’s oldest living graduate, havi ng observed my comment In “Kennebec Yesterdays” about the scarcity of schoolhouses actually painted red, even fifty or sixty years ago, wrote me recent Iy as follows:
ttl attended a real red schoolhouse one winter. An older boy and I had to walk a mi Ie, often through deep snow. He had to get there early to bui Id the fire in the box stove. was in a class by myself with different text books. One teacher, forty pupils. Big boys, some of them over twenty years old, attended every year, and every year went over the same ground of studies. They were great on ari thmeti c.”
I had no idea that, long before I was born, Mr. Frye took a trip on my own fondly remembered 50ngo River steamer line. He tells me: llMy classmate Ed Thompson and I set out from his summer home in Gorham on a bi,cycle trip. He was then a lawyer in Portland. We rode to Sebago, expecting to take the steam”” boat trip across Sebago Lake through the Songo River. But the boat had broken down. However, we set out about four o’clock on a square-ended flat freight boat, the only passengers. The captain and his wife lived on the upper deck. We helped shell a lot of peas which, with hot cream of tartar biscuits and ho …. ~ ney, made a wonderful supper. The boat was ti ed up to a birch tree I n the Songo, whi Ie the crew went to their nearby homes. We occupied their bunks on the boat. In the morning we proceeded across the Bay of Naples and Long Pond to Harr I son, and thence biked it over to Br i dgton. l!
Mr. Frye tells an amusing incident about his own name. Asher Hinds of Benton, Colby 1883, was the famous parliamentarIan of the House of Representatives when r”‘r. Frye, who had known Asher intimately in college, called on the latter in Washington. “Come into the Speaker’s office”, said Asher, “and I’ll introduce you to Mr. Reed.” That was, of course, another Maine man, Thomas B. Reed, then the famous Speaker of the House. They found the Speaker in his off i ce, and Asher sa i d, “Mr. Reed, I wou I d like you to meet my co lIege friend, Robie Frye.” Mr. Reed turned on that baby smile of his and greeted Mr. Frye cordially. Then he turned to Hinds and said, “Your friend has a mighty unfortunate combination of names. Asher later explained to his visitor that there were two and only two prominent Maine Republicans with whom Mr. Reed could not get along — Governor Robie and Senator Frye. And with that we say goodnight for old time’s sake.
Year: 1955