<\/p>\n
This broadcast begins the 35th consecutive year of Little Talks. It is still sponsored by Keyes Fibre Company, although that company has twice been merged, first with the Arcata Corporation of California and more recently with Van Leer of The Netherlands. Because of a wide margin of independence left to Keyes, the changes have not affected the sponsorship of Little Talks. But a lot of water has run down the Kennebec since Deke Parsons agreed to sponsor this program.<\/p>\n
As we start this 35th year, it may be of some interest to note how we started certain other years of the program.<\/p>\n
Ten years ago, in September 1972, we opened the program with these words: “It seems incredible that this broadcast starts the 25th year of Little Talks. Yes, this program has been a quarter of a century on the air. In that time the program has had 938 broadcasts and has used more than 1,700,000 words.” Today’s broadcast is the 1319th, and the total wordage has exceeded 2,420,000. They have not been very important,
\nbut I hope the preserved scripts will be of some value to future Maine historians.<\/p>\n
Part of the broadcast that opened our 25th year in 1972 was devoted to Waterville’s St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, which had opened its building on Center Street in 1909 as a mission parish. Since that 1972 broadcast, St. Mark’s has become a very prosperous church and has built a fine new building an~rectory on Eustis Parkway near the Thayer Hospital.<\/p>\n
The same broadcast referred to Coburn Classical Institute’s class of 1917. the young people who got their Coburn diplomas the year that the United States entered World War 1. The class included :!’ary Warren, long the beloved teacher of Latin at Waterville High School, Frederick Fassett. associate and close friend of the noted scientist Vannevar Bush at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Doris Hardy, long the Coburn secretary, now Mrs. Doris Haweeli. Another was Stanley Black, son of Colby history professor, J. Bill Black. Stanley went on to a successful career in business and finance. Another girl was Elizabeth Whipple, now Mrs. Elizabeth Butler, still living in Waterville.<\/p>\n
Ten years before that 1972 broadcast. the 504th went on the air in 1962 to open the program’s fifteenth year. It was when the glamour of Camelot was illuminating the White House under the changes made by Jackie Kennedy. Only a year later would occur the tragic assassination in Dallas.<\/p>\n
That 1962 broadcast had a comment on a subject that has troubled every generation for centuries: what older people have considered to be decadence of the younger people. I had run across an 1899 issue of the Fairfield Journal. then edited by E. P. Mayo, uncle of Colby’s famous Leonard Mayo. It seems that the Baptist weekly, Zion’s Advocate, had published an article criticizing contemporary youth, and had said: “Young men today do not seem to be made of the same good stuff they had a few years ago.” Editor Mayo asked President Harris of the University of Maine if he would make response in the columns of the Fairfield
\nJournal.<\/p>\n
President Harris responded in positive terms. He wrote: “I have no doubt there has been a change, quite as the writer of that article thinks, but the change is not in the young men; it is in himself. I am reminded of the story of the king who asked his wise men why adding a foot to a pail of water did not increase its contents. After the the sages had discussed this for several hours, someone suggested they get a pail and test the king’s statement. Of course they found it just wasn’t true.<\/p>\n
“When I hear about the degradation of modern youth, I question the fact. When I hear how our legislators at the state capitol spend night hours at the Augusta House. I think those older fellows are no saints.”<\/p>\n
After that good word for young people, the 1962 program turned to some of the things of an earlier time that youth of 1962 could not comprehend. For one thing, they had no idea how much their predecessors had depended upon the horse. They had heard about the horse and buggy days, but they had enjoyed no personal acquaintance with those days.<\/p>\n
In 1910, when I was a freshman at Colby, the horse was the mainstay of both pleasure and business travel. Horses pulled buggies, surreys, buckboards, wagons, carts, and drays. They moved plows, harrows, mowing machines, rakes and hayracks. Hitched to sulkies they thrilled crowds at the racetracks, and sleekly groomed and saddled, they won prizes at shows.<\/p>\n
In my boyhood every boy was inevitably drawn to the blacksmith shop, where horses were shod; and many a boy found part time work during high school years at the livery stables. Every village had a number of watering troughs, and they were found at frequent intervals along the highways. In Waterville, as in most larger towns, horses drew the fire engines and the street sprinklers. The taxis of the time were “ten cent teams” drawn by horses. In 1910 it was not the lion that was king of beasts; it was the horse.<\/p>\n
Now let us turn to 25 years ago in 1957, when General Eisenhower was President of the\u00b7 United States. When Ike entered the White House in 1953, he was the first Republican to occupy it in twenty years. That broadcast, on September 17, 1957, had comments on one of Maine’s narrow gauge railroads, the only one that had a terminus anywhere near Waterville. It was the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington, whose
\nWeeks Mills branch had been extended to Winslow, while the main line went through China to Albion. I had just run across some recollections of A. M. Robbins, who recalled what happened to the abandoned engine that lay for several years beside the track after the wreck that ended the last run of a scheduled train on that road.<\/p>\n
Robbins said it was the Japanese demand for scrap iron that caused the owners to try to salvage part of the rusting engine. Frank Winters, in charge of the company’s defunct property, had hired a farmer who lived near the wreck to keep an eye on it. One day the farmer saw two men leave their car and walk to the engine. Suspicious, he investigated.<\/p>\n
One of the two explained: “Frank sent us to get the scrap, and we’re having a hard time. Won’t you help us?”
\n“What will you pay,” asked the farmer. The man replied: “There must be something on this wreck that you can use.” “Can I have the coal?” asked the farmer. “Yes, if you will help us, you can have the coal.” When Frank Winters learned of the loss, the farmer became the prime suspect. and he had a hard time explaining how he had been deceived. He decided he would be careful before he ever again rendered assistance to thieves.<\/p>\n
Have you ever noticed that most Maine villages of any size were built on streams? That was for two reasons. The larger streams were often navigable and the settlement could be reached by boat; but another reason was that they afforded water power for sawmills and gristmills. industries essential to a pioneer community.<\/p>\n
Water traffic to the Maine coastal towns was long the chief means of transportation. Not until 1842 did any railroad reach Portland from Boston. and in that very year 140 years ago the Portland Advertiser was boosting a proposed new steamship line. The paper said: “There is agitation to put a line of steamboats on the route from Portland to Calais and Eastport. The project will be of great benefit to Portland, bringing a lot of trade this way. Already we have a boat to and from Boston every night. By a convenient schedule, passengers bound for the Passamaquoddy towns could make speedy change to the new line.”<\/p>\n
Today passenger trains have disappeared from Maine, and steamboats are seen only on routes to the islands. And recognizing that big change, we say goodbye until next week.<\/p>\n
Year: 1982<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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