This is the 350th broadcast of Little Talks on Common Things. On 349 Sunday\u00a0nights these little, inconsequential programs have been on the air. It al I\u00a0began nine years ago on November 14, 1948 when Carleton Brown, president of the\u00a0Kennebec Broadcasting Company and managing head of this station WTVL, asked me\u00a0to fi I I an empty spot on Sunday evening for three weeks. These three weeks have\u00a0extended into what is now the tenth annual season of the program. That has been\u00a0possible only because enthusiastic listeners have themselves provided the evermounting\u00a0material.<\/p>\n
One of the commonest things in man’s experience is words, and in the very\u00a0fi rst broadcast we began to ta I k about words and expressi ons pecu liar to the\u00a0older generation in Maine. We found a lot of people interested in the origin of\u00a0such expressions as “not worth a Hannah Cook” and “leaning toward Sawyer’s”. And\u00a0that is how we got started on the general subject to which this program has been\u00a0consistently devoted throughout its 350 Sunday nights,\u00a0lore, especially that dealing with Central Maine, with\u00a0towns and people of the Kennebec Valley.\u00a0the subject of Maine\u00a0the olden days of<\/p>\n
One night we asked how many covered bridges were sti I I standin9 in Maine,\u00a0and at once the information began to pour in. As a result, the Maine Develop~\u00a0ment Commission published an attractive pamphlet on Maine’s covered bridqes.<\/p>\n
We were thus led into the intriguing subject of transportation. With the\u00a0help of information from more than a hundred listeners, we talked about the\u00a0first blazed trai Is through the forest, the roads that could be traversed only\u00a0in winter on sleds, then the first roads for carts, and on to the turnpiked\u00a0highways and the early tol I roads. Then we turned to water transportation -the\u00a0sai I and steam that made maritime history on the Kennebec, the launching\u00a0at Vassalboro of the Ocean Bird, a ful I-rigged ship that brought to the United\u00a0States the first peanuts from Africa. We told how there had once been planned\u00a0for Maine a complicated system of canals, only a few of which were ever bui It,\u00a0because the new invention of the iron horse intervened. And when we got to\u00a0ra i I roads, we just had to devote a lot of time to fvla ine:ts:p’ri de:~ i ts:~ I LttTe-;\u00a0two-foot, narrow guage li nes.<\/p>\n
In those talks on narrow guage roads we told some tal I stories, but I assure\u00a0you at I least one of them is true. When I was a young fe II ow, I actua I Iy\u00a0did get off the train and pick mayflowers whi Ie that Bridgton and Saco River\u00a0narrow guage train made three attempts to climb the grade from Bridgton Junction\u00a0to Rankin’s Mi I Is.<\/p>\n
We discussed the electric trol ley lines, of which in this reqion Amos Gerald\u00a0of Fairfield was the chief promoter. Of course we could not iqnore the Kennebec\u00a0floods, and we aroused quite a debate as to whether the flood of 1832 or\u00a0that of 1936 was the highest ever seen on the river. We gave a lot of attention \u00a0to the old time schools and their teachers, including those frank. published reports\u00a0on the efficiency of both schoolmasters and schoolm’ams.<\/p>\n
What a time we had with the grocery stores, especially those of 1900, which\u00a0my own generation remember so wei I: stores with common crackers and big barrels\u00a0of di I I pickles, with Lydia Pinkham’s and Father John’s, with plugs of Battle\u00a0Axe and double-thick B. L., with cards of Portland Star matches and quintals\u00a0of sa I t poll uck, and pervadi ng ita I I the mi ng led sme I I s of gri ndi ng coffee l’\u00a0pungent spices, molasses and kerosene oi I. And of course we didn’t forget the\u00a0bi g, pot-be I I ied stove i <\/em>surrounded by up-turned nai I kegs: where the men of the\u00a0vi I lage solemnly discussed the nation’s affairs.<\/p>\n Through these 350 broadcasts we have talked about more than 200 distinctly\u00a0different subjects, and if we include what the statisticians cal I sub-heads,\u00a0there have been more than 500 SUbjects. We have included stage coaches and\u00a0mai I routes, newspapers and almanacs, high wheeled bicycles and buckboards,\u00a0widow’s walks and Paul Revere bel Is, cattle pounds and tin mines, church suppers\u00a0and one-ring circuses. Of course we could not omit the old time blacksmith shop\u00a0with its ox-slings, nor the peculiar art of ringing church bel Is. We took a\u00a0nostalgic look at Maine’s famous race horses, and we noted an Augusta editor’s\u00a0prejudice against stoves, when they first came into common use.<\/p>\n We had a few words for livery stables, log cabins and lotteries; for patent\u00a0medicines, peddlers and paupers; for Maine Mormons, Masons and Mi I <\/em>lerites~\u00a0for saw mi I Is, singing schools and snow rollers; for town meetings and Thanksgiving;\u00a0for watchmen, wolves and witchcr-aft.<\/p>\n Through it al I we have mentioned a lot of Maine people. Most of them wi I I\u00a0never get their names in the formal books of history, but they and their deeds\u00a0are the stuff of which local history is made. Jim Jackman, hurrying completion\u00a0of the Canada Road to get the silver through. Solyman Heath, patiently recording\u00a0in his diary each day of a hazardous journey across plains and mountains\u00a0to the gold fields in 1849. Elihu Bowerman and his stalwart wife, struggling\u00a0through the starving time of a bitter winter in their log cabin at North Fairfield.<\/p>\n Deacon Simpson of Winslow, whose charity saved the val ley after the\u00a0Year of No Summer. William Bryant, commenting in his Fairfield diary on the\u00a0e fecti on of Pres i dent Buchanan, ~~Let us wa it and see”. Sy I vanus Cobb, the\u00a0Universali st, joining with Timothy Boutelle, of no church at all, to persuade\u00a0the Maine legislature to provide $1,000 a year for the little Baptist college\u00a0at vJatervi I Ie.<\/p>\n In this period of more than nine years, with 350 broadcasts, what have we\u00a0been trying to do? Has there been any rhyme or reason to the program? Has it\u00a0been prompTed merely by nostalgia, by a casual and useless turning up of old\u00a0time lore? Not at a II. We have never contended that the old days were the best\u00a0days. On the contrary, we have repeated I y sa i d we wou I d not exchange I i vi ng now\u00a0for Jiving then. But we definitely believe that Maine has a rich and important\u00a0heritage, that from gl impses of the way our forefathers met and “solved their\u00a0problems we can secure much needed help in facing the problems of our own day.<\/p>\n We hear a lot aoout tTthe glory of doing without”. Maine pioneers learned\u00a0the hard way to do without, but they never gloried in it. They strove with\u00a0might and main to have something to do with1 to make +omorrow a I.ittle better\u00a0than today. We can at least do the same.<\/p>\n Not for a moment should we forget what has made possible the continuance\u00a0of th is program for a II of the ten years — its unfa iii ng year afte r year sponsorsh\u00a0i p by the Keyes Fibre Company. On the first b’roadcast of the p resent season,\u00a0a month ag01 I pointed out something which think you listeners especially\u00a0appreciate. Little Talks on Common Things is one ofa very few long-established, \u00a0ponsored radio programs that has never been interrupted by advertising,\u00a0Each Sunday night, as the announcer introduces the program, he te lis you that\u00a0the broadcast comes as a pub I ic service of the Keyes Fi bre Company_ You are ne;.;.\u00a0ver urged to buy anything, never told in grim prose or in singing commercial\u00a0that your hea Ith and your very desti ny depend upon someth i ng like Kyson i te f i 1-\u00a0terse When Keyes says that it sponsors Little Talks solely as a public service,\u00a0the company means exactly what it says. It is my earnest hope that, during its\u00a0350. presentations, Little Talks on Common Things has in some measure rendered\u00a0the public service which Keyes expected of it, and that as we go on into future\u00a0broadcasts we may continue to enlighten our fine people of Maine on the wealth\u00a0of our state’s historic lore.<\/p>\n We II, after thi s review of the proqram’s past, we have on Iy a little time\u00a0left for new items. So let us take up just one of them, the story of a Maine\u00a0man’s part in the famous Boston Tea Party. In 1840 there was sti II I i vi ng in\u00a0Be I fast a man named John \\vyeth, who tol d to a loca I reporter what he reca lied\u00a0about that Boston ep i sode that preceded the Revo I uti on. He was a rrember of a\u00a0sma I I group in B:>ston, who used to meet every night duri ng those troub Ie some\u00a0days. The arrival of the hated tea ships was the first signal for that group\u00a0to act. TJ-ey decided to risk the time necessary to throw the tea overboard, \u00a0rather than do the quicker work of setting fire to the ships, because they\u00a0feared the flames woul d arouse the town and cause the fi res to be exti ngui shed\u00a0before their job of destruction had been finished.<\/p>\n John Wyeth said that, at an appointed time, the group, dressed as Indians,\u00a0faces smeared with grease and soot, met at Hancock’s wharf, where one of the\u00a0ships was moored. The two other ships lay only a few feet away in the harbor.<\/p>\n Boarding the first ship, they ordered captain and crew below decks, rigged up\u00a0a tackle from the hold, and set to work. Some of the group jumped into the hold\u00a0and passed the chests of tea to the tackle. As they were hoisted to the\u00a0deck, other men knocked the chests open with axes, whi Ie others lifted them to\u00a0the ra i I and dumped the contents overboard. At the seme ti me other rrembers of\u00a0the group were carryi ng on the same procedure on the other two shi ps.<\/p>\n A II thi s took some ti me, and the townspeop Ie collected in I arge numbers.\u00a0The tea-dumpers made no attempt to disperse them because they knew wei I that\u00a0the spectators” sympathies lay with the actors.<\/p>\n When it was a II over, John Wyeth was especi ally proud of the fact that the\u00a0secret of the groups’ identity was sacredly kept. Not a single name was ever\u00a0revealed to the British governor or to his Tory sympathizers. Said Wyeth:<\/p>\n !fA II rema i ned in Egypti an darkness.”<\/p>\n With that account of a Maine man’s part in one of New England’s best remembered\u00a0historic events, we must say good night for old times’ sake.<\/p>\n Year: 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #350, Broadcast on October 13, 1957<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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