Tag: History

Roadside memorial still a mystery

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I’d love to know the story. Every time we travel to or from Bangor or beyond, we pass this well-maintained memorial along Maine Route 9, “the Airline Highway,” in Township 24. It’s just east of the Wilderness Lodge. I finally stopped to investigate but found no names or dates. Do any of you Mainers know more?

So far, I’ve found nothing solid.

One person said something about a hit-and-run that’s never been solved.

As former radio newscaster Tom McLaughlin said, “There are plenty of places around here where something happened and there’s no memorial at all.”

He added, “Jnana, there have been so many crashes and fatals on Route 9 in the time I was covering news (1992-2016). That may have been from a crash in July 2002 that killed a guy from Perry and injured his brother who may have succumbed later. Also in that general area, a dad, mom and older son from Calais died in a head-on crash on a snowy night 20 or so years ago. Guess I haven’t given you anything definitive, here. Not sure who I can ask. All the troopers I knew back then are long retired.”

The state’s fatal crashes web site turned up nothing.

So that’s where it stands for now.

 

 

Fire on board

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Wooden sailing vessels traditionally had only one fire onboard, the cook’s stove. I can’t imagine how cold sailors, much less passengers, were through most of the year.

Windjammers hew to that tradition.

a wooden sailing vessel
with a wood-fired cook stove
and kerosine lanterns

two iceboxes

Smoke from the cookstove goes
into a T-shaped chimney vent

don’t get too close

“Smokestack,” not “chimney”
maybe “noble Charlie”

Avoiding a hydra

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The mere necessity of uniformity in the interpretation of the national laws decides the question. Thirteen independent courts of final jurisdiction over the same causes, arising upon the same laws, is a hydra in government, from which nothing but contradiction and confusion can proceed.

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 80

On the difficulties of legislating

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The history of almost all the great councils and consultations, held among mankind for reconciling their discordant opinions, assuaging their mutual jealousies, and adjusting their respective interests, is a history of factions, contentions, and disappointments; and may be classed among the most dark and degrading pictures which display the infirmities and depravities of the human character.

James Madison in Federalist No. 37