Dad n Me in Maine, Day 5

(I did two posts today, so be sure and check out the "new" one immediately prior to this one).

Sometimes, life gives you lemons. And there again, sometimes it gives you lemonade.

Lemons: Today, it rained. And rained. And rained. Boy, did it rain. Sheets and sheets of rain. Lotta watta. Oh, well, sometimes it rains. We go from 100% chance today to a 40% chance tomorrow. Dad and I are both excited about tomorrow, it’s our train excursion from Brunswick to Rockland via the Maine Eastern Railroad.

Lemons: Somewhere between Vermont and Maine, I caught a real-live, honest to goodness bad cold. I haven’t had one in the entire time I’ve been in Houston, and here I am, coughing, sneezing, loading up on Vitamin C, Vitamin D, Zicam, Benadryl, the works. Yuck. But, I’ll survive. I hope I don’t give it to Dad, but with us in such close quarters, I’m afraid that’s a virtual certainty.

Lemonade: My old Buddy Frank Senter died last year. He was a great guy, tons of fun, and always had a great outlook on life. He had had some pretty severe physical problems which ultimately led to his (very premature) death, leaving his lovely wife Diane.

His name really wasn’t Frank, it’s just that he had an unusual first name. He was named after his father, Pleasant Senter. Frank’s real name was Pleasant Senter (i don’t remember whether it was Junior or III or even IV).

Frank was a total character. A staunch supporter of the University of Tennessee, Frank could be counted upon to do and say funny things, and show up in the most interesting times and places.

So I wasn’t surprised yesterday, at all, to discover that in Brunswick, Maine (a long way from Tennessee), they’ve built a nice multi-use facility named Senter Place (photo below). You get there by going on the main drag to the Maine drag.

The main drag is PLEASANT street.

So you go down PLEASANT to get to SENTER Place.

Hello, old friend. Was that you dropping in to smile and say hello?

>>o<<

Since we were rained out today, Dad and I decided to take it easy. We slept in, then drove in a most leisurely manner up US 1, enjoying Bath, Wiscasset, and points in between. We then cut up to Augusta, Maine’s capitol city, which boasts 20,000 residents (a far cry from the state capitols to which we’re accustomed).

It was pouring so hard when i took some of these, I decided they looked better in black and white. Perhaps you’ll agree.

Photos:

The main street is Maine Street, laid out a full 12 rods wide (198 feet). After a devastating fire (the Indians burned it), the citizens declared "never again", and built their street wide enough that a fire could not jump from one side to the other. It's huge.

^^^Hello, old buddy. Hope they’re treating you and Barney the Hound well up there in Heaven.

Below: This was the “Captain’s Row”---Brunswick was a big shipping center, and the Captains were rich. Their homes were built all in a row, with widows’ walks.

I couldn’t get this in one pic, so I took two and stitched them together. I wish I had done a better job, but you can get an idea of how beautiful this house was, with its original wrought-iron fence and widows’ walk.

Bowdoin College has a beautiful campus:

Bowdoin boasts that its class of 1825 featured Nathaniel Hawthorne ("The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables") and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (who taught there for years thereafter). They were preceded by one year by their friend Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States. Additionally, "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written at Bowdoin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, while her husband was a professor there (she had never been to the South). The class of 1877 featured Robert Peary, who later (as "Admiral Peary") was the first person to reach the North Pole (we'll go with that, anyway). In 1946, Alfred Kinsey (who revolutionized the way the world looks at sex) graduated from Bowdoin.

Bath:

Doesn’t this just make you want to stop into Ben’s for a trim?

Wiscasset:

On the way to Augusta:

Augusta, which has far too many traffic circles:

How’d you like to attend this high school?