Articles by Brian Swartz
Custom Publication of the Bangor Daily News
Seniors should take New Year’s lifestyle changes slow and easy
By Carol Higgins-Taylor on Dec. 26, 2012, at 10:16 a.m.
The New Year is days away. Traditionally it’s a time when we make great big plans to get in shape mentally and physically and stop bad habits while trying to adopt good ones. Well, with years of broken resolutions behind me, I’m finally over the grandiose schemes. So, this year ...
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Maintenace crews hit the trails before the snowsledders do
By Brian Swartz, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 10:14 a.m.
Across Maine, snowmobile trails received much-needed maintenance this past fall. The sledding season will start soon (hopefully), and snowmobile clubs got their trails into shape before the snow started falling. And club officials remember the related adventures of 2012 and years past. The Penobscot Snowmobile Club at 795 Bog Road ...
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Bangor optometrist plans new vision center
By Dale McGarrigle, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 10:05 a.m.
Dr. Philip Goldthwait found himself somewhat adrift last July when Pearle Vision next to his offce closed after a quarter-century at the Bangor Mall. The optometrist, whose practice had been housed right next door to Pearle since 1997, suddenly found himself without nearby optical services. “We had a symbiotic relationship,” ...
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UMaine nursing students set eyes on Belize
By Debra Bell, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 9:41 a.m.
When it comes to hands-on learning, 11 University of Maine Nursing International students and their advisor will have the ultimate experience in March. Working in a real world setting in the country of Belize. That means that while many UMaine students will be soaking up the sun during the March ...
Special to the Weekly
Boy Scouts to greet New Year atop Cadillac Mountain
By Greg Westrich on Dec. 26, 2012, at 9:37 a.m.
While most of us lie asleep in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 1, 2013, David Burgess will lead Boy Scouts from Troop 102 in Orland up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. They will be among the first people to see the New Year dawn over the United States; on ...
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Food is love for this Old Town caterer
By Debra Bell, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 9:34 a.m.
Jane Thibodeau’s talent lies in cooking. Professionally the Old Town woman has shared her love of cooking with clients since 1995 through her business, Jane’s Catering. “I love to feed people,” she said. “Food is love.” Thibodeau knows what it takes to feed large groups. Her own household started with ...
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‘Major’ disasters bring the war ‘home’ to Bangor during the 1862 holiday season
By Brian Swartz, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 9:31 a.m.
The 1862 holiday season brings disaster to two Army majors — William L. Pitcher and Stephen Decatur Carpenter — heroically representing Bangor on far-flung battlefields. Likely known as “Bill” or “Billy” in his childhood, Pitcher hails from Knox, where he was born to Horatio and Anna Pitcher on May 11, ...
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Bangor library receives grant for national exhibit
By Brian Swartz, Of the Weekly Staff on Dec. 26, 2012, at 9:23 a.m.
The Bangor Public Library will receive a $1,000 grant to bring the Civil War 150 traveling exhibition to Bangor in summer 2014. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the exhibition incorporates traveling panels featuring art, photographs, and texts from 1861-1865. The exhibition encompasses many aspects of the Civil ...
MAINE AT WAR
Maine soldier sent wishes for merry Christmas, happy emancipation
After feasting on roast goose and sipping hot coffee priced at 70 cents per pound, a soldier from Co. A, 14th Maine Infantry, contently watched Ol’ Man River roll past on Christmas Day 1862. “To-day [Thursday], as you see, is Christmas. I wish you all a merry one,” the soldier ...
Hampden native joins circus, life of crime ends in execution
Bad boy Albert H. Lunt could do no good, so 12 Union soldiers shot him dead at Hilton Head, S.C. on Monday, Dec. 1, 1862. And in case they missed, another dozen armed soldiers waited to use Lunt for target practice. Lunt seemed destined to pay for a life of ...
MAINE AT WAR
Morris Leach was ‘sweet’ on Flora Gray
Morris Leach left his heart in South Penobscot when he went off to war. The fourth child and third son of Capt. Rufus Leach and his wife, Ruth, Morris Leach was born on July 18, 1841. He grew up on Winslow’s Cove, a Northern Bay indentation that lies just west ...
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$37 took young sailor west
By Stan Maiden on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:57 p.m.
It was not so much that I began with the $137 in my wallet that caused the trouble; it was the leftward march of the decimal point. The Navy provided me with $137 to fund a trip from Chicago to San Francisco to meet my first ship after boot camp ...
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Skype helped Islesboro veteran “attend” his battalion’s reunion
By Philo Hutcheson on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:51 p.m.
These days, we read much about veterans who need our help. They certainly deserve it, and we should give it. But most veterans deserve our admiration. I commanded the 7/13th Artillery Battalion in Vietnam in 1967-68. The 7/13th pioneered the artillery raid, moving guns by helicopter onto a hilltop in ...
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Little Boy and Fat Man
By Paul Lucey on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:49 p.m.
It was the summer of 1945 and I was a Marine aviator on the island of Okinawa. The island was “secure” after the savage Battle of Okinawa. Our next mission was to “soften up” Japan for the attack on the home islands. Japan was being strangled by a ring of ...
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Marine heard the big explosion
By Kevin Perry on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:45 p.m.
On Sunday, Oct. 23, 1983, I was a member of a small contingent of Marines supplying external security at the new American embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. The previous embassy had been destroyed by a car bomb in April 1983. At 0622 hours on Oct. 23, as we were preparing for ...
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Maine Marine loved his country
By Zimmerman Family on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:41 p.m.
Marine 1st Lt. James Zimmerman loved life. He loved the Marines. He told his cousin Sam, when he was 9 years old, that he would grow up to be a Marine. He spent more of his life dressed up as a Marine than not. He also told Sam that Jesus ...
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Aviator flew in the Pacific
By Harlan Gardner on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:38 p.m.
Harlan Gardner of Marshfield enlisted in the U .S. Marine Corps on August 28, 1942. He went to boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. and to Aerial Ordnance and Gunnery schools in Jacksonville, FL. He was attached to Marine Torpedo Bombing Squadron 131 and trained as rear gunner and radioman ...
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Post-war soldier spent almost a year in Allied-occupied Germany
By Mary Lou Weaver on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:33 p.m.
Douglas Torrey, 85, of Winter Harbor was drafted into the Army in November 1945. “I trained in a radio outfit in Ft. McClellan, Ala. I got pneumonia after 14 weeks of training in February 1946,and ended up in the hospital for 90 days. Torrey finished training in heavy equipment and ...
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B-17 ball-turret gunner had a bird’s-eye view of World War II aerial warefare
By Brian Swartz, Special Sections Editor on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:29 p.m.
Wayne Dennison enjoyed “the best seat in the house” as he flew high above Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. A 1942 Washington Academy graduate, Dennison was drafted into the Army on Feb. 18, 1943. He wanted to fly; “I tried to enlist in the [aviation] cadet program, but they ...
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Out of fuel, out of time, pilot hits the silk somewhere over China
By Alfred Cormier on Nov. 08, 2012, at 3:26 p.m.
Jumping out of airplanes was not one of the things we did while attending flight school during WWII. We did, however, always wear a chute. When I finally got my wings, along with 200 other second lieutenants in March of 1944, I also got a 10-day leave to visit home. ...
Call put out for ground search volunteers in effort to find missing Glenburn teen
More than 500 help with ground search for missing Glenburn teen Nichole Cable
Three indicted in Houlton meth bust, endangering welfare of child
One winning ticket sold in Florida in historic $590.5 million Powerball drawing
Job openings on the rise as Maine slowly climbs back from recession
Jeffrey Nugent says his brother Ted Nugent is wrong on background checks
Maine protects a woman’s right to choose
Funding isn’t everything: Education reform takes innovation, cooperation
Strengthening the schools Maine already has
Emma Libby, 15, overcomes ruling to win Sport-4 race at Speedway 95
Marcus Davis wins mixed martial arts main event at NEF VII
For those who are too fat for Abercrombie and Fitch
Market Basket in Biddeford starts hiring 300 workers
Promise of land brought Theriault family to ‘Acadie’ in 1630s
How do I teach my kids it’s not OK to be bullied, even by family?