Bangor Metro —May Issue

Voice of the Midcoast Businesses in the midcoast have a new chamber of commerce to brag about

A piece of maine Our newest monthly feature focuses on Belfast Big things are happening for the

Bangor Beacon Community Your Roadmap to the Good Life

InsIDE: Local sports Savvy seniors Regional events $5.95

May 2012

Super Seniors meet three area seniors who put the “act� in active

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May 2012

contents

features from humble beginnings / 10 Royce Cross is leading his father’s insurance company into the 21st century.

Bangor beacon / 12 The Bangor Beacon Community is coming to the end of their three year grant. Find out what healthcare providers have learned about caring for patients in our area.

The voice of the midcoast / 18 It took years of hard work, but the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce is up and running and on a roll.

Super Seniors / 26 Meet three local senior citizens who refuse to just sit back and relax.

A Piece of Maine: Belfast / 34 Take a tour of one of the midcoast’s most delightful cities and find out why Belfast is a coastal Maine paradise. delicious entertainment / 50 Step inside the kitchen of Brian and Julie Williams for a trio of perfect plates.

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Schooners / 54 Chef Scott McKenzie, a Bangor native, is heating things up a new Brewer restaurant.

Photos: (top) elizabeth stanley; (Right) Hailey TAsh; (far right) kevin kratka

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34 www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 1

contents

columns

in every issue

Metro Fitness / 16 Get fit now to lead a healthy life later.

TaLk of the Towns / 6 Tasty scoops, student talent, and a new way to see Maine from Skowhegan, Bangor, and Bar Harbor.

woods & waters / 58 The changing tides of turkey hunting. last word / 64 How one man is battling his Peter Pan syndrome.

6

Biz Buzz / 8 People and places on the move. what’s happening / 42 A list of ways to enjoy May. Metro sports / 48 Meet Maine’s Mr. Basketball and learn about Lacrosse.

Perspectives / 56 Rogier van Bakel captures children in an extraordinary light. savvy seniors / 60 Nutrition tips for every senior.

2 / Bangor Metro May 2012

56

Photos: (top) monty rand; (middle) courtesy of l.l. bean, (bottom) Rogier van bakel

48

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Melanie Brooks, editor

4 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Photo: Kate Crabtree

ur May issue is always one of the most popular issues of the year.

It has a lot to do with the theme of this annual issue, which is our Senior Guide.

It’s no surprise that Maine is rated one of the oldest states in the country. But instead of focusing on the negative aspects of our aging population—shrinking workforce, high healthcare costs—we at Bangor Metro choose to focus on the positive.

Maine is a beautiful state where many come to retire. They are active in our communities, volunteer, fundraise for causes they believe in, and work to create a better future for the younger generation.

With the advancement of technology and healthcare, many seniors are choosing not to retire at all! Turn to page 26 where we feature three super seniors who continue to be active and productive members of their communities no matter their age. They are an inspiration and a testament that just because you are “old” doesn’t mean you need to be treated with kid gloves.

We have created a special pull out magazine for all you readers who fall into the 55-plus age bracket called Route 55. We’ve asked area experts to write about everything from being a grandparent to reverse mortgages to dealing with diabetes. We hope you find this special mini magazine a useful resource in navigating your journey into senior-hood.

You will also find two new features in this issue that we’re really excited about. Our A Piece of Maine series features a different community in our coverage area in each issue. This month we take you to Belfast! You can learn about this bustling seaside arts community on page 34. We have also brought back our popular Food File feature where community members invite us into their homes to share one of their favorite recipes.

While most of the changes Bangor Metro has been going through since the beginning of 2012 have been positive, they are not completely without regret. We have recently parted ways with someone who has been instrumental in making Bangor Metro what it has been for the past six years—Annaliese Jakimides. After six years as a part of the editorial team, she’s decided The Bangor Metro Region to move on and we wish her the very best.

www.bangormetro.com 263 State Street, Suite 1 Bangor, Maine 04401 Phone: 207.941.1300 Email: editor@bangormetro.com

PUBLISHER

Metro Publishing, llc EDITOR

Melanie Brooks melanie@bangormetro.com SALES DIRECTOR

Christine Parker christine@bangormetro.com

Andrew Lowe, Patrick Lowe, Jeffrey Weymouth, Camden Fire Department

AD SALES CONSULTANTs

Kelly Enberg kelly@bangormetro.com Laura Manzo laura@bangormetro.com ART DIRECTOR

Sandy Flewelling

Everyone looks up to athletes and astronauts.

We celebrate holidays and wedding days.

But what about every day?

Copyeditor

Sara Speidel CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

We’re for its heroes.

Tom Avila, Joseph Doyle, Brad Eden Henry Garfield, Rich Kimball Carol Higgins Taylor, Wendy Watkins Contributing PHOTOGRAPHers

Michael Alden, Rogier van Bakel Kevin Kratka, Mark McCall Elizabeth Stanley, Hailey Tash

Here’s to the ones we can count on. The trustworthy. The resolute.

The people who are always there when we need them the most. We salute the real heroes. Here’s to the anchors of every day.

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www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 5

talk of the towns

bar harbor: If you head to Bar Harbor this summer you’re going to be seeing something new trotting down Main Street—a horse-drawn carriage!

Sandi Read and Marc Jaffrey, the mother/son team who own and operate Wild Iris Horse Farm, will be driving their team of shire horses through Bar Harbor this summer, giving riders a 25-minute tour of the bustling coastal town.

“We’re trying to bring back some of the old historic feeling to the town,” Read says. “Carriages were the main mode of transportation on the island for years— even when cars became prevalent.”

Read, who moved to Bar Harbor four years ago, is particularly excited about offering the service to brides and grooms. “A horse-drawn carriage is a unique and fantastic way to be taken to or from a wedding,” she says. The 62-year-old moved to Maine from Colorado to be with her now-husband, with whom she reconnected at her 40th high school reunion. When she moved, she brought her four horses along.

6 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Her son Marc followed his mother east to help with the horse farm, bringing along his wife and five children. Jaffrey brought his four horses when he moved, making the family total eight.

The duo has one team already trained for the in-town carriage rides, a pair of 11-year-old shires named Griffin and Dickens, who have been together since they were a year old. “You want to use an experienced team of horses for in-town carriage rides,” Jaffrey says. “They need to be able to deal with cars, bikes, pedestrians, dogs, and whatever else they come across.”

The shires are powerful, yet gentle, draft horses.

They can pull up to six times their own weight, Jaffrey says. Their nature, beauty, and willingness to learn and please their owners are some of the reasons Jaffrey loves the breed and says they are perfect for this kind of work. “They’re very special,” she says. “If my husband didn’t like horses, I never could have married him!”

photo: courtesy of wild iris horse farm

Trot Trot to…Bar Harbor

Sweet Taste of Maine

photos: (top) courtesy of l.l. bean; (righjt) courtesy of emcc

Skowhegan: No one turns Maine into a sweet tasting treat better than Skowhegan-based Gifford’s Ice Cream. With flavors like Maine Wild Blueberry, Moose Tracks, Maine Black Bear, Maine Deer Tracks, and Maine Maple Walnut, Gifford’s puts smiles on Mainers’ and tourists’ faces with every cone, cup, and sundae.

In honor of L.L. Bean’s 100th Anniversary this year, they wanted to create something special to commemorate the event.

The outdoor retailer turned to Gifford’s Ice Cream to help create a new special edition flavor for 2012 called Muddy Bean Boots.

“When L.L. Bean asked us to help them celebrate 100 years, we quickly realized that this flavor should pay tribute to the company’s iconic product—L.L. Bean Boots,” says Lindsay Gifford-Skilling, Gifford’s vice president of sales. “My entire family has grown up wearing Bean boots—focusing on them was the only way to go!”

The flavor combines Gifford’s award-winning Old-Fashioned Vanilla ice cream with sweet caramel ripple and rich chocolate brownie bites. Is your mouth watering yet?

“L.L. Bean and Gifford’s share many of the same qualities,” says Kelly Warsky, L.L. Bean’s partnership marketing manager.

March Madness at EMCC

“They are both family owned, Maine companies that take pride in producing a quality product right here in Maine.”

Part of the proceeds from the sale of Muddy Bean Boots ice cream will help support Healthy Hometowns, a Maine-based nonprofit that engages young people and their families in an active, healthy lifestyles through outdoor recreation.

Bangor: March Madness was brought close to home this spring when the Eastern Maine Community College men’s basketball team hit the road for the 2012 National Championships.

The team has been to the big dance twice before—in 1992 and 2002. This year marked the first time the school made it to the National Championships as part of the Yankee Small College Conference and the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association.

The Golden Eagles finished as the YSCC regular season champions with an overall record of 18–4. “We entered Nationals as the sixth seed, which put us up against the defending champions, third ranked Andrews University out of Berrien Springs, Michigan,” says EMCC athletic director, Kent Corey. Andrews University went on to clinch the title.

The secret to this small school’s success? Coach Steve Rich, who is in his third year as head coach. “Coach Rich has put great efforts into finding the right individuals who are willing to put in the effort both on the floor and in the classroom,” Corey says. “We are hoping that this team has set the environment for the future, not only for the men’s basketball program but for women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, golf, and our new baseball and softball programs.”

While the Golden Eagles have had a very successful year, the program is preparing for the loss of a core group of players who will be graduating as well as transferring to a four-year institution to earn their bachelor’s degree. “We are expecting to see many of these young men playing for a NCAA Division II or III college or university next year,” Corey says. “Winning is great, but it’s even better to see each student athlete achieve their goals in life.” www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 7

biz buzz On the Move ROBERT TALLENT, RPh,

has joined the pharmacy staff at the Penobscot Community Health Center Pharmacy in Bangor. He brings over 15 years of pharmacy experience to his new job. www.pchc.com CONSTANCE THYNG, an

operating room nurse at the Cancer Care Center at Pen Bay Medical Center, has taken on the new role of nurse manager. Previously, Thyng worked in oncology at Franklin Hospital in Rumford. www.penbayhealthcare.org Michelle Bittrich,

LCSW, will now be providing integrated psychiatric services at Penobscot Community Health Care’s Brewer Medical Center. Prior to joining PCHC, Bittrich served as senior clinician at Acadia Hospital where she earned the 2011 Social Worker of the Year Award. www.pchc.com Pen Bay Speech and Hearing has a new audiologist on staff. GARY FRIEDMAN, MS, has joined Pen Bay Speech and Hearing and is new to Maine. He has worked in a variety of ear, nose, and throat practices in New York, North Carolina, and, most recently, Florida. www.penbayhealthcare.org JAMES SMITH, who has served as

Brewer’s assistant city manager since 2007, has been hired as the next city manager of Rockland. A Maine native, Smith previously served 10 years in the Marine Corps and as the town manager of Oakfield in Aroostook County. www.ci.rockland.me.us David Edson, a long time executive at the Old Town-based James W. Sewall Co., has been named as the firm’s new president and CEO. Edson has worked at Sewall since 1974, starting his career as a forest technician. www.sewall.com 8 / Bangor Metro May 2012

HEIDI HARRINGTON, a licensed plastic surgeon, has joined Bangor Plastic and Hand Surgery in Bangor. Harrington comes to Maine from Loma Linda University Medical Center in California. www.bangorplastic.com

Atlantic Boat Co. of Brooklin has hired JOHN M. PRATT as their manager of service and storage. Pratt has 25 years of experience in the marine industry. He previously worked with the Hinckley Co. of Southwest Harbor as the mechanical supervisor/technical specialist. www.atlanticboat.com LISA GOODWIN, former town manager of Lincoln, is the new city clerk for Bangor.

Goodwin is a Master Municipal Clerk and Lifetime Certified Clerk of Maine. www.bangormaine.gov DERRICK HOLLINGS has been named the new CFO for Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems. Hollings, formerly CFO and executive vice president of hospital operations at United Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has worked at academic medical centers, community hospitals, and joint venture companies throughout his career. www.emh.org KATHRYN MAHAR is the new treasurer

for the town of Mount Desert. Mahar previously worked as the financial manager of the Sunrise County School System in Washington County. www.mtdesert.org christii Maquillan, RN, has been hired as the care coordinator for New Hope Hospice in Eddington. She brings a strong background in cardiopulmonary medicine, as well as leadership and supervisory skills to her new position. www.newhopehospice.org

Pen Bay Pediatric PT and OT has recently welcomed four new employees. WENDY RICH is a physical therapist with expertise in aqua therapy treatment. HALEY COOK is an occupational therapist who returns to her home state of Maine from Seattle, Washington. ANNAH SULLIVAN, DPT, is a physical therapist and Rockport Native.

LISA MANLEY, DPT, brings her 30-plus years of physical therapy experience to the team at Pen Bay. www.penbayhealthcare.org

Grants CARY MEDICAL CENTER in Caribou has

secured a $276,000 grant from the AstraZenica HealthCare Foundation in support of the center’s Healthy HeartsHealthy Community Program. The program encourages healthy lifestyle choices in northern Maine and works to improve access to health care for low-income families. www.carymedicalcenter.org The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $1 million to the PENOBSCOT INDIAN NATION, which will help the tribe move forward in its attempt to install a 227-megawatt wind project in Franklin County. www.penobscotnation.org The Newport Fire Department has received a $196,315 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to purchase a new tanker fire truck. The truck will be replacing a 26-year-old model that has driven over 387,000 miles.

This is the first truck for which the town has received federal grant money. www.newportmaine.net PENOBSCOT COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE was awarded a grant totaling

$199,952 to recruit, train, and retain entry-level employees required by community health centers. The award comes from the RCHN Community Health Foundation, the only national foundation dedicated solely to supporting community health centers. www.pchc.com

Awards The Blue Hill Peninsula Chamber of Commerce recognized the following businesses and individuals at their annual dinner: SALON VERDE won the Business of the Year Award; The Best New Member Business Award was given to 44 NORTH; and the NEW SURRY THEATER won the Best Nonprofit Award. www.bluehillpeninsula.org A group of border patrol agents from Houlton and Jackman were recently honored in Washington, D.C. for demonstrating bravery and exemplary effort on the job. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection presented the following five agents from Jackman with the agency’s

sight ings highest honor, the Newton-Azrak Award: ERICH S. ROHR, CHRISTOPHER J. DLUGOKINSKI, GABRIEL PRATT, MICHAEL MIELNICKI, and ABRAHAM REEDER . Border patrol agents RUSSELL D. RADATZ and STERLING W. GOLDSTON from Houlton with the Meritorious Services Award for Valor. www.cbp.gov WHITNEY WREATH, located in Whitneyville, and MACHIAS SAVINGS BANK were recently honored by the White House and the USDA at a Recognition of Manufacturing Success in Rural America event in Washington, D.C. Whitney Wreath utilized a multi-million dollar USDA Rural Development Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan with Machias Savings Bank, which helped the company build their wreath assembling facility and create 455 jobs. www.whitneywreath.com www.machiassavings.com

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SCOTT and RENA CARLIN, owners of

three IGA grocery stores in Aroostook County, are the recipients of the IGA Brand Development award. This award is given to an IGA retailer, wholesaler, or manufacturing partner who has demonstrated an outstanding contribution in developing the IGA brand. www.iga.com R.H. FOSTER ENERGY has received the

6 3

2012 Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce Top Drawer Award, based on their business ingenuity and commitment to growth in the greater Ellsworth area. www.rhfoster.com William Prest, a teacher at Trenton’s

Photos: (3) Elizabeth Stanley

Acadia Christian School, has been selected to receive the State of Maine VFW Junior High Teacher of the Year Award. The award, sponsored by the Maine State Veterans of Foreign Wars, is given in recognition of an outstanding junior high faculty member who teaches patriotism and good citizenship. www.acadiachristian.com For the third year in a row, Unity college has been named to the President’s Community Service Honor Roll, an award given by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

Unity College is one of 14 colleges across the U.S. to be named as an honor roll finalist. www.rhfoster.com

4 1: Tammie Anderson, Vicki Vroom, and Tina Scheer at a recent Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce after hours event at Finelli Pizzeria.

2: Mercedes-Benz at Quirk Auto Park raised $2,500 for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Pictured from left, David Roberts, Sally Bilancia, David Quirk, and Tim Patten.

3: Mary Sweeny, Sarah Shepherd, and Julia Libby at the Penobscot Bay Chamber after hours at Cellardoor Winery.

4: Jay Murth, Bangor Area Breakfast Rotary President (left) and Lawrence Barrett, EMCC

7 President (right) present a check for $10,000 to EMCC Rotary Scholarship recipient, Steve Gray.

5: Jeremy Snow and Kim Colwell at an Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce after hours event at Finelli Pizzeria.

6: Tracey Hurd, Mark Pellon, and Chris Wilcox at the Bangor Chamber of Commerce’s after hours even at Sam’s Club.

7: Maggi Blue and Alicia Bagnall at the 2012 Business Expo at the Samoset Resort.

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 9

movers & shakers

From Humble Beginnings Cross Insurance began at a dining room table. Today the family business insures thousands of companies in New England—including some of your favorite athletes. by henry garfield

retirement. “We’ve bought an insurance agency every year since about 1980,” Royce Cross says. “A typical person that sells their business to us would be in their 60s; they’ve run a successful business for years, and now they’re looking to enter their retirement years, and I’m their perpetuation plan. Today we’ve got a team that helps us. In the old days, we’d pick up a business, and my brother and I would take the pickup truck and get a little dolly and load things up.”

His own perpetuation plan seems secure, as brother Brent, son Jonathan, and nephew Woodrow (Woody) all have positions in the family business.

Royce Cross says he was going to take a job at the telephone company, until he broke his leg on a temporary construction job and showed up for the first day of work on crutches. Turned away, he accepted his father’s offer to try the insurance business and see if he liked it. He’s liked it well enough to stay on for the past 42 years.

More than that, if you count his childhood apprenticeship. The third of five children, Royce Cross’s mother would send him with his dad when he went out to see customers. He would need to measure buildings, so I would hold one end of the tape measure for him; I’d go in and sit in the chair, quietly, while he talked to his customers, and then he might say he needed his auto manual or his fire manual, and my job was to go fetch. I got a lot of exposure to the business.”

Growth has enabled Cross to compete for—and win—insurance contracts from large clients, most notably, the New England Patriots. Woodrow Cross was given a Patriots jersey with the number 54 and “W. Cross,” on the back by Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft last year on his 95th birthday.

It hangs is under glass in the office lobby.

The elder Cross still loves the challenge of business. “He’ll be okay for awhile, but then he’ll come to me and say, ‘Let’s do

“I tell people I don’t even think about retiring, as long as [my father] keeps working.” —Royce Cross Since 1970, father and son have acquired nearly 100 agencies of various sizes in the three-state region. They grew the business by purchasing small insurance agencies, often upon the owner’s 10 / Bangor Metro May 2012

something exciting,’” Royce says. “That’s his choice of words. If things are running smoothly, he wants to find another challenge, to go out and purchase another business, assimilate it into our organization.”

Photo: courtesy of cross insurance

T

he largest insurance agency in Maine and New Hampshire began on Woodrow Cross’s dining room table in Bangor in 1954.

Royce Cross, his son, now president and chief executive officer of Cross Insurance, heads a company that has 27 offices in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, and just under 500 employees. And his 95-year-old father, now chairman of the board and director of special projects, still comes to work every day.

“My father had a country store in Bradford,” Royce Cross says. “He decided he was going to move to Bangor, but didn’t know what he was going to do for work.

After looking around a little bit, he decided he was going to go into the insurance business. He started selling from home. In 1963, he bought his first insurance agency. He bought a couple more small ones during the 1960s. I joined him in 1970.”

At the time, the office consisted of a single room, with a desk in each corner for each of the company’s four representatives. Woodrow Cross maintains an office in the Gilman Road building that has housed company headquarters since 1993, and he’s usually at his desk shortly after seven each morning.

“I tell people I don’t even think about retiring, as long as he keeps working,” says the 60-year-old Royce. His father, who served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War and saw action in the South Pacific, built up his business one customer at a time—a model that has guided Cross Insurance’s steady growth.

“He finally bought a desk instead of working off the dining room table. Then he bought a file cabinet instead of using cardboard boxes. He built up the business slowly and steadily. I kind of think that’s a World War II generational thing that society misses today. Today everybody looks for investors; in those days they would start with very humble beginnings. He did.”

“It was a complete surprise to me that I could receive while giving back.� —Charles Kirby, Bucksport W H E N C H A R L E S K I R B Y of Bucksport or Waterville with your gift of cash or assets. lost his wife of 63 years to heart disease, he In return, you receive fixed payments for the wanted to do something special to remember rest of your life. You receive an immediate tax her and to recognize those who had cared for deduction and a portion of your payments her when she was a patient at Eastern Maine are tax-free. The amount of your gift annuity Medical Center. “The staff at EMMC, they re- payments will never change, regardless of how ally took care of Jean,� he says, recalling his long you live or economic fluctuations. The decision to make a donation to the hospital in remaining principal is transferred to EMHS his wife’s name. Charles worked Charities after the lifetime of Age Single Double with EMHS Charities to create a the income beneficiaries.

4.7% 4.2% charitable gift annuity to benefit “The additional income 70 5.1% 4.6% cardiac services at EMMC. from the charitable gift annuity 75 5.8% 5.0% With a charitable gift annureally comes in handy for me,�

6.8% 5.7% ity, you can support healthcare Charles remarks, ‘�I have been

7.8% 6.7% in Bangor, Blue Hill, Greenable to give more, while actually 90 9.0% 8.2% ville, Pittsfield, Presque Isle, receiving in return.�

CHARITIES For a no-obligation consult with an EMHS Charities professional, please contact EMHS Charities at:

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metro health

Healing at

Home

The Bangor Beacon Community is helping change the way hundreds of people in our region of Maine manage their chronic diseases. And it’s working. By Melanie Brooks

O

Kay Hunter at home, 16 months after she was discharged from the hospital.

12 / Bangor Metro May 2012

ver two years ago, the Bangor healthcare community got some great news—it had been chosen as one of 17 sites nationwide to receive more than $12 million in grant money to help pilot a new foundation of care coordination.

Together, Eastern Maine Medical Center, Penobscot Community Health Care, St. Joseph Healthcare, the Acadia Hospital, and Community Health and Counseling Services are working on improving the health of our community by collaborating and rather than competing.

That program is called the Bangor Beacon Community. The goal of the program is to help people with chronic conditions—diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), congestive heart failure, and asthma—manage their illness in a more coordinated and efficient manner.

“We aren’t doing anything new,” says M. Michelle Hood, FACHE, president and CEO of Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems. “What we’re doing is coordinating the resources and creating a care coordination, or management model, that is personalized to the individual’s needs.”

In the Bangor community, there’s a high rate of chronic illness, and the state spends $1.4 billion each year to treat these diseases. The Bangor Beacon Community helps patients with these chronic diseases to navigate through their illness with education and the help of a care manager, who works with their primary care provider. Through this process, peo-

Photos: courtesy of bangor beacon community

ple learn to recognize the warning signs that otherwise could mean a trip to the hospital, and how to self-monitor their health at home.

Colleen Loveless, RN, is one of these care managers. A former cardiac nurse at Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC), Loveless spends her days making phone calls, checking up on patients who have just been released from the hospital, and answering questions from her approximately 109 patients.

“When I was a floor nurse, I thought the most important aspect of patient care was right there in the hospital,” she says.

“I came to realize that the most important part of healthcare really happens on the outside, when the patient goes home.”

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness is a scary time for anyone, Loveless says. One of her most important jobs is to call people who have been newly diagnosed within 24 hours of their going home from the hospital. Loveless calls to discuss their medications, diet, and exercise, and help them understand the selfmanagement guides that will guide them in understand their diagnosis.

“It’s a sense of security,” Loveless says.

“Once people start to understand their disease, then they can access the right type of care at the right time and in the right place.”

As a care manager, Loveless has an active, ongoing part in her patient’s care—something she didn’t have as a bedside nurse. Since she calls her patients frequently, she can immediately tell if something isn’t quite right. For example, if a patient is having difficult time breathing, or if their blood sugar readings are off, she contacts their primary care physician to set up an in-office visit. This seamless exchange of information, all done electronically, has made a huge difference in people’s lives.

“Patients tend to tell us more than they tell their doctor,” Loveless says. “But they know we’re going to share our notes with their primary care provider.” She also says that people are more prone to talking about their problems with her, over the phone in the comfort of their own home, than in their doctor’s office.

Kay Hunter, an oncology nurse at EMMC’s CancerCare of Maine, knows firsthand how helpful care coordination is in helping patients handle their chronic illnesses. Loveless was Hunter’s care man-

M. Michelle Hood from EMHS

“The education I got from Bangor Beacon helped me stay home and heal, which is where I really wanted to be.” —Kay Hunter ager when she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in December of 2010.

After five days spent at EMMC, a still very sick Hunter went home to Hampden.

“When Colleen [Loveless] called me at home, I must have had her on the phone for an hour and a half,” Hunter says. “It was hard for me to listen to the nurses in the hospital, because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind and I was so exhausted.”

Loveless called Hunter every few days and coached her through her goal of being able to walk 10 steps at a time without losing her breath. “Colleen knows the questions to ask her patients. She goes beyond her role as a care manager and

fills the role of a wellness coach.”

Hunter and Loveless worked together intensively for four months. Hunter went from not being able to walk down a hallway unassisted to finally getting out of her house and, eventually, back to work parttime. “I’m not a cardiac nurse, and being that sick was really scary,” Hunter says.

“The education I got from Bangor Beacon helped me stay home and heal, which is where I really wanted to be.”

“The Beacon model is filling a void,” says Dr. Iyad Sabbagh, a primary care physician at Husson Internal Medicine. “I feel more reassured with a patient when I know there is a care manager on the case.” www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 13

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metro health Primary care providers, like Sabbagh, can follow their patient’s progress using HealthInfoNet—an electronic health records program that provides access to patients’ prescriptions, lab results, and medical history.

Sabbagh offers an example of how the Bangor Beacon Community is helping to make doctor’s visits more efficient: One of his patients was recently diagnosed with diabetes. Three days after being released from the hospital, that person had already been contacted by a care manager, received pertinent information on caring for their diagnosis, and was scheduled for a visit with their primary care physician—Dr. Sabbagh. “The patient had already gotten on the road to changing their diet and gone grocery shopping, thanks to the info the case manager gave them,� he says. “I had a 20-minute visit with the patient about how to manage their medication, and I didn’t have to spend any extra time talking to them about their diet and exercise.

I can be totally focused on prescribing the right medication and helping the patient to manage that aspect of their disease.�

And when patients are armed with the right information, and someone they can talk to whenever they have questions, they succeed in managing their disease from home. Preliminary data shows that, with the Beacon model of healthcare, there has been a 30% drop in hospital admissions, which saves both time and money. “We are giving personal contact points for people to call with questions so they don’t have to rush to the emergency room,�

Hood says. “By improving the understanding of their disease and giving people the ability to self-manage, they no longer have to wait until their health gets to be an emergency to do something about it.�

In 2013, at the end of the three-year funding cycle, the Bangor Beacon Community will become Beacon Health. The program, which currently has 1,200 patients, will expand to be able to help more patients in more hospitals across the state.

Currently, Inland Hospital in Waterville and The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle are training staff to expand this model of care coordination. “There are thousands more patients we can help,�

Hood says. “We will be taking what we learned during this three year Bangor Beacon Community program and advancing it to help more people.�

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showed that after 20 weeks of strength training, a group of seniors gained 2.42 pounds of muscle, more than offsetting the 0.4 pounds of muscle scientists estimate, on average, we lose each year.

The ACSM reports that in three to four months, older adults can see a two- to threefold increase in strength, which is pretty impressive.

Being a newbie carries big benefits when it comes to strength training. You’ll make the biggest percentage of overall gains during the first few months of weightlifting. Prolonged lifting will continue to help build the size and tone of your muscles.

However, swinging around 5-pound dumbbells for 50 repetitions isn’t going to cut it when it comes to building significant muscle or strength. Researchers recommend a progressive weight-training program, starting with fewer repetitions, sets, and less weight for those who are unaccustomed to resistance training, but

ercise, which has been shown to be helpful when it comes to lowering cholesterol, blood pressure, and improving the body’s response to insulin. A recent study published in the ACSM’s scientific journal showed that cardiovascular fitness helped dramatically cut the risk of dementia-related death across the board.

So, how much exercise enough? The ACSM recommends that 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week for older adults is a good target. Strength training twice a week, with at least two days between sessions, is a good place to start, with cardiovascular activities on other days.

As a personal trainer, I frequently work with retirees, and it always cracks me up when I hand a new “older” client, especially a woman, a set of dumbbells that weigh about the same as a bag of groceries. They generally look at me like I’m crazy because they consider the weight I gave them to be too heavy for them— and then they look very happy when they re-

If you’re planning on doing things during your retirement, you need to start intentionally doing things now to make sure you’re able. then adding more repetitions, sets, and increasing the amount of weight lifted to ensure muscle growth and improvement in strength.

It’s important—especially if you have a few nagging body issues like creaky shoulders or complaining knees—to make sure you’re using proper form and making appropriate modifications so you don’t cause an injury.

And let’s not forget cardiovascular ex-

alize it’s not. And then before long, they start to notice how much stronger they are, and they are able to do more over the course of a day. It’s fun to watch.

And if fun is in your future, make sure your body is ready and able to follow through with your plans. Get moving!

Wendy Watkins is a personal trainer and lifestyle coach at Bangor-Brewer Athletic Club in Brewer.

Photo: ©stockbyte/thinkstock.com

W

hen you picture your retirement, chances are you imagine yourself doing things you didn’t have time to do while working full-time. And I’m guessing those are fun things, like golfing more, traveling, and maybe chasing the grandkids (and even great-grandkids) around the yard.

Here’s the thing: if you want to enjoy an active, healthy life as a “senior” citizen, you need to make time for physical activity now, no matter how old (or young) you are. Scientists say it’s important to go into your older years with as much fitness— and muscle—as possible.

By the time you hit 50, you’ve already lost 10% of your muscle area, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ASCM). After 50, muscle loss, known as sarcopenia, accelerates, with strength declining about 15% each decade in your 60s and 70s, and even more after. That muscle loss (and related loss of strength) makes you more susceptible to falls and broken bones.

Plus, the less muscle you have, the less likely you are to be active, which leads to a round-robin of possible other problems.

So if you’re planning on doing things during your retirement, you need to start intentionally doing things now to make sure you’re able. And with obesity-related diseases climbing steadily with our ever-more-sedentary lifestyles, it’s more important than ever to make the time to move your body with purpose.

The sooner you start working out to build muscle before you hit your golden years, the more muscle you will have going into that time of life, so the relative loss is smaller. However, if you already are in the 50-plus age range, working out can help stave off sarcopenia. One study

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feature story

18 / Bangor Metro May 2012

The Voice of the

Midcoast The consolidation of two midcoast chambers of commerce has created a veritable force to be reckoned with from Searsport to Port Clyde. It took years of planning and hard work—but the creation of the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce was well worth the effort. by Henry Garfield

Camden Harbor

feature story

P

enobscot Bay may have been the first part of Maine seen

by Europeans. Magellan mutineer Estevan Gomez sailed through in 1525 looking for the Northwest Passage; historical speculation places Basque fishermen and Viking voyagers near its island-studded waters even earlier. Over the centuries, the Bay has seen booms in shipbuilding, quarrying, liquor smuggling, and fishing, and today it is known as one of the world’s great sailing grounds.

The canneries are long gone from the Rockland waterfront, but some of the essence of a working harbor remains: the tugboats, the U.S. Coast Guard Station, the ferry landing, vestiges of the fishing fleet, and the cloud of seagulls above the dock where they unload their catch.

Camden Harbor, eight miles to the north, is smaller and more gentrified. In the summer it’s dominated by sailing yachts and a fleet of windjammer schooners.

You can spend hours watching their captains maneuver the stately sailing ships

20 / Bangor Metro May 2012

into tight docking spaces with decks full of paying passengers.

The two communities have been friendly (and sometimes not so friendly) rivals for generations. But business leaders all along the western shore of Penobscot Bay have long recognized that their common interests outweigh their differences. In August 2011, after years of discussion, the Camden-RockportLincolnville Chamber of Commerce and the Rockland-Thomaston Area Chamber of Commerce finally made it official and became one. The Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce now represents businesses from Port Clyde to Searsport, Islesboro to Monhegan. It is the fourth largest Chamber of Commerce in the state.

“We now have much more scope to market our members and to support them,” says Dan Bookham, the chamber’s current executive director.

The consolidation was a merger of equals. In legal parlance, Bookham explains, “merger” and “consolidation” mean

two different things. “We’re an entirely new entity,” he says. “Under Maine law, organizations can either merge or consolidate. What we did officially was a consolidation. In a merger, one takes over the other. In a consolidation, you pool the assets and create a new company. There are a few more forms to fill out, and you have to get new tax numbers and all that stuff, but we wanted to genuinely demonstrate that this wasn’t an absorption or a takeover. It was symbolic, I think, of the way we see ourselves going forward.”

The rivalry is still there, but, Bookham quips, “That’s basketball politics, not economics.” Bookham will be leaving his position in September, but is confident the staff will continue to move the consolidated chamber forward with a new person at the helm.

“This was our second effort,” says Gordon Page, alluding to a failed consolidation vote five or six years ago. “We’ve talked for years about having the ability to market what is really one region.” Page is President of Maine Eastern Railroad, and

photo: kevin Kratka; (opposite) elizabeth stanley

Owle Head Harbor

“In Maine we understand that there’s no dividing line between big C Community and business community.”

—Dan Bookham

Dan Bookham, executive director for the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce, at a recent function at Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 21

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a past president of the Rockland-Thomaston Area Chamber.

“We’re thinking of things in a regional way from a healthcare point of view,” adds Eric Waters, chief operating officer at Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, and a past president of the CamdenRockport-Lincolnville Chamber. “It makes sense to think that way from a business point of view as well. That regional approach helps small business owners get access to things that larger businesses have access to, like health insurance cooperatives, for example.” Both Page and Waters serve on the unified board of the new chamber.

As the largest employer in the area, PenBay Healthcare might be considered a heavyweight in the arena, along with the Samoset Resort, Bangor Savings Bank, and others. But the new chamber has more than a thousand members, the ma22 / Bangor Metro May 2012

jority of which are small businesses.

“Like most chambers in Maine we’re very much driven by small businesses,” Bookham says. “We are the voice of 1,054 businesses.”

The opportunity to combine the two chambers presented itself in 2007, when long-tenured executive directors stepped down, leaving vacancies in both offices.

“The shelf life of an executive director of a Chamber of Commerce isn’t forever,” Page explains. “You’re the visible face of the organization. It can be a high burnout job.”

Into the breach stepped Bookham, a young Briton with a crewcut and a boyish smile who likes to use the word “swashbuckling.” Hired by the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville Chamber in 2009, he landed in the middle of a renewed conversation about consolidation.

“I was newly hired, and they didn’t have a director in Rockland,” he says. “Bob

Hastings had just left, headed for Massachusetts. He was a towering figure in the local chamber world. They were going to not replace him. Bob came to town when Rockland was starting to undergo its renaissance, both as a manufacturing hub and as an arts center. He was larger than life. My personality is different, more bland, I guess. For me, it’s always about the organization.”

Originally from Norwich, 100 miles north of London on England’s east coast, Bookham came to Maine in 1993 with the British Universities North America Club as a college student to work at a summer camp. “They send a whole bunch of us over every year. They entrust your children to us. Anyway, I fell in love with a girl from Bar Harbor, and found my way to the coast of Maine with my green card after I graduated.”

His first self-described “grown-up job”

photo: elizabeth stanley

Cellardoor Winery in Lincolnville played host to a recent chamber after hours event.

was at the Bar Harbor Chamber of Commerce as a marketing assistant. This job was followed by a stint in broadcasting and another in the nonprofit world. They moved to the midcoast when his wife enrolled at the International Film and Television Workshops in Rockport, and both were looking for a more vibrant yearround experience.

“We’re not a seasonal community,” Bookham asserts. “Very few businesses close. What we have is a drumbeat of business that is up and down, on and off, and appropriate for an economy of its size.

Rockland’s population is around 7,500; the work force is about 4,500, and there are six thousand jobs in Rockland. Rockland imports workers every day. What’s remarkable is that in the summer they’re able to scale up and service 400,000 people. It’s a year-round town that scales up, rather than a seasonal town that closes down.”

“Everyone thinks of tourists,” says Waters. “But we are a pretty vibrant yearround community.” He ticks off noteworthy non-summer events: Christmas by the Sea, the North American Toboggan Championships, and the Camden Conference.

“You can attend a conference in Camden and have a cup of coffee with the Australian foreign minister or a former prime minister of Iceland, for a couple hundred bucks,” Bookham says.

The region does seem to attract not just people from Away, but from Far Away.

“People will come here from the ends of the Earth,” Bookham avers. “You can live here and work anywhere in the world. We have great Internet infrastructure. There’s quite a core of what we call remote entrepreneurs, or dispersed workers, already here. They’re either working for established companies elsewhere but based here, or they’re working for themselves with clients outside the state, or they’re working for companies like Bank of America, who do business both in Maine and elsewhere.”

Bookham and the board members of both chambers spent nearly three years asking questions and listening to the answers. Members voted in June 2011. The vote to consolidate was 91% in favor in the Camden-Rockport-Lincolnville region and 95% in Rockland-Thomaston.

“What we really did was formalize the way we did business,” Bookham says. “The service communities are eight miles apart.

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The offices are eight miles apart. There were members from Port Clyde to Belfast who were members of both chambers.”

At the time of the consolidation, each chamber had between 620 and 650 members, of which approximately 200 were members of both. “As members of a single chamber, everybody gets a bigger bang for their buck,” Page says, citing costs such as inclusion in Chamber publications and marketing efforts.

Much of the work so far has involved streamlining things like phone and com24 / Bangor Metro May 2012

puter services, databases, and division of labor. The consolidation was accomplished without reduction or addition of staff, though some jobs were rearranged.

Both offices, in Camden and Rockland, remain open, and Bookham says he sometimes can’t remember which waterfront workplace to report to. But things are falling into place. The new chamber is already offering a series of well-attended training programs, rotated between the two offices, on topics from managing risk to using social media.

A larger chamber means more influence in the halls of government, and more money to promote the region. “We obviously now have a louder voice in Augusta,” Bookham says. “The question is, can we use that collective voice to make sure we’re serving everyone? We’re defiantly apolitical. We’re always going to support free enterprise and free markets, but here on the coast of Maine we also have a burning imperative to protect our quality of place and quality of life. Those are two of our best sales pitches for existing businesses and for bringing in new business. We tend to be more educational in approach, and we are collaborative by nature.”

Waters says the consolidation reflected that cooperative spirit. Board members of both chambers volunteered their time and services to make it happen.

Shari Closter served as interim director of the Rockland-Thomaston Area Chamber during the transition, and Susan Bryant of Bryant Legal Services in Camden did much of the legal work involved. “It took a critical combination of the right people with the right skills to make it all work,” Waters says.

“In Maine we understand that there’s no dividing line between big C Community and business community,” Bookham says. “The owner-operators live and eat here. There aren’t many cigar-smoking plutocrat absentee owners in the state of Maine who run massive factories any more. The guy who’s president of the large insurance company probably coaches Little League. It’s very much community driven, and we try to embrace that encompassing model.”

Like most economies of which tourism is a piece, the midcoast area is keeping a wary watch on gas prices as summer approaches. But visitors to the Rockland/ Camden area do have the option of arriving by means other than car. In fact, they have several options: rail, air, and sea.

Though 80% of visitors still come by car, the versatility of the area’s transportation infrastructure, which also includes ferries to the islands and the Concord Coach bus, bodes well for its economic future.

Eastern Maine Railroad’s passenger train runs between Rockland and Brunswick five days a week, from Memorial Day through October. The region is also served by Knox County Regional Airport in Owl’s Head, three miles south of downtown Rockland. A flight to Boston is forty

photo: kevin Kratka

feature story

minutes and less than a hundred bucks, Bookham says. And thanks to a recent executive order from President Obama, Rockland may be able to apply for Class A port status, which would also apply to the airport and allow international arrivals and departures. Currently, the only Class A ports in Maine are Portland and Bar Harbor.

“The reason the issue’s come up now,” Bookham says, “is that the president issued an executive order late last year saying that you can change the port status and then later on figure how you’re going to do the facility. Before, you had to build the facility first, with a customs house and all that, and then apply for port status. Class A status would allow the Dept. of Homeland Security to process passengers as well as crew on visiting vessels.

It has nothing to do with mega cruise ships. That’s not going to happen. But we want to preserve flexibility in port operations, so that a National Geographic trip, for example, coming down from Canada, would be able to make us their first port of call. Windjammers could go to Canada.

We could market two-nation vacations, and our connections to Nova Scotia. We could do something fun.”

Fun isn’t likely to be a problem—not for someone with Bookham’s level of enthusiasm for his adopted home. Once the infrastructure of the newly consolidated chamber is humming along smoothly, he plans to devote more of his time to getting out and promoting what he characterizes as its “unparalleled quality of place.”

“Anybody who hasn’t been to Rockland or Camden in the past years should come see all the changes,” Page says. “It’s a heck of a place.”

Propane Provides Homeowners a Safe, Clean, Efficient Alternative

W

ith the economy and fuel prices being uncertain, many homeowners we talk with today are looking for more ways to save money heating their home. If you’re one of them, perhaps propane may be an efficient and affordable option for you.

Best known as the fuel of choice for backyard grilling, propane is a clean, green, and reliable energy source that can help you control your energy costs.

When you think about where your energy dollars go, you may think of the obvious places around your home lights — kitchen appliances, and of course, heating. But we tend to overlook the expense of heating water for our daily needs; however, did you know that upwards of 25% of each energy dollar goes to heating water.

Like most appliances, water heaters have improved greatly in recent years.

Today’s propane models are much more energy efficient and could save you hundreds of dollars each year.

As you think about the efficiencies and cost controls of heating water, consider this - some cars get 15 miles to a gallon, while more efficient vehicles can go 30 miles or more on a gallon of gas.

The same is true for heating appliances.

Propane water heaters typically are more energy efficient than electrical models. Installing a high-efficiency propane hot water heater is a smart move that helps you spend less money each month to get the same amount of hot water.

Another popular, safe, and efficient method of providing heat for your home is through propane space heaters.

These are relatively small, space-saving units that can handle a variety of indoor living areas. Propane heaters are offered in a variety of styles and sizes with classic features, as well as modern designs. Propane heaters can be used to heat just the space you are in, keeping you more comfortable while saving you dollars by turning down thermostats in the rest of your home.

If you’re not familiar with propane use, you may wonder about its safety.

Propane is a very safe fuel and is used by millions of Americans — as well as stored, handled, and transported by thousands of professionals — every day.

As with any energy source, there are steps you should take to further ensure the safe use of propane, which your energy provider can assist you with.

And if you’re a backyard cook, there are even efficiencies to be had with the propane grill. Propane tanks installed for residential heating and/or water heating can easily be modified to serve as a fuel source for the grill. And if you’re like me and have ever had to run to the corner store for a propane refill halfway through a cookout, you can surely appreciate this extra benefit.

Propane use is becoming more popular in residential heating and it’s easy to see why. As a clean, green fuel that offers tremendous efficiency; and with prices tending to be more stable than traditional heating fuel, propane is a money-saving option for many homeowners in search of energy cost relief.

Bob Foster is President of R. H. Foster Energy www.RHFoster.com

More than you’d expect from your energy company. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 25

feature story

Super Seniors Our area of Maine is filled with some amazing people—many of them are senior citizens who are making the most of their golden years. We sat down and talked to three of them—these are their stories…

By Tom Avila / Photography by Mark McCall

26 / Bangor Metro May 2012

MARK DOTY

A

t 64, the Reverend Dr. Mark Doty remembers the day his father, a minister himself, arrived home to and asked, “who would like to meet Martin Luther King, Jr.?”

“I was 13. My dad said, ‘I’ve been asked to pick up Dr. King at the airport, would anyone like to go with me?’ My brother is two years younger and my sister is five years younger, so we all piled into the car with my mother and drove Dr. King to where he was speaking that evening. I was just so star-struck; here was someone who was changing the world,” Doty says.

“One thing that I remember very clearly is how Dr. King rarely took his eyes off the road, it was just like he was looking beyond what we could see. He saw a future that none of us could imagine. It is the shadow that has fallen on my life.”

It’s that spirit, that desire to effect change, that has shaped Doty’s service both at Hammond Street Congregational Church and in the greater community as well. A fifth-generation pastor—his father and those before him were Methodist ministers— the spiritual journey that brought him to the pulpit in Bangor is one colored by struggle and adversity, but, as Doty is quick to

Reverend Mark Doty at the Hammond Street Congretagional Church in Bangor.

mention, not by bitterness or resentment.

In 1996, during his first parish ministry in the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, Doty was outed as a gay man. Less than a week later, as Doty describes it, he lost his job, his family, his home, and, following a heart attack a year later, his health.

“Being outed in 1996 was such a horrifying experience that it gave me a heart for people on the margins because, suddenly, I was on the margins. I had no power, I 28 / Bangor Metro May 2012

had no voice. I knew I had a pastor’s heart but I had no idea who would ever accept me as their pastor.”

At one point, Doty was working five different jobs to make ends meet. Remarkably, and in testament to its strength, Doty’s faith never faltered. “I thought, ‘This is the time of testing.’ God had not abandoned me. God was holding me by the hand the whole time.”

It was through that guidance, Doty

believes, he came to Hammond Street in 2001. “I felt like God was really leading me here. I remember asking the search committee if I could see the sanctuary and they said it’s right through this door.”

Remembering the moment, Doty’s voice breaks slightly, a warm smile on his face. “I just felt like I was stepping into my future when I walked through there.”

Doty’s affection for the members of his congregation and church has only grown

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about people of all abilities and all backgrounds. It wasn’t enough to just be open.

When a homeless person comes to church, or someone we know is dealing with addiction, or is just out of prison, we need to ask, are we really affirming that person?”

“The congregation at Hammond Street is so gracious and so loving. We’ve given everyone a place at the table. As I understand Jesus, this is the way Jesus would have us do. We all have a place at the table.”

STELL SHEVIS

W

Stell Shevis, hard at work in her Camden studio.

stronger, attributed to the spirit and community they have created over their history. Hammond Street was, in 1978, the first church in the United Church of Christ to call a woman, the Rev. Dr. Ansley Coe Throckmorton, as a senior pastor. It’s a legacy of inclusion they intend to continue.

“When we prepared our statement for being an “Open and Affirming Congregation,” we knew this needed to be much wider than just sexuality. It needed to be

alking into Stell Shevis’s home studio in Camden, it’s easy to understand why she has placed not one but two signs within steps of the door instructing visitors: “Do not touch anything without permission.”

The 96-year old artist’s workplace is an excited tumble of brushes, assorted tools, and a staggering number of works both finished and in-progress. The entryway is lined with jar after jar of vibrantly colored powdered glass, which she uses to create her full-figured, playfully original enamel works.

“I was going to tidy up, but, as you can see,” says Stell, who prefers us to call her by her first name in this story. The second floor studio is comfortably nestled beside the space where her husband, the late artist William Shevis (called just plain “Shevis”) used to spend his days working. It

quickly becomes clear that the closeness of the two studios echoes the relationship that was shared between these two artists whose lives together started at Massachusetts College of Art. “We had very good courses. We learned color theory and harmony. We had art history and took courses in English and psychology. The only thing they didn’t teach us was how to sell our work,” Stell says. “I remember getting out of art school and we had these huge portfolios. I would put my work in and I would put on my hat and my gloves, and I’d go around to business offices. They were very polite but I could tell they were laughing because here was this 20-year-old with this huge portfolio trying to sell them things.”

William Shevis’s talent for doing lettering led them to working for a greeting card company in Boston. “Shevis found out that they would have artists make a design and then they had somebody else make six copies of that design for the salesman to take around and show,” she says. “And then, if they had enough orders for that card they would have it printed. If not, it was out. And so we got a job making copies, and they paid $10 a copy and in those days, boy, that was good money.”

Stell jokes that the greeting cards were the only “real” job she and her husband ever had to have. Fueled by a desire for creative freedom and independence, the couple and the eldest three of their four children moved to Maine.

Once in Maine, the Shevis’s set out to www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 29

feature story

John Patches at the Collins Center for Arts at the University of Maine.

30 / Bangor Metro May 2012

One of my favorite quotes is, ‘I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder.’

There’s so much wonder in the world.”

—Stell Shevis build the kind of self-sustaining life that, today, has become enviable—a huge vegetable garden, goats, ducks, and chickens from Sears Roebuck. And the couple made art, collaboratively and on their own, building a career in freelancing that included significant private commissions and a national reputation as gallery artists.

Today, Stell’s enamel work can be found in places like Mainely Pottery in Belfast, Island Artisans in Bar Harbor, and Rockland’s The Garage Gallery, where she shows with “The Nine Lively Ladies.” Her enamel work has been exhibited in nine international shows and she’s written for Glass on Metal magazine and had her work published in the book Contemporary Enameling.

And she’s still in the studio every single day, playing with new ideas and experimenting with new techniques. “I’ve always been curious. One of my favorite quotes is, ‘I did not ask for success, I asked for wonder.’ There’s so much wonder in the world.”

Fittingly enough, that quote also appears on a sign in her studio, a final farewell to dazzled visitors on their way out the door.

JOHN PATCHES

A

conversation with Collins Center for the Arts executive director John Patches, who will be turning 70 in October, quickly reminds one of the old saying about life being what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

“I originally didn’t plan to go to college because, believe it or not, of my vocal talent,” says Patches. “In high school in Pennsylvania, I studied with a professor emeritus of St. Olaf College who had family in Lancaster. I performed professionally for two seasons at the Mt. Gretna www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 31

feature story

Playhouse, and I did Amahl and the Night Visitors with the Lancaster Opera Workshop. The plan was for me to go to Radio City Music Hall and join the chorus, but my mother wouldn’t let me go to New York.”

It was that change of plan that led Patches to attend Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas where he would be introduced to Elizabeth, a mezzo-soprano who came to the college to be a voice teacher. She would also become Patches’s wife and sometime collaborator.

“After graduation, I was going to go and study choral conducting and Elizabeth was going to start an opera career. That was our plan, but it changed,” he says. “I went to take a course in orchestral management offered by the American Symphony Orchestra League, which, in those days, was the only program of its type. It was a two-week intensive, from eight in the morning until midnight, seven days a week. At the end, I was awarded a grant from the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music to go into orchestral management but, for various reasons, I turned it down. That was how I came to get a po32 / Bangor Metro May 2012

sition at SUNY Stony Brook in New York as the assistant chairman of the music department, and how I came back to the East Coast.”

Patches was at Stony Brook for 21 years, working and becoming friends with musicians like Charles Rosen, Gilbert Kalish, and soprano Adele Addison. “It was not just about being surrounded by these great artists and performers, but scholars and internationally-recognized academics,” he says. Which makes it tempting to suggest that a love of the academic world brought him (after several years mounting and producing shows independently across the U.S.) to what was then the Maine Center for the Arts.

But that wasn’t exactly what happened.

“This was a temporary position offered for a maximum of one year. The person who had been originally selected had a stroke and the University of Maine wanted to give him time to recover so that he could lead the Center. I didn’t really plan to stay,” he says. In July, he will have been there for 20 years.

“I learned very quickly that you don’t come to Bangor from away and try to turn everything inside out, so I made a point of getting to know people and listening to them. We also paid attention and tried new things,” he says. “I remember when I introduced the first rock concert here, some members of the advisory board and the university leadership thought I was completely off-the-wall for wanting to do that. They foresaw pandemonium in the hall.”

Today, Broadway musicals, Bangor Symphony Orchestra concerts, chamber music recitals, and family theater all sit comfortably together in the main hall of the Collins Center for the Arts.

“The programming has changed since we started, but there’s still room to do more,” says Patches. “We’re already livestreaming opera, but that could also include plays and other things that take advantage of the technology. There are new things to try and more chances we can take.”

Which means, without question, John Patches has a plan for all of it.

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The Sea Dog Banquet and Conference Center 26 Front Street, Bangor Get your tickets at: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/239188 www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 33

a piece of maine: belfast

Waterfront Wonder Belfast’s reputation as an arts community provides a solid foundation for this quirky and popular midcoast city on the bay. By melanie brooks

34 / Bangor Metro May 2012

History Belfast’s earliest history is not unlike many other Maine towns. The first inhabitants of the area we now call Belfast were Abenaki Indians, who would fish and hunt for shellfish and seafowl along the seashore. In the mid-1600s, the area was opened to English trading posts as part of a land grant obtained by two men under the British government. Called the Muscongus Patent, the area of land measured 36 square miles and gave the English the exclusive right to trade with the Native Americans. The area included parts of Waldo, Penobscot, Lincoln, and

Photo: kevin kratka

I

s any town on quite as big a roll as Belfast? Named one of the “Coolest Small Towns in Maine” by Budget Travel, and listed as one of the “Top Five Culturally Cool Small Towns in Maine” by USA Today, Belfast has a lot to offer residents and visitors alike.

Perched on a hill overlooking beautiful Penobscot Bay, Belfast is a haven for artists, naturalists, tourists, and window shoppers. Meandering through the shops and art galleries in the downtown area is a real treat, and grabbing a bite at one of the many local eateries is a palate pleasing experience.

Photos: courtesy the belfast historical society and museum

Knox counties.

General Samuel Waldo of Boston bought the Muscongus Patent in the 1720s, which evolved into the outright ownership of the land and the name change to the Waldo Patent. Waldo died in 1759, and his heirs sold the land to the area’s first settlers—Scottish/Irish families who migrated north from Londonderry, New Hampshire. Legend has it that the name Belfast, after the city in Northern Ireland, was chosen by a coin toss. The growth of the settlement took off after the American Revolution in the 1780s, and it became a vibrant, prosperous outpost that would serve as the center of business for the outlying area.

Belfast’s harbor has always been an integral part of the city. During the 19th century, hundreds of wooden sailing vessels boasting three, four, and five masts were built in Belfast, and about a third of the male population worked in the maritime trades. In 1853, Belfast was incorporated as a city—the eighth in Maine.

Steamships and trains traveling the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad carried people and goods between Belfast and the rest of the state—and beyond.

Shopping excursions to Belfast became a popular outing, and prosperous merchants and shipbuilders built the historically significant homes in the Federal, Greek revival, and Italianate style, which you can still admire in Belfast today.

As the 20th century began, the shipping and shipbuilding industry began to fade as America ushered in the industrial age. With the advent of refrigeration, the local economy shifted from shipbuilding to harvesting seafood—including lobsters, scallops, sardines, and mackerel—for markets in Boston and New York City. A fourstory shoe factory was erected and Belfast became a blue-collar town. Poultry, sardine, and potato companies moved onto the Belfast waterfront in the 1950s.

A new bridge was built in the 1960s and Route 1 was rerouted around the city.

What could have been a disastrous situation for businesses located downtown turned out to help keep the city’s heart and soul intact. The Belfast arts scene began to flourish in the 1980s and many of the stately houses and commercial buildings were restored.

A Thriving Downtown From bookstores to boutiques offering

Top: The Blanche C. Pendeleton in Belfast harbor, circa 1920. Middle: Belfast City Park in 1917.

Bottom: A view down Main Street in the 1920s. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 35

a piece of maine: belfast

Summer in Belfast is stunning—and busy!

Take advantage of a stroll down Belfast’s side streets (top) or take to the harbor (above) to explore.

36 / Bangor Metro May 2012

everything from jewelry to clothing to home decor, Belfast is a shoppers’ paradise—and it always has been. “You can park your car for the day and walk and shop around Belfast,” says Dorothy Havey of Our Town Belfast, a nonprofit that helps to support community and creative sustainability in downtown Belfast. “You’re surrounded by beautiful views as well as historical architecture.”

Foodies love Belfast for its wide variety of eateries that range from cozy coffee shops and cafes to pubs and fine dining establishments. Come for breakfast and stay for dinner! Farmers’ markets are also a staple in the area and many flock to the Friday market located on High Street.

“People have come to realize that downtowns really matter to people,” says Mike Hurley, former mayor of Belfast, current city counselor, and business owner. “People are choosing to invest

in our town. They’ve realized that if we make it a nice place, people will come.”

And the city of Belfast has worked hard to create the beautiful, quaint, and aesthetically pleasing downtown area you find in Belfast today.

A new walking path, that spans the stretch between the boathouse to the footbridge along the water, is currently under construction. It’s safe, well lit, and provides a level walking and biking path for people of all ages with easy access to downtown.

Harbor Park, the site for many of Belfast’s most popular events, is right downtown, too! From the Celtic Celebration, Arts in the Park, and the Maritime Heritage Festival, Harbor Park is the place to be during the spring, summer, and fall.

From street parties to Belfast’s New Year’s Eve, people love to be out and about, celebrating with their friends and family in this picturesque park.

Photos: (top) kevin kratka; (left) melanie brooks

“The Friday Art Walk is a perfect example of our grassroots community.” —Dorothy Havey

The ARts Whether you are looking to purchase art or gather inspiration, there are about a dozen galleries located in Belfast proper.

The Belfast Arts Friday Gallery Walk is a must-do activity from July through December. Galleries and studios nestled along Main Street open their doors and offer inspiration—and possibly some light refreshments—to passersby who can easily stroll from one place to another.

“The Friday Art Walk is a perfect example of our grassroots community,” says Havey. “The entire event is planned and executed by the gallery owners themselves. People here aren’t afraid to pitch in and get things accomplished.”

Art in the street is another feather in Belfast’s cap. Whether it’s random displays of painted bears, stationary bicycles you can hop on and pedal, or creatively designed benches, there’s always something interesting and unique in the downtown area. And each year it’s always new. “People come to Belfast looking for our street art installations,” Havey says.

“It’s a part of what makes us unique.”

Theater is also alive and well in Belfast, with a historic movie theater as well as a performance troupe that produces live shows both on stage and under the stars in Harbor Park. If it’s the weekend, you know there’s something happening in Belfast.

business “Most of what we do in Belfast is for the local people,” Hurley says. “And it usually turns out to be a benefit to the city’s economic development as well.”

When the bypass was being constructed in the 1960s, downtown businesspeople were nervous. “At first, the bypass seemed detrimental to our businesses,” Havey says. “But we’re so thankful for it now! It preserved our downtown community and actually strengthened that area.”

One of the pivotal changes in Belfast came in the early 1990s when MBNA moved to the area. “MBNA supercharged the area,” Hurley says. “Mainers here wanted a decent job, and they brought those decent jobs to the area. You could literally see the change in people once they found gainful employment.” MBNA poured money into the midcoast area, which helped Belfast build up its infrastructure. Without them, Hurley and

Discover Belfast With its historic downtown, beautiful waterfront, and great shopping and restaurants, you’ll quickly find out why Belfast is the place where people love to work, live and play.

Call 207-338-3370 ext. 8 www.cityofbelfast.org/ economicdevelopment for business development assistance.

Call 207-323-9100 or visit www.ourtownbelfast.org for events all summer long.

15 Participating Galleries & Studios

Friday Gallery Walks 5:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Every Friday in July & August First Fridays in June, September, October & December Sponsored by the Belfast Creative Coalition For more information visit www.belfastartwalk.com or call 207-338-8990 www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 37

a piece of maine: belfast Havey believe, Belfast would look much different today.

“Bank of America, Front Street, and athenahealth are all here because of the town,” Havey says. “The shopping, the services, the community—it’s a place where employees of these large businesses can live, work, and play.”

“People have realized that small towns are a good place to do business,” Hurley says. “Our city and our banks are open and willing to listen and negotiate with businesses—something that has definitely changed over the decades.”

Forty-two businesses moved into Belfast in 2011 alone. Retail storefronts don’t stay empty long in Belfast, and professionals who are looking for a downtown location are moving into second- and third-story office spaces that were once vacant. “The downtown location is important, especially to businesses that pride themselves on their sustainability,” Havey says. “They can take their clients out to lunch without having to get in their car and drive somewhere.”

Please Be Seated is a street art installation where creatively designed benches line the streets of Belfast.

“The city definitely has a welcoming attitude. I mean, where else can 500 dachshunds get together for a Wienerfest if it’s not Belfast!”—Dorothy Havey

Incorporated as a City: 1853 Population: 6,668 Population density: 196.1 people per square mile Mil rate: 18.1 Median age: 46.9 Median household income: $39,764 Median home value: $246,722 38 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Education: Captain Albert Stevens Elementary School East Belfast Elementary School Troy A Howard Middle School Belfast Area High School The University of Maine Hutchinson Center Largest companies: • Bank of America • Waldo County Healthcare • athenahealth • Penobscot McCrum

• Mathews Brothers • Front Street Shipyard • Ducktrap River of Maine • Group Home Foundation Businesses: There are 996 business establishments within a 30-minute travel time of Belfast.

Major natural resources: Belfast Bay— for commercial fishing, boat building, and servicing, lumber, farmland.

Photo: courtesy of our town belfast

belfast stats

J.Stone-Bangor Metro 2012_Layout 1 3/16/12 8:22

CREATING THE COMFORTS OF HOME The Hutchinson Center has also been a boon to the local economy. An outreach campus for the University of Maine, The Hutch, as it’s called, was a partnership between UMaine and the MBNA Foundation for the purpose of bringing high quality education to the midcoast area.

It’s helped build an educated workforce, which in turn, has helped lure larger businesses to the area.

The Hutch opened in 2000, and doubled in size in 2009 to accommodate new science labs, computer labs, and a conference center. “The Hutchinson Center brings thousands of people to our area from other parts of Maine, the country, and the world, to take part in conferences and seminars,” Havey says. “People come to the area and discover Belfast for the first time, and they come back.”

if it’s not Belfast!”

Located at the intersection of routes 1 and 3 and the ocean, Belfast is perfectly situated near other destination locations.

Camden, Rockport, and Lincolnville are within a 30-minute drive, with Rockland, Augusta, Blue Hill, Ellsworth, and Bangor just an hour away. Even Mount Desert is close enough for a day trip to Acadia National Park. There are beaches, museums,

207. 338. 2204 | jstoneinteriors.com Rt. 1 & Northport Ave. Belfast, Maine

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The Community “We’ve realized that if we make Belfast a nice place, people will come here,” Hurley says. “People move here to be a part of our community.”

Hurley came to Maine from Boston as part of the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970s. He lived in Clinton, Bradford, and Jackson before deciding Belfast was the place to be. He opened a bar in downtown in 1979, back when downtown didn’t have much—if anything—to brag about.

Belfast was a hub for these back-tothe-landers. They could buy things there and spend some time socializing with their city neighbors. It was beautiful and affordable, and before long, people were moving to be closer to the magic.

But Belfast citizens aren’t your typical city folk. They are actively engaged in their community and take part in local events all year long.

“Rarely has there been a situation where I call for volunteers and no one shows up,” Havey says. “In fact, one of my favorite parts about this town is how the leaders get involved. Our city manager even helps empty the trash bins during the Celtic Festival! It’s a great network of great people.”

In fact, the network is so enticing that the city is seeing people who grew up in Belfast and graduated from the high school moving back to the area to raise their young families. And why not? “The city definitely has a welcoming attitude,” Havey says. “I mean, where else can 500 dachshunds get together for a Wienerfest

Route One • Searsport Ave Belfast, Maine www.bennettsgems.com 207.338.5530 Open all year • Since 1989

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a piece of maine: belfast

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“Most of what we do in Belfast is for the local people. And it usually turns out to be a benefit to the city’s economic development as well.”

—Mike Hurley hiking trails, parks, farmers markets, boat trips, places to ski, and amazing restaurants at your fingertips!

Whether you are looking for a place to raise a family or a place to retire, Belfast should be at the top of your list. The Hutchinson Center provides an educational and cultural center for the entire midcoast, and it’s right in Belfast. There’s no need to travel to and from Orono to attend the University of Maine to earn your

degree—The Hutch offers a wealth of academic opportunities as well as employment opportunities.

No matter what you like to do, there’s something for everyone in Belfast including: contra dances, live music, historical ghost walks, sunset sails and cruises on the water, cycling clubs, garden clubs, and much, much more! Come see for yourself why so many Mainers are in love with Belfast.

Photo: courtesy of our town belfast

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what’s happening

May

May 13 Mother’s Day Wine & Chocolate / Union

International Migratory Bird Day Rockland • May 12 Celebrate this International Day right here in Maine. Grab your binoculars and camera and head down to the Maine Coastal Islands Wildlife Refuge in Rockland. Search for your favorite seabirds (like the Atlantic Puffin pictured above) and take advantage of guest speakers.

Mother’s Day Wine & Chocolate Union • May 13 Take mom to Savage Oakes Vineyard & Winery for a delectible day of wine pairings with chocolate. Her tastebuds will soar and you’re sure to win brownie points, too.

42 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Photos: (top) ©istockphoto/thinkstock.com; (bottom) © Hemera/thinkstock.com

May 12 International Migratory Bird Day / Rockland

Events May 1 The StepCrew Collins Center for the Arts, Orono This show brings together three styles of exhilarating dance forms—Irish stepdance, Ottawa Valley stepdance, and tap. The company includes six dancers, five musicians, and a vocalist. Be ready to be wowed. 7 pm. $33.

581-1755 www.collinscenterforthearts.com May 1 17th Annual Tourism and Hospitality and Eagle Awards Morgan Hill Event Center, Hermon This annual event by the Greater Bangor Convention and Visitors Bureau is cosponsored Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway. There will be heavy hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar. 5 pm. $35; $250 for 8 VIP seats.

942-5205 www.visitbangormaine.com May 3 Gordie MacKeeman Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts This four-piece group of seasoned musicians hails from the rich and dynamic PEI music scene. They won two Music PEI awards last year for Roots/Traditional Group of the Year and Instrumental Recording of the Year.

7:30 pm. $15.

948-SHOW • www.unity.edu/UCCPA May 3–5 Anah Temple Shrine Circus Presque Isle Forum Celebrate spring with a trip to the circus.

Thurs. 7 pm; Fri. 3 pm and 7 pm; Sat. 10 am, 2 pm, and 7 pm.

764-0491 • www.presqueisleforum.com May 4 Life Without Limits Gala Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway Bangor This annual fundraising event for UCP of Maine features a cocktail hour, live and silent auctions, and live entertainment

Theater

Music

all night long. 6 pm. $30 per person; $50 per couple.

941-2952 • www.ucpofmaine.org

for youth ages 18 and under.

236-2823 www.baychamberconcerts.org

May 5 Neil Berg’s 100 Years of Broadway Collins Center for the Arts, Orono This show shines the spotlight on some of the finest theatrical moments from the greatest musicals of the century.

A jubilant revue of Broadway’s most beloved songs from Phantom of the Opera, Cabaret, Chicago, West Side Story, Jersey Boys, and more. 8 pm. $38.

581-1755 www.collinscenterforthearts.com

May 6 4th Annual Fashion Show & Silent Auction Lincoln Street Center for Art and Education, Rockland Models strut their stuff to benefit WRFR Community Radio, which broadcasts at 93.3 FM in Rockland and 99.3 FM in Camden. Auction preview at 6 pm; runway show at 7 pm. $5 in advance; $8 at the door.

701-7134 • www.wrfr.org

May 5 2012 Penobscot County Fiddler’s Showcase Bangor Grange Hall, Ohio Street This showcase will feature skilled acoustic string performers playing traditional New England-style music in a variety show format. The performances will be followed by a country-style contra-dance. Proceeds benefit the Maine Fiddle Camp Scholarship Fund. 7 pm. $10 per person; $30 per family.

659-8041 • www.mainefiddle.org

May 9 Trans-Siberian Orchestra Bangor Waterfront Pavilion The band will perform “Beethoven’s Last Night” on this unforgettable tour. This unique performance combines virtuoso musicianship, storytelling, and overthe-top production. Gates open at 6 pm. $42.75–$62.75.

800-745-3000 www.waterfrontconcerts.com

May 5 Daffodil Garden Party Camden Cookbook author, Elinor Klivans, has planted thousands of daffodil bulbs in her Camden garden over 28 years.

Enjoy a spring afternoon in her garden with iced tea and cookies. Proceeds benefit Georges River Land Trust. $15 for members; $20 for nonmembers.

594-5166 • www.grlt.org May 5 Turtle Island Quartet: The Music of Jimi Hendrix Rockport Opera House The Turtle Island Quartet has earned rave reviews for their jazzy take on traditional chamber music and their classical take on traditional jazz. For this performance, they will salute the great Jimi Hendrix. 7 pm. $30-$40 adults; $8

May 10 Business Expo 2012 Bangor Civic Center Mark your calendar for the region’s biggest and best business expo. It’s the perfect avenue to market your business and find information on other businesses in our area. 9 am–3 pm.

947-0307 • www.bangorregion.com May 10 North Sea Gas Unity College Centre for the Performing Arts One of Scotland’s most popular folk bands comes to Maine. With 14 albums under their belt, and 30 years of performances, this trio is as popular as ever. 7:30 pm. $15.

948-SHOW • www.unity.edu/UCCPA May 10 Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce After Hours

Please visit our site, www.bangormetro.com, and submit your event under our submissions tab. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 43

Events

Theater

Machias Savings Bank, Mill Mall Come out and meet friends and make new contacts at this networking event.

Free to attend, but please RSVP. 5 pm.

667-5584 • www.ellsworthchamber.org May 11 Charlotte White Center Annual Auction and Awards Ceremony Hollywood Casino, Bangor This fun family event will feature a buffet dinner, cash bar, and a live and silent auction. 5–8 pm. $20 donation requested.

947-1410 • www.charlottewhite.org May 12 International Migratory Bird Day Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, Rockland Don’t miss the public opening and open house of the new visitor center in conjunction the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge on International Migratory Bird Day. There will be guest speakers throughout the day and games to engage the kids. 10 am–2 pm. www.maineseabirds.org May 12 Chamber Awards Gala Samoset Resort, Rockport This annual event is the Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce’s year in review gala celebration. Awards will be given out and a good time will be had by all. 5 pm. $55.

236-4404 www.mainedreamvacation.com May 12 Cake Walk Camden, Rockport, and Lincolnville Tour more than 10 Camden area inns and sample cake and other goodies at each stop. Proceeds benefit the CamdenRockport Historical Society. 1–4 pm. $20 adult; $10 children under 12.

236-2257 • www.conwayhouse.org May 12–19 Taste of Bar Harbor 2012 Bar Harbor There will be food, wine tasting and pairings, cooking demonstrations, and much more throughout downtown Bar Harbor.

288-5103 • www.barharborinfo.com

44 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Music May 13 Mother’s Day Wine and Chocolate Savage Oakes Vineyard and Winery, Union Savage Oakes Vineyard and Winery opens for the season with a tasty treat for mom.

They are pairing up with Sweetgrass Farm Winery and Distillery and Maine chocolatiers to offer pairings of Maine wines and chocolates. 11 am–5 pm.

785-2828 • www.savageoakes.com May 14 Wonders of the Rainforest The Grand, Ellsworth This highly entertaining and educational show will allow students to meet some of the world’s most exciting and fascinating Rainforest animals from the safety of their seats. 10 am. $3.

667-9500 • www.grandonline.org May 16 Spring Bird Walk Ducktrap River Preserve, Lincolnville Search for spring migrants, including warblers, vireos, and sparrows. Bring your binoculars and join the group at the Route 52 north-bound trailhead.

6:30–8:30 am. www.coastalmountains.org May 17 Best of the Best Gala Hutchinson Center, Belfast The best of the Belfast area share their wares and food with the public. There will also be two rooms filled with silent auction items. Proceeds benefit the Hutchinson Center student scholarship.

338-8002 www.hutchinsoncenter.umaine.edu May 17 Bangor Fusion’s Noontime Network MPBN, Bangor Join young professionals in your community for a behind-the-scenes tour of MPBN. Lunch is provided by Ann Marie’s Kitchen. 12–1 pm. $10 in advance; $12 at the door. RSVPs are appreciated.

947-0307 • www.fusionbangor.com May 18 Godsmack & Staind Bangor Waterfront Pavilion Joining these two bands is special guest, Black Stone Cherry. Gates open at 5 pm. $47.50.

800-745-3000 www.waterfrontconcerts.com May 18–20 Wings, Waves, & Woods Deer Isle This 6th annual festival for “birding by land, by sea, and by art” features puffin and pelagic boat trips, eagle spotting, local food, lectures, walks, and a whole lot of fun.

348-2455 • www.deerisle.com May 18–20 Birding Weekend at Schoodic Education and Research Center Winter Harbor Join Acadia National Park naturalists and researchers for an engaging bird investigation weekend at SERC that includes walks, participation in data collection, nature journaling, and guest speakers.

288-1312 • www.coa.edu May 19 Mystery Dinner Show Spectacular Event Center, Bangor If you think there were mishaps at your own wedding, wait until you come to the marriage of Sam and Rachael. Event includes appetizers, a three course dinner, and cash bar service. 6 pm.

941-8700 www.spectaculareventcenter.com May 19 Annual Plant Sale Merryspring Nature Center Freshly dug divisions straight from Merryspring’s own herb and perennial gardens are highlights of the sale, along with contributions from home and professional gardeners. 4–6 pm.

236-2239 • www.merryspring.com May 19 Special Tour and Tasting at Breakwater Vineyards Owls Head Vintners Bill and Jeanne Johnson will host you at their winery in Owls Head.

Guests will be treated to special tastings, including samples of some of Breakwater Vineyards’ newest releases. Guests will savor wine and appetizer pairings as they overlook Rockland Harbor and the Camden Hills. This is a fundraising event for the Georges River Land Trust.

5 pm. $25 for GRLT members; $30 for nonmembers.

594-5166 • www.grlt.org May 25–28 Down East Spring Birding Festival Trescott Go birding in Maine’s Cobscook Bay Area. Hikes, boat trips, and presentations available. 6 am–8 pm.

733-2233 • www.downeastbirdfest.org May 26 West Bay Rotary Duck Derby Camden This annual fundraiser features a flock of numbered bright yellow rubber ducks racing down the Megunticook River to Camden Harbor. Prizes are awarded to the “owners” of the first ducks to cross the finish line. All proceeds benefit local nonprofits, charities, and Rotary International programs. 1–3 pm.

236-7997 www.westbayrotaryofmaine.org May 26 & 27 Spring Antique Auto and Aeroplane Show Owls Head Transportation Museum Old cars, trucks, and planes kick off the new season. Pre-1992 vehicles of any make or model are welcome to exhibit.

Vehicle demonstrations, Model T rides, family activities, and more. 9:30 am–5 pm. $12 adults; free for children under 18.

594-4418 • www.ohtm.org May 27 2012 Country Throwdown Bangor Waterfront Pavilion The Country Throwdown Tour features Gary Allan, Justin Moore, Josh Thompson, Sunny Sweeney, and several others on multiple stages all day long.

Gates open at 2 pm. $22.25–$52.25.

800-745-3000 www.waterfrontconcerts.com May 28 Memorial Day Concert by Downeast Singers Camden Opera House This group of talented singers will perform Handel’s Te Deum and Jubilee for the Peace of Utrecht, composed in 1712. 5 pm. www.downeastsingers.art officelive.com

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Events

Theater

May 30 Riverdance The Bangor Auditorium Don’t miss your opportunity to watch one of the world’s most beloved shows. This internationally-acclaimed celebration of Irish music and dance has been seen live by more than 22 million people across four continents. 7:30 pm. $39–$49.

990-4444 www.bangorciviccenter.com May 30 & 31 I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change Penobscot Theatre, Bangor This show is a musical joyride through the phases of love. From the first stages of romance to parenthood and beyond, this witty revue exposes everything you’ve secretly thought about romance but were afraid to admit. 7 pm. $20.

942-3333 • www.penobscottheatre.org May 30–June 1 Children’s Day Leonard’s Mills, Bradley

museums Hancock County Abbe Museum Bar Harbor 822-3519 • www.abbemuseum.org Birdsacre-Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary & Homestead Ellsworth 667-8460 • www.birdsacre.com George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History Bar Harbor 288-5015 • www.coamuseum.org Seal Cove Auto Museum Seal Cove 244-9242 www.sealcoveautomuseum.org Wendell Gilley Museum Southwest Harbor 244-7555 www.wendellgilleymuseum.org Woodlawn Museum Ellsworth 667-8671 • www.woodlawnmuseum.org Knox County Coastal Children’s Museum 46 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Music Children are invited to participate in period-appropriate activities to learn what life was like in the 1790s before electricity. They can also enjoy a hayride in a horse-drawn wagon. Registration is required. 9 am–1 pm. $3.

974-6278 • www.leonardsmills.com May 31 Mid Coast Maine Has Talent…Or Not! The Strand, Rockland This variety talent show is sponsored by the North Atlantic Blues Festival as a fundraiser for Rockland Main Street, Inc. 6—9 pm.

593-6093 www.rocklandmainstreet.com May 31–June 2 Acadia Birding Festival Bar Harbor The featured speakers at this year’s festival include Pete Dunne and Kevin Karlson. The entire weekend’s events can be found online.

288-8128 www.acadiabirdingfestival.com

Rockland 385-1105 www.coastalchildrensmuseum.org Farnsworth Art Museum & Wyeth Center Rockland 596-6457 www.farnsworthmuseum.com Maine Lighthouse Museum Rockland 594-3301 www.mainelighthousemuseum.com Owls Head Transportation Museum Owls Head 594-4418 • www.ohtm.org Penobscot County Hudson Museum at the University of Maine Orono 581-1901 www.umaine.edu/hudsonmuseum Maine Discovery Museum Bangor 262-7200 www.mainediscoverymuseum.org University of Maine Museum of Art Bangor 561-3350 • www.umma.maine.edu

a RIVER LEADS

TO RENEWED CONNECTIONS FOLLOW waterways DOWNEAST to the CROWN OF MAINE DISCOVER your own deep connections to the landscape

a Moment of Wate Waterr Journey by Maine Watershed

in local bookstores and online at

www.threehalfpress.net – www.annflewelling.com www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 47

metro sports: college

Lessons in Lacrosse

Y

oung men running around a field holding sticks with weird nets on the ends is not a familiar sight in our part of Maine. But take an afternoon drive around the campus of Husson University in Bangor and they’re everywhere.

The Husson University men’s lacrosse team had a banner year last spring. In their first season under head coach Tim Murphy, the Eagles reached the North Atlantic Conference (NAC) championship, and were just one game away from the Division III NCAA Tournament. Not bad for a team that’s only been around for four years.

The team boasts a solid nucleus of veteran players, including senior captain Ben Landry who led the nation in scoring in 2010 when he averaged 4.4 goals per game. Landry and his classmates have been with the program since its inception, and there’s no better way to cap off a career than to lead the Eagles to the NCAA tournament.

“It’s all about changing the culture,” says coach Murphy. “It’s important that we know we can win, and we prepare ourselves to do so.” The men’s lacrosse team is a year-round affair, taking advantage of the 48 / Bangor Metro May 2012

NCAA guidelines, which allow for 15 practices and a competition in the fall, on top of the team’s traditional season in the spring.

“Everything we do—be it on the field, in the classroom or in the community—is helping us bring this program to new heights.”

One of the most important keys to a program’s success is a solid group of youth athletes who grow up learning to play the sport and support their favorite team. That group of athletes has come to be known as Eastern Maine Youth Lacrosse (EMYL), and was founded in late 2011. EMYL was conceived by youth sports supporter Gayle Middleton, who now serves as the president of Eastern Maine Youth Lacrosse.

Middleton, as well as Murphy, saw a need for youth lacrosse in the area, and set out to fill a niche, offering youth athletes another option for competition in the spring. With the support of EMYL coach Rich Trott, a Husson alumnus, the group set out to create a contingent of young athletes to populate the team. “I’ve played a lot of sports, and lacrosse has little pieces of all sports,” Trott says. “A lot of the plays are like basketball, the field is like soccer, [it’s] a little rough like football. Any kid who has any athletic pursuits will like lacrosse.”

“Lacrosse is the fastest growing sport in the U.S., and we have to do our part to continue the growth of our game,” Murphy says. The Husson lacrosse program has a vested interest in EMYL, and has shown their support by donating equipment like sticks, helmets, and pads, as well as their time. “The youth clinics have been extremely advantageous for both sides,” Murphy says. “For us, it gives our players and coaches an opportunity to share our knowledge with a future generation, and get to know the kids who come out and support us. I think that the kids have gotten a lot out of it, too. You can see the improvement from clinic to clinic, and the excitement on their faces when they master a skill makes it all worthwhile.”

The Eastern Maine Youth lacrosse team has adopted the green and gold colors of the Husson squad, and even call themselves the Eagles, like the Husson student athletes whom they admire. The Husson Eagles hope to be hosting North Atlantic Conference playoff games this spring with an eye towards their first NCAA Tournament appearance, and they’re looking forward to having a number of eager youth lacrosse players in attendance.

Photo: monty rand

The sport of lacrosse is gaining traction in our corner of Maine, and Husson University and Eastern Maine Youth Lacrosse is helping to fuel the fever. By Joseph Doyle

metro sports: high school

WHERE MAINE SHOPS CHEVY

Hampden’s Mr. Basketball Hampden Academy senior Christian McCue is the first player in the school’s history to win this prestigious title. By melanie Brooks

Photo: troy R. bennett, bangordailynews.com

W

hen Christian McCue was awarded the title of Mr. Basketball 2012, the Hampden Academy senior breathed a huge sigh of relief.

“The other players were really good,” McCue says. “I wouldn’t have been surprised if one of the other players had won over me.”

McCue has been playing basketball since he was 5-years-old and has been active in AAU hoops for years. He’s been playing with the same group of guys that made up the 2012 Eastern Maine Championship team since junior high. “This was the best year I’ve ever had when it comes to team chemistry,” McCue says. “A lot of the guys on the team are my closest friends.”

“Our season got off to a rough start, which ultimately brought the team closer together,” says head coach Russ Bartlett.

“Christian is a leader. He pulled the kids together and really turned it around.”

McCue has been a captain for the Hampden Academy boy’s basketball team for two consecutive years. This year his coach moved him from a shooting guard into the point guard position, and McCue eased into the transition. “He’s a great kid

who gets straight A’s,” Bartlett says. “He’s highly motivated and has put a lot of time into becoming a great basketball player.”

With about 740 students, Hampden Academy is one of the smallest schools in the state classified as Class A. This doesn’t seem to hinder the Broncos in the least.

“The season we won the state title in 2005 made every kid in our town believe that it can be done,” Bartlett says. “We’ve made the tournament every year since and have won three Eastern Maine Championship titles.”

Over the past nine years, Hampden Academy has had three finalists for the title of Mr. Basketball, which has been given out each year since 1988 by the Maine Association of Basketball Coaches to a deserving senior. McCue is the first Bronco to actually win the title.

“When my coach told me that I was the only player from Hampden Academy to get the award, I felt really honored,” McCue says. The talented senior will be playing basketball next year, too, in college.

As of press time, he was still deciding between attending Boston’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his brother Daniel will graduate this month, or McGill University, located in Montreal, Quebec.

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food file

Brian and Julie Williams designed their Bangor kitchen around their lifestyle.

Whether you’re a new friend, old friend, or part of the family—their kitchen is a place to experiment, taste, and just plain hang out.

By melanie Brooks

50 / Bangor Metro May 2012

B

rian and Julie Williams’ farmhouse in Bangor looks like it’s been a part of the landscape for generations. It hasn’t. The couple designed and built their dream home in 2009.

It’s perched atop a slight incline, welcoming guests as they head up the drive.

Wood is stacked neatly by the back door and the entryway is home to hanging coats of variable thickness—you never know what the weather is going to be like during springtime in Maine.

Their kitchen is a food lover’s paradise. Cast iron skillets and an antique twine holder hang from exposed beams.

An apron-style kitchen sink and butcherblock island complement the farmhouse design. The twine holder is not something you see every day—it came from

Julie’s grandfather’s general store—but fits in nicely with the rustic charm of the place.

Julie and Brian have a vast array of spices, vegetables, fruit, and ramekins of salt and pepper out for use on their countertops. The oven is on, and the burners are lit as they work together to prepare a three-course meal. The names of the dishes sound intimidating—five spice duck confit salad, Maine sole beurre blanc—but Julie waves her hand at the notion that the couple are anything close to being professional chefs.

“A lot of food we cook in this kitchen isn’t technically difficult,” Brian says. “But it’s the little details we add to them that make them special.”

Julie and Brian met at a Bowdoin College alumni event while they were both

Photos: hailey tash

Delicious Entertainment

recipes Five Spiced Duck Confit Salad with Orange Vinaigrette Salad: 4 duck legs confit Fresh salad greens 4 radishes, sliced 2 carrots, julienned ¼ cup English peas

1 small container mandarin orange slices 3 spring onions, chopped Handful of cilantro, chopped

Dressing: ½ cup orange juice ¼ cup olive oil 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar Five Spice seasoning Salt & pepper

Prepare the duck: Preheat oven to 525°. Season both sides of duck leg confit liberally with five spice seasoning. Place in oven safe pan and bake for about 30 minutes or until skin is brown and crispy.

Remove from oven and let rest.

Prepare the dressing: While the duck is cooking, reduce orange juice in a small saucepan to about ¼ the original amount. Remove from heat and let cool. Mix in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, five spice seasoning, salt, and pepper. Consistency should be slightly viscous.

Pour dressing over mixed vegetables and plate with duck, mandarin orange slices, and cilantro.

Maine Sole with Beurre Blanc Sauce Beurre Blanc Sauce: 3 large shallots, diced 1 stick plus 2 Tbsp. cold unsalted butter 3 sprigs thyme

1 cup vermouth 1 tsp. vinegar (optional)

Sole: 4 Maine sole fillets Salt White pepper 1 Tbsp. olive oil 1 bunch of asparagus

Prepare the sauce: In a saucepan, sweat the shallots in 2 Tbsp. butter on medium low heat until translucent, stirring regularly. Add thyme. Increase heat to medium, add vermouth, and let liquid reduce by half. Add the rest of the butter in pads.

Prepare the sole and asparagus: Season fish with salt and pepper on both sides. Add olive oil to pan and get the pan searing hot. Add sole. Sear fish until sides become opaque and slightly golden brown on one side (about four minutes.) Flip fillet and cook for an added minute.

Cook the asparagus in slightly salted boiling water for about 2 minutes. Strain and run under cold water. Toss in beurre blanc sauce and plate next to the fish. Ladle sauce on top.

Cheese Course Brulee: 16 oz. goat cheese 2 ripe pears 4 tsp. brown sugar Slice the pears thinly and place a layer in the bottom of an oven-safe ramekin or small bowl. Cover the layer with a layer of goat cheese then add another layer of pear slices.

Top it off with another layer of goat cheese and sprinkle brown sugar on the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 7–10 minutes until bubbling.

Switch the oven to broil and broil until the sugar browns (about one minute). Remove from oven and let cool before serving.

Cheese Toasts: 12 slices Morbier cheese Raisins Honey Walnuts 12 small slices of fruit and nut bread Slice bread thinly and lightly toast. Slice Morbier cheese and cover toast. Place in the oven to broil for 1–2 minutes. Arrange toasts with honey, walnuts, and raisins to top.

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 51

food file Brian Williams prepares the pears for the cheese course.

“Our kitchen is where our family and friends spend the most amount of time.

It’s the biggest room in the house for a reason.” —Julie Williams

52 / Bangor Metro May 2012

working in Washington D.C. Mutual friends kept telling them that they should meet each other, and when they finally did, sparks flew. When the opportunity arose for Julie to move back to Bangor and work in the family business—ERA Dawson Bradford Realtors—the couple went. “D.C. is a great city,” Julie says. “But everyone there is from someplace else.”

Brian works from home as a consultant for a firm in D.C., and every so often, when he travels to the Capitol, he gets his hands dirty in the kitchen of a popular D.C. eatery called Marcel’s, owned by his friend, Robert Weidmaier.

Cooking is Brian’s passion, and the experience he has gotten as a line cook at this French/Belgian restaurant has helped him back home in Bangor. “I’m fortunate to be able to have this experience and learn from some very talented people,” Brian says. “One of these days, my friend is going to realize people should pay him for what I get to do!”

As Julie works on the dressing for the salad, Brian makes the beurre blanc sauce for the Maine sole and asparagus.

Beurre blanc sounds offputting—but it’s really a simple emulsified butter sauce made with vinegar and/or white wine.

Once the salad is dressed and plated, Julie turns her attention to the fish that Brian has seasoned for her. She places it in a searing-hot cast iron skillet and waits.

“The hardest thing to do when cooking fish is leaving it alone,” she says.

All of the ingredients for this meal were bought in Bangor. The sole came from McLaughlin’s Seafood, where the couple frequently shops for fresh fish caught in Maine waters. The vegetables came from the Free Range Farm Truck, and the specialty cheese for the third course cheese plate from Bangor Wine and Cheese.

“When we can, we buy local,” Julie says.

“Luckily, the Hannaford on Union Street does a nice job filling in the gaps.”

The cheese course is their own adaptation from a dish they had this past February in Quebec during the city’s winter carnival. “It’s a lot of fun to watch Brian experiment in the kitchen,” Julie says.

One of his experiments at Marcel’s actually ended up on the menu.

“Food is our form of entertainment,” Julie says. “Our kitchen is where our family and friends spend the most amount of time. It’s the biggest room in the house for a reason.”

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kitchen confidential What is your first food memory?

Watching over my mother’s shoulder as she cooked beef stew.

What are some of your early cooking experiences?

Demembraning monk fish and handmaking pasta with my father.

Where did you grow up and how did you come to cook?

I grew up in Bangor—I’m a Maine boy!

When I graduated from Bangor High in 1999, I wanted to go to culinary school at Eastern Maine Technical College (now Eastern Maine Community College) but they were all full. They put me in the welding fabrication program instead! I can make a beautiful crême brulée with a torch.

Any family influences on your style and taste?

I love to make stocks, stews, and soups from scratch, like my mother did.

Where did you study?

I have studied and apprenticed all over really, though I’m mainly self-taught. One of the best parts of this craft is learning something new everywhere I go.

What does it mean to you to be a chef?

I have always been artistic, and I took that from my childhood to the kitchen as an adult. I feel that being artistic, yet consistent every day, has solidified my reputation and career as a chef.

Chef Scott McKenzie grew up in Bangor, surrounded by nine brothers and sisters. His love of all things culinary stems from watching his mother create masterpieces with limited resources and ingredients. She taught him well.

What is your favorite ingredient to work with?

I love tarragon. I love the smell of it and the things you can do with it. I also like to use hedgehog mushrooms. I have to get them from a supplier out of Boston.

By melanie Brooks

What is the dish we are featuring?

Seafood Bouillabaisse. My version is a little different than the classic version. All you 54 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Photos: michael alden

Schooners

Schooners is a new restaurant—how did you end up working there?

Before Schooners, this restaurant was a Muddy Rudder. I worked for “the Rudder” for 10 years as a sous chef before new owners bought it and created Schooners.

The Muddy Rudder’s executive chef let me have free rein for the specials we served, and the new owners liked what I did and hired me as the head chef.

Opposite page: Scott McKenzie in the Schooners dining room. Above: Seafood Bouillabaisse.

really need is fish and shellfish. I throw a little saffron in there, a little amaretto, a little orange juice to bring the stock to life.

This dish is one of our specials—it’s not always on the menu—and I used lobster, clams, tuna, and shrimp.

What are some of your favorite restaurants?

Primo in Rockland and Taste of India and Thai Siam in Bangor.

When was the last time you really surprised yourself in the kitchen?

I recently made six loaves of bread with just two tablespoons of yeast.

What would your last meal be?

Homemade brownies and a gallon of milk.

more info Schooners 5 South Main Street, Brewer 989-5389 Hours: Monday–Thursay 11:30 am–9 pm Friday & Saturday 11:30 am–10 pm Sunday 11 am–9 pm

Beautiful New Facility Opening Summer 2012 115 Guest Rooms on 3 floors t Indoor Saltwater Pool & Whirlpool t Spacious Fitness Center Business Center t Free Wi-Fi t Free Local Shuttle Service t 100% Nonsmoking t Microwave & Refrigerator in Every Guest Room t Sweet Shop t Free Hot Breakfast Buffet t Ideal Location

Hampton Inn t Haskell Road t Bangor t 207-990-4400

Specialties: Maine lobster and hand-cut steaks.

Accolades: Voted “Best Chowder” at the Brewer Winterfest from 2005 to 2012.

Sample menu items: Roasted Pear & Gorgonzola Salad, Lobster Bisque, Surf & Turf, Signature Stuffed Haddock, New York Strip steak, Tenderloin Tortellini, Deep Dish Lobster Pie. www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 55

per spectives

Rogier van Bakel

56 / Bangor Metro May 2012

After a thriving career in Amsterdam and New York City, Dutch-born Rogier van Bakel traded city lights for the coastal quiet of Mount Desert Island, where he has been crafting his lively images since 2005. Primarily a wedding and familyportrait photographer, van Bakel takes a lot of photos of kids. Most of the time, these photos are colorful and cheerful, but sometimes they turn out to be pensive and vulnerable.

The pictures shown here are tender and honest.

www.bangormetro.com Bangor Metro / 57

maine woods & waters

M

Wild Turkeys Revisited Has the enjoyment and success of wild turkey hunting been compromised by more liberal seasons and game limits? story and illustration by brad eden

y very first column for Bangor Metro in May of 2005 was about the successful reintroduction and subsequent opening of hunting seasons for wild turkeys in Maine. That column lamented my concerns about upcoming changes to the turkey seasons and the future of wild turkey hunting in Maine.

After the wild turkey took a foothold in Maine, we had a lottery system with a conservative number of turkey permits allotted in specific WMD’s (Wildlife Management Districts). In 2006, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife felt the population could handle opening the spring wild turkey hunting season for anyone choosing to purchase the appropriate license and permits.

I wrote seven years ago: “I pray the night before the permit drawing for the privilege to hunt these grand birds. Not getting drawn, although disappointing, is tempered by the thrill of helping friends call in a gobbler or guiding a youngster on his first turkey hunt.” And: “This (end of lottery system) places in jeopardy the relative safety and non-competitive atmosphere of the spring hunt. The tradition of learning to master a variety of turkey calls with the work and strategy involved in scouting and coaxing a bird within range isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Incidents normally associated with deer hunting like ‘drive by’ shooting of turkeys loitering on roadsides and fields will likely increase. People stalking and shooting at decoys and endangering the hunters beyond is a concern–a product of having more people pursuing the same resource in ever-limited areas. All this may tarnish the sport and result in further posting of private land. Part of me

If one has to work hard for a bird (or two), then the weekend warriors tend to go fishing instead. would rather deal with the uncertainty of a lottery drawing than harm the sacred nature of this springtime ritual.”

Did my bemoaning the change have some merit? Yes and no. Since then, the wild turkey population has continued to grow and spread throughout the state, providing more opportunities in areas not originally considered suitable habitat. In 58 / Bangor Metro May 2012

the last couple years, a turkey hunter has been able to purchase an additional tag for a second spring gobbler. A week for fall shotgun hunting was added to the fall bowhunting season, allowing one bird of either sex. The fall hunt is bereft of the dramatic mating rituals of the wild turkey in spring, and has never caught on strong in Maine, where upland bird and deer hunting, in particular, rule the woods in the fall.

While, at one time, there were as few as 500 permits for one male bird for a small portion of the state, you can now hunt turkeys in two-thirds of the state, with as many as three birds total to be taken.

Since that first column, I certainly saw an initial increase in turkey hunters. Over time, it became apparent that the amount of birds seen along roads and in fields in any given spring dictated how crowded the woods would be with hunters. If one has to work hard for a bird (or two), then the weekend warriors tend to go fishing instead. I have had people glass and even sneak in on my decoys, mistaking them for real birds, luckily without incident.

And, unfortunately, I have seen more land posted. In early spring, the staked “No Hunting” signs suddenly appear in open fields where turkeys often congregate. It’s obvious that turkey hunters are being targeted.

Many of my fellow sportsmen tried turkey hunting and never fully embraced it; too much ritual, calling practice, expensive gear, and too many early mornings.

Some hunters stopped purchasing their license and permits, out of resentment of the cost to hunt a bird so numerous that it is often considered a nuisance. A fair share of the ambivalent do indeed keep a shotgun handy in their vehicle, to be ready for for the occasional opportunity for what I described as “drive by” shooting.

In summary, the dust has settled, and for the truly dedicated, the May wild turkey hunt has become as synonymous with spring in Maine as casting for the first brook trout or raiding the secret fiddlehead patch. We are thrilled that the wild turkey has successfully joined our other game species as an important element for those of us embracing the outdoor sports.

Brad Eden is an artist, writer, Registered Maine Master Guide, and owner/editor of the online magazine www.uplandjournal.com

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You Are What You Eat As you age, your body needs more nutrients to stay healthy. Adding more fiber and vitamins to your diet is an easy—and delicious way— to keep feeling your best. by carol higgins taylor

60 / Bangor Metro May 2012

T

his is a great time of year to take a serious look at the nutritional value of your meals. Before long, farm stands will be bursting with fresh fruits and vegetables—all colorful and vitamin packed. Stocking up on the offerings of nature’s bounty will add quite a punch to your diet.

Older people have specific nutritional needs in order to be healthy and keep their bodies functioning properly. Aging bodies change and slow down systemically and need fewer calories to survive than in younger years. This means that in order for seniors to avoid weight gain and maintain good health, calories should be reduced while the intake of nutrient-dense foods is increased.

Many older people tend to neglect fiber because of dental problems, but they need 25 to 30 grams per day, according to leading nutritionists. This can be achieved by having a piece of fruit or a vegetable at every meal.

There are two types of fiber—soluble and insoluble. They affect the body differently. Soluble fiber can lower blood cholesterol and help stabilize blood sug-

ar, which aids diabetic individuals, while insoluble fiber, among other things, can help prevent diverticulosis and can give you a feeling of fullness, which can prevent overeating.

It is important not to jump right in and start eating 25 to 30 grams of fiber today if you are not used to it. There are some guidelines to follow as you increase fiber intake gradually to avoid problems.

• Eat the fruit instead of drinking the juice. If apples are a problem, try applesauce.

• Choose whole grain instead of white bread. Again, watch the labels. The first ingredient should be “100 percent whole wheat flour.”

• Eat more beans and peas. Baked bean sandwiches were called “poor man’s meat” back in the day, but frankly they are quite delicious with a little ketchup.

Finally, to increase the effectiveness of the fiber, drink six to eight cups of water daily if you are not on a fluid restricted diet.

High fiber cereal is a great breakfast, and the old adage is true: breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Think

Photo: © istockphoto.com/thinkstock.com

savvy seniors

about it. Your body has been fasting all night. While some seniors may take medications that prevent eating when they first get up, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a good idea to eat as soon as possible. Fortified cereal can be a good choice for seniors who may not take in enough vitamins.

Elderly people are most likely to be deficient in vitamin B12, which helps the nervous system and helps red blood cells carry oxygen to the brain. Vitamin B12 can be found in lean and organ meats, milk, eggs and cheese. Having a conversation with your healthcare professional about the need for a supplement is advised.

The process of aging can influence how nutrients are used and can exacerbate the effect of poor diet quality on health, according to the USDA. For example, aging may reduce nutrient absorption, increase urinary nutrient loss, and alter normal pathways of nutrient metabolism.

Other vitamins seniors need are E and K. Vitamin E can be found in oils and is important because it is an antioxidant, and seniors often do not get enough of this vitamin. Vitamin K, which helps in blood clotting, is produced mostly in the human intestine. It is also found in leafy green vegetables and oils. If you are taking an anticoagulant, check with your doctor before changing or adding anything new to your diet.

For seniors who complain that their sense of taste has decreased, zinc may help.

Found in shellfish, zinc also aids in wound healing and is important for the proper functioning of the immune system.

Malnutrition can be a problem for older persons because of reduced appetite, denture problems, or an inability or unwillingness to cook nutritious meals.

There are signs that indicate if an older person is becoming malnourished: â&#x20AC;˘ Getting a lot of colds that linger. â&#x20AC;˘ Cuts that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t heal well or at all. â&#x20AC;˘ Dropping off to sleep frequently. â&#x20AC;˘ Becoming too thin.

Anyone concerned about their diet or eager to learn more about healthy eating, should talk to their healthcare providers about nutrition counseling.

Remember, you are what you eat.

Carol Higgins Taylor is director of communications at Eastern Area Agency on Aging. She may be reached at chtaylor@eaaa.org.

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last word

Senioritis

Once you hit 55 years of age, the clock starts ticking a little faster. by rich kimball

Rich Kimball is a teacher, actor, director, and broadcaster. He hosts Downtown with Rich Kimball each afternoon on Fox Sports Maine and was recently named Maine Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association.

64 / Bangor Metro May 2012

Photo: © istockphoto/thinkstock.com

I

got my monthly invitation to join AARP the other day in the mail and I did what I always do. I threw it away without even opening it. As a junior member of the baby boom generation, I have gladly adopted the Peter Pan-like attitude. It’s not that I don’t want to grow up; I’m just not willing to concede that I’m closing in on senior status.

Friends of mine would no doubt tell you that in many ways I’m there already. I’ve been a confirmed curmudgeon for quite some time—frustrated by bad drivers, rude people, and most reality television shows. On the other hand, I sometimes tire of the conversations of those generational peers whose subject matter rarely ventures from the universe of their children (or grandchildren) and jobs. Like so many, I try to make exercise a part of my daily routine and tell myself that it’s about quality of life, not simply trying to beat the clock, but while good health habits are a prime concern, I can’t resist the siren song of a cheeseladen, meat-covered pizza. Even my sleep habits reflect this age dichotomy. When the weekend comes I enjoy staying up late, like in those carefree days of yore, but no matter what time my head hits the memory foam, I wake up at the same ridiculously early hour in the morning.

We’re such a funny group of people, us almost-seniors. We’re often troubled, much as our parents were, with what we perceive as the erosion of standards among those younger than us, while we cling to many of the things we first loved when we were their age. Would the geniuses at Apple have invented the iPod if they knew how many people would use them to download forgotten gems from the Age of Disco? Seriously, what woman over the age of 40 doesn’t have “I Will Survive” on her workout playlist?

And who could have imagined that that one of the benefits of Netflix would be the opportunity to stream the video of every glorious season of “Gilligan’s Island”?

Look, even the realists among us are loath to admit that the clock is ticking a little faster. Part of it is that we often see ourselves in a somewhat less than realistic light. I don’t always immediately recognize the middle-aged man who looks back at me from a passing office window, because when I look in the mirror I see a much younger guy than everyone else does. Judging by the number of guys in their 60s and 70s I see walking around naked in the gym locker room, I’d say I’m not the only who suffers from “reflective confusion.” That’s probably why, whenever I get a haircut, it takes me a moment to realize that the gray hair on the floor came from me.

Frankly, I suspect that part of me will never change. When I’m 85 and enjoying the early-bird buffet at 4:30 in the afternoon and the attractive young waitress smiles at me, I’m pretty sure I’ll think it’s because she sees me as a good catch and not because I’ve spilled soup on my pants. Perhaps by then I’ll have reconciled myself to the notion that there are more days behind me than ahead.

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