Page 20. MAINE COASTAL NEWS February 2014 SEVENTIES MEMORIES: JOHN YOUNG
“Of course we can do it. Piece of cake.” By Lee S. Wilbur
In all the years I knew John Young, going back to when we were teenagers and best man at John and Karen “Kacy” Clark’s wedding, I don’t think I could ever recall a time when John had a pessimistic attitude about anything. He was one of the those rare individuals who took hardly a moment to assess a situation, assume there was an answer somewhere, somehow, and tackle it immediately if time were a criteria. In 1959, John had landed a summer job driving a delivery vehicle for Hillcrest Market in Northeast Harbor owned at the time by the Soldos Brothers from Palm Beach, Florida. I use the term vehicle loosely as the “fl eet” left much to be desired for safety and reli- ability. There was another opening, so John called me and asked if I wanted it. I was sixteen, just go tten my license the previous summer and had minimal experience driv- ing. After a quick call home for permission, grudgingly given, I told John to sign me up. Not even a telephone interview from one of the Soldos brothers. John, in addition to his can do attitude had a very persuasive gift as well. Summer was not only a blast, but an intro to how the ultra-wealthy lived. Never imagined we’d later be building boats for some of these fi ne people.
I’d heard from John intermittently over the twenty odd years after high school. He had enlisted in the Navy and spun up the ranks from Fireman to become a Senior Master Chief, as high as he could go in en- listed rank. He and Karen had done a lot of traveling, getting out of the service in Cal- ifornia, then buying a 36’ Rhodes Traveler sailboat, loading daughters Kim and Dawn aboard and sailing down the west coast
through the Panama Canal and back home to Maine. One afternoon I’m working in the offi ce when I hear this voice at the bottom of the stairs yelling “Where’s My Brud”. It was John. We go through this ridiculous “ritual handshake” we’d done as kids, then a wet-eyed hug, and spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening catching up. John said he was looking for something to do, wanted to come back to the island. I mentioned we’d been thinking seriously of moving the company into storage and re- pair. Next day, after a night of brainstorm- ing, John came back to the shop with a raft of ideas, which included a mobile van, area laid out on the property, and what he would need to get started including advertising. We ran the whirlwind scenario by Heidi, received her blessing from the bookkeep- ing end, did the handshake routine again and within a week John was setting up the operation and had lined up work. During the course of the fi rst year, we bought and outfi tted a mobile van, re- alized it was too much of an undertaking, and then sold it. Then we decided a number of service/refi t projects would need to be picked up by water which John, along with my snow slashing buddy, Bill Rice could do. John, with this boundless enthusiasm of his, would never say no to anything. We had projects coming from as far away as Florida. Needless to say, in a few years the pace began to put a strain on John. He’d be trying to keep things moving remote control while he was picking up or delivering, and I think Kacy could see it as well. We tried to lighten his load any way possible, moving up an assistant foreman, more crew, but I could see after 3-4 years it was beginning to wear on him and on the overall operation as well. We had one major project go south
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on us and although it wasn’t John’s fault, he never got over it and decided to step back from managing. Decided instead he’d keep on with delivering boats which was one of the great loves of his life.
Then John and Bill were delivering a Hans Christian sailboat up past Block Island one night, all sails up and fl apping, ports and hatches open, balmy, light wind, when a freak squall out of nowhere knocked them down. Water was pouring in fast through every opening. Within minutes they had the sailboat righted but were standing knee deep in water in the forward cabin. Took a few days just to get everything such as engine, generator, electronics in order and boat dried out again. I was never quite sure, and John and I never really discussed it but I’ve suspected that this incident may have convinced John of his next career: fl ying, and the work thereon of craft used to leave the ground. Wasn’t but months when I heard a John
Young was working at Trenton Airport in the fi xed base maintenance operation. I called John to fi nd out if it was him, was he the same John Young. “You never told
Continued from Page 13.
me you knew how to get an airplane off the ground, let alone work on them. Doesn’t that require some special licenses?” “Yeass, I can fl y. learned to fl y while I was in the Navy” He replied, “ But now I’m studying and working on getting my fl ight mechanics licenses from FAA.” “Licenses?” “Yeah, Mechanical and Electronics.” John never did anything half-way. Before long, John had restored an old Republic Seabee, amongst other airplane projects and was commuting to an Aero- nautics job at the Belfast Airport. He loved it. When we’d see each other, he’d be over- fl owing with stories and what his latest projects were. On the 23rd
of December, 1999, John
, the day before Christmas. His pas- senger was blessed, having survived with a broken leg.
News from the Maine DMR Current Situation
Boating Law Administrators. Sergeant Talbot holds Associate De- grees in Law Enforcement Technology from Southern Maine Technical College and in Small Vessel Operations from Maine Mari- time Academy.
GREEN CRABS IN MAINE Background
Scientists suggest that green crabs
(Carcinus maenas), originally from Europe, reached U.S. shores in the mid-1800s after riding across the Atlantic in the ballast water on ships.
Once here in North America, they trav- elled to Maine, where they have been present for more than a century. For example, they were fi rst spotted in Casco Bay in 1900, and had reached Jonesport by 1951.
Green crabs are a non-native, or exotic,
species - organisms that have been transport- ed via human activities and introduced to locations in which they previously did not occur.
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In Maine, green crabs are among the invasive species the Maine Department of Marine Resources tracks. Surveys were conducted regularly in the 1960s and 1970s, but were not continued over the last 15 years. Green crabs are found primarily in the soft-bottom intertidal zone favored by soft-shell clams and other bivalve shellfi sh. They also have been found regularly in the rocky intertidal zone.
The green crab population in some areas of Maine has increased dramatically in recent years, and they have been feeding on shellfi sh resources such as blue mussels and soft-shell clams, threatening the state’s third-largest wild fi shery. Recent anecdotal information indicates green crabs are ex- panding into subtidal habitats.
The increase in the green crab popula- tion has coincided with an increase in ocean temperatures. A similar cycle occurred in the early 1950s when the ocean tempera- tures rose and the green crab population increased, devastating the soft-shell clam resource in Maine. This trend reversed during colder winters in the 1960s, effec- tively reducing the green crab population. Efforts Underway
While there is currently no viable commercial market for green crabs, efforts are underway in the private sector to pursue a value-added process that converts green crab protein into a sustainable aquaculture feed for use in Maine and possibly for ex- port. There are also attempts to augment commercial compost with green crabs to produce a valuable commodity. Research has been conducted at the University of Maine to produce a food additive paste made from green crabs. There have been efforts to develop a bait and pet food market from green crabs. However, because the green crab is a
Continued on Page 21. HISTORY FOR YOURWALLS
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was taking his prospective son-in-law up for a sightseeing fl ight over the area. Taking off from Trenton Airport, his plane stalled on takeoff and he made the fatal error of trying to turn back and land. John died on the 24th
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