Page 6. MAINE COASTAL NEWS July 2018 '70s Memories: The Old Shop, Part 2 By Lee S. Wilbur “What are you two kids doing?”, I
yelled, trying to keep a straight face com- ing out of the shop after hearing children's laughter and the sound of breaking glass. Few weeks previous our neighbor,
Roger Pinkham, guy who would play a large role in my becoming a boatbuilder, and I had lowered this large fl ap of win- dows from the shop front opening to the ground. We'd struggled to pull it off to the side in anticipation of a bare hull arriv- ing from Jarvis Newman in the next few weeks. My new career was soon to begin since I'd been informed without a teaching certifi cate, town of Lamoine would not be allowed to legally pay for my brilliance in keeping 30+ Seventh and Eighth graders under control at the same time trying to teach them the three “R's.” Lamoine would have to begin the search for a new teaching principal come second half of school year. That afternoon, my dear sister, Su-
zanne, alone with two children, Andrea and Denise, and husband Neil away in the Army, had brought her them over to “play” with ours, Ingrid and Derek of the same ages and inclinations. The youngest, Der- ek and Denise, were just at that age, Pre-
school when any mischief was fair game. This “fl ap” some four feet high and 12 feet long was hosting a “jumping jack” party and the two of them had managed to break every pane of glass by the time I'd discov- ered what was taking place. How does a parent discipline two four year olds when they were obviously having so much fun. Had all I could do to keep from laugh-
ing as I carefully stepped on broken glass, grabbed each by an arm and waltzed them up to the house, I scolded them just a bit, turned them over to respective mothers and went back to work. A few years later, just as we'd completed the “New boatshop” and had boats underway (between the Manset Church and the relocated Library), Sister Suzanne had stopped by to see us when Derek and Denise had climbed into the back of “the company truck” and fi nding some open cans of motor oil had proceed- ed to douse each other with oil. Two of my dearest “Wilbur” owners/later friends, happened to be there that afternoon and we laughed of it for years later. That winter, with Roger's help, sever-
al evening calls a week to Ralph Ellis of Bunker and Ellis fame, and visits as well during the day to their shop I managed to
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complete a Newman 36 Sportfi sherman for launch that summer. To accomplish, I'd be down in the old shop by 7 AM. Mid-winter it was cold. Only heat source was an an- cient “schoolhouse” wood-burning stove. I'd get the old girl fi red up, load her with chunks of hardwood, go back to the house for a quick breakfast and perhaps see the kids off to school when by that time there'd be enough heat for the hardener to kick off fi berglass resin. I loved it. Walk a few yards to work. Home for lunch and watch the kids come home from school. See something created along with help that I had done with my own endeavors. Next Year, Roger and I fi nished off a
lobsterboat (Newman 36 hull) for Roger's brother in law who hadn't really given us all the particulars of how he wanted the boat fi nished. Roger, who was working most weekends with me, and I had soon formed a fairly effi cient team and weren't wasting any time. I was hoping to get a couple or more orders for the winter. We'd already laid color
infused...green... glass over the plywood sidedecks, and were just round- ing the bow on the foredeck when Russell
walked through the door and up onto the staging.
“What are you doing?” Russell says in
alarm. “I wanted white washrails!!! I had no idea you'd be this far ahead.” Uh-oh. Beginning of “Spec-Books for each and ev- ery boat had their beginning. Roger was able to get Russell to settled
down, after all, he was family...and with the deal I'd made for him to pay from winter fi shing I think overall he was pleased with the boat. (after ballasting) Fiberglass lob- ster boats could, and are to this day, be tough on the knees. Richard Stanley's got it right - wood hulls, fi berglass houses. And then there was another side to the
old shop, one which friends of those days and I reminisce when we get together... those still standing. Barn Dances. Dennis Ellis, son of Ralph, and now famous phar- macist, one of my best friends, would get together and hire Danny Harper and his band or Roberta Demuro for some great music and barn dance parties along with a keg of free beer. Later on I had to rope off newly planted lawn. Strange the ruts that appeared after midnight.
Growing Up on Chebeague Island Continued from Page 5.
she went to art school. “I got a scholarship the fi rst year,” added Anne. “The second year, to make money for my tuition, I did lobstering. I had 25 oak traps and an 8 foot pram that I rowed about two miles to tend them with, hauled them by hand. In the af- ternoon, I would row over back of Mosier's Island a couple of miles and catch dogfi sh for bait because I had no money. I did that and I sold the lobsters from the house, with a sign out by the road. I made enough money to pay for my tuition. I liked it. I liked it a lot, and the other fi shermen never paid any attention to me because nobody set traps out there where I was.” Anne appeared on the cover of the
“Portland Sunday Telegram Magazine” 31 July 1949. It is wondered if she was the fi rst woman in the State of Maine to hold a lobster license. She would be the fi rst to say she does not know, but added that she did not know of any other women in her area that fi shed. Early on Anne remembers riding back
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and forth from the Island on NELLIE G. “For many years a man named Swett ran it and that went to Handy Boat in Falmouth. They had a bus and you got on the bus and it took you up into Portland to the corner of High and Congress Streets. That was very handy for those people who didn't have cars or wanted to go up shopping or whatever.” When NELLIE G. stopped running a man named Smitty ran his boat in her place
for a time. Now it’s the Chebeague Trans- portation Company with a bigger ferry that comes and goes from Cousin's Island. Anne does not remember any of the
fi shermen and did know there were boat- builders on the Island, but she was secluded. She explained, “Where my house is, we were separate. The golf club fairway goes around it with the beach on the other side. We never had a car. As I remember we didn't even have a mailbox, so we didn't have any mail. We didn't have any bills because we didn't have any electricity or any phone, or anything else.” To get her degree, Anne went to the
University of Maine at Orono and graduated from there in 1952. She then married James “Bill” Holmbom of Monson. “We were both art teachers and we fi rst went to Hartford, Connecticut and then to Montpelier, Ver- mont,” said Anne. We then came back and lived in a 1680s saltbox house in Marble- head, until the owners decided to sell. We couldn't buy it because the GI Bill wouldn't loan you any money on an old house, so we bought a new house out in Essex. I taught in the elementary school there for three or four years. Then we said enough of that, let's go back to Maine and we came back and bought a farm in Hancock on Route One. We swapped roles and I became a teacher at Mount Desert Island High School and Bill worked mornings on the barn which was a
Continued on Page 8. KUSTOM STEEL
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