Echoes magazine celebrates winter

One characteristic of the Caribou High School Class of 1907 was “push,” according to class editor May Collins. They demonstrated this quality 50 years after graduation and evidence is contained on the pages of the current edition of Echoes magazine.     “Our Last Big Fling” is the account of the class’s 50th reunion in Los Angeles, California, hosted by class member Clifford Hardison and his wife Elvira. Even though their principal, Willard P. Hamilton, then 87, thought women in their 60s were too old to travel, Collins (Mrs. Harry Ahern) contacted her classmates, and many joined Hamilton for the flight to California and 10 days of sight-seeing. Writer Glenna Johnson Smith composed the account from correspondence and class records provided by Audrey Bishop Thibodeau, daughter of class member Elsie Berce Bishop.
    Echoes 83 is filled with images and recollections of winter in Maine, including a color photo by Lisa Bean of her three horses galloping across a snowy Westford Hill in Hodgdon. Coda, Jazz and Maggie come when called and Bean captured their joyful response in the image on page 2 of the magazine.
    In Perham, residents hope to restore snowshoe racing to the Aroostook County winter sports agenda. They created a “Snowshoe Spectacular” in 2008 to celebrate the sport and showcase the Salmon Brook Lake Bog, a year-round natural treasure supporting diverse flora and fauna. Writer Kasey Grieco of Westmanland takes readers to the starting line and introduces them to naturalist Richard Clark, who first envisioned the snowshoe race as a way to sensitize people to the beauty of the area.
    Kathleen Hede Robinson of New Sweden remembers tramping snowshoe paths to the outhouse and underneath the clothesline in “Winter in the 1940s,” when walls of snow on the path from the house to the road were as tall as her father as he shoveled. Like Robinson, Hazel Cameron of Presque Isle recalls warming her feet on the open door of the oven and sliding down hills on whatever was available – a baking sheet or a cardboard box – in “Winter on the Farm.”
    David Parker of Rochester, N.Y., grew up on Stillwater Avenue in Bangor overlooking a rolling pasture that is now the Bangor Mall. Land now dedicated to shopping was a winter playground for local kids where the right combination of rain and cold created “an ice rink of staggering proportions.” Parker recalls that ice chutes, crust sliding, frozen meadows and bonfires on ice were all part of “Winter at Rocky Corner” – now the I-95 interchange.
    Mushers who come to Fort Kent for the annual Can-Am sled dog races are like family for the local residents who host them. Ninety mushers, handlers and close to 900 dogs could present a housing crunch in a town with one hotel, but Fort Kent families clear their yards and open their homes and refrigerators to the annual influx of visitors from across the northern US and Canada.
    In the cover story of the current Echoes magazine, writer and photographer Julia Bayly visits with a few of the families who have given Fort Kent and international reputation for hospitality. “Lifelong Friendships” is one of several features in Echoes 83 that celebrate winter in Maine, past and present.
    Color photos by Stephen Leighton of Fort Fairfield combine with poetry by Ethel Pochocki of Brooks and Russell Libby of Mount Vernon to create visual and verbal images of winter in a center section of the magazine titled “North by Verse.” On the back cover, Leighton’s golden retriever runs out of the evergreens silhouetted by sun on snow.In addition to winter features,
    Echoes 83 contains stories about sportswriter Bud Leavitt. Leavitt is the subject of an anecdote by Dana McNally, who operated McNally camps between the Allagash and Fish rivers in northern Maine. McNally liked to quote his dad, William Parker McNally (Daddy Will), who joked that Leavitt was a “most accomplished liar.”
    In the second of a two-part feature, Houlton businessman Paul A. McGillicuddy describes a way of doing business that is “just good common sense.” Barbara McGillicuddy Bolton of Brooklyn, N.Y., interviewed her uncle in 2005 and her transcription creates a profile laced with poignant business philosophy. “Be a little early, work harder than anyone else and be there when you close down,” McGillicuddy advises aspiring business owners. At 95, he “still sees possibilities all around” and wishes he were young enough to go into business again
    Release of Echoes No. 83 this month begins the 21st year of continuous publication for the quarterly magazine based in Caribou and printed at Northeast Publishing Co. in Presque Isle. Dedicated to preserving qualities of life at risk in today’s world, the magazine celebrates life lived simply with deep respect for nature.
    In an autobiographical essay title “Community in Crisis,” editor Kathryn Olmstead affirms the value of community in times of economic hardship. The essay first appeared in the magazine in 1989 and was republished in 1999, as the nation feared the effects of Y2K. Its message remains relevant.
    Echoes goes to subscribers throughout the United States and Canada and is available on northern Maine newsstands, with information at echoesofmaine.com.