Echoes magazine celebrates summer with stories of young, old

    Bob Fields predicted his life would be “just like in the movies” when he moved from Houlton to Connecticut just out of high school in the 1950s. Determined to get a high-paying factory job, he found life less than glamorous when he arrived in Hartford.
    Fields tells the story of how a northern Maine kid survived in the big city in the current edition of Echoes magazine, released this month. Homeless with only $50 to his name, the former basketball star stooped to patrolling the gutters for butts to smoke. “I’m a bum,” he said to himself. “Just like in the movies.”
    Two other writers recall their youth in Echoes No. 93.
    In part VII of the series “From Maine to Thailand,” Roger Parent of Lille recounts how his Peace Corps assignment in Thailand brought him out of the shyness that plagued him since childhood. “The Thais taught me that my shyness was just fine, and from them I learned to accept myself more fully.”
    Gary Cameron of Caribou spills his heart in a piece titled “True Love” written about the first love he met when he was 13 years old, but this short story has an unexpected twist.
    Two essays reflect on growing old and watching loved ones grow old. In “Golden Gratitude” Leonard Hutchins of Chapman pays tribute to his mother as he recounts her battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Columnist John Dombek, a Houlton native, also shares his experiences with growing older in his humorous piece “Getting Personal,” which describes a stay in the hospital.
    Barbara Shaw of Willamstown, N.B., reminds us that people are not the only thing that age. In “Ghosts of the Pasts” Shaw remembers the majestic barns that once dotted the northern landscape now falling into ruin.
    Wrapped in a cover painting of a Frenchville potato field in full bloom, Echoes jumps into summer with fresh stories about backyard gardens, reactions of third-graders to a classic Maine children’s book and a forgotten railroad tragedy.
    In a column about letting nothing go to waste, Lucy Leaf describes how she gardens with humanure. “Human waste, if handled well, turns into perfect soil,” says Leaf, who uses every resource available to her.
    John Jemison, a soil and water specialist, tells of the importance of having a garden to reduce the consumption of oil required to ship food from every corner of the world to our neighborhood grocery stores. Jemison suggests that the concept of the victory garden be resurrected to replace food from away with local goods.
    Kathryn Olmstead shares the responses of third-grade students at Hussey Elementary School in Augusta, to hearing Ethel Pochocki’s classic book “A Penny for a Hundred” for the first time. The endearing reactions to the story show the impact Pochocki’s books can have on young readers.
    Presque Isle native Alan Boone unearths a piece of railroad history in “Forgotten Tragedy,” the story of a train wreck that killed seven people and injured 15. July 28, 1911 members of the Presque Isle Community Band were among 70 excursionists returning from a trip to Searsport when they met another train on the tracks at Grindstone.
    St. Agatha writer Paul Marin explains the colorful history of Long Lake’s Pelletier Island, including its discovery, changes in ownership, the building of the causeway and its modern day use.
    Poetry by 12 writers from all over illuminates the visible beauty of northern Maine as well as the intangible beauty of personal experiences here.
    In “The Mystique of Katahdin” Paul A. Lucey is in awe of one of Maine’s most prominent and well-known geological features.
    Columnist Glenna Smith attempts to find out just what exactly a paraben is in Old County Woman, and Kathryn Olmstead introduces Echoes magazine’s 2011 summer intern in First Person Plural.
    Published quarterly in Caribou and printed at Northeast Publishing Co. in Presque Isle, Echoes is dedicated to rediscovering community and preserving qualities of life at risk in today’s society: echoesofmaine.com.