Having suggested that Aroostook County take charge and increase its name recognition for being a he-man locale with a blackfly beverage, I wondered how else The County can distinguish itself.
We could try building the world’s largest lobster roll. Sheffield, New Brunswick, holds the current record for a long lobster roll: 180 feet. The citizens of Sheffield set up an oven that could feed the bread dough into the heat and out would come a fresh-baked roll. They used $5,000 worth of lobster and a few buckets of mayo and some lettuce.
However, we do not grow lobsters. We could practice for the Big E by serving the largest number of baked potatoes in the world. We already establish our spud dominance at the Massachusetts event. And while science is working on making new foods, the day that we can buy lobster spuds is still a long way off.
In active sporting events we could try for the fastest skeeter swatter in the world. While sounding incredible, it probably would result in battery charges from the mosquito faction. We could race Atlantic Salmon: drop a fingerling in and see how long it takes to swim Eagle Lake. The biologists would probably interfere. No, none of these will work for establishing a world record that invites challengers and thus worldwide recognition from the press.
How about skeeter racing? How quickly does it take one mosquito to clear a party? How quickly can a blackfly land on the arm and start sucking? These two events could actually be fun. The winter months could be spent making harnesses for skeeters. WAGM could actually follow the strength training that skeeters have try to build up their stamina. Of course there would need to be the education effort to teach the reporters how to say, ” Skeeter!” without sounding like they come from away.
Mosquito breeding farms could be established. Our scientists could work on breeding a super mosquito that could go from Mars Hill to Bridgewater at the speed of sound. We could even work on creating a robotic mosquito. Along with this robotic mosquito we could try our hand at the remote swatter tool.
Now there is a sport, couch surfing while swatting mosquitoes. How quickly can you lose your blood to these bloodthirsty fiends? That would be a great world record.
“Our skeeters can suck your blood faster than the president can tweet” — that is world record challenging, indeed.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
