I am about to dive into a plate of crow from my last column. A phone call from Susan Fournier, town manager of the three towns of Castle Hill, Mapleton and Chapman clarified the status of the Grange Hall in Castle Hill.
It is not slated for demolition. It is the intent of the administration to look for new uses for the building by working with the Castle Hill Grange Hall Preservation Society, which owns the hall. The issue of using the site as a voting place was the result of the state of Maine regulations for voting sites. We agreed that it is an item worthy of discussion at the next town meeting.
A simple phone call about the letter sent to voters to the town offices would have explained why the site had to move to the fire department building in Mapleton. I did not do that and I should have. I will now spend the turkey holiday with a big pile of crow and no gravy. Mea culpas all around.
To make the holiday a little more humorous, enjoy this plate of a coffee-swigging crow at the hospital.
It was Monday, the day after the clocks were turned back. Sunny. A coffee commuter cast out the dregs of his cup, one coffee with cream and sugar, onto the parking lot tarmac at A.R. Gould Hospital in Presque Isle. This created a steaming pool of eye-exciting liquid soon to run off into a drain.
Overhead one sleepy-eyed crow flew over the lot. Spying the glistening pool it descended to the edge. Inches from the entrance door. Coffee!
Complaints abound on the issue of changing clocks. Is it fall forward and spring back? Or is it spring forward, fall back? Saturday or Sunday? First Sunday in November or last Sunday in March? Known to all as the big headache. Cure it with a coffee — a bucket of coffee. Sixty four ounces, not a half gallon too much.
Pity the poor crow, with all these new people upsetting its routine. A headache in the making for sure.
To the rescue — patrons of healthcare arrive on the campus. Neat and tidy in spite of the change, patrons corral their beasts of burden in the parking lot of the hospital. Lugging bags of stuff, sticks and cups of coffee, these noble citizens enter the den of equity prepared to battle the bugs, banes and breaks of modern life.
The crow ignores them.
A gleam in its dark eye reflects a steaming pool of coffee on the tarmac. Caffeine! A cheap cure for a headache. Approaching the pool, the crow spreads its wings and genuflects for its good fortune. It proceeds to drink from the steaming pool. And drink it does, guzzling down the liquid gold, oblivious to the patrons as they pass him by. Now there is one caffeinated crow.
The Gould campus is rapidly becoming an avian sanctuary. Perhaps it is time for the lovers of the Starbucks concession to help the other citizens of the neighborhood by chipping in for the crow’s coffee. “Pennies for a Beakful of Coffee” could be the slogan. What may come is not known.
As we struggle with readjusting to the time change, one crow, hyped up on caffeine, will now star in a new television series: “Avian Addictions.”
Here is to mud in your eye. Pour another cup of joe for the crow.
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.
