August 19, 2009
Bob Valerini-at Ruski’s Every Day
Last Thursday, early in the evening, I stopped into Ruski’s in a bit of a panic. My deadline
for this issue was fast approaching and I hadn’t found anyone to interview. I looked for
guidance from both Dominique Krasow, working behind the bar, and John Kerr, who was
sitting at the bar.
Simultaneously, they appeared to point at each other.
“What’s this?” I said, “A caption for a picture that would read, ‘Don’t interview me -
interview him.’”
“You’re not looking where I’m pointing,” said Kerr.
There at the other end of the bar, sitting by himself, was Bob Valerini, or “Bobby” as he is
known at the bar.
Bob Valerini, who turns 80 this September 4th, is a regular at Ruski’s. He’s as permanent a
fixture as the furniture, which he often helps arrange.
John Kerr says that you can see him walking up Danforth Street in the middle of winter in his
orange hat. He walks in the road if the sidewalks aren’t shoveled.
“I used to clean the floors, just for the hell of it. It was something to do. I’m here everyday,”
he says cheerfully.
Next to Valerini is a tray of neatly- folded napkins wrapped around the silverware.
“He’s our silverware roller,” says Dominque Krasow “He wraps the silverware in the
napkins. He does all kinds of things for us. He fixes things. He helps out a lot at Ruski’s.”
“I can’t stay still,” says Valerini. “I’ve got to keep working.”
Valerini’s father was born in Rome, Italy. His father worked on the construction of the
Million Dollar Bridge, which used to connect Portland with South Portland.
According to him, there are four men that were buried in that bridge. They fell into the
cement while it was being mixed. His nephew says that is an urban legend.
He was one of thirteen children.
“Í had eight brothers and four sisters,” he says. “Right now, I am the oldest boy left in the
family.”
He was baptized in the St. Peter’s Church on Federal Street in Portland.
“Four of us were baptized there,” he adds.
When he was a teenager, he lived in the Cash Corner section of South Portland.
“We used to walk over the Vaughn Street Bridge to go to the movies uptown in Portland,” he
says.
In 1949, he enlisted in the army.
“I had to wait four months to get my uniform tailored,” he says. “I had a job driving the
officers around. I got two points for being a sharpshooter. I was stationed at Fort Dix, then
Fort Hancock, New Jersey. Then I was stationed in Georgia. I didn’t like Georgia. I hated the
south - too hot. I did like New Jersey.”
He was sent to Korea. By the time he arrived, the war had ended. He left the army in 1953.
Afterwards, he worked in various jobs, including highway construction.
“Back in ’56, I worked on the highway from Falmouth to Brunswick,” he says. “I worked on
Route 88 and the Interstate. We had to lay twenty-six slabs of concrete a day. When it rained,
you couldn’t’ work.”
Valerini worked for Bancroft and Martin for seventeen years, until he was injured on the job.
“The company took care of me,” he says. “They bought my house for me.”
The house is at 27 Tyng Street. It dates back to 1747. According to Valerini, it is the oldest
house on the street.
“The City was going to tear it down,” he says. “I told them ‘You can’t tear it down. My
company, Bancroft and Martin, bought the house for me.”
That house cost $1,750 in 1969.
“Everything in the house is all new,” he says. “The wiring and plumbing. I cut down thirteen
trees in the yard - cherry trees and plumb trees. I hate trees; I don’t like to rake leaves. If the
front door is open, I’m down in the cellar. I’ve got two workshops there.”
Right now, he is thinking of selling the house and moving.
“I hate to sell the house,” he says. “I can’t afford the taxes. I’m paying $4,300 in taxes. I’m
getting out of Portland. My taxes are way too high. I’m trying like hell to get over to South
Portland.”
When he moved into the West End in 1969, the place he stopped in was known as the
“White Eagle Café.” There were three other bars in the area: the Beacon, Popeye’s, and a small
bar near the corner of Spring and Clark streets.
“I could have bought that building for $8000,” he says, referring to Popeye’s. “But I
couldn’t run a business. So I didn’t’ buy it.”
Valerini also remembers that there were two drugstores across the street, a Shell and a Mobil
gas station, and a little hardware store, where the barbershop is now located, around the corner
from Vespucci’s market.
He lost an eye due to an industrial accident. He almost lost another eye in an accident. Rosie
Harris (former owner of Ruski’s) took him to the hospital in Boston.
“If it wasn’t for that woman,” he says, “I wouldn’t see at all.” He then notes that she had
recently lost her husband, Steve Harris.
Valerini lucked out with the sale of property he owned in South Portland. He owned an eighty-
by-ten foot strip of land. It doesn’t’ sound like much. But without that strip, a road to an office
park could not be built.
“After I paid my lawyer, I didn’t get that much,” he says. “It is where the Pizza Plus Store is
- off Payne Road.”
Friends keep suggesting that he should get into a condominium. But he prefers the freedom to
move around.
There are two nonprofit organizations that he has left money to in his will.
“If I pass,” he says, “I want my money to go to the Baxter School for the Deaf, and
Opportunity Farm in Gray.”
When asked to name his favorite restaurant, he replies: “When I’m in South Portland, it’s
Uncle Andy’s. In Portland, it is Ruski’s.”
Harlan Baker hopes to have a brand new e-mail address by the end of the week.
Dominique Krasow is one of his favorite bartenders.
THIS JUST IN! Harlan's new email address is hbaker2@maine.rr.com. Email
him just to let him know it's working!
August 5, 2009
East of Bayside
By HARLAN BAKER
(Part four of a four part series)
On the other side the Franklin Arterial is East Bayside. This neighborhood is separate from
Bayside and formed its own neighborhood association in May of 2007. East Bayside is bounded
by Congress Street, the Franklin Arterial, Marginal Way and Washington Avenue. It is a
diverse neighborhood of small shops, multi-family and owner-occupied residences, commercial
and industrial buildings, and a burgeoning artists’ colony in several old warehouses. The
neighborhood also includes the public housing projects Kennedy Park and Bayside Terrace.
The East Bayside Neighborhood Association holds its meetings in The Root Cellar on
Washington Avenue.
“We are unabashedly faith-based,” says Kurt Holmgren, the Portland director of The Root
Cellar.
The Root Cellar’s mission of providing for the spiritual and material needs of the
neighborhood began twenty-five years ago in the basement of a church on Lafayette Street.
That is how they got their name. The Root Cellar serves parts of Munjoy Hill but much of its
work is centered in East Bayside.
“In the last two years, we’ve been helping with jobs and helping people to gain confidence to
get employed,” says Holmgren.
Currently, mission teams of volunteers from local churches are providing the means for the
kids to clean up their yards and make the community more livable. Every Monday, in warmer
months, a barbeque is held in Kennedy Park as part of the Monday in the Park Program.
“During the school year, we have after-school programs from three to five, and help with
homework from five to six,” says Holmgren.
The Root Cellar provides clothing distribution on Thursdays, and food distribution to around
125 neighborhood families on Fridays. Holmgren also volunteers at the Wayside Soup Kitchen.
“I’ve observed,” he says, “that you don’t see anyone from over there in this neighborhood.
This neighborhood is not as transient. Here, there are more poor families, refugees. Eighty
percent of the kids are from refugee families - mostly from Africa.”
A few blocks away are Kennedy Park and Bayside Terrace. Kennedy Park is a pubic
housing project built in 1965. An additional twenty-four units at Bayside Terrace were
completed the following year.
Smith Street runs off Cumberland Avenue and comes to a dead end inside Kennedy Park. Two
girls are holding a mini yard sale in front of their home. They say they are trying to raise money
for the Special Olympics. Their mother, Martha Ruby, has lived in Kennedy Park for the past
twenty years. When asked about whether she likes her neighborhood, her answer is equivocal.
“I do and yet I don’t,” she replies. “It’s changed tremendously. I’ve raised six kids, and by
the grace of God they’ve all turned out to be wonderful.
“I used to be close to the neighbors, as far as talking to them. Now we don’t have any
fellowship. For almost two years, things have gone downhill. I see children out at all hours of
the night.” She cites racism as a problem in the neighborhood and points out she is Cherokee.
“The new people have no respect,” she says. “There have been shootings and stabbings.
Three of my children have moved out. I’m very protective of my children. I have to be. A lot of
times, I’d like to get my children out of this neighborhood.”
While she has heard of the East Bayside Neighborhood Association, she is not familiar with
it. She is familiar with The Root Cellar, and both of the girls have attended programs there.
Around the corner two men sit talking in front of their apartments. One of them, Yugu, a
young man from the Sudan, has lived in Kennedy Park for the past five years.
“I like this neighborhood,” he says. “But there has been a lot of violence. It’s more peaceful
now because of the work of the police. They’ve supplied cameras. For over a month now,
there hasn’t been as much violence around here. Now we live in peace and I like it.”
That sentiment is echoed by a group of teenage girls a few houses away. They are dressed in
the traditional Muslim Somali clothing
Samira Ahmed attends Portland High School. She likes the neighborhood because this is where
all of her friends live.
“It’s sort of safe,” she says. “There are surveillance cameras.”
“It is kinds of safe,”says her friend Salma Ali. “But I think they could do a better job on these
buildings.” She’s surprised to learn that the project was built in the mid ‘60s.
Both girls have attended programs at The Root Cellar.
“We always go there,” says Samira Ahmed. “It is one of our favorite places. It is fun and
spiritual.”
A few doors away, another immigrant comments on the neighborhood. He says he does not
live here by choice. He came to the United States because of the human rights violations in his
native Zaire, where he taught political science at a university. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia,
before moving to Portland.
“Portland was good for education and my kids,” he says. “Portland is great. This
neighborhood is OK. It is worse in Atlanta with the crime and shootings; about two people are
shot each day.
“I wanted to put my children where they can compete. In terms of the level of education in
high school, Georgia ranks thirty-ninth in the nation. Portland is forth or fifth.
“Twenty-four percent of all the kids in Portland schools are immigrants, yet the office of
multicultural affairs has only three people to follow their progress.”
A short distance from Kennedy Park, near the intersection of Anderson and Cove Streets, is
the artist collective Running with Scissors. The collective moved into East Bayside a little over a
year ago from their former home on Portland Street.
Robert Nason is busy at work painting. The space is a bit cramped with canvasses spread out
in every corner. Nason is one of seventeen artists with studio space in the building. He taught
drawing and painting till he retired about twenty years ago.
He drops everything to conduct an impromptu tour of the building
“Two women, Ariette Scott and Susie Schweppe, found this space and bought it from the
owner,” he says. “When we moved in, this was one big space with nothing in it whatsoever.
They laid it out to meet the needs of the artists from the old building.”
He has two paintings that adorn the outside of the building, and points to the sign he painted
with the word “Art” superimposed over bright colors.
“The sign used to say, ‘My Friendly Dog’. The building was used for dog training,” says
Nason.
The other half of the building owned by J.S. Ritter and is being turned into studio space for
jewelers and metal workers. A natural gas feed - the only one of it kind in the state - will help
facilitate the making of jewelry and other metalwork.
When Ritter saw Running with Scissors create artists’ space from nothing, he was inspired to
turn the other half of the building into studios.
“It was my dream when I bought the building to turn it into an arts building,” says Ritter.
While the finishing touches are still being made, several studios have already been leased. There
are, however, a few words of caution. Jenn Neilson, a printmaker, cites the familiar story of
artists moving into a low-income neighborhood, revitalizing the neighborhood, and the being
forced out once the area is gentrified.
Returning to a question posed to several people at the beginning of this series:
“Do you agree with Forbes Magazine that Portland is the most livable city in the United
States, and is your neighborhood the most livable in the city?”
There is no simple answer. Besides, it is all relative. When one is struggling to make a
neighborhood livable, the pronouncements of Forbes Magazine are irrelevant.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
July 22, 2009
Looking for Libbytown
(Part three of a series)
By HARLAN BAKER
When I tell people I live in Libbytown they usually reply, “Where’s that?”
It’s hard to answer a question about your neighborhood being livable when your neighborhood
no longer exists. Yes, Libbytown is still a neighborhood. And there is a Libbytown
Neighborhood Association listed on the City of Portland’s website. But the neighborhood was
sliced in two, and five hundred families were relocated due to the construction of Interstate I-
295.
Libbytown takes its name from George Libby, who owned a tavern at the corner of Park
Avenue and Congress Street in the early 19th century. According to census tracts, Libbytown is
bordered by St. John Street to Brighton Avenue then turns down Whitney Street to Scott Street
to Edwards Street and then runs along Congress Street as far as Stroudwater. The areas on the
south side of Congress Street are also considered part of Libbytown.
On September 20, 1986, a reunion of former Libbytown residents was held on the Douglas
Street playground.
“You’d see people there you hadn’t seen in 20 years,” says Clayton Cooledge. “There must
have been at least 300 people.”
Cooledge, who still lives in Libbytown, kept the reunion program. It is filled with photographs
of the old neighborhood. He also has a number of copies of old photographs.
“That’s where I was born,” he says, pointing to copy of an old photograph, “1126 Congress
Street.”
Cooledge describes Libbytown as a close neighborhood.
“Nobody ever locked the doors,” he says. “You could go to the neighbors and get a Coke. If
you did something wrong, the most that would happen is your mother would get a phone call.
It wasn’t a rich neighborhood, it was working class.”
Clayton Cooledge attended the West School till 7th grade. Then he attended the brand new
King Jr. High School. He points to another picture of the 1949 West School Basketball Squad
from the school’s newsletter.
“That’s me,” he says. “A little behind me is Leonard Cummings.” Cummings became one of
the officers of the Portland branch of the NAACP.
Except for the time he was in the Navy, Cooledge has spent most of his life in Portland. He
worked as a machinist at American Can for seventeen years, and at SD Warren for twenty-
three years. He’s now retired, and for the past twenty-six years has lived with his wife Linda
on Mitton Street.
“The interstate took the whole thing,” he says. “At one time there were at least six or seven
stores in Libbytown.”
“There was a barber shop - Peter Casey’s. Never get your hair cut on Saturday. All the old
guys would go down to Doc Grant’s in the West End. It was a liquor store. They had a few
nips and then they’d go back to the barber shop.”
He points to a building in a photograph.
“That’s Flaherty’s. You could get just about anything,” he says. “It was actually a small
supermarket. That’s where we did all our shopping. Next door was a barroom, ‘Red Young’s’.
There was another barroom. Mac McLeod owned it.”
He point to another picture showing a parade of pachyderms on Park Avenue, on their way to
Douglas Field, where the circus used to be held. There is a photo of a gas tank - not too far
from H.P. Hoods.
All of those buildings, including the West School, are gone. Bristol, Liberty, Wood, Hooper,
Bath, Fowler, Frost, Basin and New Douglas have also become “ghost streets”.
The Clipper Mart occupies a block where once there were two houses and an open field.
Across the street is a Mobil station, the Norway Savings Bank building, medical buildings and
the Clarion Inn. Congress Street is a heavily-
traveled thoroughfare, especially during rush hours. Long stretches of the street, particularly at
the cloverleaf entrance and exit ramps of the interstate, are neither pedestrian or bicycle-friendly.
What does Clayton Cooledge think about his neighborhood?
“You wouldn’t know you lived in the city,” he says. Although he points out that it was it was
much quieter before The Willows project was built at the end of what was once a dead end.
“I’d like to see that dirt road next to my house tarred,” he says.
“It’s been like that for that past twenty-six years,” says his wife. “It would be nice if they
added some sidewalks and curbing.”
Cooledge has heard about the Libbytown Neighborhood Association but has never been to any
of the meetings.
On the other side of the I-295 cloverleaf is Huntress Street. It is a dead end. A group of
young men are fixing a row of cars while listening to the radio at the end of the street.
Sen Quang Trieu is walking down the street with a friend. He’s lived in Portland ever since he
was thirteen. He picks North Deering as the best neighborhood in Portland.
“There’s no highway traffic and nothing to disturb the peace,” he says. “There are nice
neighbors here, but with all this highway, it is hard.”
He doesn’t think there is anything that can be done to mitigate the traffic noise from the
cloverleaf and Fore River Parkway.
“They could turn this place into a park and connect it to the jogging path,” he says. “But with
the oncoming traffic, I don’t think it is possible.”
Chaning McDaniels thinks there might be a way to mitigate the traffic noise. McDaniels lives
on Congress Street and is the owner of Dinky Dogs, a venture dog- walking business. She’s
also past vice-president of the newly-formed St. John Valley Neighborhood Association.
“Because of the severing that I-295 had on Libbytown, this area has been a kind of a forgotten
zone,” she says, explaining why they chose to incorporate into a neighborhood association
separate from Libbytown. She rates her neighborhood very high.
“It’s not only a safe neighborhood,” she says, “it’s urban. It’s a close walk to where you need
to get to without some of the drama that is found downtown. The Fore River trails make it
more enticing.”
She mentions a recent grant for the area will be used to fix St. John and Valley streets and to
make them more pedestrian-friendly.
“There is also a proposal,” she says, “just a proposal - to remove the on/off ramp on Congress
Street, now that they have a new on/off ramp at the Fore River Parkway. It is so chaotic now.
Accidents happen every week.”
The St. John Valley Neighborhood Associations web blog is http://stjohnvalley.blogspot.com.
According to the City of Portland’s web site, the contact email for the Libbytown
Neighborhood Association is fdillon@maine.rr.com.
Next issue: The fourth and final installment on livable neighborhoods.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
April 29, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Tristan Gallagher - Back to the '80s
“When people know what you have, they bring you what you already have,” says Tristan
Gallagher. Gallagher is constantly on the lookout for old comics and action figures of the 1980s.
He’s the proprietor of a shop on High Street called The Fun Box Monster Emporium
that specializes in 1980s memorabilia. He’s also a collector, plays guitar for the “Death Punk”
rock group Covered in Bees and lives in Parkside with his wife Michelle Souliere.
Souliere is the editor of The Strange Maine Gazette, which has nothing to do with the Strange
Maine shop on Congress Street. The Strange Maine Gazette is a blog and bi-monthly newsletter
that explores the strange and unusual in Maine.
“It’s about Big Foot, Lake Monsters, and the Chupacabra- which is the Mexican goat sucker
that draws the blood from livestock. You name it,” says Gallagher.
Souliere has also provided the West End NEWS with hot tips like the whistling prostitutes on
State Street, and the recent police chase and car wreck in Deering Oaks Park.
“I once had around a hundred thousand comic books in a U-Haul, says Gallagher. “A dude
pulls up and says, ‘I notice you have a lot of comics. How would you like some more?’ Like I
said earlier, when people know what you have, they bring you what you already have. A normal
person would have said, are you crazy? I, on the other hand, bought five more boxes of
comics.”
Gallagher grew up in Presque Isle, Maine. He’s lived in Portland for the past fourteen years.
“I worked at Videoport,” he says. “I ran the Videoport Delivers for about a year or two. It was
a delivery service. I was the last person to deliver movies.”
After Videoport no longer offered the delivery service, he ran an e-blog from his house in the
West End.
“I went to school forever at USM,” he says. “I have a degree; I minored in music with a major
in multi-media design.”
He worked for The Portland Housing Authority, repairing vacated units. But cleaning up after
tenants who had moved out proved to be less than thrilling.
“After the horror of that job,” he says, “I decided to work for myself for a while. So, I cashed
out my 401K and set up a T-shirt printing operation in my basement for about three years.”
Gallagher met up with Doug Porter and his brother Ed at Granny Burrito’s where they both
worked, and learned they were forming a band.
“I said ‘I’ll play,’” he says. “I thought they said the name of the band was Covered in Beans,
since they worked in a burrito place.”
The band’s actual name is Covered in Bees. Gallagher describes the sound as “Death Punk” and
the band as a “Horror Rock” band.
“We’ve moved more toward Rock over the years,” says Gallagher. “Horror Rock is hard to
define. A lot of bands that do it do it badly.
There is a band called The Misifits that did songs with references to horror movies. They used
skull make-up. We used to do zombie make-up for our shows. But, that is not what we do all
the time.”
In addition to Gallagher, who plays drums, the band members are Ed Porter on bass, Doug
Porter on guitar, and “Boo”- who is the band’s vocalist. When asked Boo's” real name,
Gallagher replies, “He’s totally OK with just being Boo.”
As far as Gallagher is concerned, the best rock club in Portland is Geno’s.
“It’s the friendliest club we’ve ever played in,” he says. “They are nice to us; it’s a great place
to play.”
The band has played every club in Portland, and the Merrill Auditorium. While they haven’t
played the Cumberland County Civic Center, they have played the civic center in Lewiston.
The band does not go on any national or regional tours, preferring to remain local.
“Ed has a kid,” explains Gallagher, “Boo decided to go to school; we’re not willing to be road
dogs.”
Gallagher’s shop on High Street is filled with comics, T-shirts and collectable figures ranging
from Star Wars to Godzilla and G.I. Joes. There are even a few boxes of Super 8 mm movie
excerpts of classic films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although it might be tough finding
a working Super 8 mm film projector.
“This is my generation,” says Gallagher about the items in his shop. “These are the things I
remember from my childhood.”
He pulls out a figure still wrapped in the plastic bag it came in from the toy factory.
“This is known as mint on card,” he says. “It was made in 1983 and nobody ever opened it.
Things like this bring you back, to see it in the packaging really makes you want to remember
your childhood.”
By Gallagher’s observation, the majority of people that come into his shop fall within the twenty-
five to forty- five year old age range.
“The comic book people are all ages,” says Gallagher. “There was a guy in his mid-’80s who
came in to pick up comics.”
Having lived in Parkside for a number of years, Gallagher is skeptical of Portland’s recent
distinction as “the most livable city” in the United States. He mentions a number of friends who
were beaten up in Portland, and the whistling prostitutes and the confrontation with their pimp
on State Street.
While his wife’s newsletter blog, The Strange Maine Gazette, reports on what might be found
in The X Files, Gallagher considers himself a skeptic.
“I belong to the Skeptic Society,” he says. “It‘s a national organization that frowns on things
like Big Foot and the like. But, I try to keep an open mind.”
Covered in Bees will be playing at Geno’s - May 3rd around 10 pm
Watch for Harlan Baker’s Most Livable Places in Portland Awards in the
Memorial Day edition of the West End News. He can be reached at
hbaker@maine.edu
April 15, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Mohammed Serwanga -
A Ugandan Student in Maine
I usually pick up my copy of the West End News at one of three places: Colucci’s, Ruski’s or
Vespucci’s.
One evening, I dashed into Vespucci’s. I found the newspaper rack and picked up a copy of
The WEN, then left without paying any attention to the young man behind the counter.
It was either before or after one of the classes in public speaking that I teach at the University
of Southern Maine (yes, I have a day job) that the same young man behind the counter
mentioned that he had seen me come into the store, and recognized me as his instructor in the
class.
Mohammed Serwanga can be seen on occasion behind the counter of Vespucci’s Market,
which his uncle has owned for over thirty years.
Serwanga lives in the West End, and is studying finance at USM. He has been in Maine for
only a little over a year.
He was born in Jinja, Uganda, which is located on the northern shore of Lake Victoria. His
primary school, which is what we cal an elementary school, was named “Little Cranes”. He
attended two highs schools: St. Michael’s and Kawanda, both in different districts. He attended
the Institute of Certified Public Accounting, which is part of Makerere University in Kampala,
Uganda’s capital. Makerere is the largest university in Uganda.
“It was basically built by the British,” says Serwanga.
According to Serwanga, the chancellor of the college, Apolo Nsibambi, is also the Prime
Minister of the country.
“This was a problem,” says Serwanga. “He had to balance the student ideas against the policies
of the government. He ended up resigning as chancellor.”
“The current problem we have,” says Serwanga, about the politics of his country, “is like the
rest of Africa. We have a ruling party that almost dictates to the other parties. They want to
sound like they are a democratic country but this is not so.”
Serwanga’s uncles wanted him to continue his education, and suggested he come to Maine and
enroll in the University of Southern Maine.
So far, Maine is the only place he has been in the United States. His first impression of Maine
was very positive.
“People are hospitable,” he says. “The way they talk to you seems like they know you.”
He does point out however that there are a number of striking differences between the students
here and in Uganda.
“Students dictate what the teachers should do,” he says, “which is not the case in Kampala.
“Absences are not treated as a big deal here. In Kampala, before you can take an absence, you
must talk to the instructor first.”
He also points out that joining in class discussion is compulsory in Kampala.
“We have group projects –where the entire group is graded. Everyone has to pull his own
weight. The test is for the entire group and the grades are made public.”
Serwanga also feels that instructors in Kampala spend more time after class discussing subject
mater with students. Although he feels that USM’s Learning Assistance Center plays a vital role
in helping students, and makes up for time that instructors may not spend with students outside
of class.
Like U.S. colleges and universities, there are numerous clubs and organizations students can join
at Makerere University.
“If you participate in a club,” says Serwanga, “the administration looks favorably on it, and
participation can get you points towards your graduation. It was also a way of meeting new
friends.
When he completes his studies at USM, he plans a career in Finance. He also plans to return to
Uganda.
Serwanga points out that the British took an area with many different tribes to create Uganda. It
became an official British protectorate in 1914. Because of Uganda’s location on Lake Victoria
- a fresh water lake, and the largest lake in Africa - people from the sub-Saharan region of
Africa were drawn to the region. Lake Victoria is also the source of the longest branch of the
Nile River.
“You are almost like a small king in Uganda,” he says. “We have more than seventy-two
different cultures-because of the water supply. All these groups are at odds with each other -
not like the United States, which is one culture.”
Serwanga speaks fifteen different languages.
“My kingdom is Bugunda. Each kingdom has its own language. We have no language, but
English is our official language.”
When asked about his impression of Barak Obama, he replies that “Obama’s use of the word
‘we’ is tricky. It’s tricky because, if he failed, he would say ‘I failed because a group did not
agree with me.’”
“He’s also under a lot of pressure to make an impact. People’s expectations of him are high. All
eyes are on him to see what he will do next.”
Have a favorite West End person? Do you have a favorite West End location that is
unique? If so, send in your suggestions to Harlan Baker at hbaker@maine.edu.
April 1, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Reba Short -
Two Years in Morocco
Prior to becoming artistic director of the theatre for the Children’s Museum and Theatre of
Maine, Reba Short spent two years in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer. This may seem
unusual for a person who has spent the last half-dozen years in the local theatre scene appearing
with The Mad Horse Theatre, The Theatre Project and the Stage at Spring Point, in addition to
directing for The Children’s Theatre of Maine. So, what prompted her to take two years off to
perform public service overseas?
“I was doing a play, Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler at the Theater Project,” she says. “I was
playing a 14- year-old Bosnian girl.
“The play is about a development worker who doesn’t know how to connect with people. I
thought to myself, ‘What am I doing here, working on a play about this stuff when I could be
doing it for real?’”
Short applied to the Peace Corps with the hopes of being sent to Eastern Europe. Instead, she
was sent to Morocco.
“I could place Morocco on a map,” she says. “But I sort of felt I knew less than the average
person about the region. I spoke a little French, I knew that I needed to cover my face, and I
watched Casablanca before going.”
She received a crash course about Morocco, spending a week in training in Philadelphia. Then
she was off to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and another hotel.
“I was in a hotel for a week with about sixty other Peace Corps volunteers,” she says. “It was
training after training after training. The training was run by Moroccans, and they were not
about to let us out of the hotel.
“I remember just walking around the block not knowing what to do with myself; I think that
added to my confusion. At this point, the other volunteers in the hotel were my best friends.”
Short became Youth Development Worker, teaching English, which meant that she would be
working with people between the ages of four to thirty.
“People were viewed as youth who were unmarried,” says Short.
From Rabat, she was sent to Khemisette, which is about an hour and a half’s travel south from
Rabat, for three months of more training.
“I started doing home stays, where we would live with different families,” says Short. “I took
classes in Arabic and some culture classes. I learned how you eat, go to a wedding or a
bathhouse, how to cook, how to clean a chicken, and basic conversation.”
After three months, she was sent to Biougra, which she describes as a hub city, like a county
seat. It lies at the base of the mountains, is flat, and mostly desert.
“It’s about 45 minutes outside of Agadir, which is like Miami, a tourist destination with lots of
bikinis,” she notes.
Short did not have to cover her face with a veil like she imagined back in the states. She did,
however, have to dress modestly, making sure her arms and legs were covered.
“Sometimes I would wear a jelaba, which is like a long dress worn by men and women,” she
says. “Picture how people looked in Star Wars.”
Short stayed with a family for her first three months in Biougra.
“I stayed with the daughter of the right-hand man to the mayor,” she says. ”He was like an
assistant to the mayor. He always had to say ‘yes sir’ and I thought it was a terrible job. But in
that context, it is a very good job.”
Short observed that even though Morocco had long been independent from France, the colonial
system had left its mark on the hierarchical relationships between people.
“The Berbers are the indigenous people,” says Short. “The Arabs invaded the area, then the
French. Berbers do not speak Arabic, but a language known as Tashelhaite.”
She eventually moved into her own apartment. The Peace Corps provided a stipend that allowed
her to live comfortably.
“I got a couple of cats,” she says. “It was in a bad neighborhood. But it was a house with a
bathroom and a kitchen. It had an open skylight in the middle. So, the two times that it rained, it
just poured into my house.”
Short worked in a dar chebab or youth house, teaching English in the afternoon.
“It was like a recreation center,” she says. “But there is nothing there. My classroom was about
the size of a small office. I had a chalk board and a window.”
As she taught English to her students, many people gathered outside to watch her through the
window, curious to know more about “this American girl.”
“My classes were filled with eligible bachelors,” she says.
In the mornings, she would go to a woman’s’ center where women would learn how to sew
and make rugs. At night she would have to be escorted home.
“My town had exceptionally high levels of sexual harassment,” she says. “It came mostly from
migrant workers who didn’t know who I was. In my second year there, I got tough. I
remember throwing rocks. The rage just blew up. Imagine, every time you leave the building,
being followed.”
During the time she was teaching in Biougra, she met Mohamed Kebdani, a young man from
Algeria who volunteered. He was a clown and was organizing a kid’s theatrical troupe. They
were married after she returned to Maine.
After returning to Maine from spending two years in Morocco, she experienced culture shock
and became a bit depressed.
“I thought I should go into social work,” she says. “I worked in the library in Boothbay.”
One day she got a call from Lisa DiFranzia, who had been artistic director of the Children’s
Theater of Maine. DiFraniza asked for her resume and Short was hired as artistic director for
the company. The Children’s Theater has since merged with the Children’s Museum of Maine.
In May, the Children’s’ Theater will celebrate its 75th anniversary.
Reba Short currently lives with her husband Mohamed in the West End .She is directing
Raggedy Ann and Andy, which opens May 8th at 142 Free Street, with performances Fridays at
4 pm, Saturdays at 11am and 4 pm, and Sunday at 1 pm and 4 pm. For more information you
can go to www.kitetials.com
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
March 18, 2009
Ellen Murphy-“I had no idea what
a Blue Lobster was!”
“I’m ecstatic about it. It was just what I was looking for,” says Ellen Murphy about the
prospect of moving into a condominium on Park Street. “I had decided to stay on ‘The Hill’.
Then my broker showed me this place and I swooned, I literally swooned.”
Ellen Murphy moved to Portland from Brooklyn, New York, to escape the hot and muggy New
York summers.
She’s had an eclectic career in journalism, public transportation and education. She is currently
a member of a chorus known as The Blue Lobster Troupe, which is itself an eclectic group of
people. The Blue Lobster Troupe describes itself as a community chorus open to anyone who
wants to sing, with no experience necessary.
“We like to sing various styles of music that can range from Yellow Submarine” to the Lobster
Quadrille from Alice in Wonderland,” says Murphy. While being interviewed at a local coffee
house, she pointed out a woman at another table who is also a member of the chorus.
Last July, she was visiting family in Maine. She intended to only spend her summer in Maine
before returning to New York.
“At the end of the summer, I didn’t want to go back,” she says. “I think I was seduced by the
smell of salt in the air. The quality of life, the pace, the vibe is something I began to appreciate
very much.”
So, she decided to stay and take up residence on Munjoy Hill. Prior to moving to Maine, she
worked for the New York Transit Authority for twenty- seven years.
“I was an analyst in the planning department of the bus division,” she says, “planning bus
schedules and routes.” At night she studied for her masters degree in Public Administration at
New York University.
“I was the first woman to be a bus maintainance supervisor,” she says. “I wrote speeches for
the senior executives for a couple of years, and I went to Brooklyn Law School at night. I
worked as a litigator for the transit authority. I had a very good career there. Then I had the
opportunity to take early retirement and I was very happy to take it.”
After leaving the transit authority, she taught classes in English for immigrants.
“I’d like to get back into that up here (in Maine) because I think it is the most satisfying work
that I have done,” she says.
Two summers ago she taught English in Poland.
“The best way to learn about a country and culture is to sit and listen to your students as much
as they listen to you,” she says.
She learned about the Blue Lobster Troupe while she was living on Munjoy Hill near the St.
Lawrence Arts and Community Center.
“I’ve always liked to sing,” says Murphy, and I haven’t had much of an opportunity to do that.”
Murphy noticed that there were many opportunities in Maine to join a chorus. Her sister sings in
the Portland Community Chorus. Then she discovered The Blue Lobster Troupe and decided to
join it.
“I was living on ‘The Hill’ and we have the St. Lawrence as my local cultural center and I
thought it would be pretty exciting. I had no idea what a Blue Lobster was,” she says.
Murphy describes the chorus as eclectic not only in the people who make up the chorus but in
the music that they sing.
“We are a group of about a couple of dozen people who meet and rehearse almost every week,”
she says. “We sing everything from American folk songs to gospel and Arabic songs. I think it
is pretty amazing that I came to Maine to sing in Arabic.”
Tom Kovacevic is the director of the Blue Lobster Troupe.
“He brings in music that is appropriate and would be fun to sing,” says Murphy. “He also
encourages people to bring in music they would like to sing. There is a whole range of abilities.
There are people like me who have no sight-reading ability, and people who can just look at the
music and sing it.”
The chorus is planning a concert for April 20th at the St. Lawrence Center.
“It will be an eclectic program,” says Murphy. “There will be a lot of enthusiasm and some
surprises.”
In addition to singing, Murphy is a Portland history docent, which dovetails nicely with her
move to Portland’s historic Park Row.
“It’s a great way to learn about the history and architecture,” says Murphy. “The program is a
consortium of The Portland Historical Society, Landmarks, The Tate House, Victoria Mansion,
The Munjoy Hill Observatory and the Portland Harbor Museum.”
She will take classes and attend lectures so that she will be able to conduct tours and be part of
the education programs of these institutions.
“We choose an institution and commit ourselves to a year of volunteer work,” says Murphy.
While living in Portland, Murphy has run into a number of people like herself who have moved
to Maine from New York.
“There seems to be a direct line of connection between here and New York,” she says
whimsically.
About blue lobsters: About one out of two million lobsters is blue. A genetic defect causes a
blue lobster to produce an excessive amount of protein. The protein, and a red carotenoid
molecule known as astaxanthin, combine to form a blue complex known as crustacyanin, giving
the lobster its blue color.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
March 4, 2009
Bonnie Blythe: Portland in the '60s,
'70s and '80s
What does a papier mache iguana, perched on top of the Montana Burger block house at the
corner of Spring and Center streets - have to do with Bonnie Blythe? The question is not as
absurd as it sounds.
A photo of the iguana is one of several in a collection of photographs taken in Portland between
the 1960’s and the1980’s. The photos are being archived in The Portland Encyclopedia of the
'60s , '70s and '80s , a project conceived by Bonnie Blythe.
Montana Burger and the iguana have both vanished from the Portland scene, as have many
other places and institutions. That is why Blythe started the project.
"It was in late 2006 and I was feeling very depressed," says Blythe. "I felt the Portland I knew
was slipping away, condo conversion was everywhere, and families were disappearing form
Munjoy Hill where I have lived for 28 years. That was disturbing to me; my neighborhood has
been displaced by empty condos."
While talking with her friend, Agnes Bushell, who wanted her to document Portland politics of
the 1970s, Blythe got the idea to document Portland’s recent past. She wanted it to be more
than just politics; she decided to include the cultural milieu as well.
Blythe grew up in New Hampshire and arrived in Portland in 1980 where she lived for a time on
lower Brackett Street, which she cites as her relationship to the West End.
"I figured if I felt this way about Portland, how did people feel who were born or raised here,
about those of us who moved in during the 1980s? So, I wanted to learn more about the '60s. I
didn’t want the people and places, all the great stuff that makes Portland, Portland, erased. It is
important to know and honor where you live."
One of the first people she spoke to about her project was Bill Barry at the Maine Historical
Society. Barry was extremely enthusiastic and he referred her to Gary Libby, an attorney who
had recently finished work on a history of the Chinese community in Portland.
"He called Gary Libby over," she says, "and the stories started falling out of his mouth."
Bill Barry led her to a number of people whom she interviewed. One of them was Dave Astor,
who hosted a local teenage dance show on WCSH television. You can see a clip from the show
on You Tube.
"The people I talked to had such love for downtown Portland in the '60s",says Blythe." Dave
Astor told me they would dress up on Saturday night and go to The Splendid restaurant and
then to the movies. He commented on how safe it was downtown, except for the waterfront."
She interviewed local musician and band leader Don Doane. Doane had once played with
Woody Herman during the "Big Band era" of the '40s and '50s.
"He played his horn for me and I felt honored," she says. "I spent a wonderful lunch with Gloria
McCullouch, who played the trombone in Don Doane’s band. I also interviewed Mary Seader,
who was a singer in his band. We spent lunch together at the Village Café. They must be
crushed to see the Village demolished for condos."
She interviewed Richard Julio, who owned The Wax Museum record store on Fore Street, and
Lenny Hatch, an artist who lived over Brogan’s Paint Store on Exchange Street . Both of them
had set up shop in the Old Port before it became a tourist destination.
"I spent time in the Portland Room of the Public Library talking with Abraham Schechter, and
he said that I should put this on Facebook. I said that’s for college kids they didn’t want me on
Facebook. I was clearly behind the times. So, on December 31st, I created the Facebook group
"Portland Encyclopedia of the '60s, '70s and '80s"
As of the morning, when this interview was conducted, the group had 198 members form 17
states as well as Canada and Germany.
"There are many stories being told," says Blythe. "People are finding one another and reuniting.
Blythe looked up Herb Gideon , who owned the Erebus "head shop" in the late '60s on Center
Street. Gideon opened the Tree Café on Danforth Street in 1987.
"Herb asked me what I wanted," she says, "and I said 'I have some questions for you. People
want to know about the iguana in the building on Center Street."
According to Herb Gideon, the iguana was made by Laurie Lundquist while she was a student at
the Portland School of Art. It was part of a public art installation. Eventually, the iguana’s head
was removed when Gideon opened the Tree Café . The head was left out in the back yard of
the café and eventually disintegrated. Lundquist now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she is
known for her public sculptures.
As a result of the conversation, Herb Gideon is now a member of the Facebook group. There
are over 60 photos posted on the site, and 7 discussion topics. There are at least 75 posts from
musicians and bands.
Blythe has researched through the city directories at ten year intervals to find what existed at
current locations twenty or thirty years ago.
"The Ava Maria Gift shop used to be located on Fore Street - where Condom Sense is now
located," she says. "The Neal Dow Agency at 97 Exchange Street became the headquarters of
the Maine Civil Liberties Union in the '70s, and Ben and Jerry’s in the '80s. Lovell’s Drug Store
became Lovell’s Super Drug Store in the '70s and Lovell’s Exchange in the '80s."
Will the Encyclopedia ever be more then a Facebook site.?
"Betsy Whitman suggested that I still have to do this in print," she says. "I do feel an obligation
to get it in print before it all goes away. My dream is to have all this culminate in a weekend of
reunions of business people, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, barkeeps, and lots of musicians from
all of those decades. There are people who say they are tired of hearing about the way things
were before they arrived here. But it is not about that. It’s about understanding where you live."
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu.
Bob Valerini-at Ruski’s Every Day
Last Thursday, early in the evening, I stopped into Ruski’s in a bit of a panic. My deadline
for this issue was fast approaching and I hadn’t found anyone to interview. I looked for
guidance from both Dominique Krasow, working behind the bar, and John Kerr, who was
sitting at the bar.
Simultaneously, they appeared to point at each other.
“What’s this?” I said, “A caption for a picture that would read, ‘Don’t interview me -
interview him.’”
“You’re not looking where I’m pointing,” said Kerr.
There at the other end of the bar, sitting by himself, was Bob Valerini, or “Bobby” as he is
known at the bar.
Bob Valerini, who turns 80 this September 4th, is a regular at Ruski’s. He’s as permanent a
fixture as the furniture, which he often helps arrange.
John Kerr says that you can see him walking up Danforth Street in the middle of winter in his
orange hat. He walks in the road if the sidewalks aren’t shoveled.
“I used to clean the floors, just for the hell of it. It was something to do. I’m here everyday,”
he says cheerfully.
Next to Valerini is a tray of neatly- folded napkins wrapped around the silverware.
“He’s our silverware roller,” says Dominque Krasow “He wraps the silverware in the
napkins. He does all kinds of things for us. He fixes things. He helps out a lot at Ruski’s.”
“I can’t stay still,” says Valerini. “I’ve got to keep working.”
Valerini’s father was born in Rome, Italy. His father worked on the construction of the
Million Dollar Bridge, which used to connect Portland with South Portland.
According to him, there are four men that were buried in that bridge. They fell into the
cement while it was being mixed. His nephew says that is an urban legend.
He was one of thirteen children.
“Í had eight brothers and four sisters,” he says. “Right now, I am the oldest boy left in the
family.”
He was baptized in the St. Peter’s Church on Federal Street in Portland.
“Four of us were baptized there,” he adds.
When he was a teenager, he lived in the Cash Corner section of South Portland.
“We used to walk over the Vaughn Street Bridge to go to the movies uptown in Portland,” he
says.
In 1949, he enlisted in the army.
“I had to wait four months to get my uniform tailored,” he says. “I had a job driving the
officers around. I got two points for being a sharpshooter. I was stationed at Fort Dix, then
Fort Hancock, New Jersey. Then I was stationed in Georgia. I didn’t like Georgia. I hated the
south - too hot. I did like New Jersey.”
He was sent to Korea. By the time he arrived, the war had ended. He left the army in 1953.
Afterwards, he worked in various jobs, including highway construction.
“Back in ’56, I worked on the highway from Falmouth to Brunswick,” he says. “I worked on
Route 88 and the Interstate. We had to lay twenty-six slabs of concrete a day. When it rained,
you couldn’t’ work.”
Valerini worked for Bancroft and Martin for seventeen years, until he was injured on the job.
“The company took care of me,” he says. “They bought my house for me.”
The house is at 27 Tyng Street. It dates back to 1747. According to Valerini, it is the oldest
house on the street.
“The City was going to tear it down,” he says. “I told them ‘You can’t tear it down. My
company, Bancroft and Martin, bought the house for me.”
That house cost $1,750 in 1969.
“Everything in the house is all new,” he says. “The wiring and plumbing. I cut down thirteen
trees in the yard - cherry trees and plumb trees. I hate trees; I don’t like to rake leaves. If the
front door is open, I’m down in the cellar. I’ve got two workshops there.”
Right now, he is thinking of selling the house and moving.
“I hate to sell the house,” he says. “I can’t afford the taxes. I’m paying $4,300 in taxes. I’m
getting out of Portland. My taxes are way too high. I’m trying like hell to get over to South
Portland.”
When he moved into the West End in 1969, the place he stopped in was known as the
“White Eagle Café.” There were three other bars in the area: the Beacon, Popeye’s, and a small
bar near the corner of Spring and Clark streets.
“I could have bought that building for $8000,” he says, referring to Popeye’s. “But I
couldn’t run a business. So I didn’t’ buy it.”
Valerini also remembers that there were two drugstores across the street, a Shell and a Mobil
gas station, and a little hardware store, where the barbershop is now located, around the corner
from Vespucci’s market.
He lost an eye due to an industrial accident. He almost lost another eye in an accident. Rosie
Harris (former owner of Ruski’s) took him to the hospital in Boston.
“If it wasn’t for that woman,” he says, “I wouldn’t see at all.” He then notes that she had
recently lost her husband, Steve Harris.
Valerini lucked out with the sale of property he owned in South Portland. He owned an eighty-
by-ten foot strip of land. It doesn’t’ sound like much. But without that strip, a road to an office
park could not be built.
“After I paid my lawyer, I didn’t get that much,” he says. “It is where the Pizza Plus Store is
- off Payne Road.”
Friends keep suggesting that he should get into a condominium. But he prefers the freedom to
move around.
There are two nonprofit organizations that he has left money to in his will.
“If I pass,” he says, “I want my money to go to the Baxter School for the Deaf, and
Opportunity Farm in Gray.”
When asked to name his favorite restaurant, he replies: “When I’m in South Portland, it’s
Uncle Andy’s. In Portland, it is Ruski’s.”
Harlan Baker hopes to have a brand new e-mail address by the end of the week.
Dominique Krasow is one of his favorite bartenders.
THIS JUST IN! Harlan's new email address is hbaker2@maine.rr.com. Email
him just to let him know it's working!
August 5, 2009
East of Bayside
By HARLAN BAKER
(Part four of a four part series)
On the other side the Franklin Arterial is East Bayside. This neighborhood is separate from
Bayside and formed its own neighborhood association in May of 2007. East Bayside is bounded
by Congress Street, the Franklin Arterial, Marginal Way and Washington Avenue. It is a
diverse neighborhood of small shops, multi-family and owner-occupied residences, commercial
and industrial buildings, and a burgeoning artists’ colony in several old warehouses. The
neighborhood also includes the public housing projects Kennedy Park and Bayside Terrace.
The East Bayside Neighborhood Association holds its meetings in The Root Cellar on
Washington Avenue.
“We are unabashedly faith-based,” says Kurt Holmgren, the Portland director of The Root
Cellar.
The Root Cellar’s mission of providing for the spiritual and material needs of the
neighborhood began twenty-five years ago in the basement of a church on Lafayette Street.
That is how they got their name. The Root Cellar serves parts of Munjoy Hill but much of its
work is centered in East Bayside.
“In the last two years, we’ve been helping with jobs and helping people to gain confidence to
get employed,” says Holmgren.
Currently, mission teams of volunteers from local churches are providing the means for the
kids to clean up their yards and make the community more livable. Every Monday, in warmer
months, a barbeque is held in Kennedy Park as part of the Monday in the Park Program.
“During the school year, we have after-school programs from three to five, and help with
homework from five to six,” says Holmgren.
The Root Cellar provides clothing distribution on Thursdays, and food distribution to around
125 neighborhood families on Fridays. Holmgren also volunteers at the Wayside Soup Kitchen.
“I’ve observed,” he says, “that you don’t see anyone from over there in this neighborhood.
This neighborhood is not as transient. Here, there are more poor families, refugees. Eighty
percent of the kids are from refugee families - mostly from Africa.”
A few blocks away are Kennedy Park and Bayside Terrace. Kennedy Park is a pubic
housing project built in 1965. An additional twenty-four units at Bayside Terrace were
completed the following year.
Smith Street runs off Cumberland Avenue and comes to a dead end inside Kennedy Park. Two
girls are holding a mini yard sale in front of their home. They say they are trying to raise money
for the Special Olympics. Their mother, Martha Ruby, has lived in Kennedy Park for the past
twenty years. When asked about whether she likes her neighborhood, her answer is equivocal.
“I do and yet I don’t,” she replies. “It’s changed tremendously. I’ve raised six kids, and by
the grace of God they’ve all turned out to be wonderful.
“I used to be close to the neighbors, as far as talking to them. Now we don’t have any
fellowship. For almost two years, things have gone downhill. I see children out at all hours of
the night.” She cites racism as a problem in the neighborhood and points out she is Cherokee.
“The new people have no respect,” she says. “There have been shootings and stabbings.
Three of my children have moved out. I’m very protective of my children. I have to be. A lot of
times, I’d like to get my children out of this neighborhood.”
While she has heard of the East Bayside Neighborhood Association, she is not familiar with
it. She is familiar with The Root Cellar, and both of the girls have attended programs there.
Around the corner two men sit talking in front of their apartments. One of them, Yugu, a
young man from the Sudan, has lived in Kennedy Park for the past five years.
“I like this neighborhood,” he says. “But there has been a lot of violence. It’s more peaceful
now because of the work of the police. They’ve supplied cameras. For over a month now,
there hasn’t been as much violence around here. Now we live in peace and I like it.”
That sentiment is echoed by a group of teenage girls a few houses away. They are dressed in
the traditional Muslim Somali clothing
Samira Ahmed attends Portland High School. She likes the neighborhood because this is where
all of her friends live.
“It’s sort of safe,” she says. “There are surveillance cameras.”
“It is kinds of safe,”says her friend Salma Ali. “But I think they could do a better job on these
buildings.” She’s surprised to learn that the project was built in the mid ‘60s.
Both girls have attended programs at The Root Cellar.
“We always go there,” says Samira Ahmed. “It is one of our favorite places. It is fun and
spiritual.”
A few doors away, another immigrant comments on the neighborhood. He says he does not
live here by choice. He came to the United States because of the human rights violations in his
native Zaire, where he taught political science at a university. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia,
before moving to Portland.
“Portland was good for education and my kids,” he says. “Portland is great. This
neighborhood is OK. It is worse in Atlanta with the crime and shootings; about two people are
shot each day.
“I wanted to put my children where they can compete. In terms of the level of education in
high school, Georgia ranks thirty-ninth in the nation. Portland is forth or fifth.
“Twenty-four percent of all the kids in Portland schools are immigrants, yet the office of
multicultural affairs has only three people to follow their progress.”
A short distance from Kennedy Park, near the intersection of Anderson and Cove Streets, is
the artist collective Running with Scissors. The collective moved into East Bayside a little over a
year ago from their former home on Portland Street.
Robert Nason is busy at work painting. The space is a bit cramped with canvasses spread out
in every corner. Nason is one of seventeen artists with studio space in the building. He taught
drawing and painting till he retired about twenty years ago.
He drops everything to conduct an impromptu tour of the building
“Two women, Ariette Scott and Susie Schweppe, found this space and bought it from the
owner,” he says. “When we moved in, this was one big space with nothing in it whatsoever.
They laid it out to meet the needs of the artists from the old building.”
He has two paintings that adorn the outside of the building, and points to the sign he painted
with the word “Art” superimposed over bright colors.
“The sign used to say, ‘My Friendly Dog’. The building was used for dog training,” says
Nason.
The other half of the building owned by J.S. Ritter and is being turned into studio space for
jewelers and metal workers. A natural gas feed - the only one of it kind in the state - will help
facilitate the making of jewelry and other metalwork.
When Ritter saw Running with Scissors create artists’ space from nothing, he was inspired to
turn the other half of the building into studios.
“It was my dream when I bought the building to turn it into an arts building,” says Ritter.
While the finishing touches are still being made, several studios have already been leased. There
are, however, a few words of caution. Jenn Neilson, a printmaker, cites the familiar story of
artists moving into a low-income neighborhood, revitalizing the neighborhood, and the being
forced out once the area is gentrified.
Returning to a question posed to several people at the beginning of this series:
“Do you agree with Forbes Magazine that Portland is the most livable city in the United
States, and is your neighborhood the most livable in the city?”
There is no simple answer. Besides, it is all relative. When one is struggling to make a
neighborhood livable, the pronouncements of Forbes Magazine are irrelevant.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
July 22, 2009
Looking for Libbytown
(Part three of a series)
By HARLAN BAKER
When I tell people I live in Libbytown they usually reply, “Where’s that?”
It’s hard to answer a question about your neighborhood being livable when your neighborhood
no longer exists. Yes, Libbytown is still a neighborhood. And there is a Libbytown
Neighborhood Association listed on the City of Portland’s website. But the neighborhood was
sliced in two, and five hundred families were relocated due to the construction of Interstate I-
295.
Libbytown takes its name from George Libby, who owned a tavern at the corner of Park
Avenue and Congress Street in the early 19th century. According to census tracts, Libbytown is
bordered by St. John Street to Brighton Avenue then turns down Whitney Street to Scott Street
to Edwards Street and then runs along Congress Street as far as Stroudwater. The areas on the
south side of Congress Street are also considered part of Libbytown.
On September 20, 1986, a reunion of former Libbytown residents was held on the Douglas
Street playground.
“You’d see people there you hadn’t seen in 20 years,” says Clayton Cooledge. “There must
have been at least 300 people.”
Cooledge, who still lives in Libbytown, kept the reunion program. It is filled with photographs
of the old neighborhood. He also has a number of copies of old photographs.
“That’s where I was born,” he says, pointing to copy of an old photograph, “1126 Congress
Street.”
Cooledge describes Libbytown as a close neighborhood.
“Nobody ever locked the doors,” he says. “You could go to the neighbors and get a Coke. If
you did something wrong, the most that would happen is your mother would get a phone call.
It wasn’t a rich neighborhood, it was working class.”
Clayton Cooledge attended the West School till 7th grade. Then he attended the brand new
King Jr. High School. He points to another picture of the 1949 West School Basketball Squad
from the school’s newsletter.
“That’s me,” he says. “A little behind me is Leonard Cummings.” Cummings became one of
the officers of the Portland branch of the NAACP.
Except for the time he was in the Navy, Cooledge has spent most of his life in Portland. He
worked as a machinist at American Can for seventeen years, and at SD Warren for twenty-
three years. He’s now retired, and for the past twenty-six years has lived with his wife Linda
on Mitton Street.
“The interstate took the whole thing,” he says. “At one time there were at least six or seven
stores in Libbytown.”
“There was a barber shop - Peter Casey’s. Never get your hair cut on Saturday. All the old
guys would go down to Doc Grant’s in the West End. It was a liquor store. They had a few
nips and then they’d go back to the barber shop.”
He points to a building in a photograph.
“That’s Flaherty’s. You could get just about anything,” he says. “It was actually a small
supermarket. That’s where we did all our shopping. Next door was a barroom, ‘Red Young’s’.
There was another barroom. Mac McLeod owned it.”
He point to another picture showing a parade of pachyderms on Park Avenue, on their way to
Douglas Field, where the circus used to be held. There is a photo of a gas tank - not too far
from H.P. Hoods.
All of those buildings, including the West School, are gone. Bristol, Liberty, Wood, Hooper,
Bath, Fowler, Frost, Basin and New Douglas have also become “ghost streets”.
The Clipper Mart occupies a block where once there were two houses and an open field.
Across the street is a Mobil station, the Norway Savings Bank building, medical buildings and
the Clarion Inn. Congress Street is a heavily-
traveled thoroughfare, especially during rush hours. Long stretches of the street, particularly at
the cloverleaf entrance and exit ramps of the interstate, are neither pedestrian or bicycle-friendly.
What does Clayton Cooledge think about his neighborhood?
“You wouldn’t know you lived in the city,” he says. Although he points out that it was it was
much quieter before The Willows project was built at the end of what was once a dead end.
“I’d like to see that dirt road next to my house tarred,” he says.
“It’s been like that for that past twenty-six years,” says his wife. “It would be nice if they
added some sidewalks and curbing.”
Cooledge has heard about the Libbytown Neighborhood Association but has never been to any
of the meetings.
On the other side of the I-295 cloverleaf is Huntress Street. It is a dead end. A group of
young men are fixing a row of cars while listening to the radio at the end of the street.
Sen Quang Trieu is walking down the street with a friend. He’s lived in Portland ever since he
was thirteen. He picks North Deering as the best neighborhood in Portland.
“There’s no highway traffic and nothing to disturb the peace,” he says. “There are nice
neighbors here, but with all this highway, it is hard.”
He doesn’t think there is anything that can be done to mitigate the traffic noise from the
cloverleaf and Fore River Parkway.
“They could turn this place into a park and connect it to the jogging path,” he says. “But with
the oncoming traffic, I don’t think it is possible.”
Chaning McDaniels thinks there might be a way to mitigate the traffic noise. McDaniels lives
on Congress Street and is the owner of Dinky Dogs, a venture dog- walking business. She’s
also past vice-president of the newly-formed St. John Valley Neighborhood Association.
“Because of the severing that I-295 had on Libbytown, this area has been a kind of a forgotten
zone,” she says, explaining why they chose to incorporate into a neighborhood association
separate from Libbytown. She rates her neighborhood very high.
“It’s not only a safe neighborhood,” she says, “it’s urban. It’s a close walk to where you need
to get to without some of the drama that is found downtown. The Fore River trails make it
more enticing.”
She mentions a recent grant for the area will be used to fix St. John and Valley streets and to
make them more pedestrian-friendly.
“There is also a proposal,” she says, “just a proposal - to remove the on/off ramp on Congress
Street, now that they have a new on/off ramp at the Fore River Parkway. It is so chaotic now.
Accidents happen every week.”
The St. John Valley Neighborhood Associations web blog is http://stjohnvalley.blogspot.com.
According to the City of Portland’s web site, the contact email for the Libbytown
Neighborhood Association is fdillon@maine.rr.com.
Next issue: The fourth and final installment on livable neighborhoods.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
April 29, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Tristan Gallagher - Back to the '80s
“When people know what you have, they bring you what you already have,” says Tristan
Gallagher. Gallagher is constantly on the lookout for old comics and action figures of the 1980s.
He’s the proprietor of a shop on High Street called The Fun Box Monster Emporium
that specializes in 1980s memorabilia. He’s also a collector, plays guitar for the “Death Punk”
rock group Covered in Bees and lives in Parkside with his wife Michelle Souliere.
Souliere is the editor of The Strange Maine Gazette, which has nothing to do with the Strange
Maine shop on Congress Street. The Strange Maine Gazette is a blog and bi-monthly newsletter
that explores the strange and unusual in Maine.
“It’s about Big Foot, Lake Monsters, and the Chupacabra- which is the Mexican goat sucker
that draws the blood from livestock. You name it,” says Gallagher.
Souliere has also provided the West End NEWS with hot tips like the whistling prostitutes on
State Street, and the recent police chase and car wreck in Deering Oaks Park.
“I once had around a hundred thousand comic books in a U-Haul, says Gallagher. “A dude
pulls up and says, ‘I notice you have a lot of comics. How would you like some more?’ Like I
said earlier, when people know what you have, they bring you what you already have. A normal
person would have said, are you crazy? I, on the other hand, bought five more boxes of
comics.”
Gallagher grew up in Presque Isle, Maine. He’s lived in Portland for the past fourteen years.
“I worked at Videoport,” he says. “I ran the Videoport Delivers for about a year or two. It was
a delivery service. I was the last person to deliver movies.”
After Videoport no longer offered the delivery service, he ran an e-blog from his house in the
West End.
“I went to school forever at USM,” he says. “I have a degree; I minored in music with a major
in multi-media design.”
He worked for The Portland Housing Authority, repairing vacated units. But cleaning up after
tenants who had moved out proved to be less than thrilling.
“After the horror of that job,” he says, “I decided to work for myself for a while. So, I cashed
out my 401K and set up a T-shirt printing operation in my basement for about three years.”
Gallagher met up with Doug Porter and his brother Ed at Granny Burrito’s where they both
worked, and learned they were forming a band.
“I said ‘I’ll play,’” he says. “I thought they said the name of the band was Covered in Beans,
since they worked in a burrito place.”
The band’s actual name is Covered in Bees. Gallagher describes the sound as “Death Punk” and
the band as a “Horror Rock” band.
“We’ve moved more toward Rock over the years,” says Gallagher. “Horror Rock is hard to
define. A lot of bands that do it do it badly.
There is a band called The Misifits that did songs with references to horror movies. They used
skull make-up. We used to do zombie make-up for our shows. But, that is not what we do all
the time.”
In addition to Gallagher, who plays drums, the band members are Ed Porter on bass, Doug
Porter on guitar, and “Boo”- who is the band’s vocalist. When asked Boo's” real name,
Gallagher replies, “He’s totally OK with just being Boo.”
As far as Gallagher is concerned, the best rock club in Portland is Geno’s.
“It’s the friendliest club we’ve ever played in,” he says. “They are nice to us; it’s a great place
to play.”
The band has played every club in Portland, and the Merrill Auditorium. While they haven’t
played the Cumberland County Civic Center, they have played the civic center in Lewiston.
The band does not go on any national or regional tours, preferring to remain local.
“Ed has a kid,” explains Gallagher, “Boo decided to go to school; we’re not willing to be road
dogs.”
Gallagher’s shop on High Street is filled with comics, T-shirts and collectable figures ranging
from Star Wars to Godzilla and G.I. Joes. There are even a few boxes of Super 8 mm movie
excerpts of classic films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame, although it might be tough finding
a working Super 8 mm film projector.
“This is my generation,” says Gallagher about the items in his shop. “These are the things I
remember from my childhood.”
He pulls out a figure still wrapped in the plastic bag it came in from the toy factory.
“This is known as mint on card,” he says. “It was made in 1983 and nobody ever opened it.
Things like this bring you back, to see it in the packaging really makes you want to remember
your childhood.”
By Gallagher’s observation, the majority of people that come into his shop fall within the twenty-
five to forty- five year old age range.
“The comic book people are all ages,” says Gallagher. “There was a guy in his mid-’80s who
came in to pick up comics.”
Having lived in Parkside for a number of years, Gallagher is skeptical of Portland’s recent
distinction as “the most livable city” in the United States. He mentions a number of friends who
were beaten up in Portland, and the whistling prostitutes and the confrontation with their pimp
on State Street.
While his wife’s newsletter blog, The Strange Maine Gazette, reports on what might be found
in The X Files, Gallagher considers himself a skeptic.
“I belong to the Skeptic Society,” he says. “It‘s a national organization that frowns on things
like Big Foot and the like. But, I try to keep an open mind.”
Covered in Bees will be playing at Geno’s - May 3rd around 10 pm
Watch for Harlan Baker’s Most Livable Places in Portland Awards in the
Memorial Day edition of the West End News. He can be reached at
hbaker@maine.edu
April 15, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Mohammed Serwanga -
A Ugandan Student in Maine
I usually pick up my copy of the West End News at one of three places: Colucci’s, Ruski’s or
Vespucci’s.
One evening, I dashed into Vespucci’s. I found the newspaper rack and picked up a copy of
The WEN, then left without paying any attention to the young man behind the counter.
It was either before or after one of the classes in public speaking that I teach at the University
of Southern Maine (yes, I have a day job) that the same young man behind the counter
mentioned that he had seen me come into the store, and recognized me as his instructor in the
class.
Mohammed Serwanga can be seen on occasion behind the counter of Vespucci’s Market,
which his uncle has owned for over thirty years.
Serwanga lives in the West End, and is studying finance at USM. He has been in Maine for
only a little over a year.
He was born in Jinja, Uganda, which is located on the northern shore of Lake Victoria. His
primary school, which is what we cal an elementary school, was named “Little Cranes”. He
attended two highs schools: St. Michael’s and Kawanda, both in different districts. He attended
the Institute of Certified Public Accounting, which is part of Makerere University in Kampala,
Uganda’s capital. Makerere is the largest university in Uganda.
“It was basically built by the British,” says Serwanga.
According to Serwanga, the chancellor of the college, Apolo Nsibambi, is also the Prime
Minister of the country.
“This was a problem,” says Serwanga. “He had to balance the student ideas against the policies
of the government. He ended up resigning as chancellor.”
“The current problem we have,” says Serwanga, about the politics of his country, “is like the
rest of Africa. We have a ruling party that almost dictates to the other parties. They want to
sound like they are a democratic country but this is not so.”
Serwanga’s uncles wanted him to continue his education, and suggested he come to Maine and
enroll in the University of Southern Maine.
So far, Maine is the only place he has been in the United States. His first impression of Maine
was very positive.
“People are hospitable,” he says. “The way they talk to you seems like they know you.”
He does point out however that there are a number of striking differences between the students
here and in Uganda.
“Students dictate what the teachers should do,” he says, “which is not the case in Kampala.
“Absences are not treated as a big deal here. In Kampala, before you can take an absence, you
must talk to the instructor first.”
He also points out that joining in class discussion is compulsory in Kampala.
“We have group projects –where the entire group is graded. Everyone has to pull his own
weight. The test is for the entire group and the grades are made public.”
Serwanga also feels that instructors in Kampala spend more time after class discussing subject
mater with students. Although he feels that USM’s Learning Assistance Center plays a vital role
in helping students, and makes up for time that instructors may not spend with students outside
of class.
Like U.S. colleges and universities, there are numerous clubs and organizations students can join
at Makerere University.
“If you participate in a club,” says Serwanga, “the administration looks favorably on it, and
participation can get you points towards your graduation. It was also a way of meeting new
friends.
When he completes his studies at USM, he plans a career in Finance. He also plans to return to
Uganda.
Serwanga points out that the British took an area with many different tribes to create Uganda. It
became an official British protectorate in 1914. Because of Uganda’s location on Lake Victoria
- a fresh water lake, and the largest lake in Africa - people from the sub-Saharan region of
Africa were drawn to the region. Lake Victoria is also the source of the longest branch of the
Nile River.
“You are almost like a small king in Uganda,” he says. “We have more than seventy-two
different cultures-because of the water supply. All these groups are at odds with each other -
not like the United States, which is one culture.”
Serwanga speaks fifteen different languages.
“My kingdom is Bugunda. Each kingdom has its own language. We have no language, but
English is our official language.”
When asked about his impression of Barak Obama, he replies that “Obama’s use of the word
‘we’ is tricky. It’s tricky because, if he failed, he would say ‘I failed because a group did not
agree with me.’”
“He’s also under a lot of pressure to make an impact. People’s expectations of him are high. All
eyes are on him to see what he will do next.”
Have a favorite West End person? Do you have a favorite West End location that is
unique? If so, send in your suggestions to Harlan Baker at hbaker@maine.edu.
April 1, 2009
west end people
HARLAN BAKER
Reba Short -
Two Years in Morocco
Prior to becoming artistic director of the theatre for the Children’s Museum and Theatre of
Maine, Reba Short spent two years in Morocco as a Peace Corps volunteer. This may seem
unusual for a person who has spent the last half-dozen years in the local theatre scene appearing
with The Mad Horse Theatre, The Theatre Project and the Stage at Spring Point, in addition to
directing for The Children’s Theatre of Maine. So, what prompted her to take two years off to
perform public service overseas?
“I was doing a play, Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler at the Theater Project,” she says. “I was
playing a 14- year-old Bosnian girl.
“The play is about a development worker who doesn’t know how to connect with people. I
thought to myself, ‘What am I doing here, working on a play about this stuff when I could be
doing it for real?’”
Short applied to the Peace Corps with the hopes of being sent to Eastern Europe. Instead, she
was sent to Morocco.
“I could place Morocco on a map,” she says. “But I sort of felt I knew less than the average
person about the region. I spoke a little French, I knew that I needed to cover my face, and I
watched Casablanca before going.”
She received a crash course about Morocco, spending a week in training in Philadelphia. Then
she was off to Rabat, the capital of Morocco, and another hotel.
“I was in a hotel for a week with about sixty other Peace Corps volunteers,” she says. “It was
training after training after training. The training was run by Moroccans, and they were not
about to let us out of the hotel.
“I remember just walking around the block not knowing what to do with myself; I think that
added to my confusion. At this point, the other volunteers in the hotel were my best friends.”
Short became Youth Development Worker, teaching English, which meant that she would be
working with people between the ages of four to thirty.
“People were viewed as youth who were unmarried,” says Short.
From Rabat, she was sent to Khemisette, which is about an hour and a half’s travel south from
Rabat, for three months of more training.
“I started doing home stays, where we would live with different families,” says Short. “I took
classes in Arabic and some culture classes. I learned how you eat, go to a wedding or a
bathhouse, how to cook, how to clean a chicken, and basic conversation.”
After three months, she was sent to Biougra, which she describes as a hub city, like a county
seat. It lies at the base of the mountains, is flat, and mostly desert.
“It’s about 45 minutes outside of Agadir, which is like Miami, a tourist destination with lots of
bikinis,” she notes.
Short did not have to cover her face with a veil like she imagined back in the states. She did,
however, have to dress modestly, making sure her arms and legs were covered.
“Sometimes I would wear a jelaba, which is like a long dress worn by men and women,” she
says. “Picture how people looked in Star Wars.”
Short stayed with a family for her first three months in Biougra.
“I stayed with the daughter of the right-hand man to the mayor,” she says. ”He was like an
assistant to the mayor. He always had to say ‘yes sir’ and I thought it was a terrible job. But in
that context, it is a very good job.”
Short observed that even though Morocco had long been independent from France, the colonial
system had left its mark on the hierarchical relationships between people.
“The Berbers are the indigenous people,” says Short. “The Arabs invaded the area, then the
French. Berbers do not speak Arabic, but a language known as Tashelhaite.”
She eventually moved into her own apartment. The Peace Corps provided a stipend that allowed
her to live comfortably.
“I got a couple of cats,” she says. “It was in a bad neighborhood. But it was a house with a
bathroom and a kitchen. It had an open skylight in the middle. So, the two times that it rained, it
just poured into my house.”
Short worked in a dar chebab or youth house, teaching English in the afternoon.
“It was like a recreation center,” she says. “But there is nothing there. My classroom was about
the size of a small office. I had a chalk board and a window.”
As she taught English to her students, many people gathered outside to watch her through the
window, curious to know more about “this American girl.”
“My classes were filled with eligible bachelors,” she says.
In the mornings, she would go to a woman’s’ center where women would learn how to sew
and make rugs. At night she would have to be escorted home.
“My town had exceptionally high levels of sexual harassment,” she says. “It came mostly from
migrant workers who didn’t know who I was. In my second year there, I got tough. I
remember throwing rocks. The rage just blew up. Imagine, every time you leave the building,
being followed.”
During the time she was teaching in Biougra, she met Mohamed Kebdani, a young man from
Algeria who volunteered. He was a clown and was organizing a kid’s theatrical troupe. They
were married after she returned to Maine.
After returning to Maine from spending two years in Morocco, she experienced culture shock
and became a bit depressed.
“I thought I should go into social work,” she says. “I worked in the library in Boothbay.”
One day she got a call from Lisa DiFranzia, who had been artistic director of the Children’s
Theater of Maine. DiFraniza asked for her resume and Short was hired as artistic director for
the company. The Children’s Theater has since merged with the Children’s Museum of Maine.
In May, the Children’s’ Theater will celebrate its 75th anniversary.
Reba Short currently lives with her husband Mohamed in the West End .She is directing
Raggedy Ann and Andy, which opens May 8th at 142 Free Street, with performances Fridays at
4 pm, Saturdays at 11am and 4 pm, and Sunday at 1 pm and 4 pm. For more information you
can go to www.kitetials.com
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
March 18, 2009
Ellen Murphy-“I had no idea what
a Blue Lobster was!”
“I’m ecstatic about it. It was just what I was looking for,” says Ellen Murphy about the
prospect of moving into a condominium on Park Street. “I had decided to stay on ‘The Hill’.
Then my broker showed me this place and I swooned, I literally swooned.”
Ellen Murphy moved to Portland from Brooklyn, New York, to escape the hot and muggy New
York summers.
She’s had an eclectic career in journalism, public transportation and education. She is currently
a member of a chorus known as The Blue Lobster Troupe, which is itself an eclectic group of
people. The Blue Lobster Troupe describes itself as a community chorus open to anyone who
wants to sing, with no experience necessary.
“We like to sing various styles of music that can range from Yellow Submarine” to the Lobster
Quadrille from Alice in Wonderland,” says Murphy. While being interviewed at a local coffee
house, she pointed out a woman at another table who is also a member of the chorus.
Last July, she was visiting family in Maine. She intended to only spend her summer in Maine
before returning to New York.
“At the end of the summer, I didn’t want to go back,” she says. “I think I was seduced by the
smell of salt in the air. The quality of life, the pace, the vibe is something I began to appreciate
very much.”
So, she decided to stay and take up residence on Munjoy Hill. Prior to moving to Maine, she
worked for the New York Transit Authority for twenty- seven years.
“I was an analyst in the planning department of the bus division,” she says, “planning bus
schedules and routes.” At night she studied for her masters degree in Public Administration at
New York University.
“I was the first woman to be a bus maintainance supervisor,” she says. “I wrote speeches for
the senior executives for a couple of years, and I went to Brooklyn Law School at night. I
worked as a litigator for the transit authority. I had a very good career there. Then I had the
opportunity to take early retirement and I was very happy to take it.”
After leaving the transit authority, she taught classes in English for immigrants.
“I’d like to get back into that up here (in Maine) because I think it is the most satisfying work
that I have done,” she says.
Two summers ago she taught English in Poland.
“The best way to learn about a country and culture is to sit and listen to your students as much
as they listen to you,” she says.
She learned about the Blue Lobster Troupe while she was living on Munjoy Hill near the St.
Lawrence Arts and Community Center.
“I’ve always liked to sing,” says Murphy, and I haven’t had much of an opportunity to do that.”
Murphy noticed that there were many opportunities in Maine to join a chorus. Her sister sings in
the Portland Community Chorus. Then she discovered The Blue Lobster Troupe and decided to
join it.
“I was living on ‘The Hill’ and we have the St. Lawrence as my local cultural center and I
thought it would be pretty exciting. I had no idea what a Blue Lobster was,” she says.
Murphy describes the chorus as eclectic not only in the people who make up the chorus but in
the music that they sing.
“We are a group of about a couple of dozen people who meet and rehearse almost every week,”
she says. “We sing everything from American folk songs to gospel and Arabic songs. I think it
is pretty amazing that I came to Maine to sing in Arabic.”
Tom Kovacevic is the director of the Blue Lobster Troupe.
“He brings in music that is appropriate and would be fun to sing,” says Murphy. “He also
encourages people to bring in music they would like to sing. There is a whole range of abilities.
There are people like me who have no sight-reading ability, and people who can just look at the
music and sing it.”
The chorus is planning a concert for April 20th at the St. Lawrence Center.
“It will be an eclectic program,” says Murphy. “There will be a lot of enthusiasm and some
surprises.”
In addition to singing, Murphy is a Portland history docent, which dovetails nicely with her
move to Portland’s historic Park Row.
“It’s a great way to learn about the history and architecture,” says Murphy. “The program is a
consortium of The Portland Historical Society, Landmarks, The Tate House, Victoria Mansion,
The Munjoy Hill Observatory and the Portland Harbor Museum.”
She will take classes and attend lectures so that she will be able to conduct tours and be part of
the education programs of these institutions.
“We choose an institution and commit ourselves to a year of volunteer work,” says Murphy.
While living in Portland, Murphy has run into a number of people like herself who have moved
to Maine from New York.
“There seems to be a direct line of connection between here and New York,” she says
whimsically.
About blue lobsters: About one out of two million lobsters is blue. A genetic defect causes a
blue lobster to produce an excessive amount of protein. The protein, and a red carotenoid
molecule known as astaxanthin, combine to form a blue complex known as crustacyanin, giving
the lobster its blue color.
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu
March 4, 2009
Bonnie Blythe: Portland in the '60s,
'70s and '80s
What does a papier mache iguana, perched on top of the Montana Burger block house at the
corner of Spring and Center streets - have to do with Bonnie Blythe? The question is not as
absurd as it sounds.
A photo of the iguana is one of several in a collection of photographs taken in Portland between
the 1960’s and the1980’s. The photos are being archived in The Portland Encyclopedia of the
'60s , '70s and '80s , a project conceived by Bonnie Blythe.
Montana Burger and the iguana have both vanished from the Portland scene, as have many
other places and institutions. That is why Blythe started the project.
"It was in late 2006 and I was feeling very depressed," says Blythe. "I felt the Portland I knew
was slipping away, condo conversion was everywhere, and families were disappearing form
Munjoy Hill where I have lived for 28 years. That was disturbing to me; my neighborhood has
been displaced by empty condos."
While talking with her friend, Agnes Bushell, who wanted her to document Portland politics of
the 1970s, Blythe got the idea to document Portland’s recent past. She wanted it to be more
than just politics; she decided to include the cultural milieu as well.
Blythe grew up in New Hampshire and arrived in Portland in 1980 where she lived for a time on
lower Brackett Street, which she cites as her relationship to the West End.
"I figured if I felt this way about Portland, how did people feel who were born or raised here,
about those of us who moved in during the 1980s? So, I wanted to learn more about the '60s. I
didn’t want the people and places, all the great stuff that makes Portland, Portland, erased. It is
important to know and honor where you live."
One of the first people she spoke to about her project was Bill Barry at the Maine Historical
Society. Barry was extremely enthusiastic and he referred her to Gary Libby, an attorney who
had recently finished work on a history of the Chinese community in Portland.
"He called Gary Libby over," she says, "and the stories started falling out of his mouth."
Bill Barry led her to a number of people whom she interviewed. One of them was Dave Astor,
who hosted a local teenage dance show on WCSH television. You can see a clip from the show
on You Tube.
"The people I talked to had such love for downtown Portland in the '60s",says Blythe." Dave
Astor told me they would dress up on Saturday night and go to The Splendid restaurant and
then to the movies. He commented on how safe it was downtown, except for the waterfront."
She interviewed local musician and band leader Don Doane. Doane had once played with
Woody Herman during the "Big Band era" of the '40s and '50s.
"He played his horn for me and I felt honored," she says. "I spent a wonderful lunch with Gloria
McCullouch, who played the trombone in Don Doane’s band. I also interviewed Mary Seader,
who was a singer in his band. We spent lunch together at the Village Café. They must be
crushed to see the Village demolished for condos."
She interviewed Richard Julio, who owned The Wax Museum record store on Fore Street, and
Lenny Hatch, an artist who lived over Brogan’s Paint Store on Exchange Street . Both of them
had set up shop in the Old Port before it became a tourist destination.
"I spent time in the Portland Room of the Public Library talking with Abraham Schechter, and
he said that I should put this on Facebook. I said that’s for college kids they didn’t want me on
Facebook. I was clearly behind the times. So, on December 31st, I created the Facebook group
"Portland Encyclopedia of the '60s, '70s and '80s"
As of the morning, when this interview was conducted, the group had 198 members form 17
states as well as Canada and Germany.
"There are many stories being told," says Blythe. "People are finding one another and reuniting.
Blythe looked up Herb Gideon , who owned the Erebus "head shop" in the late '60s on Center
Street. Gideon opened the Tree Café on Danforth Street in 1987.
"Herb asked me what I wanted," she says, "and I said 'I have some questions for you. People
want to know about the iguana in the building on Center Street."
According to Herb Gideon, the iguana was made by Laurie Lundquist while she was a student at
the Portland School of Art. It was part of a public art installation. Eventually, the iguana’s head
was removed when Gideon opened the Tree Café . The head was left out in the back yard of
the café and eventually disintegrated. Lundquist now lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she is
known for her public sculptures.
As a result of the conversation, Herb Gideon is now a member of the Facebook group. There
are over 60 photos posted on the site, and 7 discussion topics. There are at least 75 posts from
musicians and bands.
Blythe has researched through the city directories at ten year intervals to find what existed at
current locations twenty or thirty years ago.
"The Ava Maria Gift shop used to be located on Fore Street - where Condom Sense is now
located," she says. "The Neal Dow Agency at 97 Exchange Street became the headquarters of
the Maine Civil Liberties Union in the '70s, and Ben and Jerry’s in the '80s. Lovell’s Drug Store
became Lovell’s Super Drug Store in the '70s and Lovell’s Exchange in the '80s."
Will the Encyclopedia ever be more then a Facebook site.?
"Betsy Whitman suggested that I still have to do this in print," she says. "I do feel an obligation
to get it in print before it all goes away. My dream is to have all this culminate in a weekend of
reunions of business people, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, barkeeps, and lots of musicians from
all of those decades. There are people who say they are tired of hearing about the way things
were before they arrived here. But it is not about that. It’s about understanding where you live."
Harlan Baker can be reached at hbaker@maine.edu.
| “If it’s not here today, we’ll have it tomorrow.” The “GREAT JUNQUE” Shoppe 570 Brighton Avenue, Portland 615-6295 c 772-9156 h Collectibles, Furniture, Antiques, “Stuff” 11-5 Tuesday by Chance Wed-Sat |
