Visiting the Eastern Uplands
Maine Metaphor
S. Dorman
Visiting the Eastern Uplands
Maine Metaphor
Copyright © 2016 S. Dorman. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3
Eugene, OR 97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-0311-2
hardcover isbn: 978-1-5326-0313-6
ebook isbn: 978-1-5326-0312-9
Manufactured in the U.S.A. December 6, 2016
For Gideon, who helps things grow
Preface
Grown in the writing, this book in your hands has thrown out unexpected roots and branches into our long lives. This is the third book in the cycle of Maine Metaphor but it began in the second book as a yearning to see Aroostook County, The County as it’s called here in Maine. So that the first part of this particular book was initially part of Experience in the Western Mountains. This book is a pruning or scion, cut from the other. But there was not enough of it.
Now the present book opens in our Town in the mountains, as close as convenient in narrative time to our initial Aroostook discoveries. I tried to keep its theme—food, eating, and nourishment—pen in hand, from the beginning. With its uplands material being too slender to sustain a published volume, more was needed.
Two additional trips were made, one alone, camping, reading second-hand finds, and scribbling in a private journal. That journal was not at first meant for publication but has since been adapted, personalizing the formal Aroostook narrative. Afterward, together, Allen and I made another uplands venture. These journeys occurred 17 and 25 years after our initial necessarily brief exploration. I wrote them out to complete the book but that is not why I made these trips. I simply wanted to experience the Eastern Uplands again. And there was the recent migration of Amish to my “Ohio-land” in Maine. I wanted to see them in the Maine upland. I wanted it all, and subsequently “all” was also written out.
As always, our experience was the real interest. Writing it and working out the metaphor with research and meditation was the laborious part, not so rewarding to me as the experience itself. If there are any—readers may find that aging has removed some of my former boldness, and some crafted overbold tonal qualities. For, as my younger self writes—while ignorant of our experience ahead—only later do we realize that the watchers judging us will be ourselves. “We are the judges who can’t help but gauge the performance in our execution of life’s turns.” It will look different when we’ve been made watchful by our experience.
Old-Time Celebrations
We stood in burning sun, this gathering awaiting the parade. A sheriff’s car crested the hill above and began slow descent toward us, followed closely by walkers with flags. Now they stopped, poised, unmoving; and so we stood back, unmoving ourselves. Then came the unexpected, evocative: the remote skirling of pipes beyond the crest, out of sight—drawing us powerfully. In twos and threes we ventured onto the skirt of the roadway, straining toward the haunting sound. Faint at first, it was nonetheless an unmistakable call. Nothing save a bag with chanter and three pipes (flared and sounding with the breath of the piper) could make that distinctive wail and drone—though the pipers could not be seen.
We stand rooted to the sand shoulder, watching for them as they approach, still out of sight. Increasing in vibration, volume. The unseen sounding has a mesmeric quality derived from pulsing constancy of the base drone. This is overlaid by varying notes of other pipes. Measured staccato of the accompanying drums anchors the rhythm in our rapt souls. Now we see them—in colorful kilts, sporrans and glengarrys—coming toward us: a little band playing with nimble fingers, tendons flexing in their forearms as they sway by.
Passing through the town-gathering, pipers came alongside us, excluding all distraction with this call. Passing . . . and our heads turning, our necks craning; they rounded the corner behind town hall, passing away. . . . Out of sound and sight. We knew then that the parade was gone. That anything to come, though charming, would be but anti-climactic.
Yet many fair floats came after because, this being the 175th anniversary celebration of our green town, the themes were necessarily historical. They pointed community life as it had been founded and lived. First came two settlers in horse-drawn cart, represented in the actual descendents of William and Martha Yates, a Scotsman and his wife who, first, hacked out a presumably God-fearing home on a rocky height in the green center of town. It’s a place now owned by a Paper Concern—overgrown and deserted except for deer, bear, moose and other wild creatures making their homes among mountainous slopes, honeycombed with settlers’ crumbling stone foundational walls. Highland pipers, calling from a height, seem a true choice to lead this particular parade downhill—solemnly toward us.
It was the fullest, richest parade I’d seen since coming to Maine. Floating exhibits included tableaux of logging, lumbering, milling, wood-turning, farming, domestic arts, resorts, sports and recreation; the one-room school lumbering along on a flatbed float, children in period-costume, seated at their old-time desks before the teacher, Colista Morgan,. (Mrs. Morgan, local writer, actually taught in the one-room school nearby.) All are typical Maine scenes, many dating to 175 years ago, whose descent is with us today, still largely comprising the content of our area’s economy. These heritage displays show forth our town’s creative gratitude.
Last of the parade came Desert Storm, our recent battles in the Middle East. A shining fire truck with names of our town’s three Storm veterans emblazoned on a computer-generated banner and taped to the side of the tanker. Two young men in camouflage fatigues and riding high in the cab were vets—all unknown to me. As they passed so near, I felt a slight embarrassment even though voluntary military service is also traditional here. Young Mainers, forced by lack of opportunity and jobs have for several generations opted for Government Issue. Now these two passed this spectator in a vacuum of silence for I did not know how to honor their participation in the Storm. The climate of the national culture demanded cheers. For our financial interests we’d gone to aid allies held captive. Yet, silent bewildered solemnity seemed the appropriate response. Had I known the three Gulf veterans personally, I would have cheered. Personal emotion would transform the symbolic nature of an otherwise uneasy encounter.
It’s late and silent, up here where I walk above the little village of our rural town. The parade, with its historical legacy, passed by many hours ago in bright morning. The neighbors have all gone, the few houses of my little neighborhood empty and dark below. Everyone’s gone to the fireworks display one town over, and Boots—the old dog—and I are winding up Deer Hill Road. Upon the flat up there in the dark I, too, might see the fireworks.
Five miles away over the old hills lies the village of our nearest neighbor, Canada, Maine. Its townline abuts ours and we will soon cross that line as we climb. I wonder if the hills will permit a view of the display, which is planned as an apology for last week’s foul-up. Almost every community in Maine knows some form of summertime festival. Last week Canada was to have one of its parades—topped off with a fireworks salute. But it was canceled (after the crowd assembled) when the fireworks company failed to show. “We take full responsibility for the mix-up which was completely our fault. So We Will Make It up to You! ran the three-quarter page ad in the local weekly. “We will surpass every past celebration to say we are really sorry.”
As we near the flat where the view opens out, from