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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 3

PORTLAND

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Presents A Nostalgic Art Event ■ An Artists’ Reunion ■ Featuring the Works of Many of the Original Mariners Church and Old Port Artists Denis Boudreau ■ Howard Clifford Maury Coulton ■ Joe Cousins John Dimillo ■ Willard Goodman Lenny Hatch ■ Peyton Higgison Alison Hildreth • Jon Legere Bert Weiss

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When I was editor of Approach, the U.S. Navy’s flying magazine, 1 was overjoyed one day when Toni Wolfe sent me a short piece.

"Not so fast,” mv chief of staff, a Navy captain, said. “What 1 think he rcallv meant to say was..." and off he went, changing Wolfe’s text. "And wouldn’t this sound better?” my rear admiral added, penciling in more changes while I stood there, dizzy . It took me an hour to convince them that mav be none of us ought to change Wolfe's copy before we had the right stuff.

I’m feeling the same dizziness now that city officials are tinkering with historic Baxter Boulevard, designed in 1S95 by Frederick Law Olmsted of Olmsted, Olmsted &• Kliot, the firm that designed New Work’s Central Park. Fringed with a tunnel of trees by day and bracelets of light at night - John Neal might have compared it to Portofino, Italv- it’s Portland’s crown jewel, envisioned and created by an artist our city couldn’t even aftord to consult with today. The proposed change? To add a bicycle lane to

respond to grow ing “pressure” from evelists, thereby throwing the Boulevard’s midline out of the center of Olmsted’s famous “alley of trees.” Preservationists from Creator Portland I Kindmarks to the Mame Olmsted Alliance, living to point out the folly of changing a world-class design, have been all but dismissed: “I have no svinpatlly for this historic highway argument,” planning board member Kenneth Cole told the Portland Mewspapers before voting for the bike path. “I never noticed the historic alley of trees, and this design is totally reasonable in terms of preserving the historic landscape.”

Wh ich makes you wonder - if he’s so incurious he’s never even seen the allev of trees around the Boulevard, why arc we consulting with him on matters ol design in the first place? Ditto for Councilor Ciheryl Lceman, who lias said, “This is not Union Station, folks. This is Baxter Boulevard. Wc spent tw o years looking at alternatives and taking into consideration historic preservation."

Take 10 years, Chery], or 100, because Baxter Boulevard is on the National Register of 1 listoric Places. In the meantime, why don’t we substitute courtesy for a bike path? “Type A” bikers who terrorize walkers by whining “Trail!" as tl lev whiz along the existing gravel walkway (but who demand to be respected by cars on paved surfaces) have to realize this isn’t Boulder or Yosemite, folks. As for the charming children learning to ride bicvclcs on the vvalkvvav, we’ll be glad to step aside for vou anvtimc.

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4 • Portiand Monthly Magazine • May

Vietnam Memorial 1 was astonished to open Portland Magazine and, without expecting it, see the picture of my brother that I’ve had on my mantle for years, Airman First Class Robert J. Smith, Portland High School Class of 1961 (“A Vietnam Memorial,” by Gwen Thompson, Frank Bishop, Tyler Redmond, and Colin Sargent, Winterguide 1998).

People who see it often remark, “Who’s that?” Well, “that” is my older brother, my friend, my hero.

He was so well known and liked around Portland by so many friends that to this day people I haven’t met see him in my face and ask if 1 am related to Robert.

I’m proud to say that I am. Thank you for a wonderful story.

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However, 1 wondered why you did not mention Robert Boyd of Yarmouth in your article. When 1 visited tire Vietnam Memorial in Washington, 1 looked up his name on the wall. I was moved to tears by the loss of such a promising young life.

The deaths of all these young men and women were not in vain. They have left a legacy. Never again Mil the citizens of the U.S. give up their sons and daughters to a goal which is not attainable. Never again will we place complete faith and trust in our leaders to do the right thing.

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 5

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6 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

Thank you for drawing attention to the too-often forgotten veterans of the “war” in Vietnam. It is wonderful to see these men and women finally get- | ting attention for dedication to their country.

To follow up on your suggestion that it is now time to recognize these courageous veterans, I want to make you aware that recognition is forthcoming.

Under the guidance of honorary chairman Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, AmVets Post 25 in Portland, and the spirited leadership of Gene Burchill, USMC (known affectionately as “The General”), the Charles J. Loring Memorial Park for Korean and Vietnam-era veterans is about to become a reality.

The park is named in honor of Munjoy Hill native and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Charles J. Loring. Construction of the park will begin on Munjoy Hill this spring at the cul-de-sac overlooking Back Bay and 1-295. It will offer visitors a panoramic vista and an opportunity to reflect on our liberties for which these veterans sacrificed so much.

Described as “world class” by professionals who have seen the site and the plans, the park was designed by architects Todd Richardson and Theo H.B.M. Holtwijk of Richardson & Associates of Kennebunk. Blueprints and construction documents are now in the hands of the engineers associated with the project.

To date, nearly ninety percent of the $300,000 construction budget has been raised. Significant contributions - of money, materials, and cooperation - have been pledged by the City of Portland, Cianbro Corporation, the Libra Foundation, Skillins Greenhouses, the George Roberts Company of Alfred, Lucas Tree Experts, the Boulos Company, WGAN and WZAN Radio, Maritime and Northeast Pipeline, Handyman Equipment Rental, and Loring family members. Hundreds of individual cash contributions have also been received.

Although construction begins soon, donations are still appreciated — and

needed - for site completion and park maintenance. Tax-deductible contributions may be sent to: The Charles J. Loring Memorial Park Fund c/o Management Communications 40 Winterberry' Court Cumberland, ME 04021 Additional information may be obtained by calling development director Bill Whitten at (207) 829-2715.

Bill Whitten Development Director Loring Memorial Park Now that you have received plenty of much-dcservcd positive feedback about your reminiscences on Portland’s sacrifices to the Vietnam war, I’d like to point out one minor technical glitch in what was otherwise an excellent article.

It’s not likely that anyone was talking about who had a new Honda in 1967 unless they were talking about a motorcycle, since the first I londa automobile wasn’t imported into the US until 1969. While there were a few Datsuns and Toyotas around, and yes - plenty of VWs, MGs, and Triumphs, too - a check of most 1967 high school yearbooks will show that most of the cars pictured were still of the old stand-bys: Fords, Chcvys, and Plymouths. It was the end of an era in more ways than one, but we just didn’t know it.

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Thank you for the very' delicate tribute to those we lost in Vietnam. The war is still so controversial a memory that it’s often difficult to find a way appropriate in everyone’s eyes to honor those who died there. You did just that, though, in simply remembering these people as our friends and loved ones.

No publication has ever been more eloquent.

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 7

Second, yon have our sincere condolences on the loss of your niece. It is difficult to accept someone’s passing when her life has just begun to unfold.

May thoughts of the kindness and devotion of her many friends sustain you and her family in this sad time.

Steve & Helen Aylward Alexandria, Virginia

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8 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

Thank you for your Vietnam Memorial article - we do not have enough of these tributes.

There is a Vietnam Chapel and Archive Center in Angel Eire, New Mexico. This is located in the beautiful Moreno Valley, surrounded by mountains, about 25 minutes from Taos. The chapel was built by Dr. Westphal in memory of his son, a Marine Corps lieutenant who died in Vietnam. ITie chapel is never closed.

It was not always so. One morning Dr. Westphal saw a note slipped under the chapel door. It said, “Why were you closed when I needed to come in?”

1 can assure you that this is a cpiiet healing place. The Archive Center has information and photographs that everyone in this country should see.

Tears will be shed.

I have taken the liberty' of asking the Center to send information to y'our magazine. The young man on the phone had just taken a call from Lewiston, Maine. A group wanted to visit on Memorial Day. Keep up the good work.

Adele M. Tambor Lexington, Massachusetts Many thanks for publishing my' letter about the Reuben ]ames in your latest issue!

I read with greatest interest your article on Portland’s Vietnam War dead and agree most strongly that a proper war memorial is long overdue. I’ll help any way I can.

Attached is an article which appeared in the November 13, 1989 Evening Express with my tabulation of 30 Vietnam dead (to which 1 should now

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If you are interested, I can check also on Korea, Mexican War, and all wars 1775-1975.1 have the lists.

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A retired attorney and Howdoin graduate, Mr. Biggar feels that Portland’s Vietnam and Korea dead should be honored separately. -Ed.

Your article on Sally Smith in the Pebruary/March issue of Portland Magazine really caught my attention and also caused a lump in my throat. It was an eloquent tribute to a brave girl.

Since I am a two-year survivor of cancer at 76 years of age, these young folks really teach us what tenacity is. Those who succumb to it have not died in vain. Every one of them contributes to the annihilation of this deadly scourge.

'I he medical profession is to be commended for the sensitivity, treatment, and time they give each patient.

Your niece will live forever in spirit with the Class of 2000.

Also in this edition, of special interest to us, was “Raising the Roof on a Back Cove Ranch.” Dr. Doyon’s wife is our niece and their son Parker is a jewel. Their house is beautiful, with a spectacular view from each window.

Your magazine is a great contribution to the area. Thanks.

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article. We realize that through his efforts, we can more easily pass on a bit of family history to onr children and grandchildren. We are very grateful to him for that.

We plan to share copies of the magazine with my children and cousins.

Eleanor Rnmery Campbell Lynnfield, Massachusetts

Herb Adams Just a note to let you know how much I enjoy Portland Magazine.

It really hit home when I read Herb Adams’s story on the old Maine Eye and Ear Infinnary (“Restoration of Holt Hall and the Execution of Thomas Bird,” Eebruary/March 1998), where my babies were bom.

In those days, we had the luxury' of staying in bed for many days (unlike now), when I could look out the window and watch activities on Congress Street. Little did I ever know what happened there 100 years ago! I have read the story twice in order to absorb it.

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P.O. Box 6308. Scarborough, ME 04070-6308 10 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

I would like to congratulate you on your job in producing a magazine which stimulates a lot of interest and is sought after by many people who come into my office. In fact, they ask when the next month’s issue will be out. They especially enjoy the eclectic features. I have noticed in the past, though, that the number of articles seems to be relatively small. I think it would be really good to have at least another good feature article in each issue. I understand the problems of getting material together, but this is what I consider constructive criticism.I will look forward to receiving the magazine monthly. I especially like the article dealing with “Idle Diplomatic U-Boat.”

It would Ire good to have an additional article dealing with this topic.

W. Carl Dyer, Jr., M.D. Chattanooga, Tennessee

Established 1985 Volume XIII, Number Hi, May

Colin Sargent

Founding Editor & Publisher

Nancy Sargent Art Director

Jette Andersen Publisher’s Assistant

Michael Sullivan Advertising Director

Frank Bishop Advertising

Diane Hudson Special Protects

Brenda Markley Controller

Karyn Jenkins Production

Johanna Hanaburch Copy Editor

Gwen Thompson Calendar Editor

Colin S. Sarcent Production Assistant

Kevin LeDuc Photographer

Portland Magazine is published by Sargent Publishing, Inc., 578 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101. All correspondence should be addressed to 578 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101.

Advertising Office: 578 Congress Street, Portland, ME 04101 (207) 775-4339 Billing Questions: If vou have questions regarding advertising invoicing and payments, call Brenda Markey at (207)775-4339, Ncwstand Cover Date May 1998, published April 1998, Vol. 1 3, No. S, copyright 1998. Portland Magazine is mailed at thirdclass mail rates in Portland, ME 04101 (ISSN: 1075-1857).

Opinions expressed in articles are tliosc of authors and do not represent editorial positions of Portland Magazine. 1 Alters to the editor arc welcome and will be treated as unconditionally asigned for publication and copyright purposes and as subject to fvrtland Magazine’s unrestricted right to edit and comment editorially. Responsible only for that portion of any advertisement which is printed incorrectly. Advertisers are responsible for copyrights of materials they submit. Nothing in tins issue may be reprinted in whole or in part williout written permission from the publishers. Submissions welcome, but we take no responsibility for unsolicited materials.

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iii a reunion show this Sunday, Mae 17, at the landmark 1828 Mariners Church above the Old Port Tavern from 3-7 p.m.. "it was a kind of excitement and energy . It was on the brink. It didn’t have a highly developed commercial feeling.

Instead, we had a little community, like an opera - I mean, you’d see people out sweeping their steps, vou’d see David Koplow, the dogman.”

11ildreth. w ho was in her forties at the time after having gone to the z\rt Students’

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 13

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14 • Portland Monthly Magazjne • May

League in New York and Portland School of Art, says she’s proud to show her work along with Denis Boudreau, Howard Clifford, Maury Colton, Joe Cousins, John DiMillo, Willard Goodman, Lenny Hatch, Peyton Higgison, Jon Legere (whose oil on canvas “Lobster Business,” a detail of which adorns this issue’s cover, will be exhibited at the show with a sale price of $20,000), and Bert Weiss, “because we shared such a community feeling together. Back then, a lot of our work was shown at /Man’s Incredible Edibles (on Exchange Street, where Walter’s now' holds court), because Alan would sw'ap food for w orks of art. One time 1 swapped him a painting for 1 don’t know how many avocado sandw'iches - I just loved his avocado sandwiches!”

Howard Clifford and Joe Cousins were helped out by fishermen. “Phil Willard and his brother owned Central Wharf, where there were a lot of empty warehouses. Fishing w'as slow, so they decided to see if tenants and fishermen would coexist and invited us to live there nearly rent-free. 1 built woodstoves out of drums and tire rims; one of our stovepipes reached 17 feet to the ceiling. After about six months, some of the fishermen realized we were having a tough time. We’d wake up many mornings to find buckets full of two- to three-foot fresh cod left on our doorstep.” enis Boudreau says he and Jon Legere survived on chicken wings.

“You know, happy-hour food different tidbits here and there that were free with the beer at the Seamen’s Club and Old Port Tavern.

People would see us after a day of painting and offer to buy us a drink. Just like on the Left Bank or in Soho or Greenwich Village, everybody sort of left their studios and met in the evenings. We’d ‘pass the napkin’ around, and with marking pencils or ballpoint pens, one of us would draw' a line on the napkin Hie next person would add to that. Like the whole Old Port Experience, we kept passing it around until it became something.”

And it did become something. All of a sudden, the Animals and the Kinks were jamming at the Old Port Tavern, and, as race Magazine has re]x>rted, the Old Port Tavern’s Charlie McGee found himself preparing part}' platters for everybody from Sinatra to Dylan. “Phoebe Snow attacked the salad bar,” McGee told Face editor Bennie Green. “If she made one more

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trip 1 was gonna tackle her.”

"Can' Merrill (Twelve O-CAock High, All About Ere) used to hang around Jon.” Boudreau savs of the colorful I ,egerc. “Jon used to drive an old Jaguar sedan back then, and the three of us would pretend one of us w as being chauffcured around.

But painting always came first. It was hard to get Jon to break awav from his art.”

In the mornings, “we’d newer put on our shoes. We’d walk down to the water barefoot. The Street (all-but-abandoned Exchange was called 1’ish Street until 1<S 10 and once nicknamed the “Wall Street of Portland” bv John Neal for its sumptuous brick and granite buildings “finished w ithin. after a superior style, with our richest native woods”) w as ours. We could park on anv side we wanted to. No one was there to tell us what to do. Every time someone would move into a new shop there would be dust fix ing.”

“We all learned to repair things ourselves- I remember there was a hardware store on Exchange Street and Sulkowitch’s on Eore Street, which sold just about anything,” saws Hildreth, whose work is also featured regularly at the Rob Clements Gallery on SI West Commercial Street.

I banks to sympathetic landlords like Hank Akers, rents were newer above $50 a month, “hi 1970 I shared my studio with Michael Willis on the top floor of 45 Exchange,” Boudreau sass. “Because we shared expenses, mv rent was an amazing s a month. But sometimes we would base snow in our paint. It would be perfectly dear outside but it would be snowing inside our studios because moisture condensed on shingle nails coming in through the roof, ‘from all the actixitx down there,’ as Jon I .egerc, whose studio was one floor dow n from ours, liked to saw Sometimes it was like a hailstorm. We’d be sitting there, w rapped up in our jackets like it was Rumania. The rafters in Jon’s middle section were almost 30 Icet high, so that helped create the effect, too. 11 is ceiling beams were all charred from the 1S66 lire. Now ihev're all covered with sheet-rock, hike so many other things, they’ve disappeared from view.”

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 15

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Are we in \ laine? Hie reflection pond of the ultra-private 67-acre oceanfront I lidden Court mansion, built off Shore Road in Cape Elizabeth m the 1920s for audiophile Henn' Robinson, heir to the (711. Robinson Paper fortune, is only a small part of a '‘midievaF English garden that extends for miles.

Two Secret Gardens Story By Gwen Thompson

She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his winter song—almost as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to her."

-Prances I lodgson Burnett.

I he Secret (.'arden

W

hat is it that makes amthing on the other side of a high wall so irresistible appealing to human euriositv? The grass on the far side of a split rail fenee mav appear greener to jaded ex es; but the per-

verse imagination invariably paints the unattainable lawn bevond a solid stone wall greener still.

"It was because it had been shut up...that she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must Ik different from other places...Resides (hat. if she liked it she could go into it every dav and shut the door behind her. and...nobody would ever know where she was...Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel lonelv at all. ” -Frances I lodgson Burnett.

The Secret Carden Continued on next page

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 17

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18 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

As check by jowl suburban developments segment the local landscape into identical chiclets of grass, a private, outdoor space that is tridy isolated from telephone poles, electrical wires, and the next-door neighbor’s bathroom-window curtains is an ever rarer commodity — unless one happens to live on the ocean or on a farm miles out of town. While a walled garden won’t give you a pristine vista that extends, uninterrupted, to the distant horizon, it can—even in Portland—provide invaluable insulation, both aural and visual, from street noise and the neighbors’ backyard paraphernalia.

Am©iiy Resitleoce, PoiidamJ § WJ EhJ "No man hut feels more of a man in the world if he have a hit of ground that he can call his own.

I lowever small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property. ” -Charles Dudley Warner,

A

My Summer in a Carden

half-acre lot in the West End may not sound like enough, lebensraum for landscaping, but within the half of that space dedicated to horticulture, Mohr & Seredin Landscape Architects and Joan Amory have managed to create three distinct ecospheres.

Entering through the street door in the six-foot wooden fence, you find yourself in the rectangular Cloister Garden, where unobtrusive border plantings (tiny weeping cherry' trees and alpine strawberry groundcover) arc separated by a gravel path from the central knot garden.

(According to Steve Mohr, knot gardens were the Medieval horticultural equivalent of illuminated manuscript borders.) A French-blue settle against the left-hand wall faces dreamily into the morning sun, and a towering white pine bestows its gentle benediction over the southwest comer.

“Joan wanted a very calm, almost monastic feeling of serene enclosure here,’’Mohr explains. “It’s a quiet, contemplative space where she can close the doors to read so that people know it’s occupied and won’t come in.”

“I'air Quiet, have I found thee here, And Innocence, thy sister dear?

Mistaken long, I sought you then In bus) 1companies of men,

Your sacred plants, if here below, Only among the plants will grow; Society is all but rude, To this delicious solitude...

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, Withdraws into its happiness; ..Annihilating all that’s made To a green thought in a green shade."

-Andrew Marvell, “Die Garden”

The espalier apple trees that have been crisscrossed into a diamond pattern against the right-hand wall also hearken back to a medieval garden, as does the aromatic knot garden with its fragrant, interlocking pattern of santolina, lavender, artemisia (a.k.a. wormwood), and silveredged thyme in subtly different shades of green.

“There's naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good clean earth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things when th’ rain falls on Tem’.

-The Secret Garden

T

he total sensory' experience is further enhanced by the soft rippling sounds of a recirculating fountain housed in a lichen-covered granite block-cum-birdbath opposite the street entrance. Behind this “medieval watering trough” is an eight-foot hedge of arborvitae; and on either side of it, Gothicarched wooden doors —again recalling the medieval cloister—lead into the living room (so called because of the oval, brick “carpet” underneath two more Frenchblue wooden benches seated conversationally across from each other like sofas).

“This middle section is where the family can hang out together, or have tea with friends,” Mohr says. “Each side is bordered by a different kind of tree, the way you’d hang different paintings on each wall of your living room.”

Here the walls in question comprise arborvitae to the rear, Himalayan birch on the left, and dogwood on the right; while straight ahead a canopy of apple trees perched atop a two-foot stone wall screens the entrance to the perennial garden.

Mohr characterizes the latter as “an English cottage garden run amok—a wild riot of perennials.” l iny, stepping-stone paths wend their way through the flurry' of blossoms, past a wooden arbor showered with wisteria and clematis, to yet another French-blue garden bench (this time peak-roofed) strategically sited underneath an enormous white birch. “Joan got that shade of blue from a paint chip she peeled off in France,” Mohr says. “She had to have it specially matched and mixed here,

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 19

and now she won’t give away the secret fonnula to anyone.”

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We wish to acknowledge the individuals and organizations with whom we have worked for their significant public contributions in the identification and preservation of iMaine’s significant designed landscapes.

Maine Historic Preservation Commission

for identification and protection of the States historic landscapes

Greater Portland Landmarks

for their role in protecting Portland's historic fabric

Maine Olmsted Alliance for Parks and Landscapes tor their historic designed landscape inventory

Mr. & Mrs. Charlton Ames

for their work in protecting the integrity of the Camden Amphitheater

Mr. Albert Nickerson

for his commitment to Portland’s Open Space Plan

Mr. Patrick Chasse

for his work on Thuja garden and on Beatrix Farrand s landscape*

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Ms. Anne Pringle

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The State has benefited from your endeavors, and we gratefully acknowledge your efforts in protecting Maine’s landscape legacy.

Mohr & Seredin Landscape Architects, Inc. 18 Pleasant St., Portland, Maine

A

The Secret Carden

t I liddcn Court, the 67-acre Robinson estate in Cape Elizabeth, the issue is not so much making the earth come alive with growing things as ensuring that it will be allowed to stay that way. Originally a preRevolutionary' War land grant from the King of England, the estate remained in the Robinson family (of Robinson Paper fame) until the 1980s, when it was purchased by a successful motivational speaker whose company went belly-up not long afterwards. The present owners, Mallon Marshall and Peter I laffenreffer, bought the place from the bank—but not before a large chunk of it had been sold off into subdivisions in a futile attempt to stave off impending bankruptcy. Now Marshall and Haffcnrcffer arc attempting to recover the lost portions of the estate from the clutches of would-be developers. Recently they were able to buy back fifteen additional acres from the Robinson estate; and they have preserved this anomalous open space in the middle of town as a conservation easement through the Cape Elizabeth Land Trust.

All of which makes for a case of Hidden Court history' repeating itself. The stone manor house was built in the 1920s by Henry' Robinson, the last Robinson to own the estate. An extreme anglophile, Robinson modeled his dwelling-place after an English country house called Ightam Mote that he’d fallen in love with while traveling abroad. By an odd twist of fate, Ightam Mote subsequently went on the market in the 1940s, and Robinson himself bought it for the express purpose

20 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May i

of guaranteeing its preservation by donating it to the British National Tnist.

With grounds the size of those at Hidden Court, there’s no danger of neighboring houses impinging on peaceful views.

In fact, the opposite problem obtains: How can such a vast and imposing expanse of land be successfully ordered on a humanly manageable scale? The way it’s been done at 1 liddcn Court allows half a dozen different sections of the grounds to qualify as secret gardens, applying the tenn loosely.

The initial approach to the house is already ancient and mysterious. Ironwork gates swing silently back from brick gateposts at the touch of a security code; and the long, curving summer driveway that winds its leisurely way up to the house through phalanges of rhododendrons is in fact a remnant of the original King’s Highway.

Robinson’s anglomania is immediately evident in the ivy-covercd stone archway-complete with dangling iron chains reminiscent of a drawbridge—that guards the entrance to a courtyard large enough to accommodate within its walls a sweeping gravel drive, brilliant green lawns, fullgrown trees, several cars, and a stone birdbath surrounded by its own circular herb garden.

To the right, three stone archways lead into a brick-paved arcade used as a summer dining room. Passing through any one of the seven obverse arches lands you on a wide stone terrace dominated by a petite sculpted frog spitting gleefully into a round pool at its center. Ten more stone steps down brings you to a fifty-yard-long stone terrace curtained off from the rest of the world on both sides by close-planted ranks of Canadian hemlock; and mnning the length of it is the reflecting pool on which 1 lent)' Robinson’s white trumpeter swans once floated in serene seclusion.

Continuing on into slightly wilder domains, one catches glimpses of abandoned ums and long-lost statuary' lurking far down the neatly wooded tunnels of Robinson’s English hunting alles. One also passes by the fanner abode of his herd of English fallow deer. (After a storm in the 1950s brought a tree down on the w'all of their enclosure, they escaped, and were never seen again.) Veering left, one approaches tw'o gigantic rectangles of shrubbery' stretching perhaps a hundred yards away to a distant, towering wall of arborvitae through which one can just glimpse the unmistakable blue of ocean.

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 21

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22 • Portland Monthly Magazjne • May

These two rectangles, which flank a long strip of lawn and enclose neat rows of magnolia trees, appear to consist of some unusual, grayish shrub. “Actually,” says Tanya Seredin, “that’s all dead yew. The deer ate it twenty years ago, and now it’s so covered with lichens that it looks green.”

At the sea-down s edge between windward and lee, Walled round with rocks as an inland island, The ghost of a garden fronts the sea."

-Algernon Claries Swinburne

“Forsaken Garden'

Frogs a-spitting, swans a-swimming, deer escaping, and ghost bushes that never need trimming are all well and good; but to reach the true inner sanctum of Hidden Court, you must return to the dining arcade and ascend the curving stone staircase leading up to the Peacock Room.

(Yes, Robinson also kept peacocks!) Now in the process of being converted into a sunroom, the former Peacock Room is dominated by iron-bossed French windows imported from a Londonderry industrial building; and it is through these that one enters at last the holy of holies.

“She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun pouring down on her and wann sweet waft about her and tire fluting and twittering and singing coming from ever)' bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it.”

-Frances Hodgson Burnett

T

The Secret Garden

he secret garden at Hidden Court—a fairly recent addition— was created in an attempt to cap hire something that, in Maine, can be even more elusive than solitude—namely, the sun. Seredin explains that, true to its English antecedents, the great stone house is very dark inside; and Mohr adds that the seven-foot-high stone walls surrounding the 38’ x 22’ garden retain heat so well that the plants within them arc in effect growing in a milder horticultural zone (Zone 6) than those outside (Zone 5). Built with stone from the same local quarry as the house, and sprayed with purced moss and yoghurt cultures to make them age faster to match it, the garden’s walls also serve to keep hungry' deer at bay.

William Cowper observed, in The Task, Book 111, The Carden, that “Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too,” and sure enough, one is provided, opening directly into the walled garden for greater convenience in starting out annuals. Opposite the greenhouse is a wooden trellis festooned with roses and clematis; espalier witch hazel adds a splash of early color to the walls; and arborvitae and yew round out the larger plantings.

“Sometimes since I’ve been in thegarden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast" -Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Secret Garden

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chieving that kind of botanical ecstasy rccpiires much careful planning and forethought. Mohr reports that, during an eightmonth period, the layout of the cobblestones separating the peastone walkways from the iris, chive, tulip, and lady’s-mantlc borders was simulated with garden hose nearly fifty' times before being adjudged satisfactory'. Similarly, the clematis-draped statue of I Icbe facing the entrance is the final victor superseding a long line of sculptural rejects— including a zinc cactus, an obelisk, and numerous urns. As for the genesis of the tiny knot garden—a faintly Celtic cruciform done in boxwood with a rock in the middle and tulips in the pockets—Mohr says that Mallory' sketched it out herself while she was on an airplane. She gave us the design drawn on the back of one of those in-flight barfbags.”

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 23

By William David Barry

I

n December of 1764 the Royal Navy sloop Caspee, which had been seeking smugglers off Nova Scotia, was blown into Casco Bay by “contrary winds and a strong current.” Her commander, Lt. Thomas Allen, was startled to find “Vessels arriving & sailing Daily without paying any Regard to the Regulations lately established or without so much as taking the least notice of the Custom house.”

The good lieutenant was clearly a newcomer to the region, for smuggling, or “unrestricted trade,” as we locals called it, had been standard practice from the earliest days bf settlement.

Indeed, as early as 1623, Capt. Christopher Levett tried to impose the authority of the Province of Maine on an interloping English captain. As Levett indignantly reported, “He said also he cared not for any authority in that place and, though he was forbid to truck, yet would he have all he could get, in despite of who should say to the contrary, having a great ship with seventeen pieces of ordinance and fifty men.”

In short, might made right in Casco Bay. Though a 1701 law established Royal Naval forces in each port “for the entering and clearing of all ships and other vessels trading to and from it,” in real terms a naval officer does not seem to have been appointed for Falmouth (now Portland) until 1730.

Frustrated by our wild and woolly No Man’s Land north of Boston, the British created a custom district here in 1758 and instituted the wealthy Francis Waldo as collector. For the most part the work was left to Waldo’s deputies while the smuggling of rum, sugar and mol¬

24 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

asses, in the words of historian William Willis, was broadly “winked at.”

The end of the brutal French and Indian War, in the early 1760s, brought more exacting taxes and enforcers. In an effort to pay for the war, the government of King George III decided to strengthen existing trade regulations.

In 1763, Waldo, on orders from his

superiors in Boston, issued a proclamation against smuggling. Few seagoing Falmouth folk took the warning seriously, though, as Lt. Allen quickly learned.

Having seized several noncompliant local vessels, the Caspee’s commander applied to the collector in an effort to prosecute. The collector proved as horrified at the prospect as Allen was indig-

ILLUSTRATION PAUL ROBESON

nant and refused to act. Allen prepared to leave, but in the night a midshipman and three seamen-desiring to become Vacationland rcsidents-deserted with a boat, delaying the Gaspee’s departure.

A few days later, Allen dispatched another party to board another smuggling sloop. As the officers stepped aboard, the three seamen in the boat

“rowed right ashore” themselves and deserted. Furious at having insufficient men to man the Gaspee, Allen stopped another vessel and impressed four Mainers. By now the townspeople were worked up at this high-handed behavior, and a “Mob seized his Boat & dragged her into the middle of Town and insisted upon the four Men’s being set at liberty before they would restore his Boat or suffer him to go onboard the Vessel in any other.”

Cowed, the lieutenant released the captured Americans, left the captured vessels with the collector, and prepared to make sail. During the transfer, another British sailor jumped ship, to the amusement of the mob. Limping out of port, “it was with the utmost difficulty that (Allen) got his vessel” to Halifax and safety. From that point on, the Admiralty marked Falmouth, Casco Bay, as a rebel hotbed.

In response, Arthur Savage was made comptroller of the port and Thomas Child appointed tide surveyor. Collector Waldo was, with increasing regularity, absent on personal business. In 1767 a seizure of rum and sugar led to an attack on the comptroller and the rescue of two smugglers from the Falmouth jail by an armed mob. In another attempt to carry out his duty in 1771, Savage was mobbed and forced to abandon his elegant house for the relative safety of Boston. All but one of the men connected with the Custom House at Falmouth fled by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. The Gaspee did not even make it that far. In June of 1772, while pursuing Rhode Island smugglers, the vessel was destroyed by rebels in Narragansett Bay.

Independence did not bring a sudden respect for the Custom I louse. In peace and war, Downeasters continued to practice “unrestricted trade.” During Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807, which demanded the stop of all foreign trade, coastal vessels from Maine found themselves accidentally “blown off course” as far as Portugal, England, Italy, and the Baltic. During the War of 1812, the famous battle between the Royal Navy brig Boxer and U.S. Navy brig Enterprise occurred only because the Boxer had been hired to escort a seized Bath smuggler to Halifax from the mouth of the Kennebec. One of the owners of that merchant smuggler was Gen. William King, in charge of Maine's defenses. Of King, historian Alan S. Taylor remarks, “as a government agent, he was in the unusual position of instructing the United States commander at Eastport to suppress vigorously the smuggling there, while as a private merchant, dispatching his own vessels to trade with the British.” In 1820, King became Maine’s first Governor.

In the 1920s, the smuggling tradition continued as the coast guard and local authorities attempted to stop Prohibition rum-runners. Floating outside the 12 mile limit, vessels like Maude Thornhill, Mar)’ L., Ocean Maid, and Good Luck created the notorious Rum Row, and Maine boat yards building smaller vessels to transport the contraband to and from shore. By the 1970s, drug running became profitable, with vessels like the Southern Belle and Onalay (with 20 tons of marijuana) making headlines.

Though the nature of goods changes, the desire to buck the system and turn a profit remains a constant.

May • Portiand Monihly Magazine • 25

A T T . 1.- c

C 11 A K b t 5

T11 o W s ° K

Two-Dimensional

Antiques

S

Story By Colin Sargent

URICH IlCMAIXT. COAST is home to some of the finest Colonial and f ederal antiques in this country, including a constellation of maritime antiques and porcelains from the China and West Indies ’1 rades. where our merchant ships played such a promi¬

26 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

nent role. But how does Maine work out on paper?

"Kyen better," laughs Jim Smith of Remember When Auctions of \\ ells, the fastest-growing purveyor of two-dimensional, e.g. "paper" antiques-rarc maps, diaries, proclamations, autographs, and

other stackable curiosities from locks of hair to Keats's love letters—in the United States.

When rou add Smith’s commercial presence to the more venerable collections of the Maine Historical Society and the Osher Map Library at the Universitv of Southern Maine, it’s easy to see that Maine is suddenly on the map for antiques of this nature.

One reason is that Maine’s attics and barns haven’t all been pillaged.

“In fact," I tell Smith, whom statewide antique buffs call Smittv. on the telephone, “l've run into an old autograph book that we found in a suitcase the other day. There's a clipped signature of John Quincv Adams in it. dated 1S4S. I low much is that worth?"

'T'iftv dollars," Smittv saws.

“Just a second," I saw “ There’s a huge gromidswell of interest in John Quincv Adams now that Anthony I lopkins has done such a memorable portrayal of him in Amistad, the Steven Spielberg movie.

And." 1 add w ith a note of triumph, "the ; year IS4S is after he defended the Africans ; involved in the Amistad incident, and the t same r ear he died!" j ’T’ifty bucks." = “I low can vou be so sure?” ; "It's not worth more because it's been ; cut awav from a document that would ; otherwise have made it much more vain- i able, \\1tcn that happens, it's called a clip = signature, and its value is miniscule ' because it's been cut from its moorings. It ■ just floats, without provenance. One him- ; dred years ago. w hen there was a world- : wide passion for autographs, clipping j them was a perfectly normal thing to do ; because it made them easier to store. ; Some documents were very large, von : know. Besides, it was a Iwhhv back then. ; when the whole thing was about fun. I ; wonder if there is such a thing as a hobby : now.”

Asked how much a John Quincv Adams : letter might be worth todav, he savs, "A ; John Quincv Adams letter explaining his declining his appointment to the Su- ? preme Court brought S3,700 to S3,SOO j recently, up 20 percent, so interest is defi- ; nitelv rising with the Amistad tide. What j you have might have been cut from some- : thing as interesting as that letter, 't on’ll : never know!" 5 “Okav, Joseph Story was the Supreme : Court justice w ho announced that John .

Quincv Adams had won the Amistad z

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case, but his part in the movie was just a walk-on. His clip signature is in my autograph book, too. 1 can retire now, right?”

“Not just yet. But Joseph Story of Salem is one of the more sought-after justices.

Because a clip signature of his is harder to find, and because he founded the Harvard School of Law, it might bring $150-$200.”

“You can reel off these prices because you’ve been doing this all your life?”

“I’d never heard of this work until 10 years ago. Today we are probably the largest auction house in the country for documents.”

“Can investors predict whose documents wiII appreciate the most?”

“Yes. Think of people who will be remembered at the end of the 21st Century when you invest in a document. Babe Ruth, Cezanne, Matisse, Ernest Hemingway will be remembered then. 'Hie world is going to forget Robert Motherwell, Madonna, baseball hall of famer Bill Dickey.”

‘You’re pretty rough! How about George Washington?”

“Today a George Washington clip signature might be worth $5,000, but any letter by George Washington is worth | $10,000 or more.”

“I low is John Adams doing?”

“I actually own a lock of John Adams’s hair that came from a Portland attic.

'Hiere were two little pieces of paper with it. One said, Taken from the head of John Adams on July 4, 1826.’”

“That’s...”

“Every amateur historian knows that’s the day' he died, the same day that Thomas Jefferson died. My other little piece of paper says, “Given to me by Elizabeth Quincy Adams, his niece, who was at his death bed,” and it’s been proven that she was there at the time, so it’s solid. I own a large lock of A Lincoln’s hair, too, with documents saying it was cut from his head by Dr. Charles Taft. It’s been proven he was in Eord’s Theater that night. He helped carry' the body across the street. It’s funny, but my paper trail shows that years after the assassination, Dr. Taft traded this I lock of hair with John Hay, who had been Lincoln’s chief of staff. John Hay then gave it to Pres. Theodore Roosevelt just before John Hay blew his own brains out.

Teddy Roosevelt gave it to Teddy', Jr., who died in the Normandy Invasion of World War II, June 1944. It was then sold as part of his estate sale, where a lady bought it, and she kept it until I bought it five years

ago. 'Ilie lock is valued at $50,000.”

“I low about Poe?” Portlander Nathaniel Willis was the editor who first ushered ‘The Raven’ into print, so we do have something of a claim to him, though certainly not as strong as Baltimore’s.”

“Poe is very strong autographically. We sold a handwritten poem, dark, sinister, and written to his cousin, who he was terribly smitten with, for $25,000 recently.”

“Now Joshua Chamberlain’s documents must really be on the rise, after Ted Turner’s Gettysburg" “They sure arc. And since the Ken Burns miniseries, he has gone up approximately twenty-five-fold. Now that we’ve see him at the top of Little Roundtop, people arc amazed by him, often because he didn’t seem cut out for what history' had in store for him. He was an intellectual, a classics professor, not exactly a physical man, who somehow became the general selected by U.S. Grant to accept surrender at Appomattox. l ie was probably very lucky at Gettysburg. Ten years ago a document by Chamberlain was worth $50. Now it’s $2000.

“Flow about Maine writers, like Kenneth Roberts and Booth Tarkington?”

‘You cannot give away enough Kenneth Roberts, though I buy more Kenneth Roberts than anyone else in the world. In Nebraska you can’t give Kenneth Roberts away. Booth ’Tarkington is in the same boat. I Ic’ll always be great up here. We sell a lot of Roberts and Tarkington ephemera at the History' Store, in Kennebunk, at the Firehouse Place on Route 35.”

“Surprise us with an anomaly.”

“We can’t give Ed Muskic away'. A letter might be worth $5. Nice guy.”

“How about I lannibal I lamlin?”

A signature goes for $50, a letter for $2,500. There’s no market for Percival Baxter at all. Lxmisa May Alcott letters go for $1,000 and up. You can sell Rudy Vallee, but he’s very' inexpensive. 1 le really wasn’t the only boy in the world! Margaret Deland? You’ve got a Margaret Deland letter? Margaret Deland was a delightful lady, but the world has forgotten her. Fifty dollars. Better sell it in a hurry.”

Smith isn’t the only' one involved in Maine’s paper chase. In fact, the standard was set early' on by' Maine 1 listorical Society, which up until the last few years was nearly exclusively a collector of docunients and photographs, among them a

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 29

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priceless five-page love letter from John Keats.

“I low about the John Keats letter at Maine 1 listorical Societs?” 1 ask Smith.

“Its five pages long, and lovely.”

“It would go for $1 (),()()() and up."

“How about the Declaration of Independence that surfaced in their archives a few years ago? It turned out to be a first edition, printed by John Dunlap on the night of Julv 4. 1776. For almost 90 sears it lav \ irtualk unnoticed within the voluminous autograph collection of John S.l I. Fogg, w hich was donated in 1904 and saltied at the time at $25,000. It’s even older than the parchment evervone visits at the National Archives, remember? Its rediscovers made national news. Isn't it worth something like $2.2 million?” “ That was in the mid-1990s. There wasa frenzs at the time. Now it’s worth about three-quarters of a million.”

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30 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

No los er of rare documents would be satisfied with a s isit to Maine w ithout stop ping at the Osher Map I .ibrary at the Unisersitv of Southern Maine I,ibrary, Forest /Avenue, Portland.

As .Mercator’s World magazine describes it. Dr. I larold L. Osher and Peggs' Osher were first “smitten in Britain" with the idea of collecting maps when thes visited a dealer’s shop on Great Russell Street in London in 1975 after a trip to the British Museum.

Dr. Osher, a longtime head of cardiologs' at Maine Medical Center, was entranced bs' an earls' French map of Ness England he found in the store, and from that das forward, the collection grew to a mind-boggling (ros e that was donated to USM in 1989, three years after the Osher’s friend from Philadelphia, Eleanor 1 iouston Smith, had donated her collection there. Mercator’s World glow ingly describes a fess of the Osher exhibits: “Among other treasures in the combined collection is a 1511 map... A woodcut on plain paper, it was made bs the personal confessor of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella and is the first map to depict the Ness World as seen bs Christopher Columbus. Also in the collection arc a land sms es by George W ashington, a map of the District of Maine made in 1S1 5 bs American cartographer Moses Greenleaf, and a book bs Captain John Smith containing a map of New England based on survess lie made in 1614." If!*

■ REVIEW ■

Calf© ucked away on 129 Spring Street between Mercy Hospital and the Holiday Inn-at the former location of Woodford’s Cafe-is 1 O-month-old, inexpensive Blue Mango Cafe, an unpretentious, delicious stop where a growing list of patrons is coming for hearty food and maybe some gossip. In the not-toodistant past, this was about all Portland diners had. As the city' grew and became more sophisticated, these comer eateries disappeared. Nobody seemed to notice or care. On sitting down and letting the atmosphere settle over me, 1 suddenly realized our great loss.

The food is Maine Coast with Caribbean, Asian, and Italian influences.

The common denominator is large portions of simply prepared food at a low price.

We started with Seafood Chowder ($2.75)—full of scallops, shrimp, and haddock in a rich cream base-that scored a direct hit. We also sampled a Cuban Black Bean Soup ($2.75) that was nicely spiced with a rich, thick broth. The garnish of julienne carrots and sour cream was perfect.

Eor dinner, we chose the Jerk Chicken Rollup ($5.75) served with rice, beans, lettuce, very' spicy chicken, and wonderful tortilla chips. Our second entree was Sirloin Beef Tips($9.50) marinated in a five-pepper sauce. The beef was a bit tough, but the flavorful sauce, perfectly grilled fresh mushrooms and onions, and fluffy rice made this a satisfying dish.

For dessert, we had a tangy' Key Lime Pie ($2.50) garnished with lime zest and homemade style Banana Cream Pie ($2.50).

Woodford’s Cafe was actress Liv Tyler’s favorite greasy spoon when she lived in this neighborhood a few years ago. If she were to come back and try' the Blue Mango today, she wouldn’t be disappointed. (207) 772-1374.

T

—Phil Rogers

Select Area Restaurants At the Armory Restaurant in the Portland Regency Hotel, spectacular cuisine. Old Port charm, and impeccable service come together in an elegant yet casual atmosphere.

Along with fresh dinner specials featuring foods from land and sea, the Armory chefs prepare unforgettable house specialties like Seafood Fettuccine with lobster, shrimp, crab, and mussels; Steak Diane, and Black Angus Sirloin.

The Armory Restaurant is also open for breakfast and lunch. Reservations recommended. 774-4200.

David and Elizabeth Grant opened Aubergine Blstro-Wlne Bar in November of 1996 and within 2 weeks received stunning local reviews and have since garnered national acclaim. Cuisiner David Grant and Chef de Cuisine Gordon Cameron prepare French Bistro dishes such as TwoTexture Duck with Cassis, Sweetbreads with Port and Cepes and Crispy Salmon with Spinach and Pernod and Portland’s only traditional French Cheese Course. Menu changes daily; all wines available by the glass. Dinner Tues-Sat 5:30-10; French Sun Brunch 1 1-2. 874-0680.

The Audubon Room at the Inn by the Sea on Route 77 in Cape Elizabeth combines breathtaking views of the Atlantic Ocean with culinary masterpieces that feature fresh local produce, native seafood specialties, and exceptional handmade breads and desserts. House favorites include grilled crab and macadamia encrusted swordfish w/ orange pepper basil coulis and sautd of Maine lobster and veal on fresh angel hair w/ roasted tomato beurre blanc. Patio dining and off premise catering available. Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. 767-0888.

The Barking Squirrel Cafe in Deering Oaks Park offers a wide selection of homemade cuisine, from burgers, fries, and salads to southwestern crab cakes, lobster benedict, and mediterranean pasta. Serving brunch under $5, lunch around $6, and dinner around $10, The Barking Squirrel is Portland’s answer to New York’s Tavern on the Green. Dine outdoors overlooking the park or indoors by their fireplace.

Open 7 days a week in summer, limited hours in winter.

Private parties available; free parking; credit cards. Just off Exit 6-A (1-295). 774-5514.

Owned and operated by Roger Bintliff, Blntittfs American Cafe is Portland's only all-day-everyday Jazz Brunch House. Greek revival structure, charming antiques and detail make breakfast, lunch or business meeting a special occasion. Signature items include crab and asparagus stuffed filet mignon, garden scampi with Pernod, seasonal vegetable Ie primavera, and a wide array of homemade accompaniments, including desserts. Unique wine list, full bar. Brunch 7-3 daily; dinner 5:30-9 Fri and Sat only. 98 Portland St (across from the post office) 774-0005.

Cafe Stroudwater, specializes in American bistro style cuisine with an emphasis on native Maine seafood & prime cuts of beef. It is five-star award winning chef William Boutwell's creative touches—such as pine nut encrusted rack of lamb with fresh ratatouille—that make this dining experience like no other in Portland. In addition to a spectacular. Grand Sunday Brunch, Cafe Stroudwater serves breakfast, luncheon and dinner daily. The Cafe also offers Portland's only Chef's Table, and an innovative selection of wines & locally brewed beers. Located in the Embassy Suites Hotel, reservations suggested 775-0032.

In the downstairs at David’s Restaurant you can sample four-star entrdes featuring 1arm-fresh produce and native products like seafood sausage, pepper crusted tuna, or goat cheese packets with grilled vegetables (773-4340). David’s, set in a converted open-air market building, boasts an abundant raw bar, 20 varieties of seafood, lobster, fresh pasta, microbrews, and Maine's largest single malt scotches list (773-4340). Torino's Stone Oven Pizzeria combines wild mushrooms, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, and fresh herbs to create authentic gourmet pizza from old Naples (7806600). All three restaurants are located at 164 Middle Street You can't beat the location of DiMillo's Floating Restaurant at 25 Long Wharf off Commercial Street for fabulous water views of Portland Harbor. Escape from the hustle and bustle of the city by watching the boats go by as you enjoy fresh Maine lobster served year-round, steak, seafood dishes, and more. Open 7 days a week from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., with a children's menu available. For drinks and a lighter menu, try their Portside Lounge. 772-2216.

Welcome to F. Parker Reidy’s, site of the original Portland Savings Bank built in 1866 at 83 Exchange Street.

Established in 1976 during the renaissance of the Old Port area, F. Packer Reidy’s has become a Portland fine dining tradition, specializing in steaks and fresh seafood, but also offering pasta, chcken. and salads, with prime rib featured on

weekends. Tum-of-the-century decor, personalized service, and great food create a warm and congenial atmosphere popular for both business and intimate dining. 773-4731.

Deep in the heart of the mysterious Woodfords area at 540 Forest Avenue is the Great Lost Bear, where you'd find a full bar featuring over 50 (that's right, five-o) draught beers, predominantly from local micro-breweries. Accompanying them is an enormous menu with everything from soups, salads, and sandwiches to steaks and ribs, as well as a large vegetarian selection and the best nachos and buffalo wings in town. Discover where the natives go when they’re restiessl Serving from 11:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. seven days a week.

772-0300. Visit us on-line at http://www.ime.net/bGar/ Hugo’s Portland Bistro, accessibly located at the intersection of Middle Street and Franklin Artery, was Portland Dining Guide's 1996 Gold Medal Winner. The innovative menu changes monthly and features fresh seafood and interesting vegetarian dishes. Crab cakes are a house specialty, and parking is available! Serving dinner only Tuesday-Saturday, with live piano music nightly. For reservations call 774-8538.

Mozon Middle's melting poi approach to nouvelle cuisine blends American ingredients with classical techniques.

Some favorite menu items are a Maine lobster and goat cheese burrito with tomatillo sauce and mango salsa; grilled filet mignon over oven-roasted red potatoes with a parmesan crisp and vintage port demi-glace; and fresh native tuna wrapped in sun-dried tomato pesto and Italian prosciutto with a basil buerre blanc. Their Bellini cocktai is the highlight of a unique selection of wines and liquors.

Parking and terrace dining are available at 47 Midde Street.

Open Tuesday-Sunday at 5 p.m. for dinner. 774-9399.

Natasha’s. Portland’s newest restaurant featuring New American-styfe menus for brunch, lunch and dinner prepared with the freshest ingredients, including pastas, local fish, grilled meats, and many vegetarian selections. Lunch Tu-F, 11-2:30; Dinner Tu-Th. 5-9; F-Sa, 5-10; Brunch Sa-Su, 8-3.40 Portland St., 774-4004. Handicappod accessible.

The Pepperclub is a prize-winning restaurant (‘Best Vegetarian" and ‘Best Value’ in Frommer's Guide to New England) featuring creative world cuisine. Its blackboard menu typically lists five vegetarian, three fish, and three meat entrees, including a superb organic beef burger.

Pepperclub offers relaxed, colorful, unusually affordable dining on the edge of the Old Port with easy, free parking and good wines and beers. Open nightly at 5 p.m.; payment by cash or personal check. 78 Middle Street, near Franklin Artery. 772-0531.

Ricetta's Brick Oven Pizzeria, voted "Best Pizza in Maine’ since 1990 by the PPH and C8W, Ricetta's is truty a taste of the old country. M. E. Curty of the PPH raves: ‘Ricetta's is arguably the best pizza west of Rome.* Dine-in, take-out, delivery, and catering are available. The all-you-can-eat gourmet lunch buffet includes pizza, pasta, soup, and salad.

Kids eat FREE during Sunday lunch buffet and Mondays from 3 p.m. until closing. Located at 29 Western Avenue, South Portland. 775-7400.

Saigon Thlnh Thanh, 608 Congress Street. Portland. *Of the 137 restaurants listed in the 1996-97 edition, Saigon Thin Thanh is a four-star restaurant ranked first in value.

Saigon Thin Thanh is Maine’s—and probably New England's—finest Vietnamese restaurant."—Portland Dining Guide. 'Four stars for food, service, and value for money. With good, healthy, flavorful food and quick service in a pleasant, clean atmosphere, Saigon Thin Thanh is worth investigating.’—Press Herald 773-2932.

Snow Squall, known for great Maine seafood and lobster, also serves steaks, chicken, veal, filet of beef and vegetarian selections. Offenng casual dining as well as full dinners, luncheon in the patio or dining room. Mon-Fri, 11:30-9:30.

Happy hour daily 4-6. double drinks single priced, wine and beer specials, free munchies. Earty dinners $7.95: Mon-Sat, 4:30-6 and Sun, 2-6. Famous Sunday brunch buffet. 11-2.

Located in South Portland waterfront market at 18 Ocean Street, ample parking 799-2232 or 800-568-3260.

Tortilla Flat has been serving New Englanders fine Mexican food and drink for over 25 years. Al 1871 Forest Avenue in Portland you can find favorites like nachos, fajitas, chimichangas, tamales, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, and frozen margaritas seven days a week, as wed as seafood, steak, pork, and chicken cooked with a Mexican flair. With lunch specials starting at $3.95, a children's menu, nightly speoats, a Chili Happy Hour, a screened-tn deck, and takeout, Tortilla Flat is a memorable Mexican experience you can afford any time. 797-8729.

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 31

★★Preview, 1998^^

I

Story By Frank Bishop // vou build it, thev will come...

n Im' de siecle New Hnglai id a theater w as constructed in the unforgiving wilderness of Monmouth, Maine. That w ould be remarkable itself, were it not that Cumston 1 kill is an utter anomaly in Central Maine architecture as well, the product of a great Maine philanthropist. Charles Cumston, and a modern renaissance man, I lain Cocheran. At the cusp ol a new millenni¬

32 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

um the hall still prospers, soon to be renovated and reinvigorated as one of the most unique sites and stories in the history of Maine. hades Cumston was bom in Massachusetts in ISsZ. Like manvaffluent and able voting men of his generation, he was enrolled in a remote school, in this case, Monmouth Academy. Liter, Cumston taught

and served as a director of Boston English High School, which included a voungj.

P. Morgan. “That’s the kind of clientele he attracted from the beginning,” laughs Arthur Criffitli, a Monmouth resident and expert on the theater and its genesis.

Bv the mid 1890s it became clear that the town of Monmouth was in dire need of a new meeting hall. Cumston approached the town assembly with a proposal that would include a library (“Cumston would not have built a building w ithout a library in it”) and, as a shock to the people of Monmouth, a music hall.

Slack-jawed, they asked, “What's it going to cost us?”

“Nothing,” responded Cumston. “I’m going to give it to you.”

Even more astounding is Cumston’s approaching local painter I larrv Cocheran to design the building. An artist of great talent, Cocheran had no experience in design or architecture. When Cocheran tried to convince Cumston that he wasn’t capable of the job, bis protests fell upon deaf ears. “You can. and von w ilk" And Cocheran did. 1 lis design was so radical that Cumston presented it to a panel of Boston architects who approved it and informed Cumston that the hall w ould double their initial projections to a cost of nearly $20,000. Cumston didn’t blink, and with Cocheran in charge of the construction the hall was erected in less than a s ear. It was dedicated in 1900.

But wait. The building was-and is-“tuneablc." With cuckoo-clock precision, the balcony is constructed as a giant hinge suspended from the ceiling by turnbuckles at the front and attached to the weight-bearing wall only at its rear. Now. depending on temperature, moisture, air pressure, and artistic temperament, the building can be "tuned” if necessary, assuring acoustical integrity to rival Radio City Music Hall’s in New York City, where even' seat from the front to the back boasts the same sound quality. Not only docs the Monmouth balcony “float oxer the mezzanine, the floor slopes from back to front, and the ceiling is canvas and cuncd, to match the balcony. Michael O’Brien, artistic director for the theater at Monmouth, says “the hall is built and looks kind of like a cello or violin."

1 kirn w as extremely proud of the sonic innovations of the hall, and his design assumed that the hall would be used for musical performances onlv. which accounts for the small stage and minimal

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dressing rooms. It was not until much later in the ball’s history that professional theater groups would use the space.

Idle Jules Verne-ness of the place aside, Hany' Cocheran is the auteur behind the entire aesthetic of Cumston Hall. He tirelessly supervised the construction, painted the murals (“cavorting Victorian ladies and cherubs”), made the stained glass windows, carved all of the piasterwork (very intricate, (Xjrtraying musical and dramatic motifs), rigged the electrical system (the hall was the first structure in Monmouth to have electricity), and, at the dedication, directed his own orchestra playing some of his own music. His talents do not end here. He also directed, produced, and wrote a film about the history of Maine for the state’s centennial (1920), and his paintings still exist in many public buildings in the state (if your interest is piqued, check out the Rumford courthouse and look for the ten-foot-wide mural looming over the judge). Harry was the first tmstee of the hall and continued in this capacity until his death in 1946.

P

ortland opera lovers rejoice! You now not only have one of the finest facilities in the northcast, but a legitimate and immensely successful professional opera company to occupy it. For the fourth year the Portland Opera Repertory Theater will perform in late July at Merrill Auditorium.

This year, artistic director Bruce Hangen brings Ciuseppi Verdi’s “La Traviata” to Portland.

The tragic romance features the Met’s Mary' Dunlcavcy in the lead role of Violetta Valery'. Her appearance continues PORT’s dedication to bring a Met performer to Maine each summer. Dunleavy’s resume boasts lead roles in performances such as “Rigolctto,” “L’Elisir d’Amore,’’ “Nozze di Figaro,” “Lucia di Lammermoor,” “Don Pasquale,” and Mozart’s “Magic Flute.” For this year’s pcrfonnance, Bruce conducted auditions in Chicago, Boston, Portland, New York, and Orono.

In the Boston Globe’s review of last year’s “Tosca” the Merrill Auditorium and the performance itself won rave reviews. TTie reviewer, Susan Larson, pined for a Merrill in Boston: “'Hie renovation of Merrill Auditorium in Portland’s City Hall building is drop-dead gorgeous. Its nobly vaulted ceilings, gracefully curving balconies, the serene beauty of its cream, beige, and

gold decor are a thrill to behold...you rejoice in the lively acoustics and excellent sight-lines that makes this hall a perfect showcase for opera. However, if you are from Boston, all thrills and rejoicings are accompanied by spasms of naked jealousy; Boston boasts no such venue...with such a jewel of a theater in the neighborhood, putting more opera into it seems like nothing less than a civic duty.”

So Portlanders, respond to your civic duty and see this one-of-a-kind performance right in your backyard. All three shows are certain to sell out.

Back Bay Tower now'offers fully furnished corporate apartments -completely equipped for convenient and^d comfortable living' for the j business person preferring a'x^ home environment versus a J hotel setting. Back . Bay Tower is.Portland’s finest" address offering great views, superb intown ^location'in the heart of the business district, Portland’s finest dining and cultural offerings. *

Art Conservatory 'Iheater & Studio located at 341 Cumberland Avenue in Portland. 'The Ad'S combines the efforts of Hank Beebe’s Embassy Players with independent artists, actors, dancers and musicians all pooling their talents Io instruct and create. For listingsand info call 761-2465.

Belfast Maskers lias enjoyed appearances from such stars as /Mi McCraw and Ljv Ullman. 'Hie company perfonns in a converted station-house on the old Belfast Mooschead railroad overkxikiug the waterfront in Belfast. 'Hie season begins with Moliere’s ‘Tartuffe," a satire opening April 23 through May 10. Next is “Scotland Road,” by Jeffrey Hatcher. A woman recently rescued from an iceberg claims to |»e a survivor of the 'Htanic. Ibis show opens June 4 and runs Eriday through Sunday until June 21. Ercc refreshments arc served at 7, with curtain at 8. 338-9668.

Camden Civic Theater, in the century-old, 500-scat Camden Opera I louse, begins its season with "Ilie Night of January' 16," I))’ Ayn Kind, a courtroom drama with a twist, as tire jury* is selected from the audience, giving the sliow the possibility of different final scenes (June 4-6 and 11-13 at 8).

“A Eunuy'lbing I lap|x*ucd on the Way to the Forum,” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, hits the boards August 6-8, 13-15. A revival of this play just closed on Broadway featuring Whoopi Goldberg and Nathan lane, 'rickets arc S10, $8 for seniors and students. Call 236-2281.

Chamber 'Ilicatcr of Maine, 8 Green St., 'Iliomaston. In the tradition of intimate chamber theater artistic director Ericka Pfander invites you to “I lappy Days," the third most frequently performed play of Samuel Beckett’s, after “Waiting for Codot," and “Endgame.” Ann Day will return in the role of Winnie and Richard Oliver repeats his role of Willie. 'Hie production opens May 8th, and nms May 9,10 and 15-17. Shows start Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and Sundap at 2. Admission is $10.354-8807.

Deertrees 'nicatre and Cultural Center. This 500-scat, antique wooden opera house was built in the woods of Harrison by Enrica Clay Dillon, Clark Gables sister-in-law.

It lias come full circle, from attracting Broadways finest in 1936 to frilling to disrcpiir in the 1980s. '1 lie theater gained National Historic Landmark Status in 1988. Eor schedule, info and tickets call 583-6747 Ix-twcen 1 and 5. figures ofSjxxch Theatre is based in Freeport. Carol and John Farrell founded the theater in 1982 to explore the interplay of puppets, actors, sliadows, music, movement and masks. Believing that audiences experience art most vitally when they arc called upon to engage their imaginations folly, the company produces visual theater that cmpliasizcs myth and transformation. 'Hicy can lx? seen performing the following shows this summer: “Dragon’s Daughter," July 10, 7:30, Blue I lill, "Cupid and Psyche ” July 18,7:30, Camden Opera House, Camden and “EST Retrospective,” Septcmlx.T 25-27, Oak Street 'llieatcr, Portland. For info, contact Barbara Tmcx or Carol Farrell at 865-6355. k reeport Players are based out of Erecport High School.

Barbara Jacks, founder and director of the players, created lliis community theater because, “When 1 moved here there was no theater and 1 am a theater person." ’Nuff said.

Barbara is a transplant from Southboro, Mass, who now lives

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 35

on an island off the coast of Freeport. She is a quintessential Maine story. Tablcmanncrs” a farce by Alan Ayckbourn, will be presented from May 14-16, 21-23 at 7:30. Tickets $8, $6 for seniors and students. *nic Sound of Music,” a Rogers and Hammerstein musical, will be featured August 6-9, 1417, $10 and $8. 865-6041.

Gaslight Iheater, City I lull, 1 lallouvH, presents “Inherit the Wind,” by Jerome I awrcncc & Robert E. 1 ee from June 1820, 25-27. Next, there’s “Nunscnsc" by Dan Goggin, from August 27-30, September 3-5. 'Hie Gaslight llieatcr and its previous incarnation the Augusta Players is the longest continuously running theater group in Maine. Call 6263698 for times and ticket prices.

"It must be from Geraldine Wolf. ”

Grand Auditorium, Main Street in downtown Ellsworth, was originally a movie theater. It was built in the 1930s and shimmers with Art Deco style. On June 7, 3 p.m., sec “Maine Dish,” an original work by Kathleen Lake performed by Second Sight Theater and featuring the works of Maine writers Dennis Damon, Sarah Omc Jewett, Mark Eastman, Ruth Moore, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Cliarlie Mussclwhite will present a concert on June 19 at 8.

“Princess Ida,” by Gilbert and Sullivan, will Ixi performed by the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of 1 iancock County, July 911. Sha Na Na holds forth on a July 31 concert. Usa I lalcy and the Zydekatas roll in on August 7, with the Pride of Maine Fiddling Festival on August 8. Wilderness Dreams rounds things off on August 28 at 8. ('all 667-9500.

Hackmatack Playhouse, Route 9, Berwick. 'Hie playhouse, a converted dairy bam adorned with a stage and real theater scats, resides on a farm owned by the Guptill family since the mid-1600s. Known for its sweet strawberries and shortcake served during intennission, the theater will present “Nunscnsc” June 23-28, June 30-July 4; “Camclot, “ July 712, July 14-18; “Phantom,” July 21-26, July 28-August 1; “Annie,” August 4-9, August 11-16, /\ugust 18-22; and “No Sex Please, We’re British,” /\ugust 25-30, September 1-5.

Curtain time is 8, mattinces at 2. 'Hckcts arc $16 for nights, $15 for day,. 6984 807s.

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CALL 828-1270 36 • Portland Monthly Magazine • May

Lakewood Theater, located six miles north of Skowhegan, majestically wears the crown as Maine’s oldest summer theater. It has stood on the shores of Like Wcsscninsctt for nearly a century, This remote location has not held back a number of celebrities from catching a sliow, including John Travolta and John Banymorc. “Funny Money,” May 29-31; “Cash on Delivery,” June 18-27; "Hie Homecoming,” July 2-11; “Noises Off," July 16-25; “Dr. Cook’s Garden,” July 30August 8; “Postmordem,” August 13-22; and “Dearly Departed,” August 27-Scptcmbcr 5 constitute the season.

'Hie theater also boasts the Maine premiere of “Nunsense HI —Sister Amnesia’s Country Western Jamboree," from Spteinbcr 10-19. Box office: 474-7175 Maine State Music Theatre performs in the Pickard Theater on the Bowdoin College Campus. The first performance is “Man of La Mancha," based upon Cervantes’ classic “Don Quixote” from June 9-20. From June 23-July 4 is the comedy “Smile," written by Howard zXshman (I title Shop of 1 lormrs, I title Mermaid, Beauty and Beast) and Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line). “Anything Goes,” featuring the songs of Cole Porter, runs from July 718. Oscar Hammerstein’s “Show Boat” steams in from July 21 to August 8. “In the Beginning,” by Tony Award winner Maury Ycston (“Nine,” ‘Titanic”), is on the slate for August 11-22. “As an added bonus, MSMT is joining with the Portland Stage Company to bring to Maine for the first time ever the Tony Award-winning play “Master Class,” from August 25 through September 19.725-8769.

Maritime Productions is The world’s only completely nautical, entirely professional entertainment company, performing true talcs of intrigue and horror from our maritime past and present featuring haunted lighthouses, shipwrecks, glrost ships, cannibalism, women pinites, strange occurrences, sea monsters and much more." 'Hie show' has been created for adults but is fine for anyone older tlian 6.

Tie performance, “Seafaring Irgcnds, Haunts & Folklore” is “entertainment with a Ixickdrop only mother nature can supply...the vision, sound and scent of sky, sea and landscape.” Sliows in Bar Harbor and Kennebunkport from June through October every evening, and additional matinee sliows in Bar 1 larbor. 641-2313.

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Murder du Jour, formerly the Mystery Cafe, will be appearing this summer at Carson’s Family Restaurant, Scarborough, Charlie Bcigg’s, North Windham, Kathy’s Catering, Bangor, Marco's Restaurant, liwiston, Village Cafe, Portland and the Moonlight Mystery Cruise on the Songo River Queen II, Naples. Call (800) 998-6978 for information.

Oak Street Theater, 92 Oak Street, Portland. The Mad

1 lorsc Theater Company presents "/Migds in America Pt. 1: Millennium Approaches” by Tony Kushner. Shous begin on June 4 and continue until July 11. $18, $20 on Saturdays, pay what jou can on the first Sunday. Part two will appear in tlie fill). Acorn Productions presents Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” form July 17 to August 9. I)irccted by Mike Levine. “We’re taking a less political angle with this performance. We’re much more interested in the psychological aspects of the play. I low docs one deal with feeling society tells one not to have?” John Nichols will be bringing an original sliow to the theater August 13-30, please call for information. On the last Monday of every’ month (June 29, July 27, August 24) the Theatre hosts open poetry readings. $2 for a scat, first 14 people to volunteer after 7:30 get a spot. On June 17 the acoustic stylings ofWintcrwood at 7:30, only S6. “We exist not only to produce talent, but to nurture talent. We arc trying to provide a grass roots facility' for die arts.” For more infonnation call 775-5130.

Ogunquit Playhouse, Route I, Ogunquit The Playhouse was built in 1933 and is a throwback, seating 750 in a wonderful theater atmosphere. “la Cage Aux Follcs,” June 29-July 11. July 13-25,'IBA. “Wendell & Ben,” starring Fred Savage (TVs “Working” and “'Ilie Wonder Years”) and Oan lauria, July 27-August 8. August 10-22, ’IBA. August 24-Scptembcr 5, a musical mystery based on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, “Something’s Afoot.” Single Tickets $24. Call the Ixjx office at 646-5511.

Outlorc Theatre Coinjiany at 275 Main Street, Rockland operates a dinner theater overlooking Rockland I larbor. For prices, listings, and info call 594-2522.

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Penobscot Theatre Company, Bangor, sprawls on the banks of the Penobscot near the Municipal Marina. 'I his is a unique Northern Maine experience. “In celebration of its fifth anniversary, the Maine Shakespeare Festival is returning with its inaugural production of Shakespeare’s favorite comedy, A Midsummer Night’s I9rcam.’ /Ml shows run Wednesday through Sunday, July 23 through August 15 in rotating repertory on the banks of the Penobscot River.

942-3333.

Portland Opera Repertory Theater in the Merril Auditorium, Congress St., Portland. Verdi’s “I a Traviata” July 23, 25, and 27. Pcrfonnanccs at 8. 'Pickets arc $46, $35, $25, $18. Call PortTix at 842-0800.

Saco Grange Hall is located on Salmon Falls Road, Bar Mills is pcrfbnning “I lair” this summer. Tickets are $10, $8 for students. 929-6472.

Theater at Monmouth, off of Route 202 in Monmouth.

Iliis 275-scat facility is acoustically perfect (see feature above)and has been dubbed "Maine's Shakespearean Theater” by the state legislature. “Merry' Wives of Windsor” runs July 2 through August 29 except Mondays and Tuesdays. Pcrfonnanccs start at 8, 2 on Saturdays. Sherlock Holmes’ “The Sign of Fear” July 9 to August 29. “Ricliard III,” July 24 to August 27, excluding Mondays. “The Heiress,” July 31 to August 28. /\nd a children’s sliow: “Jack and the Beanstalk,” August 9 to August 27, at 2 on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday only. 933-9999.

The Theater Project, 14 ScIkxjI St., Bnmswick. 'Hie Spring season kicks off with “The Skin of our Teeth,” by 'Ilioniton Wilder, April 30-May 17. “Bits n Pieces," May 29,30, June 5, 6. Only $6, a selection of original shorts. Also this summer: “Faithful,” written by actor Chazz Palmintcri (The Usual Suspects) makes its Maine premiere. Box office: 729-8584.

Windham Center Stage Theater, in the Windham Community Center, on Route 302, Windham. Teen production of "Co Ask /Mice,” based on a true story’ of one girl’s battle with drug addiction. Written by Frank Shiras.

Admission $8, $6 for students and seniors. 773-3540.

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 37

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Portland Performing Arts, 25A Forest Avenue, Portland, presents the Willem Breuker Kollektief, a ten-piece Dutch big band that combines virtuoso jazz musicianship with Marx Brothers-style comic hi-jinks at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 29 in the Portland Performing Arts Center ($17). Box Office: 761-1545.

Saco River Grange Hall, Salmon Falls Road, Bar Mills. This year’s Downeast Fiddle Jamboree features music from French Canada, tire Maine Maritimes, and Maine’s Swedish, Finnish, and Scots-Irish communities played on fiddles, accordion, piano, guitar, banjo, hannonica, fiddle sticks, and bones by the Old Gray Goose country dance band, the Ben Guillcmette Family from Sanford, the Cape Breton Step Dancers, and acclaimed fiddle champion Tim “Dicky” Farrell at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 15 ($9 adults/$7 students and seniors). Next the Fogg Brothers with Peter Twitchell, Chris Moore, Marc Kam, and Chris Dombrowski return for a concert of traditional bluegrass featuring tight duet singing and driving instrumentals on guitar, mandolin, banjo, and bass at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 30 ($9 adults/$8 students and seniors). Call 929-6472.

St. Cecilia Chamber Choir, 30 Glidden Street, Newcastle, will perform Bach’s motet “Jesu, meine Freude” and John Rutter’s Requiem with orchestra at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 8 at Damariscotta Baptist Church, and at 3 p.m.

Sunday, May 10 at Sacred Heart Church in Yarmouth. Tickets are $7. Call 563-1973.

Dance Ram Island Dance, 25z\ Forest Avenue, Portland. The In-House Dance Series “z\live & Well” continues on Friday, May 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the Portland Performing Arts Center with studio perfonnances showcasing New England dancers and choreographers of all disciplines ($2 suggested donation). Call 773-2562.

Saco River Grange Hall, Salmon Falls Road, Bar Mills, offers contra-dancing with live music for mixers, reels, waltzes, polkas, and line dances provided by the versatile Sea Slugs at 7:30 p.m. on the first Saturday of every month. Beginners and singles are welcome; admission is $4 for adults and $2 for children, with a $10 maximum per family. Call 929-6-172.

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Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, Portland. “Journeys Over Water: Tire Paintings of Stephen Etnier” draws together 80 works from the South Harpswell artist’s six-decade career exploriirg and painting tire coastal waters, islands, and harbors of Maine, Florida, Jamaica, Bermuda, Haiti, and the Bahamas (through June 7). “Portrait of the Charles Shipman Payson Building: Celebrating 15 Years” is a

■ LISTINGS ■ series of black-and-w hite photos taken by Judith Turner just after the building was completed in 1983 (through June 28). "Masterpieces of z\rt Nouveau Jewelry': Tiffany, I^lique, Faberge, and their Rivals” features fifty pieces in a variety of precious metals and stones from one of the finest private jewelry collections in the world (through July 5). “Winslow Homer: Facing Nature" celebrates the gift of 17 Homer works which were the impetus for the construction of the museum’s Charles Shipman Payson Building—including 13 watercolors, five oil paintings, selected wood engravings from the museum’s collection, and works from other private collections (through September 27). Tire museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p in. TuesdaySaturday, 10 a m to 9 p.m. Thursday-Friday, and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and $ I for children 6-12, with free admission for everyone Friday evenings from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Call 773z\RTS or (800)639-4067.

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Maine I listorical Society Gallery, 489 Congress Street, Portland. Opening June 1, “Rum, Riot, and 13cfonn,” takes a lively and provocative look at drinking in Maine and zkmerica from the Colonial era to the present day, through handmade tavern signs, early wineglasses and beer mugs, racy political cartoons, and newspaper accounts of the speakeasies, rumrunners, and shootouts of the Prohibition era (through October 31). The Gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $2 for adults and $1 for children under 12. For further infonnation, call 879-0427.

Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, 522 Congress Street, Portland.

The Senior Thesis Exhibition opens May 17 and nms through June 12. Free and open to tire public Tuesday-Sunday 11-4 and Thursday 119. For more infonnation, call 775-5152.

University of Southern Maine z\rea Gallery, Campus Center, Bedford Street, Portland.

Opening May 22, “Transitions: Processes of Growth” is the first alumni exhibition sponsored by the USM Art Alumni z\ssociation (through August 5). Gallery hours: 8 a m.-10 p.m.

Monday-Thursday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. on Friday, and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday. 780-5008.

Stein Gallery, 20 Milk Street, Portland.

Opening March 1, “New Work/Old Friends” features the work of twelve nationally recognized glass artists working in new directions, styles, and techniques (through May 15). Gallery Hours: 10-6, Monday-Saturday and 11-6, Sunday. For more infonnation, call 772-9072.

Osher Map Library, Smith Center for Cartographic Education, 314 Forest zWcnue, Portland. “zVrica: z\ Continent Revealed" traces the development of European mapping of the zMrican continent from the earliest depictions of a fifth of the world’s land mass to the latest digital imagery (through May 16). IJbrary hours

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May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 39

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■ LISTINGS ■ arc 1-4:30 p in. and 6-8 pan. on Wednesday; 9 a.m.-12:30 pan. and 14:30 p.m. on Thursday; and 9 am. -12:30 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free. Call 780-4850.

Maincly Frames and Gallery, 534 Congress Street, Portland, is sponsoring a public art reception cum wine and cheese soire at which artistic and literary people may gather for the purpose of social and intellectual cxclrange from 5 to 8 pan. every Friday. For names of guest hosts and artists, call 828-0031 or (800) 826-8303.

University of Southern Maine Art Gallery, 37 College Avenue, Gorham. Opening May 22, “New Work by Eric Brown and Michael Libby" features recent paintings exploring themes of mapping and signage by two USM alumni (through July 5). Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday 11-4, and 1-4 on Saturdays (free admission).

Call 780-5409.

Bates College Museum of Art, Bardwell and Russell Streets, lewiston. The “Annual Senior Exhibition" features thesis work by nine graduating studio art majors, ranging in style from figurative drawings and paintings to botanical prints and industrial sculpture (through May 24). Opening June 5 is “Phil Sultz, Painted Collage; Jan Suite, Stoneware Forms” (through August 14). Museum hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 1-5 (free admission). Call 786-6158.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunsw ick.

“Wilderness Transformed: American Landscape Painting” includes works by Martin Johnson Heade, Albert Bierstadt, William Trost Richards, Leon Kroll, and others (through May 31). “Picturing Creativity: Portraits of Artists, 1860-1960” is a collection of prints and photographs of Edouard Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Victor Hugo, Pablo Picasso, and other visual artists, literary figures, musicians, actors, and dancers by Edgar Degas, James McNeill Whistler, Nadar, Certnide Ksebicr, Frederick Sommer, and other artists (through May 31). “Still Time: Photographs by Sally Mann” features her well-known series At Twelve and Immediate Family as well as lesser-known landscapes, still lifes, and portraits executed in platinum, Cibachrome, or Polaroid (through May 31). “zXrtists, Sitters, and Society: Tire Art of Portraiture” uses an interactive computer program created by Bowdoin art history students to examine family portraits, children’s portraits, occupational portraits, portraits of women, selfportraits, iconography, style, and portrait pairs (through May 31). The galleries are open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 2-5 p.m. on Sunday (free admission). Call 725-3275.

Pcary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, Hubbard Hall, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, displays the fur clothing, snowshoes, pickaxes, knives, guns, and one of the five sledges that Robert E. Peary took to tire North Pole, as well as the Eskimo pots and lamps, ivory and soapstone carvings,

■ LISTINGS ■ hunting weapons, clothing, and full-size skin kayak that Donald B. MacMillan encountered on his Arctic explorations. Ongoing exhibits include: "S. S. Roosevelt: Model of Strength,”an admiralty model of Robert E. Peary’s Mainebuilt ship of exploration; “Inuit Art Today and Yesterday”; a caribou display; and a computerdriven photography display of liand-colorcd glass lantern slides of Arctic explorations from 1880 to 1930. O[x:n 10-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 2-5 p.m. Sunday (free admission). Call 725-3062.

Farnsworth Art Museum, 352 Main Street, Rockland. “A Legacy for Maine: Masterworks from tire Collection of Elizabeth B. Noyce” is drawn largely from the Noyce bequest and includes works by Fitz. Hugh Lane, Frederic Church, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Childe Hassam, Charles Prendergast, Frank Benson, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Charles Dcmuth, Abraham Walkowitz, Ceroge Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Edward Hopper, Fairfield Porter, William Kicnbusch, N. C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and Jamie Wyeth (through June 14). “Maine in America” displays Maine-related 19th- and 20thcentury painting, watercolors, and sculpture by Jonathan Fisher, Robert Salmon, Thomas Cole, Alvar; Fisher, Fitz I high I -me, Thomas Sully, William Trost Richards, Martin Johnson Hcadc, George Inncss, William Harnett, Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, Elihu Vedder, Frank Benson, Willard Metcalf, John Twachtman, George Bellows, Marsden Hartley, John Marin, Rockwell Kent, William Kienbusch, Fairfield Porter, Lzniise Nevelson, Lois Dodd, and Neil Welliver (ongoing). Also on display are the architectural plans and models for the construction of the Farnsworth Center for the Wyeth Family (through June 7). The museum is open 10-5 Tuesday-Saturday and 12-5 on Sunday. $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $5 for children ages 8-18. 596-6457.

Mariners Church, comer of Fore & Exchange Streets, Portland. On Sunday, May 17, from 3-7 p.m. on the banquet level of the historic (1828) Mariners Church in the Old Port (above the Old Port Tavern), a one-day Reunion Show featuring seminal Mariners Church and Old Port artists from the 1960s and 1970s (sec our article on [Xigc 13 of this issue) w ill showcase the work of Alison Hildreth, Jon legcre (see this month’s cover painting, "Lobster Business,” which will be on sale at the show for $20,000), Howard Clifford, Willard Goodman, Denis Boudreau, Maury Coulton, Joe Cousins, Peyton Higgison, Bert Weiss, Lenny Hatch, and John Dimillo. “It was a kind of excitement and energy,” say Alison Hildreth of the early days of the Old Port. “It was on the brink. It didn’t have a highly developed commercial feeling. Together, we had a little community, like an opera - 1 mean, you’d sec people out sweeping their steps, you’d see David Koplow, tlie dogman...” For information, call Beverly legereat Beverly Fine Arts, (207) 799-0905.

-Compiled by Cwen Thompson

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Open seven days a week Open 11 A.M. to 8:30 P.M. Daily 225 Two Lights Road Cape Elizabeth, Maine 04107 207-799-1677

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 41

IF YOU'RE DOING BUSINESS IN THE NORTHEAST, YOU NEED A COURIER SERVICE THAT UNDERSTANDS THE MEANING OF THE WORD

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3^

Now accepting

(800) 31-ELTON • Westbrook, Maine • (207) 854-2206

Let Cathedral Shine a Light

on your child’s future

Caihcdral School is now accepting registrations for the 1998-1999 school year for the following:

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^$P'' RL i j

CATHEDRAL /

14

1

OCLST

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PORTLAND,

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Botanist on staff Cape Elizabeth, Maine

799-7460 42 • Portiand Monthly Magazine • May

| j

A

fter Portland burned in the 1866 fire, a swann of Boston architects moved up here to help rebuild the Forest City, including Geoige M. Harding, who built a showcase Victorian home for himself on 6 Deering Street that is listed today for $285,000 by Century-21 Balfour.

“He lived here five years,” says Elwyn Dearborn, a former New York theater director who bought 6 Deering Street in 1986, restored it with imagination and eclat, and operated it as the successful Gallery at 6 Deering Street until this month, closing it with a bang with an art sale heard round the state.

The ceiling rosettes and turned columns in the foyer and left parlor, echoed along the ceiling edges by a ruby and gold leaf frieze of intricate grapes and pears, must have stunned visitors and clients while Harding designed buildings such as the Woodman Block on Middle Street, home to F.O. Bailey. TTie right parlor is separated from the dining room (with working marble fireplace) by an arch with a double-paneled, ctched-glass set of sliding doors.

A winding staircase, carved in walnut with high details, pauses at the second floor (where there are 4 bedrooms, a “baggage room” turned into a library, and a lovely arched portico overlooking Deering Street), and then continues on to a third floor where there is ample storage and a charming, small bedroom looking down on the tops of 2.5story lilac bushes over 100 years old), amid surroundings of gold wallpaper effectively simulating Chinese silk.

A wrought-iron fence; landmarkquality exterior paint job; one-car garage (priceless in downtown Portland); and small apartment only add to the glow. Taxes are low at $2,556.

NEW

ENGLAND

Adhere to live enyou ove Hie City Sut insist on

le country.

Redlon Park. Ric Weinschenk's newest neighborhood is just seven homes, designed by him to your personal tastes, and located in woodlands only - minutes from Downtown Portland.

It is a place of absolute serenity, of towering pines and dramatic glacial rock that time has forgotten, yet only minutes from every convenience the City offers.

Call today for more information. Hurry. Only four sites remain.

Call Jim McFarlane at Mark Stimson Real Estate 773-1990exl. 164

HIGER REALTY

HOMES

^Harpswell This lovely level wrxxJed 2.6 AC building lot includes over 600' of shore frontage on Strawberry Creek and the upper end of Harpswell Sound. The spectacular view is southerly down the sound to open ocean. $ 150,000 Twelve secluded acres in No. Harpswell on Spruce Point include 2000' of waterfrontage & expansive sunrise views over Harpswell Cove. Current access is over an old logging road. $95,000 Off Route 24, 5.2 AC with elevated sunset views over Harpswell Sound & 340' of water frontage which provides good access for a dock (w/ permit). Convenient location for year-round or vacation home. $129,000 On Long Island, an affordable parcel of land in a wonderful getaway location. 1.2 AC with 200' frontage on and easterly views over the New Meadows—just $26,500!

Morton Real Estate

240 Maine Street • Brunswick, ME 04011 REALTOR'

(207)729-1863 HARPSWELL NECK SOUTH HARPSWELL

A home for all seasons. Enjoy panoramic views from this beautifully renovated, 7-bedroom, 7'/2-bath home. Wraparound porches, large private deck, gourmet kitchen, double appliances, and the utmost charm. Furnishings may be purchased separately. 5750,000.

COUNTRY LIVING OAK ROAD, GEORGETOWN

DREAM TO REALITY 1832 Cape, tastefully restored with attention to detail, on approximately 6 acres overlooking the Passagassawakeg River.

A fine example of a restored “High Posted" Cape. Only a few miles from downtown Belfast. “The Best of Country Living in the City” $225,000. Call Lois for further details and brochure.

This lovely, renovated New England farmhouse must be seen to believed.

From the exterior paint job and two decks to the open airy, yet cozy feeling, this house is one of a kind.

The barn-like ell hosts a new bath/utility room, a garden shed and new rear entrance The feeling one gets is of peacefulness and privacy. Walking distance from the town landing and public beach. Reduced to 5119,000.

CARLETON HOUSE HIGH STREET, WISCASSET

GOODBYE TO CITY CRAMPS...

Nestled in a beautiful rustic setting on the shore of the east branch of the Penobscott River. This family perfect Cape offers 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, cozv den, and fireplaccd living room.

Situated on 10+/- acres with 683+/- feet on the river. Lightly wooded land with pastures. 30 minutes from Belfast, 30 minutes to Bangor $225,500. Call Lois for details.

113 CHURCH STREET ■ BELFAST, MAINE

I 207-338-2211

Stately 1804 Federal estate on .8 acre in lovely, historic Wiscasset. All major systems replaced during museum-quality restoration in 1985. Truly elegant main house featuring 6 fireplaces, 3 bedrooms, 3'h baths, library, living room, dining room, morning room, and kitchen. Two- or 3-bedroom guest house, 15' x 41' inground pool, 3-bay garage. Beautifully landscaped.

A wonderful opportunity for the discerning buyer! 5595,000.

WION COMPANY

Real Estate Sales • Property Management Building Restoration & Renovation 1027 WASHINGTON ST • BATH ME 04530 • (207) 442-7988 • FAX (207) 442-0779

NEW

ENGLAND

HOMES

4 Distinctive Properties For Sale Located in The Heart of Portland's Peninsula DistrictOverlooking The Ship Channel

#1

The Historic Captain Nathaniel Dyer House was built in 1803 just after the death of President Washington, and artfully restored. It features 5 working fireplaces, 2'12 baths, 7 heating zones, and central air conditioning.

All updated mechanicals.

#2 The York House is a "turn of the century" 4-unit apartment residence including a large lot and parking for 11+ cars.

#3

A 7 year old Contemporary Home with all modern conveniences and 2 stunning decks overlooking the Fore River, the Scotia Prince ferry terminal, the multi-faceted hubbub of marine activity and the ships.

#4 Buildable Lot (Sale of separate parcels possible, but not preferable) 4 waterview parcels improved with 2 homes and a 4-unit apartment residence

"fc Charming intown living opportunity ★

Sale Price $625,000

★ Also ideal for professional offices ★

Contact: Frank Ft Barbara Rodway, 4 Drew Road, South Portland, Maine 04106 (207) 799-9277

GBlack ^Duck cRealty^ P.O. Box 230 ■ Coopers Mills, ME (207) 549-5657 ■ FAX 549-5657

Whitefield-Antique Charm 5 Year Old Home 3-4 bedroom, 2 bath home built with many materials from old home. 4 private acres on the end of a dead-end road. 3 fireplaces, exposed beams, garage with loft, and frontage on west branch of Sheepscott River. Si 19,500.

04341

_

I

|J

ALNA-ClRCA 1800 3 Bedroom Vk Bath Cape 1.9+/- acres with 270 feet on Sheepscott River.

House #10 in historic district of Headtide.

Updated systems, fireplace, garden areas, and a workshop in the attached barn. Priced to sell at $135,000.

Whitefield 1880’s Clary Water Mill.

4 story 30' x 80’ barn with Mill Pond. 4 +/acres and about 400 feet on Sheepscott River.

Grist mill, lumber mill, generating plant and antique shop are all part of it’s past. What would you do with it? $ 120.000.

Jefferson Damariscoita Lake Cotfage 1954 2 bedroom year-round home set on the western bank of Great Bay. Beautiful sunrises, sandy beach, float, and a deck. Drilled well, updated septic and oil heat. Can’t build this close anymore! $105,000.

For Pictures and Information on These Properties and Others in the Siieepscoft River Vai.ley Visit Our Web She:

www.blackduckrealty.com

NEW

ENGL

N D

HOMES Dexter

■■

Naples, Maine Family oriented business. Excellent income. 270' of waterfront with 12 acres. Main house, 9 housekeeping cottages and miniature golf course.

Owner retiring. Many extras. Potential for growth with minimal additional investment.

CHALMERS REALTY.^

Call for details.

■ ■■■

(207) 647-3311 FAX (207) 647-3003

P.O.Box 189, 30 Main Street, Bridgton, Maine 04009

Barters Island Estate

ft*

77+/- acres and 1+/- acre shore lot on Wassookcag Lake come with this 11 room farm house with 3+ bedrooms, living room, dining room, mud room, large finished enclosed porch with skylights and frost wall, 2nd living room, sewing room, office-den, large storage room, 2 baths, fireplace, 2 car attached garage, and 28' x 42' horse barn, paddock & pole barn. Was $185,000—Now $155,000

PROPERTIES BY

Roger S. Brawn

REAL ESTATE S

Office: 207-924-1003 Home: 207-924-3063

800-984-1003 Fax: 207-924-5056 Email: rsbrawn@kynd.com

P.O. Box 461,85 Grove St. (Rte. 23 North) Dexter, ME 04930-0461

New Dimension Homes, Inc. Post&Beam

Splendid views from this 10 room custom-built home on 5+/- acres with over 300’ on the Sheepscot River. Spacious open floor plan, large master bedroom suite, huge fireplace, hot tub room, Pella sunroom, chef’s kitchen and numerous open decks.

Deepwater dock.

Affordable Western Red Cedar Panelized Post & Beam Homes & Sunrooms

Come Visit Our Model Located in Clinton Maine, Exit 37 off 1-95!

BRING YOUR FLOOR PLANS AND IDEAS AND LET US HELP YOU DESIGN THE HOME OF YOUR DREAMS! For free information or $10 NDH Plan write or call: Estate Tel (207) 633-6711 32 Oak St. Boothbay Harbor, ME 04538 Fax (207) 633-3392

New Dimension Homes, Inc. • Tom & Diane Caffyn RR1 Box 95 PM • Clinton, Maine 04927 (207) 426-7450 • Fax 207-426-8837

Posts & Beams With All Our Best Plants Sheltered Underneath

Our New Open-Air Gardener’s Market f Provides Almost 5,000 Str Ft. Of Sheltered Shopping For Our Customers.

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S

he hadn’t noticed them until now, the low, dark clouds that were moving fast across the sky outside her kitchen window. She had been so wrapped up in her writing that she’d failed to notice the passing time or the change in the weather outside.

It was late... later than she had expected it to be. The clock on the wall said halfpast-six, but the sky outside looked more like the coming of midnight. Missy stepped closer to the window and looked out over Cundy’s Harbor. Stippcn’s boat was on its mooring, and so was Chandler’s. The gentle waves that had been lapping lazily against the rocks when she had gone outside to cat her lunch had been replaced by choppier waves. They rocked the boats at their moorings, and the wind chased the wax es into small whitecaps.

David wasn’t home.

It wasn’t like him to be later than five o’clock. It wasn’t that he was a punctual sort. It had more to do with ritual than anything else. Just as his father had, David always left at five in the morning and was in by five at night. On occasion, during the long hours of summer, he would haul traps until the light failed, but he always called in to let her know. He hadn’t called this time.

She slid open the door and walked out onto the deck. She strained to sec out across the harbor, but her vision was limited by the mask of drizzling rain that had begun to fall quite steady now. ITiis wasn’t a good sign. David always kept an eye on the weather. It would be foolish to be out with a storm like this coming in so quickly.

She stepped back in, shaking the rain from her hair, and reached for the cellular phone that always sat on the comer of her desk. She rarely used it to call out to him, but they had bought it in case of an emergency. Only static crackled across the line, sounding like waves crashing on shore. The phone would be no help.

Outside, a flash of lighting lit the sky for the briefest of moments, crossing in a jagged line and then followed by a rumble of thunder in the not-too-far distance. The rain was pushing down harder now, pelting the windows and clattering agaiiist the siding.

She thought of the radio and reached f°r it. She had shut it off. Tire constant

chatter and talk of the fishermen had been an irritant to her this afternoon.

Now she wished that she hadn’t been so quick to be unnerved. She scanned the

nomeport Fiction By Bethany Oliver channels for some sound, but all that could be heard was the same crackling sound that the phone had. Jagged bits of conversation came through, but they seemed distant at best. It would be of no help, but she had to try.

“Calling the Mary Little,” she said, but all she got was more crackling.

This morning she hadn’t even nudged when he had stopped to place a kiss on her check before heading out. And now, where was he?

Pulling her yellow slicker off the rack, she wrapped it around her. Against the force of the wind, she opened the door and started down over the steps and down the path to where her track was parked in the driveway.

Her nerves were eerily calm as she made the trip in short time up to the little house that sat at the head of the harbor.

Her truck headlights picked their way down the narrow graveled road. She knew this road like the back of her hand, and yet, it all seemed foreign to her in the darkness of the stonn.

No lights were on in the house, but she could see a faint glow coming from the fish house near the dock. Parking her truck, she got out and ran in the direction of the fish house. Her feet fought to gain their ground against the slippery, leafcovered embankment. Her steps echoed against the resonant stonn as she trod her way across the wooden dock and pushed open tire door to the small building.

Ethan sat knitting trap heads, his fingers deftly flying back and forth as he wound the twine. He looked up as she entered, surprise clear upon his face.

"What brings you out in this storm, Missy?” he said between his pipeclenched teeth as he put down his knitting and stood up. His body was twisted and bent with age and the years of hauling trap lines by hand.

“It’s David. I’m getting worried.” She

stepixxl forward into the light and moved toward the stove to wann her chilled hands.

“He hasn’t come in yet, and I can’t raise him on either the phone or the radio.”

Ethan didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyes strayed to the blackness beyond the window. Finally, he pulled the pipe from between his teeth and moved across to his worklxmch to fiddle with the knobs on his radio.

“Calling the Mary Little... David, arc you out there, son?” All he got back was the same static that Missy had gotten.

Outside the howl of the wind was intensifying, almost as if in answer to his question. Still there was only static.

She walked over to peer out of the window at the water that was slapping against the pilings of the dock. Tilings had been so quiet with David lately. They had become complacent with their lives, and she was as guilty as he was for it. She had her routine and he had his, and yet, it seemed as though their routines hadn’t met up with each other in quite a while.

The only talk they seemed to share any more was what to buy for groceries or what bills needed to be paid first.

When had this all started?

Ethan came to stand behind her, resting a gentle, weathered hand upon her shoulder. She could smell the faint apple smoke of his tobacco, and it was reassuring somehow.

“David’ll be all right. He’s a smart one.

He probably just got some engine trouble and pulled in somewhere till the stonn passed. 1 talked with him this afternoon.

He was going to finish pulling his string off Ragged Island and then he was coinin’ in.” He looked down at her, and she could see in his eyes the strength bom of ages living with the sea.

“Don’t you worry. David’ll be all right."

There was no doubt in his voice.

What if he tries to call? She wouldn’t be there to answer, if he did call.

“I have to go back in case he tries to reach me at home.” She pulled her slicker tighter around her and raised the hood. She turned at the door, the wind whipping around her and through the open doorway. Ethan was relighting his pipe, looking up at her over the flame of his match.

“He will be all right, won’t he?”

Ethan just nodded.

On the way back to the house her tremulous fingers gripped the steering

May • Portland Monthly Magazine • 47

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PORTLAND §1

Portland into an ‘Athens in the ildemess.

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48 • Portiand Monthly Magazine • May

wheel. Ue had to be all right. She would know if he wasn’t... wouldn’t she? Yes, things had been quiet between them, not bad ... just quiet, but still she would surely know in her heart if something was wrong She searched her feelings, trying to decipher any' niggling doubts. No, Ethan was right. David was okay. Ue had to be.

As she pulled back into the drive, het headlights cast off toward the mooring Still no sign of the Mary Little or David.

She shut off the lights and pulled her coat around her once more before rushing off for the house through the rain. Off in the distance the thunder echoed a few long seconds after a flash of light. 'Ure storm was on its way out. Even the rain had seemed to let off some.

She opened the back door and stepped into the warm kitchen, kicking off her boots at the door. She stopped short when she realized that the lights in the living room were on and she could hear the gentle buzz of the television. She ran then, down the hall to stop short in front of the livingroom entryway.

David sat there, his feet propped on the ottoman and a cup of steaming coffee on the table next to him. 1 Ie looked up when she came in, giving her one of his gentle smiles.

“Where have you been, Missy? I didn’t see any note. 1 was beginning to get worried.”

She did the only' thing that she could think to do. She did the one thing that her heart wanted most of all. She ran to him and leaned over him, wrapping her arms around him. She didn’t want to let go. Tears came to her eyes and she felt foolish, but still she didn’t want to let go.

11c was okay, but still tire doubts that had haunted her before still seemed so real.

“I went to find Ethan, 1 thought something was wrong. When you didn’t come in 1 got worried.” She pulled back to kiss his surprised lips. It seemed the sweetest kiss they had ever shared.

“I’m fine,” he said, and there was more than a glint of something in his eyes when he looked at her. “I had engine trouble, and I ended up pulling up to Collins’s wharf until the storm passed.” I Ie ran a hand through the fringes of her wet hair.

“I just wanted to get home, so Collins brought me home in his truck. 1’11 go back to get the Mary Little in the morning... that is, if you’ll get up early and take me. Will you?”

“I will.” She gave him another long hug-

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