The News from Lake Woebegone

I think most Mainers are fairly familiar with Garrison Keeler’s mythical hometown from his weekly Prairie Home Companion radio show on Maine Public Radio. In the closing of each Lake Woebegone story he notes that it is the place where the “...women are strong, the men are good looking and the children are above average.”

Many Maine folks, like many rural folks around our country, think that Lake Woebegone could be their town, instantly recognizing people from their own communities who resemble the qualities of the cast of strange characters who inhabiting the small Minnesota town. It is a comforting feeling because the Lake Woebegone folks, despite their eccentricities, always seem to finally find a way to get along.

This pastoral image of Maine was rocked recently when the Governor of the State, Paul LePage and his Commissioner of Education, Steven Bowen published a State Report Card showing that indeed the children in many of Maine’s communities are...well, NOT “above average.”

Much has been written about the Maine School Performance Grading System in the press and elsewhere in recent days. Most of the comments I've read are pretty damming and many people have been rallying to support the teachers and schools in their communities particularly those in the communities that were, well let’s just say more below average than they would like.

Many years ago I used to reach Educational Tests and Measurements to pre-service teachers in several colleges in Maine and Pennsylvania. I also taught Educational Psychology in those same institutions and in all those courses we examined the problem with normative assessments and, in particular,  the use of grades based upon comparisons between or within groups. All of my hundreds of future teachers knew by the end of the semester of the fallacy of that old fashioned grading methodology. Indeed, I suspect just about everyone who has studied to become a teacher in the last 50 years has learned the same lesson which is: attempting to reduce human behavior to a simple five letter grading scale is just... well, plain stupid.

Clearly the governor and his commissioner of education never took my course.

The alternative to a normative, letter-grading system calls for the use of criterion-based assessment and the educational derivative of this is most commonly referred to as Standards-Based or Outcomes-Based Education. The movement to this methodology began in earnest in the US in the early 90s and Maine was one of the national leaders establishing a universal set of standards called The Maine Learning Results. In this method individuals are measures against a set of criterion. Basically you either meet or exceed the criterion or don’t meet the criterion. And if you don’t meet the criterion, you keep working at it until you do. Outcomes-based methods are designed to focus on continually teaching to master the criterion and not dwelling on comparing individuals with other individuals.

But we Americans, with our penchant for competitiveness don’t like to just PASS something, we NEED to be BETTER than everyone else; we NEED to BEAT the opposition. We NEED to all be “above average.” We NEED to be from Lake Woebegone.

But alas, we are only from Maine where, just like everyone else, about half of us are above average and half of us are not.

“And that’s the news from Lake Woebegone….”

Read about the Lake Woebegone Effect...

_______
Photo credit: Image licensed through Creative Commons by Web Fryer.

Wine Glasses

I’ve moved a number of times over the years and, during the years 1990 to 1996, I managed to cover two states, four homes and a many hundreds of miles. Perhaps it was all that packing and unpacking that caused me to get so lazy that when I finally settled in Augusta, Maine I ended up just stacking boxes in closets and cabinets, never opening and displaying the contents.

Sixteen years later, I am settled and not considering any new moving ventures. So, when I broke a wine glass tonight, I figured it was safe to finally open a dusty box of wine glasses that I had stored on the shelf of a cabinet I have in the dining area.

My first surprise was the fact that behind the dusty box of medium sized wine glasses there was another box containing six smaller desert-wine glasses. These were sealed with masking tape that I think may have been last used when I lived in New Hampshire. That would make the sealing job be circa 1983; I washed the glasses very thoroughly.

The box containing the medium size wine glasses that I was replacing had only three left. This means that I have destroyed a grand total of three wine glasses in 31 year. At this rate, and including the three larger goblets I still have on the shelf, I’ll be good until 2042. If I count all of the glasses, I'm good until until 2120. I'll be 182 years old.

Cheers.

Follow up Letter from Roger Katz

Today, I received this letter from Maine State Senator Roger Katz regarding my letter to him on the de-funding of MPBN:

May 17, 2011

Dear John,

Thank you for recently contacting me. I will work hard to keep MPBN funding fully in place. I believe it plays a critical role in Maine’s civic debate and is one of the few places you can find thoughtful, more investigatory journalism on the radio, and on a state-wide basis. I have been and continue to be a big fan, and will do all I can to keep funding in place.

Thank you for writing to me. Please feel free to weigh in on issues in the future; it helps me do a better job.

Sincerely,

Roger Katz
State Senator

At least we got one vote.

Spring Snow

So, alright already. I overslept this morning. I didn't have to get up for anything.

So, at 7:45 am I rolled over. And I did that again at 8:45.

But then I slept until 10:07 am and had to really drag myself out of bed.

But I almost jumped back under the covers when I looked out the window and saw patches of snow on the ground and the cars in the parking lot covered. I felt like Rip Van Winkle and thought I had slept through the remainder of spring, all of the summer and most of the fall. Was it already late October?

It sure looked like it. Ugh.

Thinking this was just a brief setback, I went out and got bagels. Fortunately, the ice scrapper was still on the floor of the back set of the car 'cause I had to brush off the snow to be able to see.

Throughout breakfast it continued to snow and sleet, but the accumulations had stopped. Then, at about 11:30 am, it started to snow even harder...those big wet flakes that you get in spring snow storms in March.

When it started covering the ground again, I got out my trusted camera and took this video.

I'm thinking about going back to bed...

Perry's Nut House

A local news story this evening brought me back in time; a time of youth and innocence.

Well, maybe not a time of innocence...

It was in the summer of 1970 that I discovered one of the most unique establishments on the coast of Maine. According to their website, “Perry's Nut House has been referred to as a Maine Institution since 1927 when I.L. Perry first opened his doors to sell pecans and other assorted nuts.”

I was part of a motley crew of campers and counselors from a small boys’ camp in Friendship, Maine off for a day trip to Fort Knox where we had searched – in vain – for hidden treasures. Although I, and presumably the rest of my crew, knew full well that the massive edifice built at the mouth of the Penobscot River to protect the City of Bangor from British attack after the War of 1812 was not the place with all the gold, my fellow staff and I attempted to confuse the young lads by insisting that we search every inch of the fort including a trip down into the bowels of the site in search of the precious mineral.

In those days I was learning the art form of how to keep little boys busy, content and tired. Busy boys stay out of trouble and content boys would not write unflattering letters to parents. The "tired" part paid off for the staff when we could call lights out at 9:00 pm and have a few hours of rest and recovery from the “little darlings” before crashing ourselves.

There was only so much Fort Knox to go around that day and by 2:30 we had pretty much seen everything there was to see. The boat back to camp would not be ready until five o’clock so several hours still had to be occupied.

Leading the excursion was Old Man John, the feisty and coarse former camp director who recently had turned over the reigns of the camp to his 28 year old son and taken the role as chief sage and bus driver. But the Old Man still had quite few tricks up his sleeve for killing time; he could write a book. Wherever I traveled with that man in the years that followed he never ceased to amaze me by finding the most unique and “off the beaten track” places that would make any all American boy drool.

That year we were introduced to Perry’s Nut House. Located along busy US Route 1 just north of the port city of Belfast, Perry’s complex of brightly painted yellow building surrounded by a menagerie of strange and exotic “curiosities” can’t be missed. Seemingly from a time long ago, the Perry’s of 1970 sported a larger-than-life bear, elephant, and wooden Indian. And that was just on the outside of the building. Once inside, Perry’s was the kind a place every kid would love and contained the kind of stuff every camp counselor dreaded. That was probably why Old Man John made a lengthy speech warning campers and staff that no one was to buy any contraband. Before we exited the camp bus, the Old Man pulled me aside and told me to keep my eyes on a few of the seniors who would no doubt defy the warning and try to fill their pockets with itchy powder, rubber turds and black soap.

I watched the more recalcitrant members of the brood with extra-sharp, hawk-eyes but Perry’s was a very distracting venue. Apart from the racks and racks of every Maine-related souvenir one could imagine, stacks of candy and goodies that would make a dentist smile, Perry’s was filled with a collection of odd and amazing collectibles including a 10 foot long snake skin, stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes, including alligators and giraffes, a large, menacing gorilla, and yes, even a “man-eating clam!”. Add to this an unlimited supply of comic books and games, fun house stuff like mirrors that made you look two feet tall and quickly all time was lost.

An hour later, and many dollars lighter, the camp boys and staff were back on the bus heading down US 1 satiated and content. Filled with candy and ice cream, more than a few youngsters didn’t finish their supper that night.

And despite the staff’s best efforts, the next morning we all recoiled in disgust when a realistic-looking puddle of rubber vomit was discovered on one of the dining room tables.

The camp director never did find out who put it there, but it would be a couple of years before we would visit Perry’s Nut House again.

See the news story about Perry's Nut House

Perry's Nut House website

~j

More Wyeth Lore

I’ve already posted My Andrew Wyeth Story in this blog twice; once two summers ago and again last winter when Andy died. And since this Sunday, July 12 is Andy's birthday, and proclaimed A Day for Andrew Wyeth by Governor Baldacci, I thought it was appropriate to share this latest yarn.

Several weeks ago I had the opportunity to drive to New York for the wedding of one of my nieces. I stayed at my sister’s house in north Jersey for the whole weekend. As Saturday turned into another one of our all too common rainy days, she suggested we drive down to Montclair, NJ and visit the Montclair Museum of American and Native Art. The sister explained that they were currently exhibiting The Wyeths: Three Generations and that she had been there a few weeks earlier with her kindergarten class. She was knowledgeable about My Wyeth Story although I reminded her of some of the highlights and the post script involving Andy’s granddaughter Vic. The sister howled.

We arrived at the Montclair in the early afternoon and learned that there would be a gallery walk and talk starting in a few minutes. It turned out that the docent that was giving the walk was one of my sister’s colleagues and I was introduced as being the brother from Maine who had had some personal experience with the Wyeth family.

As we had viewed the collection shortly before the gallery walk began, I told the sister a few more recent Wyeth stories that I had heard Jamie tell on the local TV station a few weeks earlier. But I made her relieved/proud when I indicated that I would be keeping my mouth shut once the gallery walk began.

The young woman giving the presentation did a beautiful job and clearly had done her homework. Although I know a lot about the family and the history of many of the paintings, this woman had a few tales that even I had not heard before and it was all very interesting.

A crowd of about 30 people following the walk as we strolled through the large gallery and there were only a few questions asked, all of which the docent securely and authoritatively answered. The exhibit sponsored by the Bank of America is traveling around the country and would be in NJ until mid July.

We were almost through the end of the walk and coming to the last few painting by Jamie Wyeth when the docent stopped in front of one of larger pieces. Called (I believe*) “Harbor, Monhegan,” this is a very colorful painting of a young boy, standing in front of a large oil tank that has been converted into a furnace riding on spoke wheels and spewing large orange flames and thick black smoke. I remembered seeing the painting on the television and hearing Jamie telling a little about the background of the painting. It seems that because of the limited ability to landfill trash on Monhegan Island, that summer, the locals hired this young boy, Cat Bates, to burn the trash in this makeshift furnace which he dragged up and down the beach each day. As the smell of garbage attracted the sea birds, the air and ground in the image, and in the real scene, was full of sea gulls flying and clamoring around the boy.

As the docent was finishing her presentation one woman in the crowd asked about the meaning behind the image of the boy and the fire. I think she may have half expected to hear some wild tale evoking images of Satan and Hell. The docent looked furtively through her notes and then admitted the she didn’t know the origin of the painting. I looked over at my sister who gave me a knowing glance and non-verbal permission to finally open my mouth. So, never being a shy individual, I piped up and detailed the story about Cat and the reason for the conflagration.

I immediately noticed that the flock started to gather around me as I detail more of the specifics. There was soon a dialog. “Is the boy still there? What happened to him? Is his name really Cat?”

I answered to the best of my knowledge that Cat was all grown up now and that Jamie had included him in several other paintings. And, no, I don’t know why his mother named him Cat, but that was indeed his name. (More info about Cat on this website)

We talked for some time about the Maine ecology, sanitation and the independent thinking individuals who inhabit Monhegan Island, Maine.

I was on a roll; I had a captive audience.

Next, I moved to another series of two paintings of sea gulls and told story that I recalled from the television interview with Jamie Wyeth. In this, I explained that Jamie indicated that while painting the gulls one day one bird came very close to his canvas. “I always wondered how much a sea gull weighs,” the junior Wyeth explained. “So, I just reached out and grabbed the bird.”

It seems sea gulls, like most wild creatures, don’t take too kindly to being handled by humans and put up quite a fuss. “The bird started pecking at me and took a nip out of my eyelid,” the artist pointing to some wrinkles above his eyelid to show the scar made by the bird. “They don’t weigh very much at all,” he added.

The small, thinning crowd went wild with enthusiasm.

I decided that I had probably said too much and deferred back to our leader to continue with the tour. But I could see that I had impressed even her.

Soon the walk was over and sister and I joined to thank the docent for her presentation and apologize for perhaps speaking out of turn. She warmly indicated that my contribution has clearly added to the presentation and that she would be using this new-found material in her future gallery walks.

We talked for several more minutes about my experiences and where in Maine I lived. Several others from the tour gathered around and wanted to know if I was a relative. Demurely, I explained I was a mere mortal and that I had was just a big fan of Andrew Wyeth and had seen a number of their exhibits in Maine. I didn’t waste any time and put in a good plug for our wonderful state and invited them to all come and visit us this summer. The Maine Tourism Bureau would be proud.

But before we ended our little Wyeth Love-fest, my sister encouraged me to tell The Story. Coyly, I set the mood and told a much abbreviated version of the tale. My new fan club glowed in approval and absolutely loved the story. They of course wanted to know if I ever took Vic up on the offer for coffee. I told them no, but that may be some day I would.

Perhaps I’ll head down to the Farnsworth this weekend and look for Andy’s granddaughter.

~jeb

* In listening to the WCSH6 interview with Jamie Wyeth, I learned that there are five paintings of this same theme. Not sure which one is in the Montclair exhibit

Springtime

We seem to be about a week early in the growing cycle. That's alright by me.

~j

The Best Wedding Announcement Ever

I kinda of enjoy the shtick Jay Leno does when he reads the headlines every Monday on the Tonight Show. One of the particular treats is when he rattles off the names in the wedding announcements. You know names like, “the Purple-Sage wedding,” “The Bush-Pylot wedding,” “the Hardy – Soule wedding,” and so on. So I have taken to reading the wedding announcements in the local Portland Press Herald to see if I can spot any of those weird names. Occasionally, I even read the actual announcements.

Several weeks ago this one appears and it has my vote for the best wedding announcement ever. I am not making this up!

Baker – DeLorme

FREEPORT – Chelsea “Look At My Diploma” Holden Baker and Noah “Hometown Hero” DeLorme have decided to stop pretending they’re even mildly interested in other people and mate for life.

Ms. Baker has received seals of approval from Cornell and Columbia universities and has an impressive resume that include “talking a lot” and “attending parties” for some of San Francisco’s hippest companies. The groom-to-be dropped out of high school, three colleges, and is currently an “underemployed” out-of-season farmer with no grammatical understanding of quotation marks. Their children will be talented and ridiculously good-looking, outshined only by their parents.

The couple would like to thank friends and family for countless hours of therapy induced by each other. In lieu of gifts, please send whiskey, aged 10 years, in commemoration of their decade of on-again-off-again dating.

Cannon report in Casco Bay will announce the nuptials on Peaks Island during Labor Day weekend 2010.

I hope I get an invitation to that party!

~jeb

My Andrew Wyeth Story - repost

In honor of the passing of this great American artist, I am sharing my Andrew Wyeth story:
Republished from August 12, 2007

I’ve told this story many times over the years and friends have suggested that I write it down for “posterity.” I am not sure if this blog can be considered as such, but I will tell the story anyway.

I can begin by telling you this idea was re-stimulated by an article in today’s Maine Sunday Telegram (MST). The MST and the Portland Press Herald love to have “human interest” stories this time of year – I’m sure to appeal to “visitors from away.” Indeed there are always some great folksy articles and stories in the summer issues, and I always look forward to reading them.

Today’s featured article in the Audience (Arts) section is about Maine’s most famous living artist, Andrew Wyeth who spends his summers in the mid-coast area. His son Jamie, perhaps the second most famous living artist in Maine lives here almost year round. But the article is not so much about Andrew as it is about the whole clan, and particularly Victoria (known to all as Vic) , Andrew’s 28-year-old granddaughter who has become something of a family historian and commentator.

The article provides a delightful insight into some of the background of the family and includes some vignettes of some the family eccentricities including the detonation of “crazy” Aunt Carolyn ashes, and a recent birthday party for grandpa complete with Uncle Jamie lighting off cannons.

If you are a Wyeth fan, you’ll love the article – read it on line.

But that’s not my story, mine is better.

It begins in 1970 when I was a camp counselor at a camp located in the town of Cushing, Maine. Each Sunday, the camp co-director (aka “The Old Man”) would take a bunch of kids and me to Rockland to attend church. This trip was only for baptized and practicing “mackerel snappers” and required a special request from parents. Somehow I was selected to be the token staff person to attend with the campers as the camp’s co-director wasn’t of that religious persuasion.

One of the things I enjoyed about this weekly trip was the opportunity to get off the island where the camp was located and see a little bit more of Maine. One Sunday, we took some back roads on our return from church and The Old Man seemed to be hunting for something and we made our way south of Thomaston and on to the back roads of Cushing. At some point along the way he suddenly turned the van off the road and on to a dirt driveway that led down to an old weather-beaten house. A sign at the end of the driveway noted “Olson House” and the ancient building overlooking a broad hayfield that provided a decent view of the St. George’s River beyond. The Old Man announced that this was the place where “that artist guy painted the picture of the crippled girl on the hill.” He fumbled for more details and then remembered the Wyeth name. For some strange reason, I could immediately visualize the picture he described. Strange because at the grand old age of 17, I certainly was not a connoisseur of American art and clearly had only rudimentary knowledge of Andrew Wyeth and “Christina’s World.”

The visit was brief, we didn’t even get out of the van, and soon we were back on the road heading to camp.

The story may have ended here, but several weeks later, my father and sisters were in Maine to visit me at camp and I had my father take this same route to camp from Rockland. Remembering and relating the story about the old farm house, my father became very interested and insisted we see the spot. Somehow I found the driveway and soon learned that my father was a bit of a Wyeth fan and thought this part of the trip was a particularly special bonus.

This time I did get out of the car and looked around the house and the adjoining “out buildings;” a series of sheds and small building that appeared to have been used to keep farm animals. The house and property did not appear occupied at that time, but the ground otherwise looked cared for. The multitude of years of brutal Maine weather had left the outside of the buildings in pretty tough shape and it was obviously they had not been painted in many years.

At this point I was still a bit in the fog when it came to Christina’s World. My father had immediately recalled the name of the painting as I described what The Old Man had said. He even knew that Olson was the name of the woman depicted in the painting; Christina Olson lived here. But it was only what happened next that burned the image of Christina and her world into my permanent memory.

It occurred when I happened to look through the window of one of the out buildings. There, affixed to the wall with some simple thumb tacks were a series of sketches of the major elements of the Christina’s World painting. Initially perplexed, I quickly figured out that these must have been the practice sketches Wyeth used to compose the final painting. Drawn in pencil and clearly damaged by rust stains that had bled out of the thumb tacks, the collection included sketches of the house and a few of Christina herself. None of the sketches contained all of the elements together and I realized had perhaps I had an insight into how an artist mind must work; dabbling along with disparate pieces before the whole gestalt is formed.

Being a bit of a typical teenager, I think I jokingly suggested that we break the window and take one or two of the sketches. It clearly appeared that these things had been here for ages and it was not likely anyone would miss them.

Christina’s World is perhaps one of the most memorable and famous American paintings. In the years that followed the experience at Olson House, I became fascinated by Andrew Wyeth and eventually made it to Rockland in 2000 to see Christina “in the flesh” when she was loaned to the Farnsworth Museum from the Museum of Modern Art.

I’ve told the “sketches” story a number of times over the years - to anyone who expressed any interest in Wyeth – but most people acted as though this was all a bit of bullshit on my part. As time went on, and memories faded or became confused with other experiences, I too began to doubt my recall. When, as an adult I began to realize the value and power of this painting, I could not imagine that the artist would have left these sketches in a seemingly abandoned barn in Cushing, Maine. After all, Christina’s World was painted in 1948 which means the sketches would have to have been hanging there for over 20 years when I saw them in 1970. In subsequent trips to the Olson house, the sketches were no where to be found, adding to my doubt.

Sometime in the late 1990s the Farnsworth Museum, opened The Wyeth Center, a former church converted into a special gallery for viewing and learning about Andrew Wyeth, his famous son Jamie and his equally famous father, N.C. Wyeth. Indeed it was at about this time Christina made her return to Maine and over the years the museum has held many special exhibits of Wyeth works.

A few years later, the museum held an exhibit of something extraordinary, something that made me drop everything a take a trip to Rockland. It was an exhibit of preliminary sketches of Christina’s World.

There in Rockland on a rainy weekday afternoon, I came face-to-face with the sketches I had seen hanging in the Olson’s barn nearly 30 years earlier. Meticulously restored, the sketches were now beautifully matted and framed. In the adjoining descriptions, I learned that they had indeed been left to hang in the Olson House as the artist had used that space up until 1969 to paint many other scenes in that locale.

So, it was all true. I did see them. And, now they were owned by a rich Japanese collector and worth millions of dollars.

I told my story, once again, to a docent working at the exhibit. She shuttered at the thought of my adolescent audacity to “help myself” to some of history’s most treasured artifacts. I had to reassure her several times I was only kidding, although I think the security guards might have been keeping an extra eye on me for the rest of my visit.

So, that’s my story and it’s nice to know that it happened the way I remember it. I have often thought of what it would be like to meet Andrew Wyeth and tell him my tale. I think from what I know about him, he’d get a kick out of it. Who knows, maybe he will read this and give me a call. Better yet, Vic will read the story and invite me over for a couple of beers.

More about Christina's World

~jeb

Why I live in Maine

This is shot about 70 miles from when I live, but it explains why I live here.

~j



Sunset above Camden Hills from Till Credner on Vimeo.

First Snow

I just recorded the first snow of the season in Augusta, Maine. The forecast is that it will be warming during the night and turning to rain. So since it will likely (hopefully) be gone by morning, I took these at 9:00 pm - November 30, 2008.

Enjoy.

~j

Fall Color

It starting to be that magical time of the year...

~jeb

Apple Store

The Apple People opened an Apple Store in the Maine Mall in South Portland today. It was a much awaited and heralded affair. So I went to visit the store on a quest...

~jeb