Al Barth interviewed by Richard Ade - February 6, 2001

• Barth, Alvin L.

Richard Ade Interviews

WHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Al Barth Jr.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I am right here in Bethel.

HOW OLD ARE YOU?

I will be 65 in May.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN YOUR FAMILY?

Oh, I had a sister and a mother and father.

WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S OCCUPATION? 

He worked for the Dupont Company in New Jersey.  That’s where we were from.

DOING WHAT?

He was a service manager, I guess you’d call him.

WHAT WAS YOUR MOTHER’S OCCUPATION?

She didn’t work.  She did volunteer work.

WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE AT HOME?

Very good.  We lived through three years of high school in South Jersey and we lived on a farm that we rented 65 acres out to a truck farmer.  We could bird hunt and rabbit hunt on the property and it was just a lot of fun.  I spent the summers up here in Maine down in Norway on the lake so I always consider myself a “Mainer” sort of.

WHAT WERE YOUR GRANDPARENTS LIKE?

Well, unfortunately, I never knew my grandparents.  My mother’s parents died when she was a young girl and my Grandfather Bart knew me but I didn’t know him because he died when I was about a year and one half old and his wife, my grandmother, had predeceased him.  So, I’ve never known any grandparents unfortunately. 

WHAT WERE YOUR EARLIES MEMORIES?

I can remember coming to the camp on the lake at Norway probably at about the age of two.  I can remember being at camp when we celebrated, it was either VJ day or Victory over Hilter in World War II.  Other than that, growing up in New Jersey and saving enough two cent returnable bottles to get 12 cents, I think it was, so I could go to the Saturday matinee at the movie house.  I guess those would be some of the earliest memories.  And of course, the family gatherings with my aunts and uncles and their children and so forth.

WHAT WAS YOU MOST IMPORTANT EARLIEST INFLUENCE?

Well, my parents.  They were very influential and then, my senior year in high school I came to Gould and just spent one year there and graduated.  I think many of the teachers there and the whole experience certainly helped me and encouraged me to return six years later and teach.

WHERE DID YOU GO TO SCHOOL?

After Gould I went to Penn State and graduated with a degree in Meteorology and then went to the University of Utah and got a Master’s in Business Administration and then got an offer to teach at Gould and so I taught science at Gould.  While I was teaching, I went to six week summer institutes at Colby College and ended up with a Master’s in Science teaching at Colby.  Oh, I went to other schools, too.  Boston College, Boston University (Geology Field Camp at Sugarloaf)  I also had a chance to go to Australia for two years.  My first wife and my two young sons and I went to Melbourne and I taught in the public school system there for two years.

WHAT WERE THE TEACHERS LIKE?

Gould then was very strict.  The boys wore …the dormitory kids, because when I went there as a student Gould still served as the local high school…the dormitory kids of which there were a little over 100 and at each meal at breakfast, lunch and dinner you had to wear a coat and tie.  You did not have to wear a coat and tie to class and then the other roughly 200 hundred kids (there were about three hundred of us altogether) were “townies” and so Gould served as the high school.  Oh, I think that Joe Roderick who was the boys phys ed teacher was a tremendous influence not only on me but on many, many kids.  The football coach, the ski coach, you know, a lot of people who demanded that you do the work and it was good for me.  It served me in great sted when I went on to college.

WHAT SPORTS DID YOU PLAY?

Let’s see.  I skid, both cross-country and down hill.  I also played golf and tennis.  While I was at Gould I actually learned to ski and then after I came back, I coached.  I was the assistant ski coach and then became the head coach of the boys team and I used to coach the girls team.  Basically, I coached with the boys for all four disciplines – slalom, giant slalom, cross country and jumping.  With the girls it was just alpine sports and cross country.  Let’s see, what else did I do?  Oh, I wrestled.  I played football, soccer.  I’ve done a little bit of everything…swam competitively, intramurels and stuff like that. 

WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES?

I am a stamp collector or a philatelist.  I enjoy that very much.  I used to collect antiques.  Antique sleds in particular.  I don’t do that anymore.  I do collect some coins.  Mostly my hobby now, in the summer of course, is golf and I really do like travelling.  Both my wife and I are retired.

WHAT ARE YOUR MOST UNPLEASANT MEMORIES?

Oh, you know.  Getting in fights.  Those were not very pleasant…Dealing with student discipline problems at any number of my teaching jobs…at Gould and Australia.  Losing an election when I thought I might win for the legislature.  That wasn’t very pleasant.  That when I won the primary by 12 votes and then won four consecutive terms in the legislature…I enjoyed that.  So, that kind of took away the bad memory.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Probably the sense of security.  I didn’t have to worry about food, shelter.  My parents were reasonably well off and could take care of those things.  So, I, you know, that was nice.  But, then, I also always worked when I had the chance when I was old enough.

WHAT DID YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT GROWING UP?

Oh, you know, can’t wait for…something.  Can’t wait til I’m old enough to get a driver’s license….that was age 17….Can’t wait, you know,…until I have a job and can spend my own money.  Can’t wait until I’m 21 so I can vote.  That was then.  Those kind of things.

WHERE DID YOU FIRST WORK?

My first job was cleaning eggs and selling produce at a farm stand.  Then, I set pins in a bowling alley.  Then, when I was going to college and in a fraternity, I worked in a dry cleaning business.  I worked for Dupont in the summer in the chemical labs, explosives research, you know, for the summer.  Then I worked for the intramurel departments both at Penn State and Utah and earned money that way refereeing games and things like that.  Oh, waited on tables.  Been a bartender, cook.  Um, those are some of the early, early things I did. Then, of course, I came to Gould in 1960 and started teaching and taught there for 28 years.  At the end of which, I was the alumni director and did a lot of fund raising, publications, promotions, etc.  Then, I took early retirement and worked for a year and a half at Stevens Hospital doing community relations and development and then served eight years in Augusta in the House of Representatives and then retired again.

SEEMS LIKE YOU’VE DONE EVERYTHING…

Yeah, I think so. 

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR WORSE WORK EXPERIENCES?

Well, cleaning eggs and setting pins in bowling alleys and waiting on tables in a bar in Salt Lake City when there were hardly any customers…those were not particularly the greatest work experiences. But, I never had a problem.  I enjoyed what little money I made and enjoyed the independence of having some of my own money, so you can put up with a lot sometimes.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT WORLD WAR II?

Well, I can remember black outs.  This was in Woodbury, New Jersey before we moved down on the farm.  So, it would have been about 1942 or 41…I was five or six years old.  So, there were black outs.  I remember my father was a …I guess he was like a lieutenant in the civil defense…and so he had…he was off manning anti-aircraft guns, never used, or something because of the war.  I can remember when a boat was torpedoed…an oil tanker, I think it was, off the New Jersey coast, by a U-boat.  I remember recycling.  Taking the tops and bottoms out of tin cans, taking the label off and putting the lids inside and squashing it flat and out in the back yard there was a victory garden and we were growing our own vegetables.  And, as I said earlier, I remember either VJ Day or VE Day on the lake and firing a shot gun into the air to celebrate the victory of the war. 

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER ABOUT THE GREAT DEPRESSION?

The only ah…see I was born in 1936, so the depression was, I guess, still on a little…we were coming out of it.  Any memories were what I got from my parents and there friends who went through it.  They didn’t say an awful lot about it.  Apparently, I learned later that my father lost his shirt in the stock market when it crashed and stuff, but other than that, you know, we were always reminded, you know, to eat all your food, don’t waste your food because you never know when the next meal is coming from.  We always knew where it was coming from….but they sort of hinted that they had been through hard times and so, don’t be frivolous and don’t waste things, that sort of thing.

WHAT U.S. PRESIDENT DID YOU LIKE THE BEST?

Probably Eisenhower, I guess.

WHY?

Well, I was old enough then, I would have been a sophomore in high school, when he was elected president.  He was very popular.  Of course, since he had won the war in Europe and he seemed to be just a genuine person.  Not so much a, I guess, a politician.  Of course, I’ve been a politician, so I shouldn’t say that.  (laugh)  I always tell people I was a statesman, not a politician.  But, I would say he would be one of my favorites.  Of course, being a republican and that helped, cause my parents were republican …since then I’ve come to respect Truman for what he did.  Kennedy was, unfortunately, assassinated and I can remember that day because I was in the second floor of Hanscom when we got the word and I announced it to the class and one of the kids laughed and I just leaned over and wanted to deck him…I don’t know…I think it was just a nervous laugh or whatever.  I don’t think he intended it the way it came across.  He (Kennedy) had a lot of ideals and so forth and did some good things, but, of course, wasn’t around long enough to be judged.  Linden Johnson was a masterful politician, but he had his faults, particularly in Vietnam.  Nixon did all kinds of good things.  He opened up the China….but then, given Watergate, you know, I think the sad thing is that a lot of people get elected to the high office or what they consider the high office and it goes to their head.  They think they can do anything they want and they can’t.  That’s what gets them in trouble.  Although, it could have gotten Clinton in a lot more trouble than it did, but nobody seemed to care.  And that’s sad.  Well, anyway….

WHICH PRESIDENT DO YOU LIKE LEAST?

Oh.  Probably Clinton.  Just because I don’t think we will ever know the truth with him.  You know, he finally admitted lying but he never said I lied.  And that’s what he did.  He hemmed, hawed and stepped around whatever and you know, somehow, someway somebody could construe that well, he didn’t lie, but he did.  So, but that’s his legacy now or lack thereof. 

WHAT WERE SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGES IN YOUR LIFETIME?

Well, one was deciding to become a teacher and coming to Gould.  I think that was a major decision or a change.  Losing my first wife to disease.  She was only 41 and my son Carl was a senior at Gould and Bruce, who is a junior at Telstar and that was awful, I’ll tell you.  Getting remarried 16 years ago was a wonderful thing.  Getting a daughter, or a step-daughter, I should say, and a step-son.  So that was fun.  Of course, seeing the birth of my boys…I didn’t see them, because of course you couldn’t…It’s not like today and I couldn’t walk in and see them.  They kicked me out and then they told me I had a son.  Of course, seeing my step-daughter has two daughters, I have two granddaughters and then my youngest son Bruce just had a baby…his wife had a baby …so we have our first grandson and we were over there over the holidays to see all the kids.  And so holding his little five pound Henry was quite emotional and quite nice. 

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR FIRST WIFE?

She was waiting on tables at the Sudbury Inn because her parents owned the Inn.  She was a dental hygienist so she worked for the local dentist.  Through that, we started dating and got married.  She, of course, bore me two sons and we went to Australia and then, unfortunately she got an incurable disease and didn’t make it.

HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SECOND WIFE? 

Well, that’s kind of interesting.  We had both, well, my first wife and I knew Lee and her then husband.  They got divorced.  Jeanne (my wife) died and eventually Lee and I got together.  So we had known each other for years.  Lee knew my parents when they were alive and so forth.  And I got to know her parents after I got married.  That was nice.

WHERE HAVE YOU LIVED?

Oh…lived in South Jersey…Bethel…Melbourne, Australia (or a suburb, I should say)….Of course when I was going to Penn State, I lived in the Paternity House… Salt Lake City when I went to the University of Utah.  But, permanent residence was either New Jersey or Bethel, Maine and then, of course, those two years in Australia.  

WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN LIKE?

Well, let’s see. My oldest, Carl, is a science teacher…takes after his father, I guess.  He also plays rugby and was a rugby coach.  He was the coach of the United States Men team under 19 team.  He’s been to Australia a couple of times…New Zealand.  He’s about a year and a half older than Bruce.  Bruce is an architect out in Colorado.  Both of them are out in Colorado.  Carl teaching in Frisco and Bruce an architect in Colorado.  His wife, Dara, is an architect.  So, maybe little Henry will grow up to be an architect, I don’t know.  Bruce, at one time, held all the scoring records in soccer, at Telstar, which in fact, he might still hold one, I don’t know.  Most of them have all been broken.  They were good athletes.  Their mother had a problem when Gould used to play Telstar in soccer because they played against each other.  It didn’t seem to bother them.  They both skid.  Bruce played baseball.  Carl played lacrosse.  Then Bruce played lacrosse and Carl played baseball and also soccer.  So, Bruce now is a father and he is taking it very seriously, which is great to see.  Carl is not married but he is now engaged and due to be married in June.  His wife to be is also a rugby player.  He won’t be able to give her any lip or anything.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU LIVED IN BETHEL?

Well, let’s see since the fall of 1960 except for the two years in 1971 and 1972 when I went to Australia. 

HOW DID YOU HAPPEN TO COME HERE?

Well, as I said, I came to Gould my senior year.  I didn’t even know Gould existed at the time and I had been in Bethel before because there were some good friends of the family who went to our camp.  They used to take it for one month and my parents would take it the other month in Ft. Kids.  They had a son and a daughter.  So, their son was the same age as me and we palled around in New Jersey and so I remember they brought us up one night to the Bethel Inn for dinner and I didn’t have a coat and tie.  You, know, you had to have them.  So, we ended up wearing waiters jackets and that was the only way they would let us into the dining room.  Of course, that was back in the old days when people would come and spend the whole summer at the Bethel Inn.  They can’t afford to do that anymore.  Nobody does it anyway.  Then, I wasn’t into the private school.  My parents tried to interest me in private school during my freshman year at high school but I wasn’t interested.  And then they happened to mention it again, it was in the summer, before we went back to New Jersey.  And, I said, yeah, I thought I might like to go.  So, we came up and looked at Gould and looked at Bridgeton Academy.  I didn’t like Bridgeton…Gould was filled but I was first on the waiting list, I guess.  Lo and behold we were back in New Jersey and the phone rang and they told me I got accepted.  My folks had to put me on a plane.  Some friends of the family in Norway…my second family..they met me in Lewiston at the airport and drove me up to Gould and I became a resident of Holden Hall.  That was how I got to Bethel.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE BEST ABOUT THIS AREA?

It’s, you know, a great environment.  You’ve got, as far as I’m concerned, the best of all worlds.  You’ve got skiing at Sunday River and the lake down in Norway and you’ve got lakes around here and mountains.  I did a lot of hiking so I certainly like the environment side of it.  It’s a nice place to live.  It’s not always convenient.  You know, if you need a spool of thread or something exotic in the grocery store, you don’t find it in Bethel.  You have to go out of town.  That’s not really a draw back…The people.  I have a lot of friends here in Bethel and it’s just…the climate is nice..although, when trying to get home from the selectmen’s meeting last night at 10:30 they hadn’t plowed the road yet and my truck was just barely crawling to make it and I almost didn’t.  You could say well, maybe I might want to go south.  I’ve been to Florida and I certainly don’t want to go there.  But, I’d go down and visit for a week and see the warm weather.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE LEAST ABOUT HERE?

Well, now that we are retired, there’s not a lot of….anything I don’t like would be minor.  When Lee and I were both working, she was an elementary school teacher and I had to go to Augusta every day, then the weather became a problem because if we had a foot of snow, neither one of us could get out..you know, it took a while before we could get out and get to our respective jobs and that always wasn’t very likable.  Now, okay, we can live here and now if we get snowed in, fine.  We have a generator now so if we lose power we don’t have to worry.  We did lose power in that ice storm for 12 days so that wasn’t very pleasant.  But, we made it okay.  That’s about it.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE CHANGED?

Well, initially I would say nothing simply because, you know, I have seen how other places have changed.  I’ve made this statement many times.  I’ll take you and blindfold you and deposit you at an intersection…somewhere in the world…and you might not know where you are because there would be a Mc Donald’s or a KFC or you know, a Wal Mart or a shopping center and it would seem to me that we are rapidly approaching a homogeneous “yuck”.  One of the charms about Bethel is that it really hasn’t…it’s changed, obviously, but it hasn’t changed.  The buildings pretty much all look the way they used to and people are proud of that and the town is proud of that.  People are coming to appreciate that.  There is another world other than discos and this and that and where we’re situated with Sunday River, they can have the glitz up there and we still have the town here.  There influence is major in this area, absolutely, but it’s mostly economic in terms of providing jobs and stuff and then we have, because of Sunday River, more gas stations, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, hotels, motels, things like that and some specialty stores that were not Sunday River there, we would not have those.  So, we have kind of the best of both worlds.  So, I don’t want to see it changed.  At least not toward the KFC, Burger King type society.  I guess that’s one of the reasons I’m president of the Historical Society and pushing to raise funds for this building so we can restore it to the way it was originally and so that we have this town common complex preserved that will always remind us of where we cam from.  I think more and more people are going to be travelling and looking for places like that.  That’s why I don’t want to see it changed.  And, yeah, you know, we need jobs for our young people in order to encourage them to stay.  I think we can have those with the internet connections and the dot com type companies which can pretty much set up anywhere.  All they need is the fiber optics which we’re getting.  We have a low crime rate, good schools, nice environment, wonderful environment and so we should be able to attract a lot of small businesses like that.  But, they wouldn’t require a lot of changes, at least not a lot of architectural changes to the town.

WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER SOME OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT DECISIONS? 

Getting married.  Having Children.  Knowing that you know, you have to provide, not just shelter and food but education and health care and things like that for your children.  Some of the votes in the legislature were profound.  I can remember during my first term there were only 54 Republicans out of 151 in the House.  So the Democrats only needed four Republicans to vote with them to vote a budget.  We wanted worker’s compensation fixed so we wouldn’t vote for the budget.  So, we ended up shutting the government down for almost a month.  That was not pleasant…It was known as the session as hell.  We got spit on and yelled at and cursed by all the demonstrators and stuff.  But, we stuck to our guns and eventually the state did solve its worker’s comp problem.  The problem was driving business out and that was a major decision.  As unpleasant as it was, it was one of my finest hours, you know, one of those things.  I was proud to be a part of that.  Also, I have diabetes, so I have been associated with the Maine Chapter of American Diabetes Assocation.  We had a bill to include diabetic supplies (syringes, test strips, stuff like that) under insurance.  That was a bill that I co-sponsored and lobbied for and also testified for and that got passed.  It was one of the first ones in the country.  That was another good thing.  Getting remarried…you know, there are all kinds of things.  I think if I said to my parents, naw, I think I’ll finish at Woodbury High School in New Jersey and not come to Gould, of course I wouldn’t be sitting here and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  You never know what life is going to give you and you have to be ready to accept what you get and also be willing to take, in a sense, the road less traveled, as Robert Frost once said.  I can remember we had a visiting lecture series at Gould and it was a chemistry professor who was fantastic.  He did all kinds of experiments and blew things up and this and that.  It was very entertaining as well as good science.  He was down at the house and we were talking and basically, that was his philosophy.  If you have two choices…okay, pick….don’t necessarily go with the obvious one.  Pick one that might…It was right after that we decided that we might apply for the international teaching fellowship in Australia and sure enough, about a month later we got picked and so we went.  We have never regretted it.

WHAT DO YOU THINK BETHEL WILL BE LIKE IN THE 21^ST CENTURY? 

I think it will be pretty much what it is now.  If you look at the census in 1860 and then the census 100 years later, in 1960, there were something like 50 fewer people in Bethel in 1960.  Since then, Bethel’s population may have increased by 200 people. So, population wise, Bethel has not grown.  It will grow, but very little.  It, I think, and certainly if I had anything to do with it, would certainly work to keep the town character as it is.  The town has plenty of characters, too, in terms of people.  But, the town will be pretty much what it is.  Yeah, there will be different kinds of stores and people moving in and moving out.  Older people dying and other people getting older..you know, all of that.  Nothing is going to stay the same but hopefully it will still be the beautiful, New England town that it has been and it will be known for it’s quality education.  Gould and SAD 44 system and NTL.  It will be known, this area right here, with the historical society and the regional northern New England history center will be, in a sense, almost world renowned, but more New England renowned.  The wood industries have diminished over the years so that will change and probably continue to change.  There will always be wood here because we have the forests but it will employ fewer and fewer people.  A lot of wood products will be shipped elsewhere.  Timberlake and Timberlake Company makes furniture which is locally made with local wood and things like that.  It won’t be the hay day it was when you had mills, you know, and I can think of one, two, two dowel mills…three dowel mills and two saw mills that have closed.

DO YOU HAVE ANY HUMOROUS STORIES?

Well, I remember a time of course when the fire station was up at the head of Church Street.  Church Street used to run down and then there was a little bridge and you went over the bridge, that was Route 2 from New Hampshire you’ll stop and turn.  And, they then put the overpass in.  And the fire alarm rang and one gentleman was driving the fire truck and forgot that there wasn’t a bridge there anymore and of course, ended up on the railroad tracks.  It could have been awful, but it wasn’t.  So, that’s kind of raised just a few chuckles.

Some of the musicals at Gould that I always participated in.  There was a community musical down at Telestar.  I remember it was about the Homish…and I can’t remember the name of the play. But, anyway, we had a barn raising, so we had this, of course paper mache beam and that was out in the hallway.  I needed to come into the stage and of course, we had it backwards so it didn’t fit the way it was supposed to. So, I ended up having to hold it up while they were singing…you know, things like that.  Pranks that the kids used to play on the faculty and vice-versa.  The faculty always played the kids in softball and for years, they never could beat us.  It wasn’t comical to them but we just loved it…Oh, I can’t think of anything else right now.

WHO WAS YOUR MOST UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER? 

Oh, probably Joe Robert.  I mentioned him before.  He was a phys ed teacher but he was the only teacher at Gould who you called by his first name.  He was Joe.  He was Joe to faculty.  He was Joe to the trustees.  He was Joe to the parents and he was Joe to the kids.  He always had time for you.  He’d always listen.  He’d set you straight, you know.  He wouldn’t just agree with you.  He’d tell you when you were wrong.  He was kind of a comical rig in his own right which I didn’t learn until after I became a colleague of his, because he was still teaching when I came back to teach.  But, he always was the most popular teacher on alumni weekend.  He would be the one…and he rarely came.  I mean, after he retired.  Every once in a while he’d come and he’d sit in his car and watch the football games when we still played football.  You know, there would be a constant stream of alums going to speak to him.  He was loved by everybody and had the respect of everybody.  He was actually one of the most innovative gym teachers.  Way ahead of  his time, in terms of conditioning and some of the things that he did.  He always did an evaluation of every boy at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year to see how they were developing.  You know, he tested for scoliosis before anybody knew what that was.  He was, not only respected here in this community, but throughout the teaching profession and in the state and throughout New England.

WHAT WAS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE?

Well, when I think back, you know, just living…being as old as I am, I am fortunate to be able to have the love of two beautiful woman.  To travel to do this and that.  I think one of the greatest ones was when my wife and I and another couple, just about four years ago, went to Germany and Austria.  My father’s parents came from Germany.  He had taken a picture of a stone set in a wall of an old building which was at one time a grist mill.  And, it was Yohann Carl Bart 1799.  This was an ancestor.  He did the geneology and worked on it and gave it to me and told me all about it.  When my first son was born, his name was Carl Yohann and is named for this person.  Well, four or five years ago when we were in Germany, we went back to that mill.  I still have a cousin who lives there who we met for the first time…he took us there.  Fraul Rumback.   The Rumback family and the Bart family both owned the mill when it was a grist mill.  Now, it’s just a family home but she’s an ancestor of the Raumbacks.  So, she met us with a bottle of champagne and some cookies and we sat outside and talked and I found the stone…it’s still there set up in the wall and I took a picture of it.  I still have pictures of my grandfather…and my sister taught (she’s four years older than I) so she knew him…he was known as Pop Pop, but I never knew because I was a year old.  But, to suddenly realize that hey, this is where the Bart family began…it was quite moving and quite nice.  The last most moving thing was that when I ran for political office, I became a notary public so I could register voters.  You don’t have to do that anymore.  And, being a notary, I could perform marriages.  And, I never even thought about it until a faculty member, who is now retired, asked me if I would marry…if I would perform a service for his son.  Which I did and Bill Clough found out about it, so my second marriage was his oldest daughter.  Both of those marriages are still together and they each have two children.  So, now I performed my seventh marriage just this last October and it was my youngest son and his fiance Dara.  You know, that was something.  Two years before I had married my wife’s son and his fiancee who happened to have been my legislative aid when I was in the House Republican office and I had introduced them.  I said Diane, why don’t you come over and ski because I knew my two sons were going to be home for Christmas and Todd was going to be around.  Well, it turned out she couldn’t get over and my two boys went off to Colorado so we got Todd up and they went skiing and the next thing I knew they were dating and later in the year they said they wanted to get married and they wanted me to do the service.  So, each one of those is special.  I’ve been lucky.  There’s all kinds of special memories and to try to pick one out as being the most memorable is impossible.

WHAT WAS YOUR WORST MEMORY?

Well, probably losing Jane, my first wife.  You know, we had been married 21 years and when somebody is 41 they are not supposed to die.  Not of disease.  And feeling that there was no cure and nothing I could do.  It just was awful.  But, you know, that’s life and you somehow have to get over that and I have, as most people do.  You have to get on with your life.  Sometimes, life is a bitch.  But, you know, you have to take it.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER COMMENTS YOU WOULD LIKE TO MAKE?

Well, I could tell you I was Cub Master of Pack 566 here in Bethel.  I was a cub scout in New Jersey.  I became a tender foot.  For some reason, I think it was because we were up here in the summers, I never really pursued any further scouting.  Both my sons were cub scouts.  They were looking for a cub master and I became it.  That was another exciting time in my life.  I went home and the boys knew I was at the organizational meeting and they were hoping that somebody would come forth as the cub master and it was me.  They got tears in their eyes and so did I.  I enjoyed that.  Both my boys were cub scouts.  Carl started in scouting here but they didn’t have much of a pack then.  So, never continued.  But, my nephews, one or two of them are both eagle scouts.  The live down in South Paris and they had a strong troop, and still do down there.  I remember going to Camp Bombazine up in Bowbree with the Cub Scouts and all kinds of things.  When I worked for the chair of the board of trustees at Gould we went over to the camp in Bridgeton.  That was fun.  We did a lot of things over there…Both boys were able to go to camp that way in Rangely…Other than that, I think that’s about it.