November 2024

Western Mountains Senior College

Senior Players of Bethel Introduce Original Plays

Senior Players cast members seated from left: Bridget Remington, Gail Parent, Rosabelle Tifft, Mary LeConey and Elaine Hutchins.

Standing from left: Lainey Cross, John Reilly, Lia Paliocha, Bill Corrigan, Tom Hoy, Mariann Goff, Bruce Pierce, Tim LeConey, Bill Schuellen and Mary Hickey.



Senior Players of Western Mountains Senior College, Bethel, introduce three original plays written by cast members and performed before an audience for the first time, plus one play, “The Good Deed,” by playwright Jim Gordon. The performance will be held at Gould Academy’s McLaughlin Auditorium, Bethel, on Friday, November 22, at 7 pm, and on Saturday, November 23, a Matinee at 2 pm.

The opening play, written by cast members John Reilly and Bridget Remington, invites you to “Thanksgiving Dinner with the Franks,” as they struggle with life’s challenges and each other. Cast members include Lainey Cross, Bill Corrigan, John Reilly, Mary Hickey, Bruce Pierce, Bridget Remington, Elaine Hutchins, Mary LeConey, Tim LeConey, and Tom Hoy.

“The Good Deed,” by Jim Gordon, playwright, finds Barney, played by Tim LeConey, consoling a man who has just lost his father. A charming twist to the story is revealed near the end of the play. Other cast members include Bill Schuellein, Mary Hickey, and Bill Corrigan.

The third play introduces you to a couple of members of the “Rainy Day Garden Club,” played by Rosabelle Tifft and Gail Parent, who have arrived for the club’s 57th Annual Meeting. Written by cast member John Reilly, the play takes you plummeting through a black hole and dancing down the yellow brick road and everything in between.

The finale, “Another Christmas Story: Who Cares,” written by cast members Mary Hickey and Lia Paliocha, brings back several of the characters from last year’s plays, now a bit older but no wiser. They come together, with or without the Christmas spirit, for a Christmas gift exchange at the Senior Center. Advance planning avoids a tragic end to the festivities. Cast members include Mariann Goff, Tom Hoy, Lia Paliocha, Tim LeConey, Mary Hickey, John Reilly, Lainey Cross, and Bruce Pierce.

Admission to the performance is free. Donations welcome.

For more information, contact John Reilly

Western Mountains Senior College

Autumn leaves on trees with pathway

by Maritess Sulcer (2018)

Instructor Spotlight

South Coast Senior College's

Louis J. Salome

Lou is one of our favorite instructors and has volunteered to teach at South Coast Senior College for many years. And now... you have an opportunity to hear about his new book!

He has a book talk scheduled at 5:30 on Thursday, November 14, at the Graves Public Library in Kennebunkport: "Two Hundred Miles From Baghdad -- Cultures, Conflicts, And The Lost Art of Hitchhiking."  

The book is available on Amazon, Bookshop.org, via Barnes & Noble, and at all nooks where new books are sold. 

A New Englander by birth, Lou Salome holds a bachelor's degree from Holy Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he was a classmate of Dr. Anthony Fauci. He also has a Master's Degree in American History from Boston College and a Ph.D in hitchhiking and news reporting on four continents. Mr. Lou, as he was known in foreign climes, hitched to college for two years in the late fifties, hitched into and out of battle zones in Asia, Africa, and Europe in the nineties, and hitched for fun, but with little success, in the New Hampshire woods in 2004 while writing books.

A newspaper reporter and editor for thirty-five years and an author since 2010, Lou has written three books, the latest about his hitching experiences and the lost art of hitchhiking, and the social and economic changes that doomed the art. As the editorial page editor of The Miami (FL) News, Lou Salome won numerous journalism prizes. In 1981 and 1984, he won the National Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Editorial Writing. In 1984, he won the Jamaica Daily Gleamer Editorial Writing Award given by the Inter-American Press Association, In 1987, he won the first annual Thomas Jefferson First Amendment Award given by the Cultural Action Network. Lou Salome is listed in the latest edition of Who's Who In America. 

South Coast Senior College

Acadia Senior College

Food for Thought Lecture

The Union River: Wherein Lies Its Value?

November 22, 2024

11:30 am - 1:00 pm

Reserve now.

In-person and on Zoom

The Union River: Wherein Lies Its Value?

The Union River runs through the heart of Ellsworth from forests, lakes and marshes north of the city to the ocean waters of Blue Hill Bay. For centuries the river has benefited the communities it touches bringing sustenance and prosperity to people living in its watershed. In return, people have alternately damaged and protected the resource. At this moment, the river’s future is once again being debated.

Starting with an overview of the Union River watershed, this presentation will focus on the river’s history and reveal some long-forgotten stories. Consideration will be given to the uses and abuses that have been inflicted on the river, to the impact that damming the river has had, and to the conflicting ideas being proposed for the river’s future. Citizens are asking if the river should continue to produce renewable energy, be returned to its free-flowing natural state, be developed as a tourist and recreational destination, or benefit the region in some other way.

Historic maps and photographs, a twelve-minute video produced by Bill Fogle of the Ellsworth Historical Society, and contemporary images will all be used to tell the story of the Union River.

The presentation is in-person and on Zoom

The luncheon at Birch Bay Village in Hulls Cove begins at 11:30 a.m. and costs $15. The presentation is from noon to 1:00 p.m.

Zoom access is free!

The Zoom presentation is free and begins at noon. If you register for the online talk you will receive the link the day before the event.

Rosamond Rea is a retired museum professional now living in Ellsworth, Maine. For over 25 years she has absorbed the history of Hancock County while working and volunteering with the Abbe Museum, Woodlawn Museum, MDI Historical Society, and the Islesford Museum. She is a graduate of the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies and currently serves as a Trustee of Woodlawn Museum. She is on the research committee of the Ellsworth Historical Society and represents Woodlawn on the History Trust governing board. In 2021 she taught a class for Acadia Senior College entitled “What is Woodlawn and Why Should I Care?”

Bill Fogle is the nephew of Ellsworth historian Deale B. Salisbury and a past president of the Ellsworth Historical Society, of which his uncle was founding president. Bill has integrated his videography skills with his activities for the Society.

Click here to reserve your seat

Acadia Senior College

Midcoast Senior College

"What I Love About Midcoast Senior College"

(Video of MSC members)

Click here to watch the video of Midcoast SC members answer the question, "What do you love about Midcoast Senior College?

(Filmed on Zoom and uploaded to Vimeo.)

Midcoast Senior College

Discipline by Debra Spark

Pub. Four Way Books New York 2024

Pages 300, price $19.95

Reviewed by Pat Davison Reef

Discipline by Debra Spark

Three stories loosely tied together are included in this novel by Maine author Debra Spark. Each story is compelling in its own right, and though the thread of continuity running through each is creative, it also tends to be confusing.

The first story opens in the present day with a single woman, Gracie Thomas, an art appraiser. She is the mother of a teenage son, who is currently living with her former husband. As an independent lady, she goes to an island off the coast of Maine alone on a ferry. A wealthy patron has requested her to appraise three paintings in his summer home. The owner is not on the island because it is February and freezing, but arrangements have been made for a caretaker to pick her up. However, the caretaker does not show up. Gracie finds herself stranded with no cell phone service and completely isolated. Gripped in suspense, we move to the next chapter, wondering about Gracie's safety, only to find her story has been dropped.

A new set of characters, location, and time frame set in 1970’s appears in the next chapter. Reggie, a wild teenager, emerges in the story. He is an unruly 14-year-old placed in a rural boarding school in Maine that trains undisciplined young people. This part of the story was inspired by interviewing many people in real life who knew about a similar school that once existed in Maine known as Elan. The school’s cruelty in changing the habits of undisciplined young people was inhumane. I was very interested in this part of the fictional story because I had rented rooms in my home from 1978 to 1979 for University of Maine students in Portland who were former Elan students being placed back into society. I had heard their personal stories. The school's cruel rules did indeed straighten out some young people. However, some teenagers ran away, and a few committed suicide. I only rented rooms to Elan students for one year, and they were well-behaved when they lived with me. However, the ruthless activities of behavior modification schools for teenagers (instead of sending them to jail) were used for decades across the nation and deserve a book of their own.

The third story deals with love letters from a fictional artist named J. Morrison, whose character may have been inspired historically by the artist Walt Kuhn, a leader in 1913 of the modern art movement in America. In the novel, Morrison paints in Europe (periodically) and writes letters to his struggling wife in America. She had suffered three miscarriages. The rumor was that Morrison created three paintings in memory of his lost children that were not characteristic of his style. The paintings were referred to as “The Triplets” and were missing.

As the story progresses, Lisa Morrison, the artist’s elderly daughter, who lives alone, is subsidized by her father’s art collection. She meets Reggie, first encountering him in a dazed state after falling to the ground from a bus in Portland. Lisa discovers Reggie has been badly beaten by his peers as part of their school’s therapeutic process and rescues him. When Reggie is recovered, she takes him with her to Sotheby’s Auction House in New York to look for her father’s art, which a collector is selling. 

The book then takes us to 2018, when the Portland Museum of Art holds a fictional panel discussion on the value of J. Morrison’s work in the new Union Room of the Press Club Restaurant in Portland (once known as the Gannett building). A mysterious call during that meeting leads to revisiting the endless search for the missing Morrison paintings.

Descriptions of real places in Maine and New York enhance this novel’s activities, making the stories appear more realistic while the plots are uneven. “Discipline” is a good title for this book because, along with the importance of art in life and the humanitarian needs of teenagers, discipline is a central theme and is needed to pull the story together. The book's strengths help the characters come alive (at intervals), and the descriptions of the environments are memorable.