Pam Schwartz – Slide Whistler Extraordinaire

I am exhausted; it has been a very BUSY week. Do you want to know how I know I am exhausted? I started this blog two nights ago and am just deciding to work on it now and I still don’t want to. This weekend Union celebrated Founders’ Day which means at the historical society we had a lot to do. Most of this week was spent planning and getting ready for Founders’ Day as well as finishing my mini-exhibit. Don’t think this week wasn’t any fun, you know better. Tuesday Elaine and I went to Freeport which is apparently the shopping Mecca of Maine. It contains THE L.L. Bean, lots of “outlet” stores and a delicious restaurant called Gritty McDuff’s. I had the most interesting plate of food here but goodness was it tasty. I’ve NEVER ordered Mac N’ Cheese at a restaurant but I couldn’t resist ordering Gritty’s Pub Mac N’ Cheese it sounded so appetizing. Big spiraly pasta (I don’t remember the real name and am too lazy to look it up), blackened chicken breast, fried jalapenos and grilled cornbread. It was so incredibly tasty I don’t even know what to say about it.

I had a hot dog and chips with some scrumptious homemade blueberry pie and ice cream. I took Elaine home some Strawberry-Rhubarb Custard Pie because she couldn’t make it to the social. This was my first of four “public” meals in a row as they call them here. This morning there was a blueberry pancake breakfast at the church, chicken barbecue for lunch and fireman’s spaghetti supper this evening. I ate a lot this weekend! I was busy all day helping with stuff for UHS but I did get a little down time during the Come Spring Bus Tour this morning. If you all haven’t read the novel Come Spring by Ben Ames Williams, please do. It’s an excellent novel and then you can come to Union and see where everybody lived and did things. It’s a novelization on the first ten years of the earliest settlers’ lives here in Union. The Come Spring tour takes you all around Union to see where the original homesteads would have stood (this is usually in the form of an indent in the ground, the cellar hold) and where some of the notables are buried. It’s like living the novel and was a really fun experience.  Talk about an excellent view for the cemetery, now adays this is where the common would be put and the ancestors else where.  They have one of the best views in town and of Seven Tree Pond.  I’m usually weirded out about taking pictures in cemeteries but these people are like celebrities to me after reading Come Spring.  These two are Phillip and Jemima Robbins the very first settlers of Union (then Sterlingtown) whose daughter Mima Robbins is the main character of the book.

Now for the real fun. The UHS showed the silent movie The Camerman, which is a Buster Keaton film. Phenomenal! Absolutely hysterical! Not only was the movie funny on its own but Doug Protsik is a hoot and plays silent movies entirely from his own creative genius by a score he’s written in his head to fit the movie. As I am always introduced as Pam, the intern at UHS from Iowa, Doug thought he might have a fun interny thing to do. Usually he just plays the piano for the show but he always thought it would be kind of fun to mix other sound effects in.

Somehow I was volunteered and I had so much fun. Doug gave me a five minute rundown of the movie (which I’d never seen before) gave me some suggestions on when to play my instruments (big bell, counter top ding bell, a gong and a slide whistle) and told me to improvise the rest. I’ve never heard a whole room of people laugh so hard constantly for a movie. It was a riot and I had many compliments on my excellent timing. I dropped one of the bells and hit the gong on the chair by accident but was lucky enough they fit right into the movie, I’m also putting professional slide whistler down on my resume. I have some of the most bizarre and interesting experiences on these little random internships/trips I do and this will probably be one of the most memorable.

This is my mini-exhibit. Dont’ judge, I was on very limited time, funds and materials.  It has excerpts from letter written during the Civil War that soldiers sent home and facts about the war casualties etc.