Category Archives: youth

Cumberland County Kingdom

Written July 1, 2021 From the Kezar Pond to Saco Bay. Old Orchard Beach to Bailey’s Island. The land of my youth The summer camp on Watchic Pond Built by my grandfather. An orphan A logger A frontline surgeon in WWI France. A retreat from the horrors to Maine With a nurse, my grandmother. A […]

Chaney – Sebago Lake – July 1960

Written July 1, 2021 My best friends as a child were my older brother and Chaney We lived in Falmouth Foresides, Maine. We did everything together. School, hockey, eating stolen strawberries from the nearby farm, hang at the docks at the end of our street, and swim at Sebago Lake. My family moved to the […]

BLESS ME FATHER by Peter Nolan Smith

Written February 10, 2022 My First Holy Communion and Confirmation of Faith to the Catholic Church took place at a church in Maine in 1960. My mother dressed me in white to symbolize the purity of my soul, although she had me wear a red jacket with a black velvet lapel. I had a fight […]

HEAVY METAL ACCORDION by Peter Nolan Smith

Written May 3, 2020 Every boy has a best friend in his youth. In 1959 my family lived on Falmouth Foresides. Mckinley Road ended at the bluff overlooking the mudflats of Portland Harbor. I was lucky enough to have two friends; my older brother Frunk and a neighbor. Chaney and I attended the same kindergarten […]

Memory Loss

Written Nov 4, 2010 The Catholic Church and other derivatives of the Judeo-Christian faith extol monogamy as the true state of man and woman, then explain sex with the mystery of the birds and bees. Actually I don’t ever recall getting that lecture from my parents, although the stork was mentioned whenever a new brother […]