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Thursday, November 7, 2013

Kennebunk couple commits


And with the help of some people named Bush, the wedding gains worldwide media attention

KENNEBUNKPORT — It was just a small wedding, held in a Kennebunkport back yard in front of 65 guests. It was, says Helen Thorgalsen, “not meant to be a big deal,” at least not in the sense of it being a political statement.
Naturally, the Sept. 21 ceremony was a very big deal for Thorgalsen and her longtime partner, Bonnie Clement. But, though a couple since 2001, neither was active in the 2009 drive that legalized gay marriage in Maine, the subsequent repeal of that law before it could take effect, or the more recent citizens’ initiative that finally made if legal for same-sex couples to marry as of Dec. 29, 2012.
But it’s not every couple, gay or straight, that has their wedding certificate witnessed by a U.S. president, and, within moments of Thorgalsen posting a picture of George Herbert Walker Bush signing the marriage license – with the caption “Getting our marriage license witnessed!” – the story had gone viral. Photos from the wedding were lifted from the Facebook page and posted, Thorgalsen says, with only minor hyperbole, “in about a zillion places.”
Thorgalsen even got a note from a cousin living in Norway, with a photo attached from the Oslo newspaper, showing that there, too, the wedding was big news.
“We never expected it to grow this big,” Clement has said. “Within 10 minutes, we had more emails, it had gone international.”
Many of the news bites focused on the fact that Bush’s son, President George W. Bush, has opposed gay marriage. But Clement and Thorgalsen say the Bushes did not witness their marriage certificate as a means to speak out on the issue of gay marriage. In fact, the younger George Bush and his wife, Laura, were invited to the wedding at a home near the Bush family’s compound at Walker’s Point, but had other commitments.
“This was not meant to be a political statement by any means,” said Thorgalsen, “This was just them coming to the wedding of two friends and witnessing their wedding certificate as friends.”
“We just thought for us personally that would be the most memorable and just be a great thing,” said Clement in another interview regarding her wedding. “We get how blessed and lucky we are for them to be our friends. We just never expected it to be this way.”
Far from being a photo opp, the pictures were candid shots, taken without many of the wedding guests even realizing it was happening, recalled Thorgalsen.
“It wasn’t like it was a big formal thing,” said Thorgalsen. “Everybody was just milling around after the wedding when they signed, just as anyone would have their license witnessed. It wasn’t sort of, ‘OK, everybody stop and watch the president sign.’”
Still, even with the worldwide publicity and controversy about gay marriage, Thorgalsen says there’s been a paucity of hatred thrown their way.
“Everyone we see has been very happy for us, with all kinds of people offering their congratulations in cards, letters, emails, Facebook messages,” said Thorgalsen. “We’ve had a lot of publicity but, honestly, we’ve had minimal negative reaction. To me it’s just a union of two people who have been together for so long. Most people who know us just saw it as, ‘Oh, Helen and Bonnie are getting married,’ not, ‘Oh, it’s a gay wedding.’”
In that way, the couple says, the acceptance mirrors what they’ve experienced since moving to Kennebunk more than a decade ago.
Clement, 60, and Thorgalsen, 55, first met more than 12 years ago, when one of Thorgalsen’s then-teenage daughters began washing dishes at the Dockside CafĂ© in Kennebunkport, run at the time by Clement. Thorgalsen herself worked at the cafe for a short time and, soon, she and Clement were dating.
In 2002, they bought Meserve’s Market, located in an 1865 building at 15 Western Ave., in Kennebunk’s Lower Village, and moved into the second-floor apartment, along with Thorgalsen’s two daughters, making renovation of the store a family project.
Out went the carpet and metal shelves of what had been a corner convenience store, in came wood shelving and window tables and an old-fashioned general store ambience.
H.B. Provisions opened on May 21, 2002, and has not closed a single day since, opening its doors for half-days even on Thanksgiving and Christmas, offering groceries and newspapers, but also specialty coffees, a full deli, baked goods, meals, craft beers and an extensive wine collection, featuring 450 labels and monthly tastings.
“We wanted it to be more than a store,” said Thorgalsen. “We both shared the vision of it being a place where community members can come and greet each other, or just sit in the window and watch the world go by.
And the reaction was nothing short of fantastic.
“All we did was take the paper off the windows and people started pouring into the store,” said Thorgalsen.
Of course, there was, despite Clement’s experience in the restaurant industry and Thorgalsen’s people skills as a counselor, a “very steep learning curve.”
“On the first day we opened, Bonnie didn’t know how to run the cash register and I didn’t know anything about the deli,” recalled Thorgalsen, with a laugh. “There was so much to learn, stuff that we just didn’t know to keep the flow going.”
They were still very much feeling their way on their second weekend, with Thorgalsen working in the office, when she heard Clement call from the doorway, “Let’s go, the president is here.”
Bush, with a Secret Service agent in tow, explained that he’d heard there was a new business in town and that he wanted to check it out. As longtime residents of the nearby Walker’s Point compound in Kennebunkport, it was not that unusual to see the former president in town. Still, says Thorgalsen, it was “quite a thrill” to see him in their store.
That first visit became another, and then another, and soon the Bushes were both regular customers and genuine friends.
“They became friendly and came in more and invited us out on the boat and to different events,” said Thorgalsen. “We just gradually over time got to know them more and more. We’d often socialize with them at different gatherings. We’ve been to Houston to see them. Just as friends develop over time, we developed a relationship.
“So, they are our friends. That’s all there really is to it,” said Thorgalsen. “I certainly didn’t sense any hesitation at all [when asking them to sign as witnesses to the wedding].”
“It wouldn’t have been uncommon for us to invite them because we have been friends for many, many years,” Clement has said. “This was just our friends coming to our wedding.”
The decision to marry stems from a minor medical emergency last fall. The couple split briefly in 2007 when Thorgalsen left the business to re-enter her former career as a counselor. She has since earned a doctorate in C.O.R.E. Education – an acronym that stands for Conscious, Ownership, Retrieval/Release, and Engage – and now works primarily as a counselor through her website, IWantToFeelBetter.com. But the couple stayed in touch and were drawn back together when Clement was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009.
“She said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to be here for as long as this takes. We’re just going to work through this.’ So we did,” Clement said. “It was a very long year of treatment and we just sort of realized at this point that it was destined. We just never really have been apart. I said we always knew.”
Then, about a year ago, Clement took ill and was transported by ambulance from the store to Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford. Thorgalsen went ahead by car to start the requisite paperwork, but found much different treatment from what she experienced during Clement’s cancer treatments, primarily at Mercy Hospital in Portland.
“When I got to the hospital they asked if I was related to her,” said Thorgalsen. “I said she was my partner and they said, ‘Well, then, you’ll have to go and wait in the waiting room,” and they wouldn’t let me in.
“That was the spark that prompted the whole thing,” said Thorgalsen. “Once that happened, it made us realize how important this [marriage] can be.”
So, during a trip to the Von Trapp family lodge in Vermont last December, timed to coincide with Thorgalsen’s birthday, Clement popped the question, with one of Thorgalsen’s daughters part of the occasion in person and the other tuned in via FaceTime.
“My children look as much to her for guidance and support as they look to me,” said Thorgalsen, noting that she and Clement have co-parented the girls, Audrey, now 24, and Lindsay, 26 and expecting her first child within weeks.
“Up to that point, getting married didn’t feel like something we needed to do,” said Thorgalsen. “We didn’t give it a lot of energy. But I’ve been in other gay relationships, I’ve been in other straight relationships, and she was the person I fell in love with.”
Although Thorgalsen now only works in the store part time, it remains the central part of their lives. The wedding had to wait past the busy summer tourist season and a major remodeling of the building’s living quarters.
Even on her wedding day, Thorgalsen notes, she stopped in to the store for a quick coffee and ended up working an hour through the morning rush.
“That’s a big part of living it, and loving it,” said Thorgalsen. “It’s a big part of both of us, it carries both of our names, even though my real calling is the counseling and working with people on a more individual basis.”
Meanwhile, Clement, who has become so plugged into the needs of the community that some have taken to calling her “The Mayor of the Lower Village,” has said life in Kennebunk is about as good as it gets, a fact that remains true even after a honeymoon trip to Venice and the Italian Alps, and a wine-tasting tour of California’s Napa Valley.
“We said it probably was a good thing that we weren’t here for all [the media attention to the wedding],” she said for a recent interview. “We keep thinking it’s got a little bit of a shelf life. But really, it was about our wedding, to finally acknowledge the fact that we are a couple that is committed, that we have two beautiful daughters and are soon to be grandparents. We’re blessed in so many ways, you just can’t imagine.”

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Anne Foote remembered

The heart of the American Journal was the gracious wife of founder Harry Foote


WESTBROOK — Anne Foote, who logged nearly half a century as both a local librarian and an integral part of the American Journal, was a stickler for proper grammar right up until her death last week at age 95.
Just two days before she died on Sept. 15, despite being out of the newspaper game for more than a decade, Foote was up to her old habits.
“We brought home a newspaper, not the American Journal I don’t think, but some other paper, and she read it through end to end,” said Foote’s son, Ray Foote, on Wednesday. “Then she asked for a pencil and corrected a ‘who’ to ‘whom.’”
That was Anne Foote to a T, most folks say, adding that if anyone was the old-fashioned epitome of the term “ladylike,” it was she.
“‘Gracious’ is the word I’d like to say,” said City Councilor Mike Sanphy. “She was a very nice lady – very proud and very professional. Anne was someone who fit in well with all groups.”
During his four-decade career as a Westbrook police officer, Sanphy said that while on patrol, he’d often see lights blazing into the early morning hours at the former American Journal pressroom on Dana Street, as Foote and her husband, Harry Foote, labored to get each issue of the newspaper out on time.
“Harry Foote was one of the hardest-working men I ever knew and, I have to say, I think she had a lot to do with that,” said former City Councilor Phil Curran. “She surely was a wonderful person. They were a good team, a good pair and a good part of this city’s life.”
Harry Foote died in August 2012.
As a city councilor in the 1970s and a state legislator in the 1980s, Curran was, apart from being a friend of the Footes, a frequent subject in Anne Foote’s regular column.
Titled “Ramblings,” it was just that, a bit of anything and everything that Anne Foote found of interest and, as a voracious reader and veritable Renaissance woman, that could have meant almost anything in any given issue of the weekly paper.
It was, in the days before Twitter, the Internet, or even cable television, a touchstone for Westbrook residents and regular newspaper readers.
“Those kinds of columns, and particularly the good ones like hers, really pulled people together and put them in touch with each other in a different way than they are today,” said Curran. “It was an invaluable service to us.”
According to daughter Susan Foote, the column started out as a replace for recipes, a popular newspaper feature in the mid-1960s. Her parents bought both the Westbrook American and the South Portland-Cape Elizabeth Journal in 1965, combining them into a single publication to serve the Portland suburbs in 1966.
“The recipes often came from lunches and church suppers in the community she attended,” recalled Susan Foote. “In doing that, various community organizations got mentioned and over time that involved more and more community groups. And, from that, it gradually morphed into a column of much wider interest.”
“It was well received by a lot of people,” said Sanphy. “She always had something of common interest in it. I looked forward to reading it.”
As a gifted pianist, active outdoorswoman and librarian – both in New York City in her 20s and at the Portland Public Library, where she worked part time into the 1980s, even while raising a family and helping to put out a weekly newspaper – Anne Foote had a wide ranger of interests, which she parlayed into her column.
“Ramblings just kind of naturally came to her from whatever she was interested in, or had seen or learned,” recalled Ray Foote. “Almost anything she did became a kernel for a column.”
“Although she lived in Portland, I think Westbrook was really dear to her heart. We saw her a lot,” said Nancy Curran, treasurer at the local historical society, where Anne Foote was an active member until her later years.
“I remember Anne as very compassionate and interested in community cultural events,” agreed Bob Lowell, an American Journal reporter who worked with the Footes for many years.
Anne Foote did a little bit of everything around the newspaper, said Ray Foote, from proofreading to laying out pages, from answering phones to setting type. She would often “forego sleep” to get it all done and her column besides, said her son – or bring home “reams of copy” to review at home, said Susan Foote.
Whether at home or in the office, Anne Foote was a consummate mother.
“Being a family paper, Mrs. Foote and often that meant the Foote children and even the Foote dog could be found in the newsroom,” recalled Ray Foote.
The Footes sold the American Journal in 2002 to Current Publishing, but Anne Foote continued her column into 2011 at the invitation of the paper’s current publisher, Lee Hews
“She was a big part of the Westbrook community for a long time, and made her presence known in a gracious and warm manner. She will be missed,” said Hews.
“We were sorry to learn she had died,” said Nancy Curran, “but my goodness, she lived a good life.”

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Abigail Carroll – ‘You have to be willing to throw yourself into it’

Abigail Carroll

SCARBOROUGH — In early February, Abigail Carroll of Biddeford took a major step forward with her nascent aquaculture business when the Scarborough Town Council approved a contract to set up shop on its newly renovated municipal pier at Pine Point.
The deal will let Carroll’s company, Nonesuch Oysters, attach an 8-by-20-foot float at the end of the pier to serve as an incubator for “spat,” or baby oysters. From this nursery, juvenile oysters will be transported for final growth to a 4.5-acre sea farm the company leases further up the Scarborough River.
By this summer, Carroll plans to have 1 million oysters in production. By September, she says, her three-year-old company will finally achieve positive cash flow. That’s not too bad for a self-described “urban rat” with no previous experience on the working waterfront. Instead, the Maine-native parlayed a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University into a career launching various startups in France.
Based on that experience, shortly after returning home Carroll was asked to draft a business plan for someone else who dreamed of breaking into Maine’s $1.75 million oyster industry. But she quickly went from planner to principal financer to sole proprietor.
“My money came in first and then I realized the other money wasn’t coming at all,” she said. “The other person has never officially been a part of the company. It’s always been me, which is funny because the one rule I had going in was I would not be the one going out on the water.”
It’s been hard work, learning on the job how to raise American Virginica and European Flat Belon oysters, cultivated in three-year cycles from barely sized spat to 3-inch cocktail shells, then sold to a local wholesaler.
“There’s a very romantic notion people have of oyster farming until they actually do it. It’s hard, physical, dirty work,” said Carroll. “You’ve got to really nurture these guys, you’ve got to tend to them every day.”
Q: What were your most important needs in getting started?
A: Really, it was all about information gathering. I had to learn the industry. From there it just took a lot of tenacity. 
Q: What was there about your upbringing that gave you the courage to venture out on your own?
A: Learning foreign languages, French and Spanish, by emersion. With both, I was just kind of thrown in, without understanding everything at first. When that happens, your head aches, but you get through it and you just kind of figure it out as you go. That kind of attitude is just in my DNA. I’ve picked up and moved to so many places – I’ve lived in Ecuador, Spain, Cuba, and then France, where I spent 15 years of my life. I think starting a business is a little bit like the same thing. You just have to be willing to throw yourself into it.
Q: What do you think the advantages are of being a female entrepreneur?
A: Well, I won’t deny that there have been some advantages to being a female in this industry, although two of the most important people in Maine’s aquaculture industry are women. So, it’s not like I was some sort of groundbreaker coming in and doing something no other woman had done. That said, we get a lot of help from local fishermen – say if we can’t start the boat, or we need help unloading product. Last year I had a female employee and people were courteous to both of us in maybe a way they wouldn’t have been if we were men. Of course, it helps that we don’t do lobster or clams, so we’re not in competition, but I think we get a lot of respect from the fishing community at Pine Point. You still have to do the work and I think people give you a lot of respect if you are out there on the water really, really trying hard as a woman. I mean, I’m known as “The Oyster Lady.” If I was a man I don’t think I’d be called “The Oyster Guy.” There is a certain resonance because I’m a woman, but, also, we have a willingness to be a part of the community, so, I think that’s been reflected back in their attitude toward us. Not long ago something went wrong and one of the local lobstermen was like, “Oh, come on, you’ve been doing this long enough.” I think that as much as anything shows how I’ve been accepted. I really feel like most people down there at Pine Point have my back.
Q: What advice would you give an aspiring woman entrepreneur?
A: Just do it. I fully admit I just sort of stumbled into this – my background and my skill set is so different from someone who would normally do this. But, that’s actually been helpful, I think. Normally, someone who might do this would have a skill set in water work, and I didn’t. I get seasick. It took me a long time to even acclimate to being on the water. So, I have overcome all these personal obstacles in order to be successful, but what’s been easy for me, what’s made the difference, is my background in business and marketing and things like that. Those are things that come naturally that might not to someone who grew up in this industry. What seems basic to me are maybe not the first steps others doing this would take, if they were well versed only in the technical skills.  
Q: If you knew what you know now, would you have done anything differently?
A: I’m tempted, but I won’t say, “Don’t get into it.” No, no, no. It’s been hard and it’s been a big investment, mainly because it’s taken so long. I spend a lot of time putting out fires, and aquaculture is just one apocalyptic problem after another. Yet somehow every time I think we’ve hit something I think is completely insurmountable, we get through it, and often it’s been for the better. Ultimately, this has been very rewarding. The last few years have just been remarkable. It’s been a great, warm welcome. Honestly, I get teary eyed when I think about it. I will say, I’ve changed since starting this, I have more faith that things will work out than I used to and this experience has led to many paths and many causes beyond Nonesuch that are really interesting and of concern to me. Right now, I have an expanding role in ecological issues. I don’t always have the answers but I’m good at figuring things out. I’m a problem solver. I really think I can make a difference in the Saco Bay community.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Westbrook man arrested on child sex charges was a school bus driver


with Suzanne Hodgson
WESTBROOK — A Westbrook man who was arrested on child sex charges Tuesday resigned as a bus driver in the Scarborough school system just before he turned himself in to police.
Stephen C. Mitton, 47, of 665 Saco St., was arrested for felony charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and a misdemeanor charge of unlawful sexual touching. According to Westbrook police Capt. Tom Roth, the investigation in the case is ongoing. Roth said Mitton appeared at the police station on his own accord and was placed under arrest. He was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.
"He is no longer an employee," Scarborough Superintendent George Entwistle said Wednesday. "He was no longer employed as of yesterday. Basically the employee resigned and we accepted the resignation. He had not been arrested at that time."
A Stephen Mitton was employed as a school bus driver in Westbrook until 2011, when he resigned. School Superintendent Marc Gousse said Wednesday that he could not confirm the middle initial or date of birth of the bus driver. However, Entwistle said it is his understanding that it is the same person.
"This does not involve a Scarborough child," said Entwistle. "As far as I am concerned, it's a matter that relates to a previous employment in another town ... not Scarborough."
"My only comment would be that there are no pending complaints or concerns as it relates to Scarborough schools," said Entwistle. "It's really, as far as I'm concerned, not a matter that concerns us."
Entwistle added that due to safety concerns, Scarborough school buses are monitored by video.
According to Cape Elizabeth Superintendent Meredith Nadeau, a Stephen C. Mitton drove a school bus for her district from February to June 2011.
"My impression is that it was a temporary position," she said, noting that Mitton was contracted for special event duties on Aug. 19, 2011 and Aug. 17, 2012.

Race opens for City Council seat



SOUTH PORTLAND — Nomination papers are now available to fill the final two years of the District 1 City Council seat vacated Jan. 1 by Tom Coward, who resigned following his election in November to the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners.

Coward was sworn into his new office Jan. 14, where he will represent South Portland, Cape Elizabeth, Westbrook and the Riverton area of Portland in county matters.

Although voting is city-wide, potential candidates must reside in District 1, which includes the eastern part of the city from the shore to a line drawn by Pine, Sawyer and Chase streets, then following Cottage Road to the Cape Elizabeth line.

According to City Clerk Susan Mooney, nomination papers are due to her office by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 1, and must contain signatures from at least 100 registered South Portland voters. Signers do not have to reside in District 1.

The special election will be held on Tuesday, March 12. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Community Center on at 21 Nelson Road, near the high school.

Absentee ballots will be available starting on Monday, Feb. 4. Voters may request a ballot to mail in or vote via absentee ballot in person at City Hall through close of business on Monday, March 11. Residents may register to vote before the election at city hall, or on election day at the polls.

The winner of the special election will serve on the City Council until December 2014.



City fills vacant committee posts



SOUTH PORTLAND — The South Portland City Council made headway in filling vacant committee posts at its most recent meeting, Jan. 7, appointing five residents to various openings.

Colchester Drive resident Peter Stocks was named to fill out a term on the city’s economic development committee until March 23. The seat was vacated by Angela Smith, who resigned in December. However, it appears likely Stocks, president and general manager of Trudy Point LLC – an aquaculture company founded in 2010 to harvest rope-grown blue mussels off the Maine coast under the name Calendar Island Mussel Company – can expect reappointment when the time comes.

“To put an upstarter, small-business owner on this committee is very wise,” said Mayor Tom Blake of the nomination, made by Councilor Linda Cohen. “It’s an excellent choice.”

Stocks, who has lived in South Portland for six years, is a 1988 graduate of the Maine School of Law, with a 1990 degree in comparative corporate law from the London School of Economics.

E Street resident Mitchell Sturgeon, formerly a paper industry chemical engineer and a wastewater superintendent, was reappointed to the Conservation Commission to Nov. 20, 2015. Newly appointed to the commission, also through Nov. 20, 2015, was Monika Youelles of Strout Street. An operations representative and marine agent at Inchcape Shipping Services, Youelles has lived in South Portland for 10 years.

Julie Kingsley and Lynne Joys were reappointed to the library advisory board. Kingsley, of Preble Street, a teacher at Southern Maine Community College, and Joys, a 43-year resident of Kenneth Road, will each serve to Nov. 20, 2015.

South Portland has two openings on the conservation commission, one to Nov. 20, 2013 and the other to Nov. 20, 2014, as well as two seats on the energy and recycling committee, both terms to May 5, 2015.

City councilors also are seeking someone to serve on the board of appeals through July 23, 2015.


WinterFest to honor memory of local boy



SCARBOROUGH — Scarborough’s 24th annual WinterFest, set for Saturday, will include a tribute to the short but heroic life of Kyle St. Clair, a local boy who died last week at age 8 following a lifelong battle with lung and digestive issues.

Steve Kramer, an organizer with event sponsor Scarborough Community Services, said a silent auction will be held near the ice skating area for two Boston Celtic tickets, with all proceeds to be donated to charity in Kyle’s name.

“It will probably go to the Robbie Fund, which is a charity the family supports,” said Kramer on Tuesday. ”There may be other things arranged as well, but that’s the only things that’s definite right now.”

The free-admission family festival will take place on the Scarborough High School athletic fields and at the nearby outdoor ice rinks, beginning with a noontime bonfire.
Snow sculpture events get under way at 12:30 p.m. in three divisions (family, under 12, and over 13) with judging to be done at 4 p.m.
Competition for festival king and queen get under way at 2:30 p.m. on the lower ring, with points awarded in slalom skating, speed skating, backward skating and obstacle course events. The high scorers will be crowned at 5:20 p.m., following the popular fireworks display, set to launch at 5 p.m.
This year also sees the return of the “royal family” competition begun last year, with three events on the turf field. In addition to a snow shoe obstacle course, and the human sled dog race – a “very popular” event last year, says Kramer – a “snow sling” competition has been added to the schedule.
“It’s like a giant water-balloon sling, if you’ve seen one of those, only using snowballs,” said Kramer. “It’s safe and fun for the whole family. Whoever can launch a snowball the furthest down the field will be the winner.”
The royal family will be crowned along with the king and queen.
Among other festival highlights, Frosty the Snowman will visit at the ice rink closest to Wentworth Intermediate School.
Other games include milk jug curling at 12:30 p.m. and a Score-O competition at 2 p.m., both on the upper rink. There also will be ice cube hunts for younger children sponsored by Town and County Federal Credit Union on the Wentworth playground at 1:45 and 2:30 p.m.
Families can also take wagon rides from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Refreshments will be available throughout the festival as will ice carving demonstrations by Wicked Good Ice. Children can visit municipal plow and fire trucks next to the ice rinks from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Sunday, Jan. 20, will be the make-up date for the winter festival in case of inclement weather.