Tag Archives: Harrison

July 9, 2016 · 2:32 pm

2016 Harrison Old Home Days Grand Parade

Family enjoys the 2016 Harrison Old Home Days parade

Harrison 7 riders

(Harrison ME) Looked like rain but it didn’t happen and the Grand Parade for Harrison’s Old Home Days took place on Saturday afternoon.

I delayed my arrival just in case it started raining and learned the hard way that when it’s noon that parade will start. A parade with hours of action can be arrived at late with no consequence but not a twenty-minute parade. Point? I missed a couple of the early paraders.

Last year’s policy of no sirens was again in effect. Also the absence of signs about the parade on Route 117 was noted. Some folks learned too late that they were indeed part of a parade of cars crawling through downtown Harrison.

Phyliss Ginzler

Jim Hamper

Local politicians state rep Phyliss Ginzler and state senator Jim Hamper were on Main Street.

The little Kora cars always put on a nice show. As a driver ed teacher I cringe at the quick turning and weaving that is part of their routine. Kora did have an accompanying road service vehicle with them just in case.

The 12-under Andy Valley softball used the parade to show their recently won championship banner and to fund raise for the upcoming regionals.

No animals in this year’s parade.

Averill Davis, as expected, gave his Woody a run down Main Street. How many years has it been?

Camp Wigwam of Waterford was the only camp to appear. Armed with water guns, they were wisely instructed not to shoot at an oldster with a camera.

(I am on Twitter at @McClellandPeter)

(All of the pictures above and below will enlarge considerably if you click on them.)

Ruby Slipper float

Averill Davis

grand marshall

Camp Wigwam float

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July 11, 2015 · 3:55 pm

2015 Harrison Old Home Days Parade

Military on the move at the 2015 Harrison Old Home Days Parade

Young Engine 5 rider

(Harrison ME) I have to admit that I used to go for the candy………but now I go to take pictures.

I viewed the 2015 edition of the Old Home Days Parade this afternoon and collected pictures from the event. Temperatures in the 80’s probably limited the number of spectators, at least in the Harrison boat launch area.

If you weren’t there these pictures are what you missed. If you were there, here are my pictures of what you saw.

One thing I made sure I did was to time the length of the parade. Today’s was nineteen minutes. You snooze you lose!

There were four specific things about today’s parade that caught my attention; (1) there was no music, (2) almost no candy, (3) no tractors, and (4) there were no sirens. Plenty of fire trucks, however.

The four missing pieces caught me by surprise because they have always been parts of previous parades.

I guessed that things were different for the 2015 edition of the parade when I noticed that there were no signs on Route 117 alerting drivers that a parade was going to happen. That may have been an oversight.

First place antique auto

A number of antique cars traveled the parade route. One couple displayed a plaque declaring their vehicle the 2015 antique auto winner.

I caught a couple of youngsters riding in prominent spots in fire engines.

I wonder how many years Averill Davis has had his car in the parade?

Kids with squirt guns and me with my camera. What could go wrong? That’s why camps have counselors! “Let’s use common sense when we see someone with a camera,” directed one Camp Wigwam counselor.

(All of the pictures above and below will enlarge considerably if you click on them.)

State rep Phyllis Ginzler

Dale McDaniels

Averill Davis

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July 13, 2014 · 9:25 pm

Harrison Old Home Days parade 2014

These are my pictures from the 2014 Harrison Old Home Days parade:

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October 25, 2007 · 10:50 pm

Age Distrusted, Experience Underestimated

After reading the October 18th issue of The Bridgton News I’m thinking this if your last name starts with “T” and you’ve been on the job for a while it is clearly time to take note.

Out the door locally in recent days have gone Bridgton police officer Doug Taft and Harrison town manager Mike Thorne. Expanding nationally we can add Yankee manager Joe Torre to the unemployed lot. Let’s face it, if each of them were to take off their shirts we would still see the marks of the handprints on their backs providing visual evidence of how they were “helped” to find the exit.

It can happen to any of us I suppose. Consider the senior citizen bumper sticker that states, “I was taught to respect my elders but there are none of them left.” In this day, the chances of getting respect because of advanced age and/or extensive experience are vanishing.

I believe that it is important to remember that everything in life is terminal. No question in my mind that each of these three men knew at the outset of employment that there would be an ending. The unfortunate surprise for each of these men was that they weren’t able to choose the ending time – others forced the decision.

What makes me unhappy about what has happened is that those doing the forcing were younger than the victims are and certainly much less experienced.

I read of the impact of the local twosome in The Bridgton News and I quickly sensed how important they were to their respective communities.

I overheard someone in the Market Basket in Harrison say this week about Mike Thorne, “They ran him out of town. Now they’ll find out what he did.”

Sgt Taft’s contributions on and off duty in Bridgton have been well documented over the past few weeks. No way that the, “let’s-bring-everything-up-to-the-21st-century,” crowd managing the Bridgton police department will be able to quickly replace a person of Sgt. Taft’s stature.

I look at Joe Torre’s exit with a lot less sympathy. As a Red Sox fan I am pleased to see Joe Torre forced out because I’m quite sure that the resulting turmoil will keep the Yankees where I want them to be – behind Boston in the standings and struggling to make the playoffs. No surprise that George Steinbrenner’s two sons, Hank (50) and Hal (38), who are now in charge of the Yankees, masterminded Joe’s exit. It is just one more example of youth and inexperience messing things up.

I suspect that the forced exits of Doug Taft, Mike Thorne, and Joe Torre will lead to lingering divisions, especially over the two local guys involved. No question that the wounds won’t heal very quickly from any of these cases.

I read somewhere that God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we would listen twice as much as we speak. Too bad the decision makers forcing the ousters of Doug Taft, Mike Thorne, and Joe Torre got it backwards.

( Appeared in the Bridgton News – October 25, 2007 )

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November 3, 2005 · 11:31 pm

Harrison – The Friendly Village???

Wow! I wonder when that October 18th selectmen’s meeting in Harrison is going to be on cable. Talk about reality TV!

Mark Chag (“Harrison fights to live up to its nickname after teen terrorism” – October 27th) wrote the summary of a very lively meeting in Harrison for the Advertiser Democrat.

I love Harrison and am in that town almost every day. I have enjoyed the folks that I have met there. This meeting, however, made me realize that the Harrison I was familiar with was very different from the one that some people are experiencing.

I am reading a book called, “The ABC’s of Real Estate Investing” by Ken McElroy. One of the things he says is that you can learn a lot about a place of possible investment by what’s said about it in the news. Try selling your year-round property to anyone who saw Mark Chag’s article!

Are any of these assumptions that I picked up from this story true?
(1) a group of leaders, children, and parents spent a miserable summer because of a group of ill-mannered kids,
(2) the group being bothered were unable to make the problem go away,
(3) some of those causing the problem now realize they were wrong and want to correct it,
(4) some parents do not know if their kids were involved.

Like the water around here an unsupervised child will usually find its lowest point. That’s the beauty of a summer-long rec program – children get supervised. If those supervised kids are being bothered by some unsupervised kids then the solution seems real obvious. Supervise your children or be prepared to deal with the consequences of their behavior. However, it’s not real nice for a parent to find out that his/her child is a problem long after the problem takes place.

I keep thinking that the sequence at Crystal Lake Park should be that:
(1) the kid causes a problem at the park,
(2) the rec director contacts the sheriff’s department,
(3) the sheriff’s department comes to Harrison and takes down the complaint,
(4) the sheriff’s department goes to the home of the kid and informs the parent,
(5) the parent instructs the kid as to what they’re not going to be doing in the future.

Is my list missing anything?

Being a grandparent I wasn’t surprised to hear that people were sticking up for their children. My own grandchildren (4 and 7) can be amazingly impish at times. However, when they climb onto my lap or call me “grandpa” they are assured of a future of being completely in the clear! If someone accused them of doing something wrong I’d do what the relatives in this article did – “no relative of mine could do such a thing.” It’s a “blood” thing!

Might solutions to this problem include?
(1) the rec department director reports future problems to the sheriff’s department the first time they happen,
(2) the sheriff’s department patrols the Crystal Lake Park area and actually get out of their vehicles and go to where the harassing kids generally congregate,
(3) teens in this area get supervised and any apartments given for them to use be closely monitored,
(4) parents of children at the park check in with Town Manager Thorne to hear what he’s doing about the problem.

As I said at the beginning, I love Harrison. May they quickly find a solution to the problem and return to being the “friendly” village.

( Appeared in the Bridgton News – November 3, 2005 )

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