Let's write about school book censorship

Echo essay from MUKILTEO, Washington KIMA News — Mukilteo schools removed the Pulitzer-prize winning novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" from its required reading list.

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of characters Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s.

It's among many classic pieces of literature that schools across the country are choosing to omit from their curriculum. In tonight's Crisis in the Classroom report, we look at the trend and why it's happening.

“I want to learn and get a good grade in this class but it's also kind of weird to be talking about this,” Kamiak High School Junior Esaw Adhana said, adding he remembers uncomfortable moments in school when reading Harper Lee’s1961 Pulitzer Prize novel two years ago. “It's not just language, but it's also, like, the sort of white savior complex." (HELLO? "uncomfortable moments?", just sayin'. Racism is torture for those who are targeted.)

“I think the lessons and ideas of racial injustice are super important, To Kill A Mockingbird, at least how we teach it, is not the best sample. The way we teach it now is just really uncomfortable and almost invasive," Adhana said.

The district board signed off Monday of a request from students, parents and others to remove the book from the ninth grade required reading list, but it remains an option for teachers who choose to use it in their instruction.

“We don't want to harm any students but at the same time we want to have fruitful discussions that are not harmful, but at the same time prepare students as they go on to the next level,” said Mike Simmons, Mukilteo School District Board President.

This vote comes at a time when people from all political backgrounds appear to be stepping up to remove books -- including classics - from school curriculum across the country.

UW Teaching Professor and Assoc. Director of Writing Programs Michelle Liu gave her take: “For me, a classic is not important just because it’s become a classic, but how it helps people in a certain time and place have debates Prizes are always a marker but this book really spoke to the community at that time. Is it still speaking? We’ll see.”

The Washington Education Association said the move gives educators a chance to find more current authors whose books better reflect current community values.

“How do we bring curriculum into those classes in ways that reflect the values of our diversity?” WEA Director of the Center for Racial Social and Economic Justice Michael Pena said.

“I think it is still possible to teach this book to forge a conversation about, ‘How do we talk about racial and class and gender differences?’ But, I think it would need to be taught very different than how it has traditionally been taught as an example of ‘Atticus Finch is the greatest man on the face of this planet,’” Liu added.

Simmons said he knows of teachers who still plan to use the book in their curriculum.

Maine Writer Post Script:  Although there is certainly some racially difficult language spoken in To Kill a Mockingbird, the fact is, the narrative is connected to the relevance of the book's plot.  Harper Lee presents this plot through the lens of two innocent children.  As a result, in my opinion, this book is definitely suitable as required reading for junior high school students. 

Let's write about a remarkable physician

Dr. Theodore C. Patterson, a Dundalk Maryland, family physician who was my late mother’s doctor. 

He died at 86 years old in Maryland. He grew up in the neighborhood where Henrietta Lacks lived.

By JACQUES KELLY in the Baltimore Sun

JUL 12, 2019 AT 12:50 PM

Reporter Jacques Kelly came to the Evening Sun as a summer intern in 1969 and later joined The News American. He’s been with The Baltimore Sun since 1986. As a local columnist and reporter, Jacques writes about neighborhoods for readers who like learning more about their city. He also writes local obituaries.

Obituary- Dr. Theodore C. Patterson, a retired physician who practiced in Dundalk and was called as a beloved community figure, died of Parkinson’s disease complications on July 9, 2019, at his Annapolis home. He was 86 years old.

“Dr. Patterson represented the epitome of good hard work and academic success,” said former U.S. Presentative Kweisi Mfume. “As a young person, in my formative yeaers, I sat in awe of him. He went on to become a friend and mentor. As a physician, he was a counselor to the many families he treated. He had a comforting spirit about him,”

Born in Sparrows Point, he was the son of Doward B. Patterson, Sr., a Bethlehem Steel Corporation foreman and his wife Louie Marshall, a homemaker. According to a biography prepared by his family, Dr. Patterson spent his youth in a house on J Street, one of the first at Turner Station to have indoor plumbing.

Dr. Patterson graduated from Sollers Point High School, in 1949, which ws then a segregated black institution. “But, the Class of 1949, accustomed to race-based barriers, didn’t give segregation mush thought,” said a 1999, Baltimore Sun article about a reunion. “You persevered,” said Dr. Patterson, recalling his high school years. He said that his classmates went on to careers in medicine, teaching, architecture, manufacturing and government.

“We’ve never really had a reunion. This is more of an anniversary,” said Patterson who co-organized that reunion.

He earned a pre-med degree at Morgan State University, and as an ROTC second lieutenant, he served as a training officer at Fort Dix, New Jersey for two years.

His family biography said that on a visit to New Orleans with a friend, the late Joe Thomas, Dr. Patterson me Sylvia Tureaud*, his future wife. They married on July 14, 1956.

He and his wife settled in Dundalk and raised their children. Dr. Patterson commuted by train daily to graduate school at Howard University in Washington, DC.. In 1958, he was accepted to the University of Maryland Medical School. Upon graduation he interned at Sinai Hospital. In 1965, he started his family practice in Turner Station. He later practiced in an office in the Logan Village Shopping Center.

“He was very friendly and jovial, and everyone loved Dr. Patterson,” said Dr. Willarda V. Edwards, with whom he practiced until his retirement in 1993. “He really was a true family physician. People brought all their relatives to him and they in turn told others about him. At Christmas, his office would be filled with the cakes and candies people brought him.”

His family said he made house calls evenings and weekends. He also called on patients when they were hospitalized and stopped in their rooms to say hello and offer support.

Dr. Patterson remained active in Dundalk and Sparrows Point community affairs and participated in events that promoted local history.

“It has been a close-knit community,” said in a 1973 Evening Sun article. “You rarely locked your doors and always went to your neighbors’ houses uninvited.” He said that he grew up not going into Baltimore City much, maybe two or three trips a year.

Dr. Patterson went on to be the first African American president of the Gilman School Parents’ Association during 1978-1979. He was a member of the Board of the Patapsco Federal Savings and Loan Association, the County Planning Board, a member of the Dundalk Community College Advisory Board, the Dundalk Jaycees and was a past president of the Dundalk Optimist Club.

From 1969 to 1970, he served as president of the American Medical Association, Baltimore County Chapter. He was also first African American to hold the post. He group awarded him its Physicians’ Community Service Award in 1993.

Entry in Dr. Patterson’s obituary guestbook (below) describes the way I remember how others in the community would remember him:

“Mr. Alvin and Diane Lewis and family from 5471 Moores Run Drive, wrote on Jul. 13, 2019: On behalf of Christ The King Church of Turner Station: I had the pleasure of seeing Dr. Theodore Patterson and his family attending church there for many years as a little girl. My grandfather and grandmother The late Sidney and Maggie Small, Mr. and Mrs. Mary Branch, The Howard family and Mrs. Good and Mrs. Moore attended the same church. Dr. Theodore Patterson left a Legacy for his family, his community and friends serving us all. We had a saying during church service "Peace be with you" telling one another. Dr. Theodore Patterson aka (cousin Teddy) in my words will be greatly missed by all who knew him. Earth has lost a great and good man but Heaven has gained a true and faithful Angel. We are keeping his dear wife and family in our prayers for days to come. Love Always Mrs. Diane Moss-Lewis and family

*Alexander Pierre "A. P." Tureaud, Sr. (February 26, 1899 – January 22, 1972) was an African-American attorney who headed the legal team for the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP during the Civil Rights Movement. With the assistance of Thurgood Marshall and Robert Carter from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, A. P. Tureaud filed the lawsuit that successfully ended the system of Jim Crow segregation in New Orleans. That case paved the way for integrating the first two elementary schools in the Deep South. (From Wikipedia).

Let's write about Acadians!

This blog I wrote titled "Learning About Acadian Blind Spots", was published on the Bangor Daily News Franco-American News and Culture website. By republishing on Let's Write, I am able to send it to readers who live outside the United States. Unfortunately, the Bangor Daily News blogger page is blocked by many international security screens.

Learning about Acadian “blind spots”

January 21, 2022

Franco-American News and CultureKerri Arsenault, Sanford Maine, Thibodeau 

By Juliana L'Heureux

L’Heureux family photograph dated 1909, in Sanford, Maine. Lumina Savoie L’Heureux is on the top row, far right.

Writer Kerri Arsenault was spot on when she explained the meaning of “Blind Spots”, the sub title in one chapter of her autobiography titled “Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains,” during a book talk, hosted on ZOOM, on January 17, by the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine at Lewiston Auburn College.

“Blind Spots” is a sub-section of the book, where she describes the Arsenault’s family’s history, and how her ancestors came to Mexico, Maine from Prince Edward Island, in Canada. But, conceptually, the sub-title captures the lack of awareness about Acadian history and information about the impact the Franco-American immigration had on Maine and, particularly, in her home town of Mexico.

As a matter of fact, this “blind spot” was revealed in our family, as described below in an article I published in September, 2006. The article (below), gives evidence to the point Arsenault makes in her book.

Merci beaucoup to Kerri for the excellent presentation she gave to nearly 100 on-line participants, when she was the guest speaker for the Franco-American Collection’s community program series. Moreover, she presented “virtually”, speaking from an apartment where she is temporarily living in Paris, France, while working on a special project.

Her autobiography “Mill Town, Reckoning with What Remains” is about growing up in Mexico, where her family lived while her father worked at the Rumford, Maine paper mill. Her family experienced middle class prosperity as a result of the employment provided by the mill, but, at the same time, the toxins produced by the paper production also polluted the local environment, and likely caused her father’s death from lung disease and asbestosis.

In “Blind Spots”, Arsenault opens up a discussion about how many of Maine’s people and others are unaware, or choose to not become aware, about Acadian American history and Franco-American immigration from Canada. These blind spots are not taught in the schools. Therefore, she found ways to locate the sources of her family’s blind spots by researching her genealogy.

Some blind spots she identified, because they are not taught, includes:

• Blind to Franco-American and Acadian American history.
• Blind to the impact that immigration has had on Maine’s manufacturing companies.
• Blind to the impact of the Franco-Americans who built the workforce in the paper, shoe and textile mills.
• Blind to the history about the Acadian deportation of 1755.

All of which reminded me about our family’s “blind spot”, described in a September, 2006, article titled “Acadian Connection 8 Generations Back”.

We were actually surprised to discover Acadian ancestors in the L’Heureux family, traced to the Thibodeau name.

In fact, numerous Franco-American families are connected through 11 generations of genealogies from Canada, but ancestors with Quebecois heritage are often distinguished from those with Acadian ancestral roots. In other words, colonial Quebec’s French settlers did not intermarry with the families that lived in Acadia (today being in western Nova Scotia). This was because the two groups developed, independently. Until 1755.

Some Acadian settlers managed to escape the brutal British deportation of 1755, known as Le Grand Dérangement. Many refugees that escaped ultimately fled to territories in Quebec and the Madawaska region, where they eventually started a new lineage. Later, many of those that were deported and sailed away to random destinations on the east coast, where they were abandoned, are among those that ultimately settled in Louisiana. The Acadians and Quebecois began to intermarry after the deportation.

My husband’s family immigrated into New England and Maine in the early 20th century, but it wasn’t until 2006, when we figured out how they are connected to the Acadians. Up until then, the family believed all of the ancestors were Quebecois. Family oral history did not appear to support Acadian connections into the genealogy. Franco-American genealogies can be complicated and may be tedious to figure out beyond four generations, because so many family names are interrelated.

Therefore, we missed the sixth generation great-grandfather connection with Charles Thibodeau, an Acadian through the genealogy of Marie-Lumina Savoie, who was my husband’s paternal grandmother.

All the Thibodeau ancestors are related to the first generation Pierre, who settled the Pine Grove area of western Nova Scotia, around 1690. Thibodeau’s eldest son of 12 children was also named Pierre. Therefore, my husband’s genealogy through his grandmother is directly descended from Charles Thibodeau, one of Pierre’s siblings. In fact, the lineage leaps directly from Thibodeau, to Savoie, to L’Heureux, although it took eight generations to reach my husband’s family group.

Marie-Lumina Savoie and Narcisse L’Heureux married and are my husband grandparents. Charles Thibodeau is, therefore, my husband’s sixth great-grandfather.

Kerri Arsenault, author of "Mill Town"< presented background information in a book talk sponsored by the Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine Lewiston Auburn College on January 17, 2022, via ZOOM.

Consequently, as Arsenault pointed out, the Acadian “blind spot” was found and confirmed by checking with Kennebunk summer resident Dick Thibodeau*. He studied genealogy and knew quite a bit of detail about his ancestors and the family’s ties to Nova Scotia.

Thanks to Thibodeau’s meticulous research, we can reveal our family’s Acadian blind spot. Every L’Heureux family member who was born in Sanford and descended from Marie-Lumina Savoie are directly connected to the Thibodeau family and they are therefore Acadian through the “Savoie” name. On the L’Heureux side, the family name is totally Quebecois.

*We are delighted to have met Dick Thibodeau and to learn about his interest in genealogy. Sadly, he died a few years ago, but you can read more about him in a research paper submitted to the Acadian Archives at the University of Maine Fort Kent, submitted by Anne Chamberland and available in the public domain at this link here.

Although our family has revealed our blind spot, American history continues to overlook the Franco-American “fact”, being, the French precedence over the arrival of European settlers in North America.

More information about the Franco-American Collection at USM LAC is available at this site here. 

About Juliana L'Heureux

Juliana L’Heureux is a free lance writer who publishes news, blogs and articles about Franco-Americans and the French culture. She has written about the culture in weekly and bi-weekly articles, for the past 35 years.

Let's write more about Jack Kerouac!

My blog - Kerouac centennial anniversary events.
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion”, Jack Kerouac. (b. 1922 in Lowell, MA –d. 1969 St. Petersburg, FL). Kerouac’s Centennial Project.

Native of Lowell Massachusetts Jack Kerouac and author of “On The Road”. (1922-1969)

In the author’s home city of Lowell, Massachusetts, the “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” committee is advocating for the community to work together for the purpose of keeping Kerouac’s legacy alive. In the past, I reported about plans to commemorate the centennial plans to recognize Jack Kerouac’s birthday, as a Franco-American son of Lowell.

Several blog links and an article are available below in this update about the Jack Kerouac Estate announcement about the formation of Jack Kerouac Foundation in his native Lowell.

The Jack Kerouac Foundation is intended to further the creative legacy of the world-renowned American writer Jack Kerouac, author of “On the Road” and other novels.

In the author’s home city of Lowell, Massachusetts, the “Lowell Celebrates Kerouac” committee is advocating for the community to work together for the purpose of keeping Kerouac’s legacy alive. In the past, I reported about plans to commemorate the centennial plans to recognize Jack Kerouac’s birthday, as a Franco-American son of Lowell.

Several blog links and an article are available below in this update about the Jack Kerouac Estate announcement about the formation of Jack Kerouac Foundation in his native Lowell.

The Jack Kerouac Foundation is intended to further the creative legacy of the world-renowned American writer Jack Kerouac, author of “On the Road” and other novels.

The Foundation’s first initiative will be to pursue funding for the establishment of a Jack Kerouac Museum and Performance Center in the magnificent former St Jean the Baptiste Church, which was completed in 1896, to serve Lowell’s once-booming population in the city’s “Little Canada” neighborhood.

In fact, the church was the heart of the neighborhood, as well as the city’s French-Canadian population.  In fact, the church

 was also the site of Jack’s funeral Mass in 1969.

“Who doesn’t know of the writer Jack Kerouac?,” asks the literary executor of his estate Jim Sampas. “It seems every day he is referenced in radio programs, films, TV shows, and podcasts. Celebrated figures from former U.S. President Barack Obama to Bob Dylan, iconic fashion designer Kim Jones and so many more speak of his enduring work and unique style of writing he named “spontaneous prose.” And while there have been monuments built to Kerouac, there is no museum or performance center to celebrate this singular author’s artistry. There’s a strong case to be made that no author in history has been more influential in the musical arts as Jack Kerouac and the performance center will celebrate that legacy.”

“It’s an honor to help make a Jack Kerouac Museum & Performance Center a reality — something we at the Estate have targeted for a long time. When Dave Ouellette of ACTION (Acre Coalition To Improve Our Neighborhood) approached the Estate and the Kerouac Centennial Committee with a proposal to pursue the long-empty church building as our preferred site, we recognized it instantly as a perfect fit for our goals,” says Sylvia Cunha, Director of Marketing & Business Development for the Kerouac Estate and Executive Director of the new foundation. “We aim to partner with different organizations and individuals. 

Our fundraising kicks off now, and we plan to show this incredible space to those interested in collaborating with us in March when Jack’s original On The Road scroll returns to Lowell to mark what would have been his 100th Birthday,” she said.

“Memorializing Jack in the place his brother Gerard was baptized, where he himself served for a time as an altar boy, and where he formed a deep bond with the priest who conducted his funeral — Father Spike Morissette — would be incredibly appropriate,” adds Dave Ouellette. “We want to thank Brian McGowan of TMI Property Management & Development, the owner of the building, for helping us pursue our goals. Purchasing and renovating the building would contribute immeasurably to the reputation of Kerouac, our historic Acre neighborhood, and the City of Lowell,” shares Ouellette.

THE JACK KEROUAC FOUNDATION officers comprise CEO: Jim Sampas; Executive Director: Sylvia Cunha; President: Christopher Porter; Vice-President: Michael Millner; Secretary: Steve Edington; and Treasurer Michael P Flynn. The Executive Board members are Suzanne Beebe, Deborah Belanger, Judith Bessette, Dave Ouellette, David Perry, Ryan Rourke, Sean Thibodeau, and Clifford J Whalen.

An article about the Kerouac Project was published in a past blog:

Franco-Americans support Lowell Celebrates Kerouac

Plan ahead and learn more about the 2022, Lowell Celebrates Kerouac programs.

In 2022, the city of Lowell, Massachusetts will be remembering the centennial birthday of their Franco-American native son, Jack Kerouac. The Lowell Celebrates Kerouac committee is strongly advocating for more public support to help organize a celebration for the world famous author of On the Road, the novel that sparked the Beat Generation and has transcended generations.

On The Road by Jack Kerouac was published on September 5, 1957

Franco-American Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac, on March 12, 1922, in Lowell, Massachusetts. He died on October 12, 1969, in St. Petersburg, Florida. He is buried in Lowell, in the Edson Cemetery, located on Gorham Street.

An articles about “The Eternal Kerouac”, by Jay Atkinson published in the Boston Sunday Globe, wrote, “Although Kerouac died at age 47, in 1969, the Lowell native is more popular now than he’s ever been, eclipsing famous contemporaries in the public’s conversation.”

Thank you to the Lowell Sun and Suzanne Beebe for this reprint permission.

This is the second essay published with permission of writers who are supporting recognition for Jack Kerouac. In January, Rev. Steve Edington submitted his essay, with permission to reprint.

“Le FORUM”, published by the Franco-American Centre at University of Maine, will also published the two essays in the bilingual quarterly journal, edited by Lisa Michaud.

Lowell, MA- Jack Kerouac is a world-renowned writer. He opened new avenues for American writers of the 20th century. He was central to the Beat Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He wrote the founding novel of the Beat Movement: “On the Road.”

He also wrote five novels about Lowell, plus a stream of poems, letters, and other novels exploring life, death, and spiritual realities as he experienced them in his travels, writing, worship, addictions, and relationships. And he was a product of Lowell’s Franco-American community — not speaking English until he was six, always speaking French with his family members, continuously in contact with French and French-Canadian literature and culture, and never abandoning the French-Canadian strain of Catholicism that colored and shaped his worldview.

Do we fully honor him here in his native city? What do we offer visitors from around the globe who come to explore his roots in Lowell and see the places where he lived, studied, worshiped, drank, brawled, fell in love, and played sports even as the larger world called him to grow beyond his birthplace? (Though Lowell constantly called him to return again and again.) How do we establish the link to his ethnic community and the ethnic culture that grounded him?

There’s Commemorative Park on Bridge Street with its lovely polished monoliths engraved with passages from his books. There’s the plaque on the Lupine Road cottage where he was born and lived in his infancy. There’s a growing archive of materials by and about him being gathered, organized, and digitized by the Kerouac Center at UMass Lowell for scholars, writers, and Kerouac devotees of every background and calling. There’s the Kerouac corner at the Pollard Memorial Library, where he spent days expanding his mind and mastering his command of English as he read omnivorously and encountered the great minds of literature. There’s a small Kerouac display at the National Historical Park Visitor’s Center on Market Street. But there is no one place in Lowell where short-term visitors can view exhibits or attend events that provide a comprehensive look at his life and work in the context of his city and its Franco-American community.

Other cities and towns manage to honor their artistic giants, whether the artist lived there for years or was born there and left. Stockbridge has its Norman Rockwell Museum. Salinas, Calif., has its Steinbeck National Center. Tulsa, Okla., has its Woody Guthrie Center, while small-town Okemah, Okla., (Woody’s birthplace), is working to restore the original Guthrie home.

Cambridge has the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House. Concord has the Alcott family’s Orchard House, where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women. Concord also has the Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne homes. Lowell itself has the Whistler Museum, the birthplace of an artist who lived here the first three years of his life, despised the city and its industrial nature, and never returned, famously saying when he declared himself to have been born in St. Petersburg, Russia, “I shall be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in Lowell.” Can’t we at least provide a museum or center on the scale of the Whistler Museum for a world-famous author who loved the city of his birth, wrote about it, visited regularly, and is buried here?

Right now, the church where Kerouac was baptized and the school he attended for a few years — St. Louis de France in Centralville — stands empty, unused, and awaiting sale by the Archdiocese of Boston. Kerouac wrote about those buildings in his novel Visions of Gerard. At this writing, there is no public commitment on the part of the Archdiocese to preserve them as part of any purchase agreement. Nor has the city exerted any discernible effort to influence the Archdiocese in its sale of the St. Louis site, although a 2005 survey conducted by the Massachusetts Historical Commission recommended it be declared eligible for the National Register of Historical Places.

Shouldn’t the city at least consider what it might do to keep those buildings standing — and how at least one of them (perhaps the church?) might become a center for public exhibits and events centering on Kerouac, his work, and the Franco-American community that shaped him? Couldn’t the city explore with UMass Lowell’s Kerouac Center how a partnership of the two could work with the Archdiocese to achieve mutually satisfactory goals while fully honoring the native son who helped change American literature in the 20th century? Opportunities like the St. Louis site’s availability don’t arise every day. Surely, the city, the university, and the Archdiocese can find a way to capitalize on it. The only thing that seems needed is the will.

Suzanne Molleur Beebe
Lowell born and raised Franco-American

Check out this blog about “On The Road” at this site here.

Let's Write about bridges!

Delighted to see how my blog about the lights on the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Bridge in Lubec, Maine, is receiving such an enthusiastic social media response.  Many thanks to Joel Ross for creating this visible symbol of international friendship!

Appreciation to Leslie Bowman for sharing this stunning picture of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge with lights. GLOW FROM THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS installed by Joel Ross across the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial Bridge between Lubec and Campobello reflects off the waters of the Lubec Narrows.

Holiday lights decorate the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Bridge.

Several helpful sources provided the information reported in this Holiday season news blog. Thank you to Joel Ross, a Lubec Maine resident, who led the international Franklin Delano Roosevelt bridge lighting, and The Quoddy Tides: The Most Easterly Published Newspaper in the US, editor Edward French and New Brunswick reporter Derwin Gowan, and Leslie Bowman and Loring Musson, who gave their permission to publish their pictures. (Be sure to read Gowan’s article, scroll below!)

LUBEC, Maine– A one of a kind American-Canadian national park on Campobello Island, in New Brunswick, Canada, was the summer home of the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family, but the COVID international travel ban between Maine and Canada closed access to the island via the international “Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bridge”.

This international closure has created an emotional and economic impact on the Campobello Island citizens and on the people who live in the beautiful eastern Maine town of Lubec.

Lubec resident Joel Ross, 39, decided to act on idea he had. In fact, Ross quickly received community support and the okay from the Coast Guard, to string lights on the bridge across the Lubec Narrows. The project created visible friendship and showed support for the many family ties between the international communities.

“Honestly, support for the bridge lights came from the community,” said Ross during a phone interview. He was motivated to create attention to this crossing because his wife and her family are from Campobello Island. In fact, his wife, Lacey Phinney Ross, still has family living on Campobello Island. When her grandmother became ill, she was being cared for in Lubec, when the border closed because of COVID. During the closure, her grandmother died but, sadly, her remains could not be interred with her family on Campobello Island. She did not want to be cremated for religious reasons, so her remains were not able to be interred in Campobello Island. “Only cremated remains could be taken across the border,” he said.

Moreover, Ross said he knows many other families on both sides of the border who have experienced family disruptions as a result of the bridge being closed.

”I definitely wasn’t looking for attention, but I’m happy people are enjoying it,” Ross said. “We were just looking to brighten peoples’ day up a little bit, and show a unity between our communities. I’m really, really happy people enjoy it.”

Ross started the project with his own money but soon the community donated to finish the lights for both sides of the bridge. “Our communities are connected in so many ways and people support one another,” he said.

The decked steel beam bridge is named for Franklin D. Roosevelt, connects New Brunswick Route 774 to Maine State Route 189 and is Campobello Island’s only fixed connection to the mainland of North America; all of the island’s transportation connections to the rest of New Brunswick are by seasonal ferry.

Thanks to Loring Munson

A captivating two second exposure photo taken of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Bridge, by Lubec resident Loring Munson

This seasonal brightness created between Maine and Campobello Island in New Brunswick is a brilliant example to demonstrate how bridges are intended to unite people.

With his permission, the editor of the newspaper Quoddy Tides, Edward French gave me his permission to publish this article, reported by Derwin Gowan.

For what is believed to be the first time in the bridge’s history, it is adorned with Christmas lights thanks to Joel Ross, a Lubec man who put together fundraising efforts to buy the lights, and then strung nine-hundred feet worth along the bridge’s north rail.

He says the response from the community has been overwhelming.

”I definitely wasn’t looking for any notoriety or anything, but I’m glad people enjoy it,” Ross said. “We were just looking to brighten peoples day up a little bit, and show a little unity between us, y’know? I’m really, really happy people enjoy it.”

Yet, the window opened a crack in November, but then slammed shut just days before Christmas. Canada’s Health Minister Jean Yves Duclos announced in Ottawa that the exemption allowing residents of border communities to visit the United States for 72 hours without taking a PCR test for COVID 19 to return home would end starting on December 21.

Further, the government closed the loophole allowing people to get PCR tests in Canada, before leaving for the United States, provided they return within 72 hours. Now, even people making brief trips will need to get the test outside Canada.

The New Brunswick government added to this downer with an announcement that the province would shift to Level 2 of the COVID 19 Winter Plan at 11:59 p.m. on December 27. The province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell, Health Minister Dorothy Shepherd and Premier Blaine Higgs say the province deliberately chose this day to tighten restrictions to allow families and friends to get together over Christmas but minimize the chances of a major outbreak from New Year’s Eve festivities.

Both federal and Canadian provincial officials say they took these measures in light of frightening numbers related to the omicron variant of COVID 19. New Brunswick has done better than neighboring Maine, Quebec and Nova Scotia thus far, but the provincial officials say that it is only a matter of time before the wave laps up on New Brunswick’s shores.

Getting across before window closes: The window did open for a few days, allowing 92 year old Charlotte Gowan in St. Stephen to finally get over to Calais to visit her 90 year old sister Sally Smith for the first time since March 2020. Gowan’s daughter in law Jennifer downloaded the ArriveCAN app, filled in the required information and accompanied her mother in law. The two and one half hour trip went well, and they got back home with no mishaps. Asked if the trip was necessary, Gowan replies, “I thought I had to, well, considering our age and the fact that she had that awful sick spell, and I wanted to see her.” Smith caught and recovered from COVID 19 despite having two doses of vaccine and is recovering from a fall in her kitchen in September in which she broke her hip.

“Well, my goodness, I looked up and there was my beloved sister walking in the door. Wasn’t that amazing?” Smith says. “We knew that she might come and so she just appeared, and I was very happy to see her,” she says. Her sons John and Joseph got to see their aunt, too. Smith hopes to get over to St. Stephen if she can navigate the rules for entering Canada.

The federal decision to close the window allowing short visits without PCR tests disappoints New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson. “What’s going to happen as of Tuesday is the traffic between the two countries is going to dry up again,” he says. “My view is we have to learn to live with COVID 19. We have to be smart; we have to protect ourselves … but the idea that we are going to close the border and go into lockdown, suddenly, without warning, I think is starting to have some really hard consequences elsewhere, whether it’s mental health, whether it’s other medical procedures and whether it’s just the ability for someone to run a business,” he says.

Canadians can still winter in Florida and go to the United States to work “but this new testing requirement at land crossings is going to stop cross border commutes dead in their tracks,” he says.

Calais, Maine helps Canadians get home

The changing rules might affect traffic at certain Calais,Maine businesses and public services where staff have developed expertise at helping Canadians download ArriveCAN and comply with other rules, so they can get back home after short trips “over the river.”

At least 40 desperate Canadians showed up at the Calais Free Library looking for help in the days following November 30, after border agents told them they had to present completed ArriveCAN forms, says librarian Joyce Garland. Library staff already had some experience following an influx of people wanting to go home after Canada lifted restrictions on nonessential travel in August. People taking longer trips made up the August influx. After November 30, the library saw more local people from Charlotte County making short trips.

“They didn’t realize they even had to have ArriveCAN done, then, they couldn’t get back home. They were sent to the library by Canadian border agents”, Garland says. Some people did not have email addresses or could not remember passwords. Some were not computer literate, so staff would either set the people up with email or download the app, punch in the required information, then provide a printout or screen shot with the required code the border agent could enter to allow the person to go home without isolating or paying a fine.

Due to COVID 19 spacing rules, the library has only two computers available for public use, and Calais patrons sometimes had to wait in line, to use a computer or check out a book, while staff tried to help Canadians trying to get home, Garland says. She eventually called City Manager Michael Ellis, who spoke to the Canada Border Services Agency, she says.

“It’s not that we didn’t want to help people, but we didn’t have the manpower and, I mean, we were helping people, but we had to end it somehow,” she says.

Calais Maine Free Library

Garland sent some people up the street to the Maine Visitor Information Center, where manager Vicki Farrell confirms that staff have helped quite a few people. The center actually started helping American residents wanting to visit Canada after the restrictions eased in August — and extended the service to Canadians wanting to go home.

“We try to assist. We can scan their vaccination cards so they can upload them to their devices. If they don’t have a device, we can do it on a computer and print it out, or take a picture of the screen so they have their code when they arrive at the border crossing,” she says.

The center only has one computer it can use for this service. It can take 20 minutes “if all goes well,” she says, “but if you can’t get into your email to get the code that they send you, then there lies the rub. We’ve had some challenges, but I think we’ve helped a good deal of people.”

The new rule requiring people to get their PCR tests outside Canada will be a problem because the only place in Calais to get the tests is at the city’s recreation department, on Mondays and Tuesdays from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. when the Center for Disease Control comes to town, she says.

One Calais business started helping desperate Canadians get home “by accident,” according to manager Sue Provencher at C&E Feeds. After staff helped one customer download the app, CBSA called and asked if the business would offer this as a service to customers. “So we went out and bought two tablets, and we offer it as a service. They can pay for it, whatever they can, $1 or $2, it doesn’t matter, if they want to make a donation,” she says.

C&E Feeds has close to 8,000 Canadian customers, who use the company’s parcel service — providing mailboxes allowing Canadians to order things in the United States with an American address to send them to be picked up.

“We were pretty sad to hear that they were going to require the PCR testing and kind of close it down again,” Provencher says. C&E Feeds stayed open till 7 p.m. in the final days before the window closed again — hoping Canadians could get over to pick up their parcels, some there since the early days of the pandemic.

Provencher’s “best chum” since childhood, Heidi Hamilton Bradford, now lives on the Canadian side of the border. They have not seen each other since the pandemic began.

Garland — the former Joyce Baxter — grew up in St. Stephen where her mother and other family members still live. She has not seen most of them since the start of the pandemic, although her sister Laurie recently came over to visit. She has a niece and nephew, born since the pandemic began, whom she has yet to see. “I’m going to try to get over for Christmas,” she says.

(Derwin Gowan is Charlotte Gowan’s son and Sally Smith’s nephew).

Obviously, the border closing has separated innumerable numbers of Maine and Canadian families. This separation will undoubtedly have a regressive impact on shared cross border cultures and also for those who speak French as their first language.

Let's write about friendship!

On New Year Day 2022: An echo essay by Rev. Brett Garland published in the Delaware Gazette newspaper and posted to the opinion page by Joshua Keeran.

Your Pastor Speaks: Rather Garland  studied philosophy in college and loved it. 

He writes, "I am told that this is not a universal experience" … many people find the subject as dry as dust. 

Father Brett Garland

But he found philosophy classes to be incredibly relevant to daily life. When he read Plato and Aristotle, he was amazed at how perceptive they were, as if they somehow knew him, or could read his mind and soul. "These 2,400-year-old Greeks were experts in human nature. They were keen observers who helped a young college kid to see the world with more clarity and insight."

One of the lessons learned from Aristotle that has stuck with him was his observations on friendship. In fact, Aristotle enumerates three different kinds of friendship. 

• First, he discusses what he calls a friendship of utility, a relationship based on the usefulness of another person. Think of business partnerships, or a young politician befriending a seasoned senator who might be able to give him a leg-up in his career. 
• Second is the kind of friendship that is based on shared pleasure or delight. Consider the relationship between two people who enjoy playing tennis, or running, or traveling together. Aristotle sees friendships based on utility (usefulness) and pleasure as lower-level friendships. There is nothing inherently wrong with them, but they do not fully embody the kind of friendship that will fulfill us.
• For Aristotle, the pinnacle of friendship — the kind of friendship that leads to true happiness — is that which is based on virtue. Unfortunately, in popular culture we don’t often see this kind of friendship on display. One exception to this is the friendship between Frodo and Samwise in “The Lord of the Rings” books and movies. Both Frodo and Sam are self-iving, they bring out the best in each other, and they are not afraid to challenge each other when one of them falls short. A great Biblical example of this is found in the friendship between David and Jonathan in 1 and 2 Samuel.

Of course, most friendships don’t fit easily into one category. You may have friends who are your golf buddies (friendship of pleasure/delight), who might also be business partners (friendship of utility). They might also be friends that challenge you by their example to be a better spouse, a better Christian, etc. (friendship of virtue). But don’t only look at your friends; look at yourself. What kind of friend are you? 

Do you try to bring the best out of others? Do you give more than you take?

Three different kinds of friendship described by Aristotle

Recently, another application for Aristotle’s teaching on friendship came to mind: our relationship with Jesus. When we are young, we are often taught to pray to Jesus, especially when we need something (friendship of utility). We see this also in the lives of the disciples. Remember when James and John, early on in their friendship with Jesus, asked him to do for them whatever they asked of him (Mark 10:35)? That is definitely a friendship of utility! But we see that the relationship between Jesus and the disciples matures into something much stronger. Eventually, in the Acts of the Apostles, we see that the disciples are willing to give their lives to spreading the Gospel! They are no longer motivated by what Jesus can give them, but rather are challenged by his example to live for others. Their friendship of utility had been transformed into a friendship of virtue.

How about your relationship with Jesus? There’s an easy way to test this. What kind of prayers do you offer to him? Do you only pray to him when you want something from him? Do your prayers resemble the request of James and John (“Do for us whatever we ask of you”)? Or more like the prayer of Jesus (“Thy will be done”)?

At the Last Supper, Jesus said to his disciples, “I have called you friends” (John 15:15). He calls all of us to friendship. But not just to any kind of friendship. He wants to be the friend that challenges us, that brings the best out of us. 

May Jesus be the model and measure of all our friendships!

Author Rev. Brett Garland is the parish priest of St. Mary Parish in Delaware. Before moving to Delaware in 2020, Father Garland served in English- and Spanish-speaking parishes on the west side of Columbus, OH. Having grown up on a family farm in Fayette County, Ohio, he enjoys returning home to spend time with his extended family.

Maine Writer - In the New Year 2022, may we consider an Auld Lang Syne paying forward?  How can we be better friends of virtue?