So today I got the Retiree Newsletter from the mega-corp I used to work for. I always check out the "In Memoriam" section to see if any of my coworkers is no longer with us. The quarterly list is always quite lengthy, but as I scanned the names I noticed an obituary from Millinocket ME. Apparently Mr. Peter King passed away on July 5, 2019. I didn't know him, but I zeroed in on his location.
I didn't know Peter King, but I see that he was just a few months older than me. From the obituary, I know his brother-in-law, although not well. There are only a couple of thousand people in Millinocket, but a whole lot more people who were raised here, since the population of the town is about half of what it was in 1980, when the paper mill cut most of its workforce, before closing entirely in the early 2000s.
I didn't know him, either. Apparently he was in the maritime division and I was down here among the chemical plants.
In the photo above, the Appalachian Trail Cafe, just left of center, is about two blocks from my house, as I live one block from Penobscot Avenue, pictured here, which serves as Millinocket's main street, and the AT Cafe is another block north. For the first ten years that we lived here, we ate at the AT Cafe at least three times a week, and probably more often than that. It was also the place where people would meet for coffee. Then, about ten years ago, it was sold to someone from Boston, who allied himself with the pro-national park contingent in town, almost all of whom were from Massachusetts, and nearly all the locals quit going there. For the past few years, it has been closed for the winter, since there are mostly only locals here in the winter, and we weren't patronizing the AT Cafe. A few months ago, he sold the place to someone who was born and raised here, but who has been running a restaurant somewhere else for many years. He's still not doing great business because it takes a while for people to get used to going there again, but this is the first winter the place has been open in a long while.
So what's the scoop? Why did the owner sell? Did you and your wife ever go there under the new ownership? Did you hear any intentions that the Boston owner had with his allys of the pro-national park contingent? Sounds like some rumors kept the locals from going there.
Yes, we go there now. If he can get business back, he'll stay. He's relatively young and has a reason to want to be in Millinocket. As for the former owner, there was a large contingent of people buying up homes and businesses here, and immediately forming or joining organizations in favor of a national park so yeah, while I'm sure they hoped to profit from it as well, they were here as part of an agenda. As it is, they got a national monument, and are currently fighting to upgrade it to a park. This is a good thing only those who own some of the few recreational businesses in the area, since no new ones are allowed, those interested in selling trinkets to tourists, and those who want to sell their homes and move elsewhere. Otherwise, locals are left with higher taxes, a far more intrusive local government, federal restrictions on what can be done with their own property, particularly when it comes to business.
So having a national park seems to be or has been on the minds of some locals. So what does the monument look like?
There is no actual monument. A national monument is simply an area of federally protected land. In promoting it, its backers consistently include photos of Mount Katahdin, but that's in the adjacent Baxter State Park. There is nothing special about the national monument. It's just a large piece of land that no one can log, build on or, in most cases, hunt or fish on anymore, and its presence comes with a host of regulations as to what owners of adjacent land can do with their property.
I think we have a murder in town today. I am hearing that someone was shot in the head and there is a hostage situation right now. A few blocks from here, the police have blocked traffic off, and there are about a dozen police cars and a couple of ambulances. Since we usually only have one cop on duty here at any given time, there are police from several neighboring towns and a SWAT team from somewhere, probably the state police. There are even a couple of game warden cars there. It's a place known for drug activity, and I am hearing that there was a suspicious death there not long ago. We've only had a couple of murders in the twenty years that I've been here.
It was not a murder, at least not yet. Someone has been shot in the head but is still alive. This is a place with known drug activity but we have a new police chief who doesn't believe that resources should be spent on enforcing drug laws, regardless of the nature of the drugs involved. Since there is no work here for anyone who doesn't either have his own business or is able to work online, pretty much everyone here is either retired, living on the dole, or up to no good. Fortunately, I think we have a higher number of retired people than we do in the other categories because people who grew up here like to retire here after living away for most of their adult lives. There is very little here for young people to do for a living, though.
Hopefully that person will live without any serious damage. I would think attempted murder if that person lives. Any where drugs are sold illegally there is bound for trouble to follow.