The Olde Duck Hunter

by

Carroll V Strout

June 14, 2019

Finally our white and purple lilac bushes along with our flowering crab trees are in blossoms. The apple trees are all in blossom too. They are late in blooming this year by at least three weeks.

One of our blooms I was impressed with this year is our chestnut tree. It is a young tree only about eighteen feet tall. It has produced over thirty beautiful long white cone shaped blossoms. This is the first time we have ever seen so many blossoms on our tree.

Next door our neighbor Dick Paul spent all of last week planting his veggie garden in between the bad weather. He also had a good bloom on his two plum trees and cherry trees that he is growing. His peach tree did not have many blossoms at all this year.

Dick Paul is having all the clapboards on the front side of the barn, ell, and house replaced with vinyl siding this month.

More of Growing Up in Milbridge, Maine

Bits and Pieces:

Do you remember when you were a kid and going to your local grocery store and buying a cold soda pop on a hot summer day? Our neighbor hood kids use to go to Dinsmore Store for ours. Once inside the store you would lift up the horizontal lid to the cooler. After selecting your flavor you closed the lid and removed the cap from the bottle by an opener on the side of the cooler. Then we went outside and sat on the store steps and drank our soda.

Have you noticed that today pop-cycles are a singled stick affair? Again when I was a kid pop-cycles were a double sized treat with two sticks. The only treats with single sticks were fudge-cycles and cream-cycles. Plus you could buy small tubs of ice cream, pints, quarts, and half gallon containers of ice cream. That size you can’t buy today.

O.P. Gays general store not only had a salt pork barrel it also had a cracker barrel. The crackers were called pilot crackers and they were large and round. My mother often bought these crackers when she served different kinds of chowders.

Well folks that was the way it was another time another story. Just remember one thing no matter what life bestows upon us the smoke will go up the chimney just the same.