Travel to Belfast, Maine

A Belfast (Maine) Sojourn
By Larry Tritten

I've lived in a large city
so long that my memories
of growing up in a small town in North Idaho have become analogous to old
photographs in a scrapbook tucked away in the back of a closet.

I grew up watching movies like My Sister Eileen in which young people from
small towns all over America yearned to escape to New York or Hollywood or
Chicago to become actors and writers. I made that escape but still have always
thought that ideally one should grow up in a small town and live in the city as
an adult.

I have a very clear memory of seeing Carousel in one of my home town theatres,
so there was a vestigial feeling of deja vu in finding myself on that first morning
in Maine cruising Penobscot Bay in the Friendship Sloop Amity, whose skipper
told me that the boat had been used in the movie, specifically in the scene in
which several boats sail over to an island for a clambake.

As we made the scene on the bay in a light rain, fortified by coffee and muffins, I
reflected on the Amity's pedigree. It was built in 1901 and originally used as a
lobster boat.

And might the Amity, I wondered, have been the very boat Shirley Jones took to
the island in the movie?

Whether or not Shirley Jones was ever aboard the Amity, I would hear much
about another celebrity at the Watchtide Bed & Breakfast where I stayed.
Eleanor Roosevelt was a frequent guest and wrote that she "liked the
cleanliness, the good food, the spectacular view of Penobscot Bay and the lack of
publicity."

The Watchtide has three acres of lawns, gardens, and trees to wander about in
before or after a gourmet breakfast on its spacious sun porch and an antique
shop in a vintage barn adjacent to the main quarters. I should also mention that
the
Watchtide, which was deeded to Henry Knox (our first Secretary of War), has a
long and proud history of amicable hauntings and incidents with guests
encountering resident spirits, all of which is detailed under Ghosts of Waldo
County.

Some pleasures to be had in small towns are low key but substantial and Belfast
gave me the opportunity to recapture the nostalgia of a a fundamental boyhood
experience -- going to a movie in an old-fashioned small town theatre. I grew up
going to three of them, all gone now, replaced by clinical modern buildings, so I
was pleased to find the Colonial theatre alive and well.

It opened in 1912 on the day the Titanic set sail and the character of its art deco
facade (added in 1923) is matched by the museum-like lobby with a display of
photos showing the theatre's history and a small library of film books which
allow patrons to settle arguments about movies.

The elephant on the roof above the neon marquee and the one in the lobby were
acquired in 1997 from the closing of an internationally-known Belfast roadside
attraction -- Perry's Nut House.

At the Colonial I found myself in a full house small town audience with a
familial mood, reminiscent of those I remember from Idaho.

In Idaho, walking to a movie or coming home from one, I would
pass some of the oldest and largest houses in town and always felt a sense of
awe about their antiquity. Yet in fact few of them dated back even to the late
19th century. In Belfast, walking along Church Street, I had that same feeling but
intensified as I passed house after house whose styles were Queen Anne, Greek
and Gothic Revival, Italianate and Cape Cod, etc.-- a striking miscellany of Ionic
and Doric columns, mansard roofs, bay windows, decorative gables, clustered
chimneys, balustrades, crystal windows, towers and turrets and cupolas.

The sense of history in this neighborhood is palpable and for just a moment,
walking along the block where the First Church in Belfast stands, I fancied that I
could hear ghostly echoes of the sound of a Paul Revere bell ringing and the
voices of the original townspeople joined in a community sing-along of
Handel's Messiah.

The restaurant that made the strongest impression on me was a
nearby roadside place named Angler's, a down-to-earth, very plainly appointed
family seafood restaurant whose distinction is largely due to the lively, actively
friendly presence of the owner, Bud Hall.

I watched as he worked the crowd, so to speak, showing genuine interest in
people as he went from table to table, exchanging a few words with friends and
strangers alike, making everyone feel right at home.

An offbeat bonus was that he did a bit of shtick for us with live
lobsters, a sort of crustacean Punch and Judy Show, and when one of our group
mentioned black raspberries for some reason, Bud leaped at the opportunity to
make black raspberry milkshakes for us, though they weren't on the menu. I
hope they are now!

One of the things that caught my eye among the handout materials given to us
was a sheet of paper advertising the Belfast Bearfest.The symbolism of an event
celebrating ursine creatures struck another nostalgic chord, since I grew up in
bear country on the other end of the continent.

I missed the Bearfest, which runs from June through October, but it sounds
irresistible, being a hands-on art event at which several Maine artists display
more than 40 mostly larger than life bears of all manner of designs and colors on
the streets and in the parks and stores of Belfast. It concludes with a Great Bear
Auction whose proceeds go to charity.

It's this sort of salient sense of fun that distinguished many of the people I met in
Maine.

As for those people, an experience near the end of the trip made a telling
impression. One of my companions lost her wallet, which contained the usual
array of cards and pictures and a significant amount of cash, a loss guaranteed to
spoil her visit.

Except that by the end of the day it had been returned to her by one of the
townspeople who found it. It was a pleasant way to wind up a trip to the Pine
Tree State and an altogether upbeat memory to take home with us.

About the author:
Larry Tritten is a freelance writer whose
credits include the New Yorker, Harpers,
Vanity Fair, Travel & Leisure and National
Geographic. He lives in San Francisco, CA.

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