July 27, 1983

Summer after summer, kids cross Lamont Willoughby’s land to swim inthe Presumscot River in Westbrook. Summer after summer, he tries to keep them off. The contest took a more serious turn last week when Willoughby was arrested for smashing two windows and denting the roof and hood of the car of some swimmers while they were in the car, showering some of them with glass. Willoughby is 49 years old and lives at 696 Cumberland St., near but across the street from the Ponderosa golf course-driving range. Police said both he and his son, Richard, 20, were ordered to court after the assault on the car. The river bank that attracts swimmers to the Willoughby land has relative privacy, cool shade, and trees that lean out over the water with hanging ropes. Being upstream from any city pollution, and coming straight out of Sebago Lake, the river water is exceptionally clean.

Charles Crockett, Day Road, Gorham, has accepted a $100,000

share of the several million dollars left by his uncle, Earl Crockett, retired South Portland trucking executive. Under a codicil signed in the nursing home before he died, most of Crocket’s millions will go to Maine Medical Center. Earl Crockett died in October at age 78. His estate has been contested since February by his nephew and sole living relative, Charles Crockett. The “Compromise Agreement” with the hospital and other parties, giving him $100,000, was reached on July 11. The settlement follows a long dispute and a trial in the Probate Court.

Westbrook police notes: At 8 p.m., a citizen reported that a

small dog was waiting in front of the Animal Refuge League. A

patrolman took it into the building. One of Roger Knight’s cows was loose on the County Road. The strange noise at the Dairy Queen at 4:25 a.m. was only a bread truck making a morning delivery. A woman asked police to help a man hurt in a fight at Hob Nob Tavern at 11 p.m. He refused to be helped. Three men stole a policeman’s portable radio at 11:45 p.m. and took off running. Police converged on the scene, arrested the men and recovered the radio. Frank Knight, 777 Methodist Road, was driving past the Joseph Warren Little League Field at 10:30 a.m., when a baseball broke his windshield.

July 28, 1993

George Canales, 29, spent the afternoon and evening of July 17 at a cookout in the yard of friend Bert Michelson at 47 North St., Westbrook. He played some chess. At the end of the night, he and his uncle, Larry King, left for a Main Street bar, The Bus Stop, and stayed there until closing. King left first, walking back across the bridge to his apartment at the corner of Bridge and Brown streets. Canales hung around. There was a woman he wanted to talk to. On Tuesday afternoon, July 20, Canales’ body turned up in the Presumpscot River about a quarter mile below the Bridge Street Bridge he would have crossed on his way to his uncle’s apartment and his pickup truck. He was fully clothed. Family members say they’ve been told he died by drowning and that there were no cuts or bruises on his body, nothing that might point to a struggle. He appeared to have been in the water some time. Bar owner Richard Willoughby said, “I couldn’t believe it when the police called me,” and recalled Canales swimming in younger years in the river behind the Willoughby family home. Willoughby also recalled the names of Danny McGinnis and Joe Poitras, other friends of his who were found drowned in the river.

The Gorham Taxpayers Association wants $1,043,098 cut from the 1993-94 budget so spending levels are identical to the budget approved last year. The group, which formed earlier this month, will present that request, and others, at the Town Council meeting July 29. Residents last week voted 1,759-303 to return the budget to the council for further review.

Two Westbrook families have applied to the state commissioner of education to home-school their children in 1993-94. Superintendent Edward Connolly said he expects others to apply before September. Kevin and Debora Huddy, 90R Cottage St., want to home-school April E. Huddy, 9, in multi-grades 6-8. Bonnie Hoag, 10 Dunn St., wants to home-school Katrina McNamara, 12, Grade 8, and Misty McNamara, 9, Grade 4. Notice goes to the local school department, but the commissioner makes the

decision.

Westbrook’s newest business is one of northern New England’s

oldest, Swenson Granite Works, founded in 1883 by immigrant

John Swenson and headed today by his great-grandson, Kurt Swenson, Hopkinton, N.H. Swenson Granite, based in Concord, N.H., chose Westbrook for its second district office after several years of growth in the volume of its sales in southern and coastal Maine.