In more than 250 columns in the past five years, I have avoided the use of personal pronouns; there’s too much ”I” and “me” in the world. Not so this week. I have moved to Westbrook to be near public transportation, and after a lifetime of association with the town of Gorham, its time to express my personal debt.

I want to go back 75 years, to when the Gorham Savings Bank had exactly three employees and encouraged 25-cent weekly deposits. We had an IGA, an A&P and a meat market in the village square, everyone walked to the post office to pick up their mail, and Louie’s restaurant was the only place to “eat out.” Allen’s hall above Burnell’s stationery store was the civic auditorium, the town was managed by three selectmen, the police force consisted of one part-time constable (without either a nightstick or gun) and town decisions were made in one public meeting every year in which participation was enthusiastic, generally common sense and always entertaining. College “men” wore vests and neckties; no grown man would be without a hat in public. Store-bought booze was firmly eschewed, not least because money was so scarce. Young men generally learned the “facts of life” from farm animals while the schools earnestly ignored the subject entirely.

The annual Cumberland County Fair – with trotting races – was the equivalent of the Super Bowl except it lasted five days and everyone went. In the winter, there was always the Winter Carnival on Alden’s Hill, where everyone could (and did) enter the snowshoe races and drink hot chocolate.

Gorham – like everywhere – was recovering from the insane American wealth inequality of the 1920s (a situation frighteningly close to today’s wealth distribution); consequently, the most significant change was a minimum wage law of 30 cents an hour. While made possible by that crazy Roosevelt (who was ”driving the country to hell in a hand basket”), people did admit that a man could now survive on a 40-hour week.

There was a community in the purest sense of the word. The town spelled intimacy, a condition not often thought of as pleasant – but gossip was not always unkind. Much of it represented a concern for another.

Partly because there was little cash, entertainment was community-shared activities that joined people, provided friendship and mutual acceptance. These were open to all – music clubs, ladies clubs, historical societies, poetry clubs, literary clubs. My ridiculous clarinet was drowned by the trombones in the weekly Gorham band, but I enjoyed the homemade doughnuts. Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, 4-H clubs and the Grange were large and vital presences. The Odd Fellows and Masons were pillars of male activity. Memorial Day meant a large parade for everyone who could walk – or in the case of Civil War veterans, ride. Volunteer firemen were recognized, appreciated. The one-eyed retired railroad man who lived on the town dump (no utilities) was liked because he treated everyone with the same good cheer.

“Better off” folks were admired, respected and envied. But none was feared and none was in any way privileged. No tablemates who sat together at a church bean supper could be anything but accepted equals. Fortunately for Gorham youth, there were some older families with whom sharing was an obligation. Recognizing a community need – and empty municipal coffers – the Robie family gave the high school its first real gymnasium, in which the high school basketball team promptly won a state championship.

Gorham elected a woman to the Legislature long before Margaret Chase became Smith. Fred Robie, Maine’s secretary of state, used to play horseshoes with the firemen behind the firehouse – and he frequently lost.

There was “community” support in all of the churches, as well as quiet charity. Here was a kindness, a human concern, a generosity, a consideration for others, a common purpose. Sickness was a matter of concern for everyone; there was help and sympathy – shared misery, shared happiness, shared concern; community in best sense of word.

In the countryside, there was a sprinkling of one-room schoolhouses for younger children, but from the fifth grade all went to the “junior high” in the village. Gorham scholars not only made their own way to school, they also carried what they ate. The town was marked for good schools in large part from the influence of the “Normal School,” which partnered with the town with “practice teachers” in the grammar years, and freely offered faculty and facilities for town use. The annual junior high cantatas (musicals) in Russell Hall were repeat sellouts.

Youth were encouraged, praised, educated and, in my case, tolerated – even forgiven. Gorham took me as an infant, together with my mother, who did “housework,” offered her friendship and help and turned me into a citizen. Gratitude is an inadequate word.

I now live a block from the old Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook – an industry that brought my French grandfather to Maine as a weaver 135 years ago. I like to think he, too, would be grateful to Gorham for helping to raise his fatherless grandson.

Rodney Quinn, 89, served on the Gorham Town Council, was a Gorham representative to the state Legislature and was secretary of state for five terms. He lives in Westbrook. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.

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