(upbeat music) (projector clicking) - Have you ever wondered where the television signal you're watching is coming from?

♪ I love to go a wanderin' (projector clicking) ♪ along the mountain track - Welcome to True North.

(upbeat music) (mysterious music) - Good evening and welcome to Mainewatch (upbeat music) (projector clicking) Welcome to "From the Vault", a celebration of 60 years of Maine Public Television.

1947 is known as the "Year Maine Burned".

In October of that year nearly 200 fires burned throughout the state eventually destroying 1000 homes and leaving 2500 people homeless.

On this episode, we will look at the fire that ravaged Mount Desert Island for nearly a month, wiping out scores of homes, businesses and large hotels.

To do that we will revisit the magazine show "True North" which ran from 1995 to 2002.

The series had several hosts over the years.

Don Carrigan, Patsy Wiggins and finally Peggy Keyser.

It traveled throughout the state, telling stories of people, places and things.

On this episode, we will feature a few different stories from that series.

Besides the 1947 Bar Harbor fire, we will check out a bean-hole bean supper in Lincoln, visit with an 89 year old machinist in Belfast, profile John Logan of Aroostook County's "Potato Picker's Special" and lots more.

But we will begin with space aliens in Houlton...?

Let's start with a segment from 1997.

This is "True North".

(upbeat music) - Often when you travel down the roads of Maine, you come across a particular house that immediately tells you something, but you're not sure what, about the people who live inside.

It could be an unusual house color or shape, whatever.

Well, when videographer Nick Woodward and Don Carrigan were traveling through Houlton, they passed a house that they just had to stop at, and it truly was a close encounter of a different kind.

- [Don] Houlton really is a pretty town.

A place with lovely, tree-lined streets, (water trickles) plenty of public improvements, a long tradition of civic pride, and aliens.

♪ Ahh, ahh Yes, aliens.

At the top of a hill overlooking town and country sits the small empire of Jerry Cardone.

- Well, I ain't got much.

- Oh, you don't have much.

- You know, I don't have much.

It's just, you know, trying to decorate the place, and a big mess here.

- [Don] And if ever the term one of a kind could be used to describe someone, that someone would surely be Jerry Cardone.

- I'm building, you know, what they call Dinosaur Land.

You know, I'm building a Dinosaur Land here, and it has evolved with like, you know, UFOs, and I'm into UFO art and I'm into dinosaurs.

I'm into Egyptian art.

I like to go into different periods of, you know, of things, of the arts.

- So, what, you had to- - [Don] Jerry came to Maine from Connecticut about 20 years ago.

He had been a baker, but says the work caused him to get sick.

So he moved to Houlton.

"For the clean air," he says.

You got everything here.

You got palm trees over there.

- Oh yeah, I was trying to make this like Arizona.

I got cactuses all over the place.

It's growing like a jungle, now.

- [Don] A night class at the high school nine years ago put Jerry into the art world.

Wow.

- [Jerry] This is the one that gave me my name.

- [Don] What do you mean?

- They call me the Dinosaur Man, and this is where I got my name from.

I built this dinosaur as a sculpture, and I was afraid of it because I thought it might fall on me and splash me, you know?

(Don chuckles) It'll kill me if it'll fall on me.

- [Don] Yeah.

- And I did this, here.

I never finished it because I never, I was trying to get a loan from the arts, you know?

- [Don] Yeah.

- [Jerry] So I can get the concrete to put on there.

I was gonna build a whole bunch of 'em, and I was hoping to get a grant from the arts, you know?

- [Don] Yeah.

- And they're cheap.

They're cheap.

They treat, in Maine, they treat the artists like garbage.

- Dinosaur art isn't quite what they're after.

- No, they after, I don't know what they're after, you know.

- [Don] But Jerry's world doesn't stop with Dinosaur Land, because he also has a passion for space aliens and UFOs.

They decorate the roof and yard, and they occupy his mind.

(eerie music) - There was one up there that was landing.

One time I went down, the 4th of July, and went to the fireworks, and I was coming up with a lot of people.

I walked in the back and there was one laying there like that, hovering right on the ground, and there was an egg shape, you know, in the bottom, and it had, like, the whole thing lighted up green.

Then, all of a sudden, it just took up and it went down to the town, and nobody seemed to see it.

- [Don] Jerry, you see, has a lot of experience with aliens.

He's been abducted by them.

(eerie music) - Oh, when I was a kid, I had the first experience I had with them at that time, you know?

They were chasing me all over the city and everything, 'cause they wanted to catch me, and twice.

The third time, they caught me.

They beamed right into the house and they caught me with my underwears, and I got kind of mad 'cause they beamed me up in my underwears, you know?

- At least wanted to be dressed, huh?

- Yeah, and had an experience with them and stuff, you know?

And so I always had it behind my mind, you know?

I always wanted to be an alien artist.

- [Don] So when you take the UFOs and the aliens and the dinosaurs, a few abominable snowmen, and add some totem poles and other Indian art, you find Jerry Cardone has built quite a world here on the hill.

And I don't know if this is a sensitive question or not, but what do your neighbors think of all this?

- Oh, my neighbors, they think I'm a wacko, some of 'em.

(Don chuckles) They think I'm a weirdo.

They pass by and say, "Hey, the weirdo on the hill!"

The town, I don't know.

The town gives me a lot of hard times.

You know, they don't like what I'm doing.

- [Don] And as his fame spreads, Jerry may be getting the last laugh.

He says more tourists are stopping all the time to admire his artwork.

- [Jerry] Yeah, and I buy a lot of- - [Don] Even his old teacher has seen it.

- [Jerry] Oh, yeah, she's come around a couple of times and looked at it.

- [Don] What'd she say?

- [Jerry] "I didn't teach you that!"

(Don laughs) You know?

- [Don] No one taught Jerry how to sing, either, but that's one of the ways he earns a living.

Yes, Jerry Cardone is also an entertainer.

- Can you do one?

- Yeah.

You want me to sing a song?

It goes- - Sure.

(hums melodically) ♪ Ode-lay, ode-lay-dee ♪ And the cattle wore trousers ♪ And the coyotes howling ♪ Out where the dark is bold - [Don] You might say the road through Jerry's world has many turns.

- They want me to live like normal.

They say they want me to live like, not like an artist, like a Christian.

And I'm just an artist minding my business, just doing my artwork.

♪ And the spurs are sing-aling ♪ And the cowboy is singing ♪ Long as them cattle call (hums melodically) ♪ Ode-lay, ode-lay-dee I think that I have, like, an odd talent from God, you know?

Like an instrument, like a tool, you know.

And every time I says, "Hey Lord," you know, I don't like artwork, 'cause art is always starving.

Artists go, like Michelangelo fell down and broke his head and back, and artists, you know, you die, you're famous after you die and you become great and you make money.

But I like, you know, cash and carry, you know?

(Don laughs) and I don't really like, (joyfully yodels) I know what you're thinking, I know what you're thinking.

- [Don] What am I thinking?

- Oh, if he lived out in Bangor, they would've had him in that place over there all ready.

(Don laughs) See, see him laughing?

- No, I'm not thinking that.

- Ah!

See?

(laughs) - I'll be honest, I am thinking that I'm glad you're right next, not, you're not right next door to me.

- Yeah.

- But- ♪ Ode-Lay, ode-lay, ode-lay-de-lay-dee ♪ Yeah, I've got all kinds of yodels, there.

- [Don] That's pretty good.

- Here's another one I was doing.

A tridactyl, right here.

The flying bird.

I made that out of wood.

- Now, Jerry, I have to tell you, yodeling and dinosaurs and UFOs is quite a combination.

- Well, yeah, I'm an all-around artist.

I do a little bit of all, you know, I don't try to stay into one thing, you know?

I'm an all-around artist.

I try to do a little bit of everything so I won't get bored.

See?

- [Don] I wouldn't think there's much chance of that.

- Yeah.

- [Don] No, not much chance at all.

(Jerry hums) And probably, the neighbors won't get bored, either.

I'm Don Carrigan for "True North."

♪ Ode-lay, ode-lay-dee ♪ And the cattle wore trousers ♪ And the coyotes - From Hope down east to Bar Harbor, 50 years after the Great Fire.

(mellow music) But first, throughout this season of "True North," we will take you down some of Maine's less traveled roads to meet some of Maine's most interesting and unique people.

Now, with that in mind, we've sent our friend Steve Flune on the road.

He makes his first stop in Caribou, at the Coast Guard Station?

(door creaks) (footsteps approach) (whooshing sound) (door creaks) (bomb explodes) - We're here today at Coast Guard Station, Caribou, and I'm with Dave Lown, who is officer in charge.

Dave, I'm not getting any sense that there's salt in the air.

Why a Coast Guard station in the middle of Aroostook County?

- Well, the reason we're here is to generate a radio frequency signal that's used by mariners and aviators anywhere off the coast of Maine and off the coast of Canada.

- Okay, all right.

How many boats do you have, and whose job is it to take care of 'em?

- Well, we have one boat and it's a small canoe.

I think it's a Coleman canoe.

And, as the officer in charge, I'm responsible for it.

- (chuckles) Very good.

Now, how does one get stationed here?

The rumor is that if you've sunk a boat during regular duty somewhere else, you get sent here.

Is there any truth to that at all?

- Not as far as I know.

When I left my last unit, it was still floating.

And so, if it sank after I left, I can't take any responsibility for it.

- (chuckles) Dave, thanks very much for your time.

- You're welcome.

- Patsy.

- And I have a feeling that we'll be hearing a lot more from Steve along the way.

It was the fall of 1947 when more than 200 forest fires scorched dozens of Maine towns.

Among the areas devastated by the fire was Maine's crowning jewel, Bar Harbor.

Bill Maroldo takes us back 50 years to the year Maine burned.

(foreboding music) - [Reporter] Well, there is about 1,500 people, refugees here, from the Mount Desert area.

The Red Cross, however, tells me that they are set up so that they can handle as many as 6,000 people in this one town and small villages surrounding it as they come in.

- On October 17th, 1947, the call came in to the Bar Harbor Fire Department.

A small marsh grass fire was burning seven miles from the outskirts of town.

By the time it was out, 17,000 acres had been blackened.

237 island homes were gone, and half of Bar Harbor was destroyed.

Mount Desert Island would never be the same.

(bird squawks) Even though half a century has passed since the fire swept through here, the forest, itself, is only at a midpoint in its recovery.

The needle-bearing conifers still acquiesce to the faster-growing aspen and birch.

Perhaps, in another 50 years, it will have reached maturity and the forest, in a sense, will have forgotten the fire of 1947.

But the people who lived through it, they will never forget.

(mellow music) - [Reporter] They've been eating sandwiches for days and days, as you know, and sandwiches, that's one thing that, don't send them any more sandwiches.

These people have withstood all the sandwiches they can.

(mellow music) - So this truck right here saw action.

- Oh, yes.

- In 1947.

- Oh yes, absolutely.

Right in the midst.

- Howell Burns and Henry Brown were college students at the time and had grown up on the island.

News of the fire sent both of them rushing back home to assist the other volunteer firefighters.

- It's just burnt in my mind, that huge wave, that fire, just rolling, and a house, it exploded.

It had to explode.

It was gone.

Well, I'm telling this story.

- Yeah, they claim it created its own wind, even.

- Yes, oh, it did.

It did, Henry.

- Almost like a hurricane or a, whatever you want to call it.

- It was strange.

You'd hear this... - Like a bunch of freight trains, everybody told me.

- A bunch of freight trains, or burners going.

- It had to be a feeling almost of helplessness.

- Absolutely.

Hoses started to burn.

Even with water in 'em, the canvas on the hoses started to burn.

The nozzle was so hot you couldn't hang onto it anyway, and we, literally, thinking back on it now, we really ran for our lives.

(foreboding music) - [Reporter] In the background, you probably can hear the sound of motors, all sorts of trucks here for firefighting, cars and men all standing by in case the fire moves in this direction.

So everyone has been alerted.

- And so, show me where your, where was your house?

- It was right there.

- Your house was right here?

- That's the foundation of our house.

We had a nice big- - [Bill] Florence Ames was a telephone operator working the night shift as firemen battled the blaze.

Her own home was among those destroyed by the flames.

- You were going all night long.

People knew the fire was coming, and they were calling in all night long.

"Where is it?

"Where is it?"

It was strange when we, they ordered us out.

My two oldest sons were out watering the house, yeah, and my oldest son came in and went right up on the third floor.

He came down with, ordinarily you'd think he might come down with a toy or something.

He come down with his clarinet in one hand, violin in the other.

And my youngest son, he didn't even pick up a toy.

He had a brand new bike out in the yard and that burned.

- When will you forget?

- Never.

I'll never forget.

The wharf was loaded, the pier in town.

It was just loaded, and we just waited there patiently, seeing the fire at a distance.

It looked so much nearer than it was.

And then finally, they said that we could leave, and it was just a steady stream of cars right from the wharf right up to Ellsworth.

♪ Now I must wait until it's over ♪ - [Reporter] I mean, I know that folks are standing off in the harbor here to take the local people that are left in town, and beyond that, I guess we're just hoping to stop it here.

(mellow music) - What did it look like to you?

- I suppose it, you know, really, you can almost say, the same idea as the atomic bomb that hit in Japan, really.

- That fire was so hot.

I literally say the rocks burned, and it looked just like Henry said.

It looked like Hiroshima.

Exactly like it.

- That's the only way you can describe, when you see all those just, I mean, there are pictures everywhere.

"The Bar Harbor Times," different newspapers, but- - Just nothing but chimneys, walls, downed trees.

It was terrible.

- Actually, in our cellar, it was still smoldering, and it was, it just looked terrible.

You wondered what you were going to do.

(mellow music) - Ellsworth fireman Joe Luchini used his eight-millimeter camera to film the devastation.

Many of the family homes would be rebuilt, but several of the island's world-famous resort mansions were lost forever.

- I guess probably that, perhaps Henry, and I know, myself, was used to the slower pace of the summer folks coming and opening, getting into their cottages, and the butlers and maids and chauffeurs, and that's what we would see.

And today, it's altogether different.

It's a faster pace, and that's what I see most.

And I think this is a direct result of the times.

- [Henry] And the fire.

- And the fire, yeah.

♪ Each time on my leaving home ♪ I run back to my mother's arms ♪ - [Reporter] Well, would you say, at this moment, this is the worst fire on the island now and today?

- [Interviewee] I believe, at this moment, it possibly is the worst fire this island's known.

♪ Feel the sky fall down upon me ♪ - By the way, some of the film footage you just saw in that piece had never been broadcast before now.

Amazing footage.

If you've never been to a bean supper, you really are missing something.

Bean suppers, after all, are a vital part of life in Maine.

Perhaps the granddaddy of all is the River Drivers Supper in Lincoln, held every July for the last 50 years.

More than 1,000 people turn out for this old-fashioned feast.

It's pretty much the same menu.

It's prepared the same way, by some of the same people who've been doing it for years.

It is definitely a tasty tradition, enjoyed by all.

(dry beans rattle) - [Cook] We're cooking 250 pounds.

(dry beans rattle) - [Don] You wonder how these things begin.

Traditions, most of them, require that somebody do a lot of hard work.

In Lincoln, the work is done by the men and women of the Congregational Church.

Their tradition?

The River Drivers Supper.

- Sometimes I'll go- - [Don] It just may be the biggest bean supper in the state of Maine.

- [Cook] We'll just put the coals on.

You'll wait until we get these done, and then lay the flat metal on.

- [Man] Sure.

- [Don] The men bake the beans.

The old way, the good way, in the ground overnight.

Harley Sproul is the bean master.

- I flavor the beans.

I do the mixing of the beans.

I took the job over from a man that was in his 80s and was retiring.

Many people like to have their beans sweetened, and this gentleman that I took this over from never sweetened the beans.

So I haven't sweetened the beans, and people want me to, but I just feel that, well, there's a tradition.

- [Don] What's the secret to good potato salad?

- I didn't know- - Mixing 'em with your hands, I guess.

(ladies laugh) We put rubber gloves on and really get in to mix it.

- We use one of the old- - [Don] The women make the potato salad and the coleslaw.

- Has there been potato salad and coleslaw at it every year for the 50 years?

- As far as I know.

- Yes, yeah.

- [Don] The supper has been held every year in what used to be Daisy Ludden's field on the banks of the Penobscot River.

It's a place where the old-time river drivers really used to camp during their annual log drives, and one of the prime fuels on those log drives was beans.

- That was the main course, beans.

- Carl Lancaster, 99 years old, worked on the river drives as a young man.

He ate plenty of beans.

Did the guys on the drive ever complain, "Oh, god, beans again!"

- (laughs) Oh, yeah.

(Don laughs) Yeah.

♪ Beans, beans, beans ♪ Beans 'til you turn green ♪ Eat baked beans on a Saturday night ♪ - In Maine, there's just something about baked beans.

Ask the people who bake 'em.

- Years ago, beans was a cheap meal, (chuckles) see?

At home, when I was growing up, we had beans twice a week, Wednesday nights and Sunday, or Saturday nights.

- Well, I think a lot of people, (car horn honks) as he's saying, grew up with the tradition of having beans on Saturday night, and beans are something that takes a lot to put together.

And people say, "Well there's a bean supper "at some church in the neighborhood, let's go."

- When "beans" are said, that's the magic word, and they're there.

(chuckles) - When I was a kid, that was always Saturday night's meal.

It was a tradition.

- I think it's just, it's a very easy supper to get.

♪ Beans, beans, beans ♪ Beans 'til you turn green - [Don] Of course, there's something else about beans, too.

- Well, I guess everybody has the same side effects.

No, they don't.

(laughs) (woman laughs) - [Don] What he said is, "Guess it doesn't matter, "as long as everybody has the same side effects."

- That's right, they all have the same supper.

(laughs) - That's why we have it out in the open air here, you know?

Nice breeze going.

(laughs) ♪ Eat baked beans on a Saturday night ♪ - [Don] The love of beans and the love of bean suppers have kept the people in Lincoln faithfully coming to the River Drivers Supper for 50 years.

The supper is almost an art form by now, but there's one thing that's never quite settled.

Who does more of the work for this thing?

The men or the women?

- No comment!

(women laugh) - Equal, I'd say.

- Oh, the men, definitely.

Oh!

- Hey!

(both laugh) - Yes, always say equal.

- Equal!

- Don't, 'cause we get criticized for that.

Always say equal.

- That's right!

- [Don] And will that be true?

- Well, it might not be true, but sorry for "True North," (Don laughs) 'cause that isn't too accurate, anyway.

(Don laughs) (woman slaps) - Paul!

(Don laughs) ♪ Sit back down in a folding chair ♪ ♪ Smell that bean juice in the air ♪ ♪ Eating beans, beans, beans - [Don] There have been a few minor catastrophes over the years.

The field has flooded.

There have been a few rainy days, and Harley Sproul tells of the year when the beans just didn't come out right.

- So we went up there with this guy and we snuck down to his store and we got two cases of beans, and we got the can opener out, and we got enough heat in those beans so (chuckles) they were edible, (Don laughs) and we brought 'em up here and they ate 'em.

They didn't know the difference.

(both chuckle) - Don't make it too moist, you said, right?

- [Woman] Yeah.

The other girls would get here.

- [Don] Ida Whitney is the biscuit boss.

- [Man] Squeeze 'em together?

- [Ida] Oh yeah, squeeze 'em together.

You got 12?

- [Man] It's 12.

- All right.

Now at 4:00, every one gets the cross.

- [Don] Biscuits that make your mouth water.

- [Woman] Wouldn't you like to have one?

They're broken.

Have one.

- [Woman] Those are delicious!

- Take one, take one, take one.

- Isn't that a beautiful biscuit?

- Oh, you better believe it.

Wait 'til you taste it!

- [Don] Beans, with an aroma that makes you sit up and take notice.

George Fleming could hardly stand the wait.

He was first in line.

(spoon clangs) - They're not like she bought baked beans.

They have a lot of pork in 'em.

Very little sugar, if any, and other seasonings.

Mustard, pepper, salt.

- Yeah?

- Very good.

♪ Everybody's plate is clean ♪ Except for me, I need more beans ♪ ♪ Oh, beans, beans, beans - [Don] From far and near, they came.

Some made a pilgrimage from out of state.

- We come all the way from Connecticut every year for this.

- [Don] Do you really?

- Sure.

- I'd have some of that ketchup, yeah.

- Yeah.

- [Don] And others, like Bill and Leann Thornton, brought their kids to start them on the bean supper tradition.

- Say, "I love beans!"

- I love beans!

- Come on, Evan.

♪ Baggers, kings and queens ♪ I don't know no one who don't love beans ♪ ♪ Beans, beans, beans - [Don] Fewer families follow the old Saturday night tradition of baked beans, nowadays, but the art of the bean supper is still alive and well in many parts of Maine.

♪ Beans, beans, beans - [Don] So maybe there's still a little river driver in each of us.

♪ Bring back beans on a Saturday night ♪ I'm Don Carrigan for "True North."

(mellow piano music) How old is old?

When we think of someone 89 years old, we might think of this, (mellow piano music) but if you're Chester Grady, the only rocking chair is the one you left behind in the living room.

- [Chester] Now, you can see the old blacksmith shop sat right up there.

- [Don] Okay.

- [Chester] The way you see those trees there.

- [Don] Chet Grady, machinist, welder, and one-time country blacksmith, still works in his shop every day at age 89.

- Now, this machine I made all by myself, and I made this arbor, see here?

Cut the keyways in the lathe.

- [Don] Chet had made a great many things in his long life.

He's one of those people who made his community work.

Now, there's probably not many people who can say that they are living in the same house they did when they were- - No, born.

Sleep in the same room they was born in.

There wouldn't be many people who could do that, would there?

- No, I wouldn't think so.

Chet was born and raised on this farm in Belfast.

His father was a blacksmith, and young Chet went to work early.

- It was hard, rugged work.

But you got very strong doing it, because you would stand on the horses, you know?

And sometimes they'd weigh on you, or if, like, two steps slipped out from under 'em, they'd fall right on the floor, they'd be laying so hard.

But you had to develop a lot of good strength to shoe horses and things.

- Chet was a football and basketball star.

Work had made him strong, and running the five miles to school did even more.

- Yeah, sometimes I'd walk and run, but a lot of times, I'd run all the way, and I, it wasn't a hardship for me.

I enjoyed it.

- [Don] Now, a day like this, when it's snowing outside, you'd still have to hike.

- Yeah, I'd do it just the same.

Yeah.

- [Don] Chet graduated from high school in 1926, then he went to work to earn money for college.

- I was getting $3 a day for doing it.

(Don chuckles) - Working in the woods?

- Mm-hmm.

- At Wentworth Institute in Boston, he learned to be a machinist and a welder.

And after he came home in 1932, Chet soon had the first electric welder in Waldo County.

- I couldn't afford to buy one already made, so I took a Model A Ford engine, bought a generator, and built my own welder, and as luck would have it, it worked very good.

It was as good a welder as I ever worked with.

(metal crackles) - [Don] And since then, Chet's long working life has never stopped.

(drill hums) He worked for others and for himself.

Over the years, he did work for practically every plant or factory or mill or farm in the area.

He saved up and bought used equipment, and kept it working, just like himself.

- I pull on this thing to help start it.

It will start- (engine hum drowns out Chet) - [Don] His shop is like a step back in time.

(engine hums) - This is the first machine I ever bought.

(engine hums) - [Don] But Chet says he can still do just about anything the young guys can do, plus a few things more.

- [Chet] You see that round there?

That machine was around here before I was around here, before I was born.

- [Don] This old machine is something most people today have never even seen.

This is how you make the steel rim for a wooden wagon wheel, and Chet Grady may be one of the very few people in Maine who still remembers how it's done.

- Other than today, you wouldn't find many people who would know.

You see, I probably, it might be, so you never know, for record, but I probably am one of a few left that learned the trade from an old-time blacksmith.

I don't believe there'd be many.

'Cause, you see, I'm 89 years old.

(drill hums) - [Don] Chet has a reputation as a master of metal, but he's known for some other things, too, and one of them is being a bit tight with a dollar.

It goes back to working in the woods for $3 a day to earn cash for college.

- I've seen a time when I'd run from here into Belfast to go to the movies.

It cost 35 cents to go then, and I'd think how hard I'd worked for that money, and I'd turn around and come home.

Wouldn't go.

(chuckles) That makes people, they can't believe that today, you know?

- [Don] And when asked if he's still a bit tight, even his wife Josephine has to laugh.

- Chet's stock answer is, if you say something about buying something or doing something, "Do we need it?"

- [Don] Tight, would somebody call you tight?

- Well, I didn't know if, some of them, they joke about it, but they don't really consider that I am, a little.

I think, you know?

(Don chuckles) - [Don] You don't have the first penny you ever earned?

- Oh no, no.

- [Don] But you've got a few of 'em?

- But I have put a nail up on some left.

(chuckles) Yup.

(flame hisses) - [Don] He doesn't get many calls to make wheel rims anymore, and the sawmills and other plants that once depended on Chet have modernized, and now have their own machine shops.

But he still does work for people who need it, everything from skidders to lawnmowers.

And Chet has a bit of free time to think back on the old days and how work and life have changed.

(mallet thuds) - When I was up in Boston, I went in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I went into a gymnasium up there, and there was a barbell laying there, and I just grabbed it and, like, I put up over my head with one hand.

It weighed 140 pounds.

And two, three of 'em gathered around.

They wanted know if I was training to be a cop.

And I said, "No."

They told me that no one, only seen one other person that could have ever done that up there.

Yeah, but it was 140 pounds.

But, you know, shoeing horses and working in the woods and on the farms, why, you build up a lot of physical strength that way.

- [Don] It stayed with you, too.

- And I wasn't any bigger than I am now.

I weighed 145 pounds in high school, and I weigh the same thing now.

(Don chuckles) Yeah.

(machine hums) - [Don] Time is the master of us all, and even Chet Grady is slowing down a bit.

He'll probably close the shop at the end of this year.

But Chet will keep his tools handy, just in case a neighbor needs some help.

The mind and the hands simply know too much to stop.

- It's no good to go sit down and do nothing.

I hate sitting around and doing nothing.

I come up here, it's something to do, and to help, people make me feel that I help them a lot, because a lot of 'em say to me, lots of times, what, they bring some little thing and I fix it for 'em, "What are we gonna do when you ain't gonna do this, see?"

Well, that, nobody's indispensable.

Somebody could do it, but, anyway, it makes you feel so useful that they tell you that.

- We begin this evening with a man named John Logan.

Now that name may not ring a bell for people living in Cumberland or York counties, but John Logan is famous in Aroostook County.

Potato farmers depend on John.

Now you see, he was the host of WAGM Television's Potato Pickers Special.

It's always been the number one show during harvest time.

Now, producer Peter Clowes knows John and he shows us the making of a favorite son.

- [Peter] How does a guy from away become loved and dear to a community?

A favorite son, you might say?

Well, in Aroostook County, John Logan shows us how.

- Well, I started out working in radio and my first job was in Louisiana.

Worked there for about three or four months till it got too hot for me down there.

I mean, that didn't mean that I was being bad, just meant that it was too darn hot down there, didn't like it.

And one day I read this piece in the paper that there was a job open in Northern Maine.

So when I saw that ad boy that was for me and they said they'll meet you in Boston.

So I went to Boston and he said, "Yeah, we've got a station, television and radio in Northern Maine."

And I said, "How far north?"

And he said, "Way up next to the Canadian border."

"Oh, wonderful.

Have you got any woods?"

"Oh yeah, got lots of woods."

"Hunting, fishing?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful."

I said, "How soon do I start?"

I've been here for over 35 years, I think now and I haven't regretted one minute of it.

I love this place.

(gentle music) - [Peter] During the years that would follow, John would document thousands of hours of the county lifestyle and news events, producing shows that would highlight the many opportunities sportsman experience in the county.

At WGAM Television for 48 weeks of the year, John would cover potato board meetings, the forestry industry, and a fishing story or two.

But for the other four weeks from mid-September to mid-October, John Logan had a chance to shine.

- [Announcer] Your host for this morning's show, here's John Logan.

- Good morning out there world.

Jud, here we go again.

It's Friday.

Your pants rip or what?

Christ, that almost sounded bad, but I hope you'll be okay.

- [Cook] Oh, I doubt it.

- Well, good morning out there world.

4:30, we have a Friday to fool around with here most of the day.

Potato Picker Special in our- - Good morning everybody.

Get up!

It's time to get up and pick potatoes!

♪ We've been picking taters ever since we came ♪ ♪ Picking in the morning, picking them by hand ♪ ♪ Make a little money, have a little fun ♪ - I worked Potato Picker Special when I first got here.

That was early, early in the morning.

I remember people bringing in donuts and coffee and stuff like that.

- [Peter] Originally, radio's Picker Special was designed as a public service show, communicating farm info and connecting crews.

Logan was the architect of the TV version.

The show became as much an Aroostook institution as the potato itself.

- Well, I kind of talked them into it and there was some resistance, a lot of resistance in fact at that time that didn't feel that it was a television program, it was a radio program and that was all it was to it.

But after a while I managed to prevail somehow.

They said, "How do you want to do it?"

And that's when I said, "I want a kitchen."

What I wanted to do was I wanted to have a program that was loose, entertaining and informative all at the same time with not too heavy a hand on the informative.

Who the heck is awake at 4:30 in the morning?

Come on, give me a break.

You might be up for a little fun and some information and definitely for some entertainment.

Spud and Rodeby were a lot of fun to have on the show.

Those guys did a wonderful, wonderful job.

Potato blossom queen that came on one day wanted me to help her play the piano.

I can't play the piano.

I don't have enough fingers to play the piano.

- [Peter] You've probably already noticed that John's on-air personality was not the typical guy in a suit presentation.

And that's why John has such immense popularity, His friendly casual style with the ability to kid around that always sends the audience to work happy.

- Appreciate that.

Look at the weather forecast.

Now you can go home and have a nap.

Okay, thank you.

- [Peter] And while you may think the Picker Special is just a chance to giggle for two hours in the morning, well think again.

In between the eggs and bacon, vital crew information is conveyed.

Those seeking work or workers rely on the Picker Special.

Ronnie Barnes, a fourth generation potato farmer, explains.

- It's easy for you to contact your people, your employees and let them know if you've got a problem on the farm.

You don't have to call everybody individually.

They hear it, they listen to the Picker Special.

They know when to show up or where to go and it's a big plus.

- [Peter] John finished his tour on the Picker Special in 1990.

Moved on to director of quality control for the Maine Potato Board, a vocation that kept him in front of the camera and close to the farming community.

John's devotion to the county and the potato industry have earned him many awards, including the President's Award from the Maine Potato Board and last summer, a sentiment from the main legislature.

- John's contributions not only on the Maine Potato Board but also on WAGM television including quality control, marketing, merchandising, promotion of agriculture and forestry throughout Aroostook County, the state, and I daresay the nation.

(audience applauds) - After working for the potato industry for nearly 30 years, watching its good times and its bad, John Logan got some bad news of his own, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

- Lou Gehrig's disease is a disease that takes your muscles away.

All of them.

To the point where you become totally helpless.

The other part of this disease that really makes it bad is that your mind stays sharp all the time that you're going.

So you know what's happening all the time.

And you have these emotions inside of you that understands that this is what's going to happen.

The obvious advice is to enjoy each day as it comes.

You know, you're only give one day at a time to work on.

So do the best you can.

- [Peter] John Succumbed to Lou Gehrig's Disease in November of 1997, but throughout the terms of his disease, he never stopped showing the attributes that made him a friend to every resident of Aroostook County.

John's sense of humor was undaunted and his love for his adopted community and his people endless.

John's perseverance, commitment and honesty have earned him the noble title of Aroostook County's favorite son.

- When we first went out to dinner when we were first married, he was surrounded by, how shall I put it, Senior citizen ladies who told him how much they loved his show.

And so you just kind of sat in the background and watched it all and he enjoyed every minute of it, but they all loved him.

It was like he was their son.

- All right, fine.

We will then, and we'll see you all tomorrow as well for another edition of Potato Pickers Special starting at 4:30 sharp.

Have a good day.

- And a friendly soul lives on in our memories.

Hello, I'm glad you could join us for another edition of True North.

We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of interesting people for you to meet during the next half hour.

First up, whatever happened to all of those old tube radios that families used to gather around to listen to programs like oh, Amos and Andy and Burns and Allen and so many others?

Well, the invention of television changed those radio days forever.

But there is one main man who is doing everything he can to make sure that those old radios are not lost and forgotten.

Producer John Greenman discovered that collecting and preserving old time radios is becoming a very popular hobby.

Just how popular?

Only the shadow knows.

(dramatic music) - [Radio Broadcaster] Good evening, Mr. And Mrs. North and South American, all the ships and clippers at sea.

Let's go to press Splash London.

♪ Then the moon comes over mountains ♪ - [Sam Spade] My name is Spade.

Sam Spade.

License number 35 78 96 issued by the police department of San Francisco.

- [John] As time goes by, the mental images attached to these sounds are fading to black.

Although he can't reverse the inevitable, George Jones has a dream.

- I'm hoping that that other people out there that have the same interest that I do that may know other people that have the same interest, that maybe we could form some kind of organization to save some of these things before they become non-existent.

- [Radio Broadcaster] Smart kid.

- [Woman] Yes.

- [Radio Broadcaster] What about Willie?

- [Woman] Well, he broke his back.

- [Radio Broadcaster] I'm glad to hear that.

- [Woman] Huh?

- [Radio Broadcaster] Broke his back.

How do he do that?

- [Woman] Well on account that he's lefthanded.

- [John] You see George has a collection of old time radios and other pioneer electronics.

As matter of fact, it fills his basement and a nearby storage building.

(door squeaks) - [Radio show Narrator] Good evening friends of the inner sanctum.

- My collection started originally from my radios that my father gave me and I just built on that.

- [Radio Broadcaster] The program that brings you authentic police case history: Gangbusters.

(sirens wail) - [John] George used to be in charge of electronic repairs at the Coast Guard station in Southwest Harbor.

- This is a timer board for a fog signal control like they have on the buoys or on a lighthouse.

This is a timer that operates the driver, which in turn operates the emitter, which makes the sound.

- Presented to George Eli Jones on the occasion of retirement.

- [John] Not long ago, he retired so he could concentrate on his hobby full time.

(audience applauds) - It's a lost art.

It's a lost technology or gonna be lost if somebody doesn't save 'em and restore 'em and bring 'em back to life.

And that's where I come in.

- [Radio Announcer] Ipana Toothpaste, Sal Hepatica present: Mr. District Attorney, champion of the people, defender of truth, guardian of our fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

(dramatic music) - [John] As a restorer, he wears lots of hats: researcher, graphic artist, electronic engineer, and wood craftsman to name just a few.

- You have to have patience.

So that's the biggest skill you need is patience and an eye for quality.

You try to maintain this originality.

- [Radio Announcer] Here he is the one, the only- - [Audience] Rocko!

- [Radio Announcer] Say the secret word and divide a hundred off.

It's a common word, something you see every day.

- [George] It's pretty hard to see, but you can see places where I have, where the original wood stops and where pieces I put in.

But unless she was really looking, you wouldn't know.

- [Radio Announcer] Ladies and gentlemen, it pays to be ignorant.

(audience applauds) - [John] George says this old Atwater Kent Model 53 is a rare find.

Named after its manufacturer who used to summer on Mount Desert Island, this Atwater Kent came from New York for some TLC.

- [George] Would you like to see it turned on?

- [John] You dare to?

- Oh yeah, I had it going last night.

Yeah.

Plug this thing in.

You should see the tubes going here in a moment.

(radio crackles) (gentle singing) - [George] Amazing, isn't it?

- [John] The audio from this report is coming through a speaker.

Back in the early days, a speaker was called a reproducer.

And this one from 1918 is one of the first.

- [George] Everybody could sit around it and not have to share their earphones.

- [John] This ended up causing a sociological revolution since for the first time, groups could sit down and listen to broadcasts together.

- They grew up in that era when everybody gathered around the radio and the power and listened to The Shadow.

- [Radio show Narrator] Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

(ominous laughter) The Shadow knows.

- [John] And world events as they happened.

- [Radio Reporter] This is Trafalgar Square.

The noise that you hear at the moment is the sound of the air raid sirens.

- [John] The airwaves will never be the same, but for people like George Jones, just to have a working piece of nostalgia in your home is enough to bring back all sorts of memories.

- [Mother] Henry!

Henry Ulrich!

- [Henry] Coming, mother!

(upbeat orchestral music) - [John] I'm John Greenman for True North.

- Next up, an iron horse in the middle of the north woods.

- About every can canoe guide makes this a stop on his trip.

- But first, Steve's Stuff takes us to Wiscasset, and a place where music comes in a box.

(door creaks) (gentle music) - The sounds of the Musical Wonder House in Wiscasset.

I'm here with the Danilo Konvalinka who is the owner and curator of the museum.

This is beautiful.

How did this come to be?

How so many?

- Well, everything starts with one piece and this started with one piece at an auction in Washington DC.

Actually it started back in Europe and I first heard a music box and say, "Someday, somewhere in this world I will find one of these."

And then I came to the US in 1956 and then 57 started the collection.

- And from one came all these?

- [Danilo] From one came all these.

- What period of time would most of these be from?

- [Danilo] Primarily from 1840 to 1910 because 1910 was pretty much the end of the music box because of the photograph coming into the picture.

- And from what part of the world are they from?

- Switzerland, first and foremost.

And then Germany, France and Austria.

- Okay.

This is beautiful.

All of these are in fact, but this here, what do you say to someone who says that this reminds them of a coffin?

- I say, like I usually do, which is if you are at a dinner party and they serve you soup out of a fancy soup tureen do you say, "This looks like a chamber pot?"

- I see.

So that's the answer.

- It would not be very polite.

- Is there any possibility that we could hear some of these?

- Why certainly!

You can hear them all.

You have to stay about two months.

- All right, all right.

- Which one?

- It's beautiful.

This one right here would be wonderful.

- This was made for an American family in 1895, but it was made in Switzerland for that American family to play mostly American music.

(bright music) - Wonderful.

Danilo, thank you again very much.

- [Announcer] Here once again is Patsy Wiggins.

- Now a music box is like a box of chocolates.

You're never quite sure what's inside until you open it.

And now we're off to the North Woods where we'll find a bit of Maine history rusting away.

They're called iron horses.

They remain a puzzlement for generations of canoers and snowmobilers who have come across them.

Producer Don Carrigan came upon the iron horses and wondered how they came to be there still on the tracks of time.

- [Don] It's about as close to the middle of nowhere as you can get yet this narrow neck of land used to be home to scores of people and a fascinating part of the lore and legend of the North Woods.

This is one of the places where Maine changed forever, where machinery really took over the logging industry.

The relics of that time are still here and a collection of people from all over Maine is trying to preserve them.

This was a fairly good sized town in the absolute middle of nowhere.

- Right, exactly.

Churchill itself had about 18 families that were living there and it was approximately 40 to 45 miles from the Quebec border, which would've been the nearest town.

- [Don] Terry Harper's story goes back at least 30 years to the time when the Allagash wilderness waterway was formed.

Seven year old Terry and his sister were brought down from Presque Isle by their father.

It was love at first sight.

- The idea of how much people did in such a remote area, it's like a mystery that as you dive into it, it just keeps unfolding.

You never know what you're going to find.

- [Don] This land has a story to tell.

A story of wood and water.

The Telos War, a lumberman's battle, had everything to do with water and what direction logs would float to the mill.

The Allagash in Chamberlain and Eagle Lakes flowed north, but the big mills were south.

Dams and channels changed the flow of Chamberlain Lake so logs could move to the Penobscot and onto the sawmills.

A way was needed to get logs from one lake to another and into the proper branch of the river: East branch for saw logs then West branch for Pulpwood.

The answer was found on this strip of land.

First the Tramway, a 6,000 foot cable system powered by steam carrying logs on tracks from Eagle Lake to Chamberlain.

And a few years later, the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad, a 12 mile rail line in the middle of the woods.

They were feats of engineering, strength, and determination and they have fascinated generations of travelers through the Allagash.

- You would be surprised at the tourists that come up here to see these.

About every canoe guide makes this a stop on his trip.

And people have told me about 'em and just a legendary thing for this part of the country.

- A drain pipe here.

- [Don] And now the members of the Allagash Alliance are working to make sure future generations will also be able to see these things and wonder about those who built them.

They have spent the past year stabilizing the old steam locomotives, jacking them up, digging out, getting ready to lay new rail and provide a secure base.

- It's telling half we get ready to set this thing down and gonna have a brand spanking new shiny penny for that year.

We're gonna set it right underneath the wheel.

Well maybe a hundred years from now somebody will know that we were there.

"How'd that get there?"

- [Don] They're clearing parts of the old rail line, pulling a century of memories from the grasp of trees and undergrowth.

- Old locomotive right down there about 100 yards in here.

Really not much to cut but we ought to do it.

Be a heck of a nice picture.

- [Don] The old trains are the first goal, the biggest and most impressive of the artifacts.

The trains were brought here in the late twenties, hauled over the ice from Canada by a man known as King LaCroix.

- He was the boss of the woods.

The big difference between LaCroix and the operators that came before him, or actually even operated at the same time, was he believed in treating his people right.

They had proper housing, they had proper food, and he was very honest with them.

He was one of the first highly mechanized lumber operators.

Basically, when he went to do an operation, he did it all out and that's what made him so successful.

In essence, in the Allagash he was driving logs both ways.

He had pulp wood going south to the mills in Millinocket and he had the long logs and lumber going north to at one time what was the largest sawmill in New England up on the St. John.

- [Don] Alliance members also planned to preserve a portion of the remarkable tramway now slowly sinking into the soft earth.

This is a piece of Maine history.

Fascinating piece of Maine history that I would assume most people in Maine are ignorant of.

- To a certain extent because it happened in such a remote area and the traces of it are so few.

One of the standing policies was that when you finished the logging operation, you destroyed the buildings that were left and you just left.

And the forest came back in.

We're very fortunate in the Allagash that some of this remained for one quirk or another.

You've got the tramway right where it was left.

It just basically rotted right there.

The locomotives, everything was left.

When they shut the that operation down, nobody realized that they were not coming back.

- [Don] This won't be a museum or a park because this is the Allagash, a place dedicated to wilderness.

But people have lived and worked in this wilderness for centuries.

They and their machines are part of it.

- This is protecting the Allagash waterway.

And I think keeping these trains from falling over and getting 'em preserved and under a building, I think is gonna be a great thing for the waterway.

So people come in and look at 'em.

Maybe long after we're gone, they'll still be able to come and see them sitting here.

- [Don] Protecting part of what's here.

- Right.

Yeah.

- [Don] These old machines stand as monuments to the people who struggled to make a living from a rugged land.

Waterway managers and the Allagash Alliance want to make sure that visitors will always be able to see the tracks of time.

I'm Don Carrigan for True North.

- Don Carrigan joins us now for a little bit more about this fascinating project.

Just fascinating.

- [Don] Really is.

- It really is amazing.

I can only wonder what it's like to suddenly come across these iron horses.

Describe when you first saw them.

- Well I had heard about these for years before I first saw the trains, which was probably three or four years ago.

And it was in the winter.

I had never been able to be to canoe in there.

For practical purposes, you get there by canoe or maybe boat in the summer, by snowmobile in the winter.

Otherwise it's a mighty long and nasty walk.

- [Patsy] Right.

- So I was in on snowmobile, we were up there fishing and I knew they were there, but the first time we went in there, and this really is the middle of nowhere.

And you come around a little corner and they're these huge railroad locomotives in the middle of this little clearing in the middle of the woods.

The middle of no place.

- [Patsy] Amazing.

- It's an amazing sight.

And this last time when I saw them this fall, the last time I was up there, you come around the corner, you know they're there.

But what additionally took my breath away is here these things are, they've been jacked up in the air six feet on wooden blocks and it's an impressive sight.

- A little bit of Twilight Zone, almost kind of this eerie feeling a little bit.

- [Don] A little bit saying, "What's going on?"

- Right.

Talk about now what happens now.

These people are so passionate about preserving this and it's taken a while.

It's been 60 years they were sitting out in the woods under the brush.

- That's right.

The Allagash Alliance folks, they hope by that sometime next summer they will have stone ballast in and new rails and ties underneath the locomotives.

They'll be able to lower them back down so they'll be on a firm footing, and they'll stay there.

They're going to try to clean up around the area.

They're not making a fancy sight out of it 'cause it still is the Allagash wilderness waterway.

But they hope to have a few signs, some interpretive things so when people come in, they'll see what's there and know.

And then they're also hoping to fix up a little short section of the old cable tramway so that people can go in and look, not have to crash through the bushes and be able to appreciate really the work, the engineering skill, the foresight that did this a century ago.

- Great story.

Thanks Don.

- [Don] Thank you.