I came to Maine searching out the mythical skiing mountain that I had heard about in rumors in the l960's. Not that I was unfamiliar with some of the best skiing in the east, having been born a few miles from the only town in North America to host two winter Olympics at Lake Placid. But I had heard about the biggest mountain in the east, and I wanted to at least see it.
I saw it, skied it, and fell in love with it. After a decade working at Sugarloaf I felt pretty good about having worked my way up from part-time lift operator to Assistant Director of the Ski School. I headed out west to give the Rockies a shot in 1980. It was very good for me but a skiing accident ended my skiing career, and because the State of Colorado respected their ski professionals, I went to college under a workman's compensation program.
I graduated from Colorado State University in 1984, and returned to Maine to seek employment as a teacher, this time in the classroom rather than on a ski slope. I was very fortunate to gain a position teaching Chemistry and Physics at Kents Hill School, outside of Augusta. I developed their ski program by applying what I had learned at Sugarloaf. I coached my ski teams to State Championships in alpine skiing. It was great fun as well as being very satisfying.
When my son graduated from Kents Hill, I applied for a teaching position with the Department of Defense working in their school system overseas. I enjoyed the chance to see the world and found that working on military bases to be very satisfying. I worked on Navy, Army, Marine, and Air bases in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, and Germany. I won't tell you which branch of service I most admired unless you ask me personally because I am smart enough to not go on record with that subjective opinion! I can say for sure, working with families overseas was a great honor for me.
It was through the Department of Defense that I came to Old Town. I had a year's sabbatical and came to UMaine to gain training in the computer sciences. That was in 1993 when I rented a house in Old Town that belonged to a fellow teacher in Japan. She thought I should purchase it from her, I resisted, she insisted, and in the end she prevailed. I admit that she was right, it was the best thing I had done since I skied five feet of powder in Colorado wilderness. So I returned to Old Town every summer from that point forward in time.
I eventually built a new house here. It was a great project and gave me a sense of finally finding my roots in this community. Time passed all too quickly, and I retired from teaching in 2013. I chose to retire here because after having been around the world I recognized the special place that this town by the river is. It is the people as well as the location which makes me feel grateful to be here.
Today, I think that we are at a point in time when it is very important to plan for a future that will be nothing like our past. We have to be creative in order to ensure that our children can enjoy the access to opportunity that we had in our past. The experiences I have had in living around the world give me the ability to look at our challenges differently. I hope to apply that insight in choosing good policies to guide the Old Town Schools into the future.