From a far simpler time ...

I'm writing this from our home in Los Alamos; while we're missing our annual summer in Sprucewold, this is a beautiful place. Here's some history I remember about BBH and Sprucewold. My folks bought the cabin on 53 Sunset Road shortly after my graduation from Amherst College in 1964. Dad showed me an ad in the AAA magazine and said they were going to see it. A month later, he called me in Cleveland said, “we bought it!”

Then Dickey Hallinan was the keeper of most (all?) of the cabins; as a diesel mechanic, he worked at Sample’s. Kay, his wife, picked crab in the harbor; she'd pick six pounds of meat an hour. I don't recall any non-log homes in Sprucewold then. Melanie and Shamus Wold-Martin now own the three structures at 21 Sunset. Melanie grew up on an island in Damariscotta Lake. Her dad was the handyman at Sprucewold Lodge and delivered firewood to all cabins.

Dad was still working at Bell Labs in New Jersey, although he soon retired so he and Mom could spend all summer in the cabin. Once Mom was taking a bath when the summer water was turned off.

The Lodge was in full swing, often at capacity; its restaurant was open to all, not just the guests. Sprucewold Lodge owned a swimming pool where Nahanda Park is now. It also had the beach and a salt-water tempered pool at the east end; this was destroyed in a hurricane. All Sprucewold residents could use these facilities, gratis.

The Indian Trail was easy to walk; Dotty and I (Sean when he was young) walked it every year all the way to the Spruce Point Inn. If it were Sunday, we could watch the weekly clambake the Inn put on using a real bake pit where they'd burned logs to coals and started Saturday night. Then we'd walk home on Atlantic Avenue. Off Atlantic there was a small beach at Factory Cove where the neighbors would allow swimming. Many cabin owners from then have passed away. Often sons and daughters have taken over and maintained family cabins.

In 1964, Brown Brothers had neither motel nor marina. Its restaurant was a small wooden building with family style tables. On River Road there was a nice Swedish Smörgåsbord restaurant just before the Merry Barn. You could play candlepins at Romar's. L. L. Bean was a small, two story wooden building that only sold outdoor gear for hunting, fishing, hiking, and camping. An east-side pier had a fish monger where an elderly lady sold what her husband had caught that day. Dotty and I remember going to buy some haddock; she had none, but she had hake which was new to us. She told us how to cook it, it was delicious, and it cost $0.25 a pound. The Thistle Inn was open; it had a downstairs lounge. I don't think Red's existed yet. The Bath Bridge was the old one south of the present one. BIW was much smaller, and the Maritime Museum was a small building north of the bridge. Montsweag was one of Dad's favorite restaurants; it had good seafood and neat historic photos upstairs. If you ordered chicken noodle soup, it was Campbell's. There have been changes, but the area is not all that changed from when I first saw it.

In September 1964, I visited the cabin for several weeks and explored the area with two college friends. I visited Pemaquid Point and Light; this became a must-visit every time we were in Maine. Next spring I met Dorothy Gillette, who visited our cabin for a couple weeks. We went to Baxter State Park for three days and climbed Mt. Katahdin, our first of many times. We saw our first moose at Daicey Pond, and camped two nights in a Katahdin Stream lean-to.

We've been coming to Sprucewold almost every summer since; if only for two or three weeks, it was always special. We retired in 2007, and have spent 3-4 months here ever since. Until 2019, this was always with our Samoyed, Shuba, who grew up driving to and from BBH. 

We live at 7200' in the Jemez mountains and look across the Rio Grande Valley at the Sangre de Cristo mountains and Wheeler Peak, the high point of NM at 13,165'. On our usual clear day we can see over 100 miles to the north, and 65 miles to the south.

We enjoy reading the Sprucewold column in the Boothbay Register. We miss seeing our many friends in Sprucewold and the Harbor. We also miss the fresh sea air, the walks in the area, and the fresh seafood from Pinkham's. We can obtain reasonably tasty seafood from Whole Foods in Santa Fe; however, it's not as fresh and it costs almost twice as much.

As I've often said, "I wonder how a kid from Newark, New Jersey, got so damn lucky to be able to live in New Mexico and Maine, and live, work, and travel in more than 50 countries."