Dresden family delays Christmas to help line workers
Dresden resident Roger Bintliff, formerly of Edgecomb, took this photo of just a few of the trucks that came and went from the Augusta restaurant where he and other staffers, and his daughters, served meals to power line and tree crews. The full lot had the inn’s guests, including people whose homes had lost power, wondering where to park, Bintliff said. Courtesy of Roger Bintliff
Dresden resident Roger Bintliff, formerly of Edgecomb, took this photo of just a few of the trucks that came and went from the Augusta restaurant where he and other staffers, and his daughters, served meals to power line and tree crews. The full lot had the inn’s guests, including people whose homes had lost power, wondering where to park, Bintliff said. Courtesy of Roger Bintliff
For many, December 28 was just another Saturday with a winter storm Maine-bound, but at Roger Bintliff's home on River Road in Dresden, it was Christmas.
Bintliff, 46, his wife and daughters even waited until then to open presents.
The family put off celebrating the holiday days earlier, when the former Edgecomb man agreed to go feed several hundred power line and tree workers helping put the lights back on for tens of thousands of Central Maine Power customers.
Edgecomb residents know Bintliff for starting a Davis Island resort with his company, Edgecomb Development. Now he's general manager of the Senator Inn & Spa in Augusta.
The restaurant there was closed on Christmas Eve, when CMP called, Bintliff said December 29. The power company had had no luck finding a place to feed workers from Maine and elsewhere, spending their own holidays away from their families.
“So I said, 'I'll jump in. Let's do it.'”
“These guys were hungry, they were working 17-hour shifts and that’s dangerous work that they do. They were physically exhausted,” he said about the crews whose trucks had filled the restaurant's parking lot. Some of the workers lived as far away as Ohio.
CMP was paying for the feed. Bintliff and other staffers, including fellow Dresden resident Stacy Barnes, the inn's food and beverage director, served meals over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Two of Bintliff's daughters, Hall-Dale senior Jewel Bintliff,16, and Avery Bintliff, 18, who serves in the Maine Army National Guard, helped their father at the restaurant.
Some of the line and tree workers pitched in, too. “They were helping bus dishes and they were pouring water,” Bintliff said.
“They were so grateful to us.”
Bintliff said he'd be willing to give up a holiday again if CMP asked. His wife Molly Bintliff was OK with delaying the family's Christmas plans, he said.
“She expects these kinds of things with me.”
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