ROCKPORT – In the 1960s, Maine humorist Tim Sample worked at the shipyard in Boothbay Harbor. Back then, the octogenarians would sit around the dock, spinning oakum, puffing clay pipes, and passing on to the young impressionable Sample a regard for life – and a way of phrasing — that has stuck with him through his own life. It was a vein of storytelling and speaking passed down from Elizabethan England, and, luckily, Sample has passed some of that to us.

Sample was in Rockport April 24 at a benefit for two Midcoast nonprofits. After the event, which filled the ballroom, I sat with Sample in the hallway and talked about his career as a humorist.

The benefit was for Habitat for Humanity and the Rockland District Nursing Association, courtesy of the Maine Resource Recovery Association and the 24th Annual Maine Recycling and Solid Waste Conference and Trade Show.

Tim Sample is regarded as one of New England's premier native humorist laureate. His subtle understanding of the Maine way of life have crossed generations with an authentic Downeast storytelling style.

"My first album, that's what we used to call them, came out 37 years ago," he said. "And I had been entertaining professionally for 10 years before that. I tell people I've never had a day job and it's true. This is all I've ever done since I was about 20."

Sample was born in Fort Fairfield, in Aroostook County, in 1951.

"When I was five my parents divorced and my mom was from Hancock County,” he said. “We settled in Boothbay Harbor and she remarried," he said. "Boothbay Harbor is really my hometown. I went to kindergarten and graduated high school with the same 37 kids."

Sample described his roots as a humorist.

"The beginning of it was very early on," he said. "I had an uncle, he passed away years ago, but my uncle Stevie Graham, was quite a raconteur. He had a barber shop in Brooklin and he cut E.B. White's hair for 20 years. He made some early recordings, so I think at some early level I knew you could make a record because someone in my family had made a record."

Sample said working at his father's shipyard in Boothbay Harbor influenced him, as well.

"When I was nine years old I'd work there sweeping the docks, bailing boats, things like that," he said. "At nine years old, it would have been 1960 and there were these octogenarians, guys who sat around the dock and spun oakum. And if you do the math these guys were born in the 1880s. They had not just the dialect, but the attitude."

Sample said the old characters mesmerized him.

"They had beautiful dialects," he said. "And it was a great resemblance to Elizabethan English. It wouldn't be at all out of character for one of the old timers to say, how be ye, and the adult men would call each other dear and darling. They would have this lovely old fashioned dialect and they would smoke these old clay pipes. Now you have to understand this was the 1960s. It was the McCarthy Era, it was the Cold War and there was a sense of pending disaster. And these guys were unflappable to a high degree."

Sample gave an example of how unflappable they were.

"If I ran up to them, as a little boy, and said there was a car on fire down on Townsend Avenue, this is exactly what would happen. Nothing for about five minutes and then one of them would slowly turn to the other one and say, 'now wasn't there a car on fire back in '33. What ever happened to that one?' I didn't put this all together until years later, but it was the wisdom of age."

Sample said he found that compelling and he still does. He said he loves the philosophy that arises out of pragmatism.

"You see birth, you see joy, you see life, you see death, you see pain, but you read too much into any of it, you let it be what it is," he said. "To me, the storytelling tradition that is so much a part of New England and Maine in particular, the maritime and all this stuff I talk about, like working in the woods, and working on the water, it's rich with that attitude. It's really about a sense of place and a sense of identity and I can't get enough of it. I just really enjoy it."

Fast forward 50 years. Tim Sample has had a wonderful career as a humorist on TV, with records and CDs, but is he slowing down?

"You caught me at an odd moment and I'll tell you why," he said. "Thirteen years ago, in 2004, I had a routine physical and my physician said that my white blood count was a little elevated. I said well, my wife and I just got back from California and I had new sneakers and got a blister that got infected and it's probably that. The doc asked me to remind him again where I got my medical degree and I said ‘oh.’ So I had more tests and I was diagnosed with leukemia."

Sample said it was the kind of leukemia that until a few years before that was virtually always fatal.

"All I knew about leukemia was that was how they killed off characters on soap operas when the actor can't negotiate a new contract," he said. "Of course I was frightened. I could talk for hours about the coincidences that lined up, but it turned out that a few years before I got diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia they had come up with a kind of oral chemo called Gleveec. It was a wonder drug. It wouldn't kill the leukemia, but it would keep you alive."

Sample said for the last 13 years he has been taking chemo every day.

"For the last nine years I've been in what they call cyto genetic remission," he said. "Every six months, my oncologist would say the studies, it looks like some of the people who might be taking this are cured, but if we take you off there's some risks and I'm not recommending it for you. Last January, it was a different story. He said you've been clear for years and we think you're a great candidate to go off the medicine, you might be cured of leukemia."

"The three top side effects are weight gain. I had gained 45 pounds, fatigue and muscle cramping, of which I had serious muscle cramping for 13 years. I went to see the doctor about 10 weeks ago and he asked, ‘how do you feel,’ and I said, ‘you know how you feel when you shovel snow all day or cut wood all day and your whole body just aches,’ and I've been feeling that way every day for 13 years. He asked how I feel? I feel great."

Sample said he had decided to semi-retire in January.

"I said I was going to limit my performances and it's just a riot because my phone has just been ringing off the hook," he said. "I just got back from Key Largo, Florida. I got gigs all over the place, so if this is retirement, I love it. I feel such a sense of gratitude because I feel so physically wonderful. I did perform those 13 years. I have stamina to burn. I drove 60,000 miles a year, I wrote books, I did television specials, but I didn't know how tired or worn out I was."

Sample said that from an early age he was able to do something that he enjoyed doing, he could make some kind of living and later a pretty good living and bring enjoyment to other people.

"If there's a better gig then that, I don't know what it is," he said. "I like what I do and people enjoy it. People come up to me and say we had such a good time listening to you and their faces show it. My wife says it's a green job because the byproduct released into the air is laughter."

Sample said he loves to ride his motorcycle and loves his dog, Cosmo, who travels with him everywhere in the car.

"I love my life," he said.

Reach Chris Wolf at news@penbaypilot.com