Essays of a Camden Native
Paul Putnam
Paul Putnam lives in Rockport. His four volumes of essays, "Thoughts and Reminiscences of a Camden Native," are available at the Reading Corner in Rockland and the Owl and Turtle Bookshop in Camden. He can be reached at [email protected]
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- Essays of a Camden Native
Essay by a Camden native’s daughter
By Vicki Fletcher - May 16Dad always said he wanted to write his own “swan song,” but, sadly, the recent fatigue and discomfort of pancreatic cancer has kept him from doing ...
- Essays of a Camden native
A true family farm
By Paul Putnam - Mar 16When my great-grandfather, George L. Putnam, mustered out of the 26th Maine Regiment in August 1863, he returned to South Thomaston. He was 22, ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Brewster's snowsuits
By Paul Putnam - Feb 16The recent snowstorm — blizzard — and another predicted for next week reminded me of the era of the Brewster snowsuit, which I have written about ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Jar rubbers, essential for backyard skiing
By Paul Putnam - Jan 19It seems like we never threw anything away when I was a kid. I suppose we really did, but trips to the dump were not common. We had a burn barrel ...
- Essays of a Camden Native
Christmas controversy throughout history
By Paul Putnam - Dec 22I remember my mother telling of Christmas in the early 20th century when she was a child on Little Deer Isle. They had no tree at home, but the ...
- Essays of a Camden native
To grandmother's house we go
By Paul Putnam - Nov 22Some of my earliest memories are of Thanksgiving in the mid 1930s with my grandparents down at the Keag (pronounced “Gig”). We lived in Camden on ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Alexander's Ragtime band
By Paul Putnam - Oct 13Many of my readers know Frances Alexander Schipper who lives at Quarry Hill and was born in 1908. In 2012 she’s still pretty chipper for her age. ...
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Happiness is a state of mind
By Paul Putnam - Sep 15My parents never discouraged my ambition to go to college, but they did very little to encourage it either. As a fairly intelligent kid, I ...
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Camden High School
By Paul Putnam - Aug 18I went to the annual high school banquet last Saturday night, and got to swap memories Sunday with classmates of the class of 1949. Somehow it ...
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Yorkie's diner, a favorite of young and old
By Paul Putnam - Jul 21I often point out that I’m not a true Camden native because I was born in Rockland and did not move to Camden until I was a year and a half old ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Learning the motion picture operator ropes
By Paul Putnam - Mar 30In December of 1946 I was a sophomore at Camden High School and it seemed that most everything that was important to me revolved around downtown ...
- Essays of a Camden native
After high school
By Paul Putnam - Mar 02The Maine Maritime Academy was an option for many of us who wanted to go on to college after high school, but tuition and books could run $400 a ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Teachers are memorable people
By Paul Putnam - Feb 02In the background of the years at the Knowlton Street School was one dominant figure of whom we all became more aware of as we grew older. That ...
- Essays of a Camden native
Winter cold, bring on the stories
By Paul Putnam - Jan 05When I was a kid, before TV, folks would sit around the old pot-bellied stove and tell stories. The recent cold snap got me to reminiscing about ...
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Seven degrees of separation...maybe
By Paul Putnam - Dec 08Anyone whose family roots date back a couple of generations or more, as mine do, will find a lot of familiar local family names showing up in ...
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My father, the candy man
By Paul Putnam - Nov 10My father Sterling Putnam had been a weaver in the Knox Mill during my childhood, but Mr. Stevenson, the candymaker, died in February 1950 and Dad ...
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Blueberry season with the Hamalainen family
By Paul Putnam - Sep 29We just received notice via the grapevine that Pat Hamalainen passed away this week, and that revived many memories of the Hamalainen family, some ...
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The Mt. Battie Roads
By Paul Putnam - Sep 01Soon after we moved to Millville in 1937 my folks took me on an outing up Mt. Battie by way of the old carriage road that goes up the backside of ...
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Memories of war through a child's eyes
By Paul Putnam - Aug 04Sometimes I hear people tell how they remember exactly what they were doing when they heard the news about the Pearl Harbor bombing in 1941. I ...
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The Summer Colony
By Paul Putnam - Jun 30Camden has always been a special place to those of us who grew up here, and for many over the years who made it their summer home. At first, it ...
