To the editor:
After a weekend down in New Hampshire, I had arrived home in time to tune in to the evening TV news cast. The story about the rolled over school bus on January 7th, was upsetting. The next day I drove over to the spot of the accident, and was even more thankful that the incident was not worse. That curve is always bad, even in good weather. I do hope that the investigators are not hard on the driver, as even if she were going only one mile an hour, it would have been too fast for any vehicle to round that hillside bend under the conditions present that morning.
State Trooper, Shawn Whelan, remarked on how maturely the students reacted to the adversity, the bus driver putting the students’ welfare above hers, reports of people going out to help, are characteristic of Aroostook County’s residents. No matter what has happened, or to whom something has happened, in the case of an emergency, or just an urgency, help is there — within minutes.
When my son, Orpheus, was a student at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, he told his new friends about the unwritten rule of the road in Aroostook County, probably in the rest of Maine as well, was that if a stopped car on the side of the road was seen, the one coming upon it stops to see if help is needed. The reaction? “Are you crazy?”
Aroostook being a remote, sparsely populated area, does not have many of the amenities urban areas have; but, I shall take the way of life Aroostook people posses, and live by on a daily basis. It is very comforting to know that its residents freely give, offer compassion, and aid when need arises.
Thank you to all who helped.
Castle Hill
