Bowling was big in Houlton when we were kids. Porter bowled at both the Elks Club and Dux Club. There were also two commercial alleys, one upstairs on Bangor Street, the other on a side street off Main Street. They all had candlepins, but during the war the Bangor Street location set up two alleys with duck pins for the servicemen stationed at the Houlton base.
On the wall in my father’s dressing-room, part of the sleeping porch in the cottage at Nickerson Lake, was the score sheet with his 169 string on it, a record high for some time at the Elks. I recall no high of my own or of my brother, who also bowled and made good money in high school setting pins at the Elks. I was on a team, however, which did attain a winning record. Occasionally, I still wear the little gold bowling ball on a chain. Good memories, with one caveat: The alleys at the side street location where we bowled went wavy here and there, so we could never know what our scores might have been with a level surface.
During a WWII Christmas season, two uncles on leave joined the youngest one, who had been needed on the farm but ended up in the army, stationed in Australia and New Guinea. My parents and an older uncle and his wife met them to bowl in Bangor. Going along, even though not to bowl, was a big deal for me.
Meeting for bowling in Bangor was the only time we went down there in the winter, thus the only time we stayed at the Penobscot Hotel on Exchange Street with its warm comfort. Nice and cozy, we kids stood looking out the huge windows as snow fluttered down outside. My father would not even consider sleeping upstairs at my grandparents’ farmhouse in Carmel. He liked heat.
Even now I can feel that upstairs area, without heat except for what went up the stairs when the door at the foot was left open. The upstairs open area and the two separate bedrooms all had porcelain chamber pots, a necessity with the outhouse or “backhouse” connected to the barn, a ways from the kitchen door.
Years later, after I had moved here, a friend told of going to a big, impressive house for dinner, with fine china and sterling silver on the table. The hostess brought the main course to the table in a serving dish, which was actually a porcelain chamber pot. She bragged about finding it at an antique show. She assured her guests that she had washed it well and sterilized it.
Did the guests eat the contents? I hesitated to ask; I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I was just so glad that I was not one of the guests.
Byrna Porter Weir was born and grew up in Houlton, where her parents were portrait photographers. She now lives in Rochester, N.Y.
