To the editor:
I am 93 years old. I enclose a poem that you might use. I write lots of them. I wrote the class song at Caribou High School, Class of 1938. My mother’s father, Lyman Pendell, owned and edited the Aroostook Republican. My father, Attorney Orman L. Keyes, convinced then Gov. Barrows to inspire the guys in Washington to give Caribou, Maine the very first municipal airport in the state (was it 1930?).
Some day we’ll go to the moon, my father told the Aroostook potato farmers. “Oh yes, “ they patronized him. They probably thought, “Why should we go to the moon, you can’t grow potatoes up there.” But we went. I think those beautiful hills of Aroostook blocked their vision.
My home was 20 Collins St., corner of Prospect, across from Collins Lumber yard. Wish I were up there. My husband was an electrical engineer for Raytheon for 48 years. I am a widow.
We had a cottage on Long Lake in Harrison. I started the LEA (Lakes Environmental Association) in Naples, Maine. Don’t know how many lakes are now members. There were two laundries dumping soapsuds into Long Lake in Harrison. They were forced to close. It turned out that was the drinking water for the city of Portland.
Here is the poem I wrote.
The Old Folks’ Days
To dear departed relatives;
I wish you all were here
To share with me
The ecstasy
I feel this time of year.
I miss the happy voices
As Christmas cheer uplifts
But most of all
I miss your love –
The greatest of His gifts.
Come fly with me to Christmas past
And gather ‘round the ghosts
And have a merry Christmas blast
With those you love the most.
Helen Keyes Richardson
Wayland, Mass.
