Auburn made fake national news last week.

In a lead story in the satirical newspaper The Onion, attendants who’ve run the Auburn municipal parking lot for three generations bemoan the closing of their $3-a-day franchise. Too many people are parking at the next-door Wal-Mart Supercenter for free.

It’s completely silly and completely made up, but the writers did a little homework, adding this authentic touch:

“Gray and featureless, save for the odd crack in the concrete, and eerily quiet, the lot hardly seemed the place where WCSH-6 newscaster Bill Green once parked his Audi. Without question, Lot 2A’s days of celebrity patronage are no more.”

The fictional lot had reigned supreme for 40 years. An accompanying picture of it looks a bit too balmy to have been shot in Maine.

“Wal-Mart Parking Lot Puts Municipal Parking Lot Out Of Business,” can be found at theonion.com in the Feb. 8-14 issue.

– Kathryn Skelton
Dufresne honored

Carmen Dufresne, a fourth-grade teacher at Pettingill Elementary School in Lewiston, now shares an honor with Maine NAACP leaders: a U.S Postal Service plaque celebrating her work for Black History Month.

The “To Form A More Perfect Union” plaque, which includes a series of stamps depicting various civil rights movement milestones, was presented to her in an assembly Friday.

“I was very surprised,” said Dufresne, who knew the plaque was coming but didn’t realize it was hers alone. “I’m just very touched by this.”

For 18 years, Dufresne has taught her students about African-American history by having them research African-Americans who have made an impact. The students make life-sized posters depicting the people and present an oral report in front of parents and other students.

Tom Rizzo, spokesman for the Postal Service in Maine, learned about the project after finding references to it online. In the past, he’d honored Maine NAACP officials with plaques. He thought Dufresne deserved one, too.

He presented her with the honor at the school assembly. He also gave the school a poster of this year’s Black History Month stamp, which commemorates actress Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Academy Award, according to the Postal Service.

– Lindsay Tice
Rave checks bounce, again

This one has Eleanor Gagnon raving.

Gagnon is a former assistant manager at the bankrupt Auburn Mall Rave store, which closed a week or so ago. Just before the place was shuttered, she complained when her paycheck bounced.

Not to worry, said Chuck Cuoni, Rave’s point man for the bankruptcy proceedings. It was an accident, he said, the result of the company’s accounts being frozen by the courts. New checks, he promised, would be issued and rush-delivered to loyal workers like Gagnon.

Fast forward a week. The check – made out for $311.34 – had arrived. Trouble is, it bounced again.

Whoops, said Cuoni. It’s the bank’s fault; it didn’t honor the hand-signed checks because, well, it wasn’t used to seeing Rave checks signed by hand.

He’d make good on it, he promised.

Tell that to Gagnon. She’s waiting for her final check, for a bit over $100, to arrive and hoping that one will be good for some green.

Gagnon, incidentally, is pregnant and says she could use the money that she worked so hard to earn.

– Doug Fletcher
Poll toll

As Lewiston goes, so goes the nation?

Some wish.

Dick Barringer, a public policy professor at the University of Southern Maine, spent Election Day 2004 shuttling voters to Lewiston polls.

The weather was miserable and Barringer said that by 9 p.m., he was frozen. But he took some warmth in this: of the more than 100 people he taxied to the polls, only two said they were voting for George W. Bush.

“I thought, If Lewiston is a signpost, then President Bush is dis-elected’,” said the longtime Democrat to a group gathered at this week’s Great Falls Forum. “Well, perhaps Lewiston is just ahead of the curve…”

– Carol Coultas