Some people on Poland Spring Road in Auburn were unable to sleep this week.

And not because they were watching the late-night Red Sox games.

Road crews spent several nights dumping broken pavement from a Route 26 road project onto a site on Poland Spring Road. Neighbors said the crew’s glaring floodlights and the beeping, rumbling and booming of backhoes and dump trucks kept them awake night after night.

“It sounds like thunder,” said Sue Trumble, who tried closing windows, turning on the air conditioning and moving to sleep at the far end of her house. She still couldn’t sleep.

The noise got so bad that some residents called police. One neighbor, Leo Camire, said he threatened to stand behind the trucks to stop them.

“Look at it this way, at least if they arrested me and put me in jail I’d get some sleep,” Camire said.

An official with Pike Industries said its workers had to do their jobs overnight because it was a state project and their contract mandated night hours. The state said there was too much traffic to do the $800,000 project during the day.

“We’re going to get complaints no matter what we do,” said Joe Darling, state manager for the project.

The only comfort he could offer Tuesday: the dumping would be done that night.

Trumble had a single response by e-mail.

“Phew.”

– Lindsay Tice
Speak your mind

Last week at an anti-hate rally, Katarina Arvedson of Poland stepped up to the microphone, her family by her side.

“If I had a T-shirt that I’d be wearing right now, it would be saying, Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.'”

The audience laughed, then applauded, appreciating that she was not comfortable at the podium.

Arvedson said she came to the EqualityMaine rally to show support for Linda Boutaugh and Keri Fuchs, whose Poland home was destroyed by two young boys because the women are gay.

“I am a resident of Poland, Maine. A beautiful town,” Arvedson said. She introduced herself as a mother of two. “I’m not an elected official, not a chosen representative of Poland. But I do live there and I love to live there.”

She said she had to attend. She couldn’t be silent. “Fear will not rule if we point it out and show it is wrong.”

– Bonnie Washuk
Take me to your … water?

Standing in the doorway between the auditorium and a hallway at Mountain Valley Middle School in Mexico on Thursday, I was privy to more than just children performing “Dude, Where’s My Planet?”

I attracted two curious “good” space aliens, who peered around me to watch the stage action. They didn’t ask me where my leader was, just smirked up at me and wiggled their bobbing antennae.

They then dashed around the corner, returned and dashed back seconds later, giggling. Intrigued that they weren’t sapped by the sweltering heat like I was, I looked around the corner.

Like ants to picnic morsels, about 10 brightly colored “good” aliens were mobbing the lone drinking fountain, which, with school out, only produced a trickle.

One of the taller aliens repeatedly lifted the smaller children up for a quick slurp. The small aliens would then return to the back of the mob and filter through to get another drink.

Then, when they had to be on stage, it was like Keystone Cops in a mad dash from the narrow hallway, through a door and upstairs. Flashes of green, orange and yellow.

While their “evil” alien cousins were on stage inducing earthlings to drink a liquid that put them to sleep, the “good” aliens were guzzling the elixir of life.

– Terry Karkos

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