DEAR SUN SPOTS: Our small cemetery association in West Sumner is in dire need of someone we could hire to upright stones and repair them.

Due to the low interest rates we now receive for perpetual care, we have to rely on fundraisers and the caring individuals who donate to these fundraisers to keep our gravesites up to par.

Because of the new laws regarding veterans’ gravesites, we are trying desperately to find an individual who does this kind of service. In one of your columns you mentioned that Bolsters Monuments does this, but their fees are beyond of our budget.

Hopefully one of your readers will know of someone that does this service. Thank you in advance for all of your hard work. — Jayne, javerill@megalink.net

ANSWER: Does it need to be a professional? Could a skilled, and strong, handyman, do the work needed in the graveyard? Then you could just hire out the actual stone work?

DEAR SUN SPOTS: A friend found this website http://irregular.our-hometown.com/news/2007-03-13/Front_Page/1257119.html about a lady in Rangeley by the name of Shirley Adams who has written a three-volume series on the genealogy of the Hoar, Bubier, Quimby and Toothaker names, all old and original families of Rangeley.

She has compiled more than 1,000 names for reference. Maybe some of these families would like to hear about their relatives. — barker@fairpoint.net

ANSWER: Barker supplied the email and phone number for Shirley, but Sun Spots deleted them as they are no longer current. Shirley was mentioned in one of the first responses in the series of letters about the “potato train,” and Sun Spots called the Rangeley Historical Society to talk to her, but was told she had moved to New Hampshire. An email to New Hampshire went unanswered.

When Sun Spots spoke to Don Palmer at the historical society she was asking about potato trains and did not realize the connection between that event and these family names, so he had no reason to mention the books Shirley had written. Fortunately, thanks to Barker, interested readers can now catch up on the story.

DEAR SUN SPOTS: For Joanne who sought the words to a story about a fox told to her as a child by her mother (July 14). 

My mother would recite this to us when I was a child. Google the “Fox Song” for complete lyrics — Barry Richardson, Auburn

ANSWER: Sun Spots is not sure this is the one Joanne seeks, as she remembered it beginning with the phrase “One winter’s night the moon shone bright,” which varies from the ballad “The Fox” by Phil Rosenthal, reproduced here with a little cutting of the repeated phrases in the chorus.

The fox went out on a chilly night,

He prayed for the moon to give him light,

For he’d many a mile to go that night,

Before he reached the town-o, town-o, town-o,

He ran til he came to a great big pen,

Where the ducks and the geese were put therein,

“A couple of you will grease my chin,

Before I leave this town-o, town-o, town-o,

He grabbed the gray goose by the neck,

Throwed a duck across his back,

He didn’t mind their quack, quack, quack,

And their legs a-dangling down-o, down-o, down-o,

Then old Mother Flipper-Flopper jumped out of bed,

Out of the window she cocked her head,

Crying, “John, John! The gray goose is gone,

And the fox is on the town-o, town-o, town-o!”

Then John, he went to the top of the hill,

Blowed his horn both loud and shrill,

The fox he said, “I better flee with my kill,

Or they’ll soon be on my trail-o, trail-o, trail-o!”

He ran till he came to his cozy den,

There were the little ones, eight, nine, ten,

They said, “Daddy, better go back again,

‘Cause it must be a mighty fine town-o, town-o, town-o!”

Then the fox and his wife without any strife,

Cut up the goose with a fork and knife,

They never had such a supper in their life,

And the little ones chewed on the bones-o, bones-o, bones-o,

After reading these song lyrics, Sun Spots can all too clearly picture the fate that met Brownie, her favorite chicken, and four others.

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