WASHINGTON, D.C. – The president has issued a proclamation creating a reservation 60 feet in width along the entire northern border of Mexico, including the state of California and the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. The purpose of the reservation is declared in the presidential proclamation to the suppression of smuggling across the international line. Private entries in the line of the projected reservation and such portions of it as are needed for roads are reserved from the operation of the order.

Since the abolition of the old “Zona Libre” or free zone between Mexico and the United States, it has been found increasingly difficult to prevent smuggling across the boundary, hence the presidential proclamation.

50 years ago, 1957

The annual Maine VFW Convention parade, combined with the Maine Dairy Club parade, will get under way at 2 p.m. today. Marchers and participating units will assemble in New Auburn at 1:15 p.m., VFW members on Second Street and Dairy Club units on Riverside Drive.

The route of march will be from the assembly points to Broad Street, over South Bridge, along Cedar, Lisbon and Main streets in Lewiston, across the North Bridge, and along Court and Turner streets in Auburn.

The VFW will have its reviewing stand on the steps of the Auburn post office; the Dairy Club’s reviewing stand will be in the parking lot of the First Auburn Trust Co.

25 years ago, 1982

As a raft drifts into the current below the Ripogenus Dam in northern Maine’s wilderness, a guide warns eight novices that the first rapids will soon knock them to the belly of the rubber boat.

“If you don’t hold on to the ropes,” Tom Andrle says matter-of-factly, “you’ll be in the river. They call this ‘The Exterminator.'”

That’s his introduction to a sport that has soared in popularity in Maine since 1977, the year after the log drives ended, opening some of the country’s wildest and most scenic rivers to whitewater rafting.