Our reporters went out across the region to see what life was like on the first day of summer in 2010. Here are the things they saw:
Swimming at No Name Pond
The sun glints off the surface of No Name Pond in Lewiston while only cotton candy clouds mar the azure sky.
Melissa Thibault sits on a blanket in the sand with her 8-month-old nephew, watching her sister, Beth Samare, trying to teach her niece how to swim. Her daughter plays in the sand nearby, while friends splash in the water around Samare.
“We wanted to get away from the house and let the kids play,” says Thibault of Wales.
A couple of kayakers paddle on the pond off in the distance as the echoes of laughter reverberate from the surrounding hills.
It is a few moments after 1 p.m. on the first day of summer in Maine, and the extended family has the beach all to themselves as temperatures soar into the low 80s.
Putting at Roy’s
Nick Bisson, 9, of Lewiston absently swings the golf club at his side. He isn’t having much luck using the putter in the traditional manner.
“Hey! I wanna do a pool shot!” he says to his summer camp teammates on the first hole of the putt-putt course at Roy’s Golfing Center. “Can I do a pool shot?”
His teammates respond in unison: “No!”
Monday is the first day for Bisson and his friends at the golfing camp offered by St. Dominic’s Regional High School’s summer camp program. Counselor Laurie Cullen says the group of about 20 kids spent the first few hours on the driving range at Roy’s before moving to the putt-putt course.
They plan to tackle nine holes of golf at another Twin Cities’ course later in the week.
Bisson’s team is first up to putt, and while teammate Reese Bucklin, 10, of Lewiston, finishes the hole with a two, Bisson’s pink golf ball keeps skipping over the cup.
Finally, he drops down onto his belly and brings the putter up to his eye like a pool cue and sinks his shot.
Despite his friends’ protests, he gets his pool shot.
Park Street watering
Cam Bernard is showering flowers with water with a long hose and shower nozzle attached to a small tank truck. The water soaks into the mulch of the flower beds, the sound of the steadily flowing water rushing over leaves and petals before soaking into the ground beneath.
Bernard, a worker with Lewiston’s Public Works Department, goes from flower bed to flower bed.
For the beds too far from the road to reach with the hose he carries a five-gallon pail. The mixture of water and fertilizer will help the flowers stay vibrant and alive in the heat.
“I’m just out making the city look beautiful,” Bernard says as he moves onto the next bed. In the course of the day he will shower about 1,000 gallons of water on the flowers.
A pair of men sitting on a nearby park bench watch Bernard. One smokes a cigarette and watches disinterestedly as the other glances up, only briefly, from his newspaper to agree — “Sure is,” — when a passer-by mentions it’s a beautiful day.
Dairy Joy
LEWISTON — At 1 p.m., business at the Dairy Joy on Campus Avenue is steady.
Behind the blue building, a grandmother and her grandson sit at a picnic table and eat ice cream, while out front a trio of women chat and laugh as they lick at their dripping ice cream cones. At one window a woman orders a shake. At another, a man in business clothes asks for a medium chocolate.
Every 30 seconds or so, someone else pulls up. Some peer at the menu, which offers dozens of choices and flavors. Others already know exactly what they want.
On this first day of summer, a sunny day in the 80s, milkshakes prove the most popular choice — no dripping.
But while traffic is steady at the neighborhood ice cream stand, employees predict a busier night. Many people reserve their days for the beach, they say. Evenings are for ice cream.
Getting wet at Kennedy Park’s Splash Pad
LEWISTON — Just before 1 p.m. Monday the counselors at the city’s Splash Pad are fielding a frequently asked question.
“When are we opening?” says aquatics director Meghan Snook. The city’s Department of Parks and Recreation’s popular Splash Pad in Kennedy Park opens on the first day of summer.
The Splash Pad is like a hose in a back yard, only better. There are four or five different sources of water spraying out at different stations, including a play fire hydrant, a large green hoop that looks like a frog that children run through and several fountains that shoot out different kinds of sprays.
The magical moment comes when the water is turned on, and the sprays come to life.
Eyes behind the closed gate are focused.
“Are you guys ready?” a counselor asks the line of youngsters.
As the gate opened kids in shorts and bathing suits walk in and go straight for the water.
The water is cold. The children don’t mind. The day is hot.
Laughing and squealing with delight, they run near enough to the sprays to get wet. Braver children run closer, completely dousing themselves.
Next to the Splash Pad is the pool, looking pristine and inviting. It isn’t open. The pool will open, hopefully, later this week as soon as the new bathhouse is complete.
Main Street
NORWAY — Paul Brook, owner of Woodman’s Sporting Goods Store on Main Street in Norway, has just stepped outside.
It is a sunny, warm day in downtown Norway with lots of white clouds overhead. The clock in the Opera House tower, just across the street, reads a minute before 1 p.m.
He stands on the stoop observing the constant traffic of cars and pedestrians traveling east and west through the busy downtown street.
Across the street, a UPS truck is parked in front of Cafe Nomad’s at the corner of Pikes Hill Road and Main Street delivering boxes.
As the UPS truck drives off, a woman wearing light shorts and a brown shirt with a brown, pink and white bag slung over her shoulders is carrying a cardboard box with what looks like pieces of white poster board in it. She walks by a car that has a multicolored “thank you” balloon attached to the antenna.
A little girl in a white shirt with a short brown bob, perhaps 4 years old, wanders out the door of Cafe Nomad and pulls herself up on the handrail, flipping herself over and upside down, until she is hanging like a monkey watching the traffic go by.
A woman with long brown hair, cropped pants, purple sleeveless shirt and a tattoo armband walks past the little girl and laughs. She swings what looks like the same brown, pink and white bag that a previous woman was seen carrying.
The little girl’s father comes out of Cafe Nomad and takes her hand. They walk off down the street, as a man with receding white hair and a beard, wearing a salmon shirt, white shorts and brown socks pulled up toward his knees, crosses the intersection at Pikes Hill Road and Main Street.
Brook goes back inside his store as the Opera House clock strikes 1 p.m.
Meetinghouse Park
FARMINGTON — Gentle, cool breezes form an oasis from the hot rays of the sun Monday in tree-shaded Meetinghouse Park while the sounds of traffic, flute music and lawn mowers drone on.
With downtown Farmington bank thermometers recording 79 degrees, mid-day finds a few people spending a moment in the park. Surrounded by the bustle of traffic and pedestrians passing by on all sides, the small park is situated in the midst of courthouses, apartment buildings and the town’s Main Street.
Yet the moment in the park dulls the sense of the outside world passing by. It’s obvious it’s there, but it doesn’t obliterate the peace of the moment found while sitting in the park.
A young girl with a parent by her side reads the lettering on the park’s World War II monument, while a young couple with a baby finish a picnic lunch, enjoying the cool, shaded grass provided by the maple-leaf cover above their heads.
Young children squeal as they run inside the park’s gazebo. A young beagle pulls at its leash in an attempt to pull the human on the other end to the best spot for rolling in the grass.
Car and truck brakes squeal as they near the downtown lights, and motors roar as vehicles move on from nearby stop signs, while pleasant flute music wafts across the park from a nearby home.
Summer sounds of lawn mowers are broken only by the clang of the courthouse clock as it notes the passing of the hour.
By the river
RUMFORD — The town’s information center and adjacent parking lot are abuzz with lots of summertime activities Monday as the sun shines down on the Androscoggin River.
Picnic tables are full of people taking the chance to eat outside.
Linda Thomas, a direct support provider for the Emma R Foundation in Dixfield, is enjoying lunch with several of her clients. The group is on its way back from horseback riding in Augusta, and rather than returning to the office decide to enjoy the water and sunshine.
Bruce and Carolyn Delaney of Batesville, Ind., stop at the information center to pick up maps and other information about the area and the state. They are on their way to Bar Harbor and have been on the road for two days, camping out each night.
On the ledges of the river, Greg Freeman of Peru is fishing with his grandson Noah Gagnon of West Palm Beach, Fla.
The 11-year-old spends each summer with his grandparents, something he says he loves. The fish are biting, but none has been caught yet.
Inside the information center, volunteer Marcia Barkey says people from all over the world drop by. She grew up in the Virginia section of Rumford, but has lived out of state for 50 years.
She returned to her camp on Roxbury Pond from Findley, Ohio, for the summer, and volunteers whenever she can.
Sounds of Monday
LIVERMORE FALLS — The rev of a motorcycle engine is heard long before it’s seen on Park Street. It goes by and only nature’s sounds are heard.
Leaves rustle in the wind. Flower stems and grass blades sway back and forth gently.
Another engine sound emerges in the distance. The sound grows closer as the wheels turn and the trailer of the empty logging truck jostles on the highway, drawing closer.
Whoosh. It’s gone.
Then the sounds of nature take over again.
Birds chirp their music while small chickens peck the ground for food.
The breeze continues to ripple the greenery as it builds up to a soft crescendo.
Comments are no longer available on this story