Book brings post-war Houlton into much clearer focus

By Mark Putnam
Managing editor
    As anyone who writes for a living or as a hobby knows, when you need to get something done it helps to have a firm deadline staring you straight in the face.
    For weekly newspaper reporters, it’s every Tuesday afternoon. For “Season’s Greetings” letter senders, it’s the early Post Office holiday schedule. For the late Cora M. Putnam of Houlton, who finished a three-decade project “The Story of Houlton” in 1957, it was the Shiretown’s pending Sesqui-Centennial Celebration.
Bob Fields
    For Houlton native Bob Fields it was the birth last year of his great-granddaughter Lyla that inspired him to finally publish his memoir on growing up in Houlton in the 1940s and ‘50s. And luckily for us, he decided to share it with a much wider audience than his immediate family.
    While Putnam’s work carefully records the full names and all the hard dates for posterity, Fields takes a more personal, and often humorous, approach to recording history.
    Fields, who lives in Holland Patent, N.Y., graduated from Houlton High School in 1951 and is a retired Air Force colonel and successful business developer. Although he has not lived here since graduation, Aroostook County residents might recognize him as a contributor to Echoes magazine. In fact a couple of his articles make up several of the 29 chapters in his autobiographical book entitled “Letters to Lyla: A Boy Comes of Age in the 1940s” now available on Kindle, AMAZON, and York’s Book Store in Houlton.
    Reading “Letters” (187 pages, CreateSpace, North Charleston, N.C.) over the holiday break was a real pleasure; not just because I am somewhat of a history buff and strongly attracted to anything about Houlton’s rich past and my own heritage, but because Fields’ book introduced me to life in the Shiretown when times were much more simple but no less exciting for young men (and women) not weighted down by the trappings of adulthood.
    The author writes of Houlton, its river and streams, and its colorful characters and special places much like Mark Twain introduced an entire nation to frontier life in Hannibal, Missouri, the mighty Mississippi River and unforgettable people like Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Becky Thatcher, Jim and Injun Joe. Indeed there are chapters in “Letters” that touch on everyday life in rural northern Maine like catching fish, shooting pool, picking potatoes, playing basketball and just hanging around.
    A great example of Fields’ powerful descriptions of his childhood haunts is this memory of Brown’s Pool Hall. “The décor, like the patrons, had a used look. The felt tips of the pool sticks were worn and torn; pool pockets were ripped and ragged — some to the point that once the shot was made, the ball would fall to the hardwood floor, to the dismay (and often anger) of the shooter.”
    The author also paints vivid pictures of characters, like one of his first “girl” friends, Mary. “I watched as she walked up the steps to the house. She moved like a cheetah on the African plain. As she moved, it seemed like her legs got longer, her hips got wired to some kind of motion machine, her shoulders squared, and the whole picture was of a body in motion with a purpose.”
    In his chapter on World War II, Fields writes: “Lyla, I hope this short essay will give you a sense of why it was called the Greatest Generation, and to me that included those of us on the home front. The entire country was committed and worked daily toward one goal: to defeat the enemy. We sacrificed, we prayed, we bought war bonds, we readily accepted the changes in our life demanded by the war effort.”
    Perhaps Fields’ close childhood friend, Breen Bernard, sums up “Letters” best in his introduction:
    “The author has transformed his letters to his great-granddaughter into chapters taking readers on a guided tour of his early life. His stories describe family life, playing with friends, sports, unusual adventures, and aspects of the town of Houlton where he grew up in northern Maine. Readers will come to know the boy as a risk-taking, fun-loving, carefree, imaginative youngster. They will also discover major differences between their culture and my old friend’s way of life.
    “Readers will appreciate the author’s straightforward and homespun approach as he interjects emotions and humor into his dialogue. Written as an expression of love and affection, this novel will encourage readers to embrace the past and qualities that are essential to living successfully at any age.”
    In the end, reading and rereading “Letter to Lyla” has sparked the historian, storyteller and grandfather in me to put some of my favorite boyhood stories to paper (or iPad as it were) before it’s too late. Fields’ colorized snapshots of the Shiretown have given me a much better understanding and appreciation for my hometown and the variety of memorable characters in my own family and circle of friends.