Echoes begins 25th year of publication
CARIBOU — With a sweeping wrap-around view of Cross Lake on the cover, Echoes No. 97 launches the 25th year of the quarterly magazine based in Maine’s northern reaches.
Ann Flewelling’s cover photo previews the issue’s centerpiece: “Journey Across Time on a Maine Lake” in which she reflects on her Aroostook County childhood in three excerpts from her recently released book “A Moment of Water: Journey by Maine Watershed.”
Other features in the new Echoes magazine include “Unsung Giants: Heavy horses of the north Maine woods” by Pamela Snow Sweetser of Presque Isle, “Littleton Ridge” by Barbara McGillicuddy Bolton and “Hobos of Houlton” by Bob Fields, both Houlton natives now living in New York.
Color photos of foxes and geese by Kathy Lena of Orono illustrate poems on the inside front and back covers by Dudley Laufman of New Hampshire and Paul Marin of Florida. Inside the magazine, poems by Mary Niles of Presque Isle and Helen K. Richardson of Massachusetts accompany prose pieces on related themes.
In an essay titled “Something Special,” Mabel Desmond of Mapleton speaks to anyone who has enjoyed the camaraderie of a small-town post office — “a place where people not only send and receive mail, but also talk, laugh and catch up on the latest news.”
Issue 97 also presents two works of fiction set in rural communities. “Net Profit” by Vaughn Hardacker of Caribou and Paulette Littlefield Clark of Junction City, Kansas, takes place in a northern Maine country store. “Penny and Portia” by Gordon Hammond of Westfield is a cautionary tale about a couple of would-be farmers who decide to raise a pair of pigs.
Regular columnist Glenna Johnson Smith of Presque Isle laments annoying television commercials in her “Old County Woman” column, and Houlton native John Dombek of Utah relates a tale of competitive tomato growing in his column “Beyond Washburn Street.”
Lucy Leaf of Surry describes her effort to fight disease with diet in a sequel to her column in Issue 96 detailing her bout with Lyme disease. And Dottie Hutchins presents genealogical queries she received in response to her revival of “Tapping Family Trees.”
Editor Kathryn Olmstead describes the work of organizations dedicated to preserving farmland and supporting rural development in Maine as a possible antidote to the hunger experienced by thousands of people in the state.
Published quarterly in Caribou, Echoes celebrates qualities of community at risk in today’s world, but thriving in places like Aroostook County. It is printed by PrintWorks in Presque Isle and visible at www.echoesofmaine.com.
