Maine History Told by Mainers

Summers in Washburn, 1960s/70s

Submitted October 14, 2004 by Jeff Allen

I grew up in Washburn in the 1960’s and 70’s. Washburn is about 10 miles northwest of Presque Isle. My parents and I lived in town and didn’t grow potatoes as everyone thinks of when they think of County people. Dad was a carpenter and salesman and mum was a housewife and substitute rural mail driver.

One of my fondest memories as a young child was going to my grandparents' house (also in Washburn) in the summer. Grampy always had a huge vegetable garden and fresh strawberries and raspberries. Once in a while when Nana went out, Grampy and I would go and pick a couple handfuls of ripe strawberries. We’d eat some on the way back to the house and bring the rest back in the kitchen and wash them off. Then, while they were still dripping wet, we’d hold them by the stems and roll the berries in the sugar drawer. Wow – I can still imagine how sweet and delicious they were.

Nana would get home later and see the clumps of wet sugar in the drawer and yell at Grampy and me for making a mess. We’d promise never to do it again – and never did, until we had another chance.

Nana passed away when I was 7 or 8 and my grandfather came to live with us. Gramp still had a huge garden and grew enough for the whole neighborhood. Come August every year we’d give bags full of corn to everyone we could think of that would like some. We ate a lot of the corn ourselves too. Mum would get a big pot of water boiling and the men (Gramp, Dad & I) would go out to the garden and get corn right off the stalk. We’d shuck it outside to save the mess inside and take it in to the boiling water.

In minutes Gramp & I would start our corn eating contest. I always remember him winning but we’d both slow down and look at each other after a dozen ears each. We were probably wondering the same thing, when is he going to quit? Mum would just shake her head and tell us not to eat so much that we’d get sick. We had a great time.

When I get ears of corn now, even from a farmer’s market, it never tastes as sweet and fresh as that corn from our garden did.