Sunday, November 28, 2010

On the Edge of the Limelight

Well I guess I am internationally famous now.  Okay, maybe not me so much, as it is the lower driveway of my house that has made the big time.  And yeah so what if the fame is based on my lower drive long before I was born, it's still damn cool.

I googled "Acton, Maine".  One of the ga-jillion hits was Wikipedia's entry for Acton.   As is their style, Wiki will include an image of some kind with every article.  And guess what?  Yeah that's right, the picture shown was taken from the end of my lower drive looking down the hill to Acton Corner.   It was a Kodak moment caught on camera around 1920.  That's uh, let's do the math...... uh one, two, thr......  Oh screw it, where's my calculator?  Shit.  Batteries are dead.  Um, okay, I'll wing it and guess about 90 years ago.

The buildings seen in the image are still here and look pretty much the same.  The only difference is tree cover now hides the buildings on the far ridge.  The two on the left are the town hall and current library.  To  the right is the Congo Church.  It has a new steeple now.  The old one sits rotting in the yard next door.

This discovery has been the source of some recent chest puffing on my part.  It's like I know a guy who knows a famous guy.   Or that I live on a famous historical site visited by millions of tourists every year.  Maybe not the Washington Monument in DC - more like living at the Washington Monument at Mount Vernon Place in Baltimore, but with a Maine twist.  So yeah like I am really cool now. 

This recent brush with fame brought back my last encounter with historical links to days gone by.  This image, snapped around 1900 is of  Springvale, Maine's first bike shop.  Philpot's General Store, as it existed 110 years ago, was located not 50 feet from my bike shop's current location.  My bike shop is at the rear of the building to the right of the pile of bike crates.  And though this knowledge caused me to become a local legend in my own mind, it pales in comparison to living on a spot recognized throughout the know cyberspace.

I hope I can deal with almost being famous.

Later............................................

4 comments:

PENolan said...

Way Cool, Dude

The Blog Fodder said...

Closer than most of us will ever get to being famous. Good for you!

BBC said...

That's pretty damn cool...

Kulkuri said...

You've used that original picture of your bike shop before, cool.

After reading this post, I googled my hometown. Much to my surprise several things came up. Including a chart with climate, daylight and other data. Like the time between the last frost and first frost is only 30 days. July 11 for last and Aug 11 for first. That's why I call it UP on the Tundra.