Essays of a Camden Native
Paul Putnam
Paul Putnam lives in Rockport. His four volumes of essays, "Thoughts and Reminiscences of a Camden Native," are available at the Reading Corner in Rockland and the Owl and Turtle Bookshop in Camden. He can be reached at pputnam@midcoast.com.
Recent Posts by
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Recollections of Camden Hills
By Paul Putnam - May 11All I could see from where I stood was three long mountains and a wood. I turned and looked another way and saw three islands and a bay. Edna St. ...
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Welcome, spring
By Paul Putnam - May 02See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of the singing has come, The cooing of ...
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Welcome back Camden Herald!
By Paul Putnam - Apr 20It’s good to have The Camden Herald back in town and as usual, when I began to reminisce about that, it brought back some good memories. The first ...
My neighborhood
By Paul Putnam - Mar 10What did kids do before TV? Well, of course there was radio, but that was oriented to kids only during the children’s hour, around 5 to 6 p.m. On ...
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Changing the marquee in Camden
By Paul Putnam - Feb 24According to Jack William’s "History of Camden," the Comique Theater’s last movie was "The Westerner" with Gary Cooper on Feb. 10, 1941. Then the ...
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The movies
By Paul Putnam - Feb 09The 21st Century is well under way and dramatic change has become commonplace, but the overall change may never again be as significant as those ...
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Shopping
By Paul Putnam - Jan 28I’ve mentioned before that local Downeast communities were pretty self-sufficient before World War II, but human nature being as it is, there were ...
Pearl Harbor
By Paul Putnam - Dec 17Many of us old geezers can tell you where and when they heard about the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941. And even though there have been ...
Eleanor Roosevelt visits the Midcoast
By Paul Putnam - Dec 02In 1940, with the war in Europe, Cary Bok, of Camden and Philadelphia, joined with Richard Lyman, of Portland, and Clint Lunt, of Cape Elizabeth, ...
The great awakening
By Paul Putnam - Nov 27Many of us are still alive who remember Dec. 7, 1941. World War II brought into focus many strengths and energies that were already progressing at ...
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World War II at home
By Paul Putnam - Nov 06I suppose everyone’s attitude toward life has been formed at least in part by childhood experience. I know mine has. The Great Depression and ...
Just stories
By Paul Putnam - Oct 30I have a few stories that don’t fit any particular category, but just stories I like to tell on occasion. In 1963, I was a technical writer for ...
Stories on local history
By Paul Putnam - Oct 16I keep saying I’m not a historian. I just write about my memories and experiences of growing up in Camden. Of course, I immediately have to ...
The good old days
By Paul Putnam - Sep 03As I write these stories about growing up in Camden I often remark that it’s not that things were better then, but they were different. We often ...
Penny candy
By Paul Putnam - Aug 28When you’re four years old life is full of adventures. I’ve told of a few of them before, like walking the rail on the Knowlton Street bridge and ...
Growing up on Mechanic Street
By Paul Putnam - Aug 21Sometimes, when the subject comes up, I tell people I'm from away because I was born in Rockland. I didn't move to Camden until I was about two ...
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Boy Scouts
By Paul Putnam - Aug 10Life was more laid back when I was growing up. Folks were more apt to look outside of their own home for entertainment and leisure activities. For ...
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Jobs for a kid
By Paul Putnam - Apr 10My dad grew up at a time when kids just naturally were expected to help with the farm chores, garden work, or helping with the chickens. Most ...
Remembering Robert Merchant
By Paul Putnam - Mar 26I was six years old when my folks bought the real handyman’s special on the corner of Blake and Bisbee streets in Millville for $800. The place ...
Winter sports
By Paul Putnam - Feb 11The winter carnivals sponsored by the Camden Outing Club started in 1936 and were big events in the years leading up to World War II, but they ...
Christmas!
By Paul Putnam - Dec 23Lately, it has been interesting to watch my daughter, Vicki, gradually transform our home into a Christmas Wonderland. Boxes of various sizes came ...
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All I want for Christmas
By Paul Putnam - Dec 12The following reflects a cry of the heart from most people over fifty who have family. For most of us, Christmas is either a joyful time or a sad ...
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Thanksgiving at the 'Keag
By Paul Putnam - Nov 24Some of my earliest memories are of Thanksgiving in the mid-1930s with my grandparents down at the Keag (pronounced “Gig”). I have mentioned ...
Pretty Snazzy
By Paul Putnam - Nov 06I was talking with a friend recently and we reminisced a bit about men’s clothing stores, and how boy entering high school would buy something ...
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60 below zero
By Paul Putnam - Oct 24Helen and I were fortunate to have opportunity to live in many different places in the U.S. and Canada during our life, and I must say right off ...
Never again
By Paul Putnam - Oct 12In April 2007, the Camden Herald printed a piece I wrote on the Klu Klux Klan in Camden. At the time I thought it was an interesting commentary on ...
Sagamore Farm, Buttermilk Lane farm ahead of ...
Uncle Cliff
By Paul Putnam - Sep 25Uncle Cliff was my grandfather's older brother, George Clifford Putnam. He and his sister, Jennie Alice, stayed on the family farm on Buttermilk ...
Blueberries
By Paul Putnam - Aug 25On Tuesday, May 7 of 1930 at about 2:30 p.m. a fire started up on Mountain Street near the old Fay place and swept over Mt. Battie in a most ...
War on the home front
By Paul Putnam - Aug 18I'm a veteran of the Korean War. It was a "police action" by the United Nations, but it seemed the United States, with Harry Truman as a no-nonsens...
The Rockport Carnival/Regatta
By Paul Putnam - Jul 07Around 1925, the town fathers in Rockport began to hold events in the Rockport Opera House as fundraisers for sending the high school senior class ...
Will the real President Roosevelt please stand up
By Paul Putnam - Jun 23There's an interesting story concerning President Roosevelt's visit to Rockland on June 16, 1941, before the U.S. entry into the war. John R. ...
Spring has sprung
By Paul Putnam - May 19Helen and I had the good fortune to experience spring all over the continent and it was always a special time wherever we were. While each season ...
The Silver Spray
By Paul Putnam - Apr 14Fred and Willis Piper Capt. Fred Piper (1853-1918) lived in Rockport and was the son of Franklin Piper and Lydia Swan Piper also of Rockport. ...
Easter bunnies
By Paul Putnam - Mar 31The homemade candy business was pretty slow through the winter months, and Putnam's Candy Kitchen always looked forward to Easter. There was a bit ...
The wonder of winter
By Paul Putnam - Feb 21I was born in the summer of 1931. There's been a lot of water over the dam since then, both literally and figuratively. I remember as a child ...
