Possibilities for A Fictionalized Movie Version of My Northern Maine Adventures

[This is the beginning of a 4 part document about a movie that is centered on my Northern Maine adventures. I have spent hundreds of hours thinking and planning this movie out--during the past 38 years. I also must explain on here just what my life has been like ever since living through those Maine adventures and what my life is like today. This 4-part document is read from the top of this blog on down--from the latest Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie blog post, down through the older ones; just the opposite from how blogs are normally read. I guarantee that this well written document is full of interesting, entertaining and even shocking snippets---all the way through. I do believe that you'll enjoy this. Read on! }

During 1968-69, when I was an 18 to 19 year old kid, I moved from the Dundalk suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland up to my Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley Clarke's hunting lodge, Katahdin Lodge and Camps, in Patten, Maine. While at Katahdin Lodge, I became a successful bear hunting guide, and a very happy country girl's delight. I was also horrendously, emotionally abused. I lived and worked at the Lodge for about a year, until the day that I entered the Army, and then went to Ft. Monmouth's US Army Photo Lab Tech School.

While I was living and working at the Lodge, I learned more than I could have during four years of college. And then my experiences in the Army were just about equal to four years of graduate school.

Ever since about three-quarters of the way through those 1968-69 experiences at the Lodge, I have known for certain that the story about my life and adventures up in Northern Maine will make a good movie.

Click here to see a 1969 aerial view of Katahdin Lodge.

Click here to see the 2007 Katahdin Lodge web site.

Please allow me to say here that my writing and photography talents and skills, along with some of my other well-matured, valuable natural and learned talents and skills, will greatly add to the success of this project. My written and photographic work, which is on the Internet, unequivocally displays my current talent and skill at entertaining people and communicating with them. Links to most of my World Wide Web published works will be provided throughout this document, where they each support or enhance particular portions of this movie synopsis.

The basis for everything that you need to create a movie in your own head is contained within this synopsis. Fortunately, I am aware that, in order to please today's demanding movie audiences, the proposed film needs some superbly humorous or perilous plot line or sub plots thrown in. Even though the true story, that spawned the basic idea for this film, is a good and relevant one, it needs some fictionalization and also a solid dose of completely fictional help. Through the years, I have come up with plenty of ideas for using completely made up characters and plot lines or sub plots in this film, and adapting real life events into the story that had nothing to do with me. The final film version requires some creative enrichment, which may come from me or from someone other than myself—like you. So I am offering out, far and wide, an open invitation to all who are film industry pros or anyone who is struggling to be part of the film industry, like me, to join in on this project. Whether you are or are not a film industry person, this synopsis will guide you through an interesting and entertaining experience.

Unfortunately though, I have no idea of how to properly communicate my movie idea to potential producers, directors, or writers. I am a rather reclusive, disabled military veteran barely surviving on a tiny veterans disability pension. There is no one to help me write this any other way than what I am going to. Consequently, if you are a member of the film industry and you are looking for, or are open to, a fantastic new project, then nix all of that bullcrap about how this should be and accept it for what it is—a very well written explanation of a good movie that will be made. I simply prefer to still be alive when it is made.

This movie will be centered on my, wild and woolly, 1968-69 experiences in Northern Maine. I must, though, put into this synopsis enough information about my experiences as a US Army photographer, and a little bit about what my life has been like since 1969, then also add what my life is like today in order for people to understand the full ramifications of my Maine experiences. It is also pertinent that I explain why I am so devastatingly limited in my abilities to market this movie. Therefore, everything within this synopsis is all tied together and is necessary for telling this story and for explaining to you why it is that this film project is still in its infancy. All portions of this document contain some down right interesting and entertaining information. It is one hell of a story. And its time has come.

I guarantee that a well-made movie about my Northern Maine Adventures will be: very entertaining for a wide audience; it will be of some considerable historic value; it will insert a different and interesting slant into the current body of various copyrighted works available about my generation; it will teach people something; it will provide a new voice to help explain the everyday lives of people who grew up in small town USA during the 1960s; the cinematography will be visually stunning at times, visually relaxing at others, beautiful when it should be, anything it needs to be when it needs to be; the writing will be—as some of my old 1960s generation used to say—“right on time”; the plot will be fun filled, dramatic to a necessary degree, emotionally wrenching the few times it has to be, and as action filled as it actually was for me when I lived the story.

This film will frankly, honestly, and, hopefully, helpfully deal with some personal, family, social, etc. issues of the characters in the movie that which numerous audience members will be dealing with in their own lives. Fortunately, most of those characters will also have a lot of fun and adventure throughout the film.

This film has that oft used, usually very effective for audiences, plot thread weaving throughout the movie of an outsider who moves to a very different kind of a place from where he has spent most of his life, and he successfully creates his own personal niche there.

Moviegoers love seeing previously unfilmed locations used as backdrops for, and also as intricate parts of the beautiful fabric of, a new movie. No movie has ever been made about living in the tiny towns up there amongst the vast forests, and the ever-present potato fields, of Northern Maine. And there will be plenty of film footage shot outside of any towns, out on sparsely populated rural roads. Along with lots of deep down in the woods footage, including some scenes of tracking wounded bears at night without any firearms and only having one of those cheap old two D-cell flashlights to see with. Some hunting footage is needed, in order to tell the story effectively. No kills need be portrayed. Just enough bear hunting, and, possibly, it all depends on how everyone working on the project feels about this, a tad bit of gutting and skinning time on film. These bear hunting parts and any normal, everyday hunting guide work doing the gutting and skinning must be directed and photographed tactfully and artfully—some film industry professionals love that kind of a challenge.

An outstanding benefit towards the potential blockbuster success of this film is the fact that there has never been any great snowmobile riding shown in any movie before, and this one has to have it. That cool cinematic action will be far and above the sum total combination of all of the snowsledding scenes you could have possibly ever seen in all of the TV shows and movies that may have already been made with any motorized sled riding in them. Not even the professional snowmobile racing shows on TV go where my well planned out sleddin’ action does. These snowmobile scenes will be something that will thrill and please a very wide audience. Those audience members who have never ridden snowmobiles and/or those who have never seen the kind of hard riding that will be portrayed in the movie will love it. And those audience members who have ridden or ride sleds themselves will love it too—not only because they will be seeing some of their kind of lifestyle on film, they will be lovin’ the restored vintage sleds that we will have to use for the movie. But the snowmobile scenes are, well, frig it, I just must phrase it this way, only the icing on the cake.

This film has real-life, wild and crazy, highly skilled country and backwoods roads driving in it. No Hollywood stuntmen will be able to do most of it; only some lifelong local Mainers up there will be able to do it their way, in their Rockin’ and Rollin’ style, with their right in the groove, safe and smooth, normal for Northern Mainers, daily driving abilities. For reference, see my well-read, and also well liked, stories Driving Northern Mainer Style and Bananastein these have the wild and crazy, but extremely highly skilled aspects of the stunt driving that will be in the movie. For the comical driving scenes, see My VW Bug Trip To Maine.

I did own and ride a 1969 Triumph 250 motorcycle, while up in Maine. And there was a guy working at the Lodge with me who had a Triumph 650, but that motorcycle riding is a small part of my experiences up there. The snowmobile riding is the most important, because it is thrilling and new to audiences. Then comes the true life, very crazy country road and woods road driving, and then a little bit of vintage 1969 Triumph motorcycle footage can be in there too.

In 1973-75, while living in Maryland, I owned a Yamaha 650 and became known as a "trick rider". I would stand up on the seat and do other motorcycle riding tricks. I also sometimes rode hard and fast, but safely—and those better than average motorcycle handling skills of mine could be added to the movie. I did not ride so well yet when I was living in Maine, during 1969, but that is just an example of how I envision the creative potential of this movie.

This is a movie with other challenging creative potential too; I am only telling the facts of the true story here, in this synopsis, but all movies based on true experiences are embellished upon. So any creative offerings from scriptwriters, directors, or actors are fine with me, as long as they only benignly embellish and emphasize the facts of the story or the individual personalities of the movie’s characters.

The movie sound track will include rarely heard, but superb, album cuts from the musical choices of The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Spencer Davis Group, Them, The Yardbirds, Muddy Waters, Johnny Cash, The Chambers Brothers (but there is no way that we will use one split second of “Time Has Come Today”, this is not about the same ol’, same ol’), Moby Grape, we will probably use something off of one of John Mayall and the Blues Breakers first three albums, Paul Butterfield’s first two releases, the first two Country Joe and the Fish’s Frisco based and influenced Rock ‘n Roll + R+B albums are good for something to use, and maybe a little West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band thrown into the mix. I also had some of the Doors, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane, etc, recordings with me at Katahdin Lodge, in 1969, but 98.7% of what is to used on this soundtrack must be rarely heard, ‘cept by music collectors like me, really good album cuts only.

That one or two percent of non-rare album cut music will be one or two 1969 era Top 40 songs for the drug store lunch counter jukebox, when the main character in this movie looks out onto the everyday life of a small Maine town, from a stool at the lunch counter, on one pleasant summer afternoon, and realizes that the town has so much natural Rock and Roll Soul that every time a good song plays on the jukebox someone walking by outside walks to the beat of the music, which the pedestrians out there could not hear.

When I was living the story, I loved listening to all of the songs that will be used in this movie. And I still listen that music; I have a large collection of it.

The soundtrack will be fantastic.

At the end of this paragraph there is a link to a great set of photographs of my Maine adventures. These photos will greatly aid you in visualizing this movie. Just remember, I know that we are going to be aiming this movie towards a wide audience, so we do not need scenes in it like the photo with the other guide and I (I'm in the green hat) with four dead bears. Freshly killed animals are normal for hunters to see, and for slaughter house workers too, but fast food hambu'ger devouring Americans usually don't wanna' see how their meat gets processed. It is OK with audiences if you shoot people and blow people all to hell in one of your movies, just don't shoot an animal on film. Or maybe we can. This is a decision for members of the film production team to handle. This is the link.

The main character in this movie is an 18 to 19 year old kid from the Dundalk suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. And during one year of working as a bear hunting guide, at his Uncle Finley and Aunt Martha's Katahdin Lodge and Camps in Patten, Maine, that young man learns more than he could have during four years of college.

The nephew's original plans though, for that part of his life, were to join the Merchant Marines, and have fun, excitement and adventure while sailing all around the world. That way neither the US Army nor them jarheaded, Bulldog brained, ground poundin’ US Marines could draft him and send him to Vietnam—a war he would have willingly volunteered to go fight in if he could have seen his potential service there, and possible death, physical and/or emotional injuries, and/or capture by the enemy, as providing any real protection and positive contribution to his country, his family and the Free World.

He never did get to join the Merchant Marines. Nope, he was more or less drafted into service to work for his Uncle Finley and Aunt Martha, better known as Fin and Marty at their hunting lodge in Maine. Fin and Marty desperately needed his help to operate their hunting lodge. He was pressed into working for them, as their virtual slave, until his US Military draft notice came in the mail. So, after about a year of living and working at the Lodge, and being taken full advantage of by his emotionally abusive uncle and thoroughly selfish aunt, he ‘motivated’ on down to the US Army Recruiter’s Office in Bangor and gladly signed up to be an Army photographer. And was sent to Okinawa, thank God not Vietnam.

After about the first three or four months of living and working at the Lodge, he would have left and joined the Merchant Marines, but he had no money to go anywhere. His aunt and uncle never gave him more than ten or fifteen bucks a week for spending cash. The longer that he worked for them, and consequently the more that they owed him in salary, the less willing that he was to piss them off by leaving, because then he knew that they would not pay him what he had earned. Another thing is, if he left before them two wanted him to go, then it would cause a rift in their family, and he was willing to sacrifice anything for the good of his family.

Finley and Martha never had any children, but their nephew believes that they are securely in love, and that they make love often. But he doesn’t know if they had ever discovered what the unfortunate, medical reason was that had prevented them from conceiving a child. And he feels sad for them about it.

The main character becomes very close friends with various peoples of all ages, all along the way. He has close relationships with pretty teenage girls. His teenage adventures are wild and wonderful. He has his share of teenage trials and tribulations, too. He quite comfortably fits right in with the small town social life. He has plenty of friggin’ fun with the older local Mainers and paying bear hunters alike. He enjoys jokes and laughter quite a bit. He learns to play, and thoroughly enjoys playing, a lot of Cribbage. He listens to many expertly spun tall tales told by old Maine woodsmen, likes that better than watching television, and becomes a fairly entertaining storyteller himself.

He loves the great outdoors—in any kind of weather—whether at work and play.

His job at the Lodge requires him to work hard for a minimum of nine hours a day, six days a week; he once worked for two weeks straight all day and into the night; he works as hard as he can, and that is somewhere above the average for most young men his age at the time. He not only works as a bear hunting guide, which requires him to learn and master certain woodsmen’s skills, and where he makes damned good use of his natural born people skills, he also works at the Lodge as a carpenter’s helper, mechanic’s helper, electrician’s helper, plumber’s helper, he splits many cords of firewood, learns how to properly care for a burning wood stove, he shovels a lot of snow and becomes quite proficient at plowing tons of it with a farm tractor, shovels his fair share of dirt, mows acres of lawn, he takes care of the needs of seven hound dogs, one ornery horse and two caged Bobcats; he even makes good friends with one of the Bobcats. He loves the animals, fondly pets and plays with the playful ones and respects the rights of the others who only want to be fed, watered, cleaned up after, and then to be left alone. Those critters never want for anything while he is responsible for them, except to be let loose to run free; but, unfortunately, they would not survive for very long while roaming around where they felt like. He cleans up a lot of dog and cat scat—scrubs the cat crap out of the Bobcat cage while crawling around in there down on his hands and knees. On many a day, he handles tons of stinky, maggot covered bear bait—55 gallon drums full of slaughterhouse leftovers (mostly cow guts and heads) and rotting Beaver carcasses.

A requirement of that profession dictates that a hunting guide must regularly go into the woods at night and—heh-heh-heh—go in unarmed. It is against the law to be in possession of a firearm in the woods after dark, because that would be illegal night hunting. But a wounded bear must be tracked as soon as possible; that task can’t often wait till morning.

The trick is, though, that 99.99% of the time, Wild Maine Black Bears, even wounded ones, always avoid human contact. There are no poisonous snakes up in that section of Maine. No ticks or Chiggers. Only them pesky darn Black Flies, Mosquitoes and No-See-Ums (Midges), and they are only there during their own regular seasons. The most dangerous critter in the North Maine Woods is a cow Moose with a calf. And those are all natural facts that he lived by.

While tracking wounded bears at night, sometimes by himself, he begins to thoroughly enjoy being in the woods after dark. He feels secure in there. It is quiet. Peaceful. Comfortable. With the softness of darkness caressing him. Somehow protecting him. His night vision is a tad bit better than most humans, and this is often evident to all whom he tracks wounded bears at night with. And throughout the rest of his life, he never looses those warm, fuzzy feelings for spending time out in the woods at night.

Believe it or not, it was Fin and Marty’s requisite fast driving over those wild and woolly country roads way up there in sparsely populated Northern Maine that was the most dangerous duty assignment while working for them at Katahdin Lodge. That self serving pair of hunting lodge operators required all of their guides to travel at an average speed of 10 to 20 miles over the speed limit at all times when driving on public roads, so that the guides could get more work done for them. The 18-year-old nephew was taught, and also learned by experience, how to very safely and comfortably drive those crazy country roads up there. Like he was born to do it. And he was.

He also had to master driving four-wheel drive vehicles way back in on old woods roads, where you were on your own for quite awhile if you got stuck or if the truck broke down. His daily driving routes sometimes went through mucky quagmires and even down one skinny little old woods road that was flooded over by a Beaver Pond. He was just tickled pink every time that he got to dangle his arm out the driver’s side window and dip his fingertips into that cool, clear Beaver Pond water while he was casually moseying on through it. No matter what lay ahead of him in the road, he had to finish all of his assigned daily driving routes because he was out bear baiting and/or taking hunters to their bear stands. His highly skilled smooth driving technique on them rough old woods roads provided about as comfortable a ride for him and his passengers as any other motor vehicle operators up there could. Them paying bear hunters were mighty pleased about that. And he himself was deeply satisfied with, and proud of, his rapidly developing driving skills. Yup, yup, he sure enough ‘dug’ it. Dig it?

Various daily combinations of those hard, dirty, often dangerous, and sometimes downright stinkin’ assigned tasks never really bother him very much at all. He never complains about any of it. And enjoys the many physical and mental challenges, which are involved in his work. He is well aware that he is learning and growing. His self-assurance steadily increases with each accomplished task, each job done right. He feels stronger everyday. He rarely fails in anyway to do all that he is told to and in the way that he is instructed to do it. His Uncle Finley knows a lot about on the job safety, and the most efficient ways of doing things, the easiest ways to do a difficult job, and the nephew pays close attention to it all.

He becomes enamored with Wild Northern Maine Black Bears. He relates to them in many ways. He understands them quite well.

He is fascinated by: how intelligent and crafty that Black Bears are; the way that they skillfully, usually silently, move through the forest; the dazzling way that the sunlight glistens off of the tips of their fur as they bolt at the sight of his fast approaching pickup truck—as they quickly get up from sitting there in the middle of a backwoods road, up off of their wide, muscular haunches, and bolt away on all fours, on into the woods—on a beautiful summer day. And he adores the sparkle of life in their eyes. The mere, fleeting glimpse of any bears, and also of any of the other wild animals in Maine, especially them big ol’ Moosies, thrills him to no end.

But he realizes that the hunting business is far better for a natural environment than the likes of the steel mill near where he grew up at in Maryland. That mill had thoroughly polluted the backwaters of the Chesapeake Bay that lay right down the street from his boyhood home. He had swum and fished down the street there till the water became too polluted, cancerous to swim in, and the Snapping Turtles that he loved to catch and release, the fish, crabs, and other aquatic life were mostly either dead or diseased. To his way of seeing the world, the people who lived in Maine had to make a living and a well regulated hunting industry is fair to Mother Nature.

The young guide shows many of the paying hunters at the Lodge great, memorable times in Maine. He has plenty of great experiences and becomes good buddies with most of the hunters.

He does have some serious problems with a few idiots who could afford the cost of a bear hunt, though—the worst problem being when a Washington DC rocket scientist nearly shoots his head off with a hunting rifle.

Somewhere along the line, whilst passing these tests of his young manhood, he comes to understand a truism that sticks with him for the rest of his life. Something quite profound. He realizes that as long as he does his job right and no one whom he is responsible for gets lost in the woods, badly injured or killed, then no doctor, lawyer, gas station owner, factory worker, refuse collection worker or rocket scientist is any better of a person or is more important and worthy than he is. He also realizes that as long as you do what you do to the best of your abilities, then you are as important and worthy as anyone else is, too. In an honest, hard working society, where we are all concerned about each other’s well being—our combined safety, security, health and happiness—we all have the same basic equal rights and responsibilities.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

The newly minted young Registered Maine Hunting and Fishing Guide (but he only guided bear hunters) becomes very close friends with another hunting guide, whom his uncle has hired to work at the Lodge. That guide becomes his mentor. His mentor does get him into a bit of bad situation now and then, but he still stays friends with him. They have wonderful times while driving around together all over the fantastic Maine countryside, God’s Country, when they are out bear baiting and taking care of the hunters. They enjoy each other’s company, immensely so.

That guide’s wife works on the housekeeping staff at the Lodge, and the main character also becomes good friends with her. That guide and his wife, Gary and Cathy Glidden, are each around 28 years old. They are both a little tall, slender in the most healthy of ways, and better than average looking. The guide is a nice enough fellow, but his wife actually is about as nice a person as can be. She is the kind of person who never hurts anyone, in any way. Her constant, sweet smile and the sound of her often lightly laughing, feminine voice sooths and puts the world around her at ease. The guide had been a beer drinkin’ wild man, when he had met his wife. When the couple had met, the husband had instinctively known that the young woman whom he had just met was well worth settling down for, and settling down with. He knew that she was a rare bird, and that he would never find another so fine. In order for him to be able to settle down for her, so that he could settle down with her, and spend the rest of his life with her, he stopped drinking alcohol completely. He never again touched a drop of it. It definitely was one those great love affairs of all times—that we all wish for, for ourselves and for all whom we care about.

The first time that the main character in this movie saw the beautiful, expansive countryside of the Katahdin Valley his very soul expanded, nearly burst with natural joy and felt like it had finally arrived home.

He discovers and covets the absolute most dramatic, stunning view of Mount Katahdin that he ever wants to see—a view he has never found in any of the many, many published professional photographs of the mountain that he has ever seen. He spends the rest of his life wanting to take a superb series of photographs from that spot, at every conceivable time of day, during all four seasons, in any kind of weather when the mountain is visible, with any kind of light shining down upon and bouncing back off of it that the good Lord may provide for our viewing pleasure. But his aunt and uncle have no use for that, so it never happens. Because it was all about, “David, here at Katahdin Lodge we don’t have time for that, we have work to do.” Work that only enriches those two hard headed, self-serving relatives of his.

Every single day, his uncle yells and curses at him. Finley sometimes does that to blame the nephew for what his uncle had done wrong himself. This humiliates the younger man in front of anyone and everyone who may be in the vicinity at the time. He feels like punching a few of his uncle’s teeth out, but he stands there and numbly takes the unreasonable abuse. His aunt and uncle cold-heartedly nickname him, “nummer.”

One time, his uncle gets mad at him and does not speak to him for three days straight, during a busy week when the Lodge is full of paying bear hunters. And it was not the nephew's fought that the incident that had so unjustifiably angered his uncle had happened.

Finley suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after fighting for a year up on the front lines of the Korean War. He had earned several prestigious combat medals in that war. But he never would have accepted that he had PTSD and deal with it through veterans counseling. PTSD had a lot to do with the way that Finley often became unreasonably angry. This realization comes to the main character nearly twenty years after he had first seen his uncle display the symptoms of the terrible emotional disorder.


The main character is a Vietnam Era Veteran who never went to Vietnam, but who has seen the same type of intense anger, which Finley displays, coming out of his Vietnam combat veteran friends. And that PTSD induced anger has its very own distinct "flavor", ya' might say. A taste of the horrors of war that combat veterans do not consciously choose to share with others, it simply comes out of them that way.

His Uncle Finley worked harder than any man he has ever known. His uncle always adhered to the maxim, “If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”

The nephew had developed that same philosophy on his own, when he was growing up—always mowing lawns, shoveling snow off sidewalks, cleaning his bedroom, and even building model cars in accordance with that philosophy. Consequently, the young man was proud to have worked with such a person as his Uncle Finley.

When he and his uncle part ways for good, it is a great, decades long loss for the nephew. To have to not ever again be close to his uncle, whom he had loved, admired, and respected in many ways, was devastating to that very soul of the young man.

His aunt’s abuse is much more subtle than his uncle’s is, but, nonetheless, it is also very devastating to him. The more she and her husband treated him terribly, the worse the emotional pain in his maturing young man’s mind becomes, due to resulting, increasing confusion about what family means.

His Aunt Marty is sly, devious and completely selfish. She cheats him out of his well-earned salary. She too works very hard at times. He respects that. He laughs at most of her humor, even when it is at his expense—though he does that to cover up the painful injuries it inflicts upon his psyche and soul. But he never gets a kick out of her famous propensity for telling dirty jokes; if she had been good to him though, he would have gotten a kick out of that well known aspect of her personality. His Aunt Martha had grown up in the home next to the home where his Uncle Finley and mother had lived for most of their youth. She was like a sister to his mother. His uncle had married the girl next door.

The longer that the nephew works at the Lodge, the worse that the abuses from his aunt and uncle become. But he still wants to leave there with his many months worth of full pay in his pocket, and he does not want to feel responsible for creating a big rift in the family. Had he told Fin and Marty that he was leaving, they would have gone ballistic on him, declared him to be an ungrateful S.O.B. or L.B., and would have told him to get on down the road on his own, that he was not getting paid anything and that he owed them for the food that he had eaten there and the gas that he used while runnin' round with them country girls. So he stays on, and suffers through it all.

The main character had grown up in a tightly knit, extended family. And when he was growing up both of his parent’s families had lived close by, and they all knew each other well. For the first fifteen years of his life, his Uncle Fin and Aunt Marty had lived close to him. Then they moved up to Maine and bought the hunting lodge. And during those first fifteen years, Fin and Marty were together with the rest of the family for every American holiday, most birthday parties and many times in between. The extremely intense circumstances involved in the eventual loss of his close, lifelong relationship with his aunt and uncle caused him to loose most of his faith in family. That nearly destroys who he is.

Due to the fact that the young nephew had been so familiar to his aunt and uncle, they knew his natural born personal strengths and weaknesses. We all have our own. Fin and Marty instinctively knew how to either help him to mature and to grow into a stronger, healthier and happier young man, or how they could use their intimate knowledge of the strong and the weak parts of his personality to take full, self serving advantage of him. They selfishly chose the latter.

When he was working and living at the Lodge, his aunt and uncle attempted to control his dating life. They somewhat slyly, but quite obviously to him at the time, pushed their choice for his girlfriend on him. She was a nice girl, just not the right one for him. Then when he was dating a different nice young lady, those two manipulative, quasi-bullies made his life as miserable as they could. His new girlfriend was his uncle’s best friend’s daughter, and Fin and Marty feared that he would get her pregnant and ruin their friendship with her parents.

His girlfriend’s parents treated him fine. They still treated him fine after her bush pilot dad flew over a potato farmer’s backfield, in a little ol’ bush plane, at treetop level, while flying around looking to spot wild game coming out to eat at dusk, and her father spotted her and Fin and Marty’s nephew parked back there in a pickup truck, making out.

Had the young nephew offended and angered any of the local population in any way, his aunt and uncle would have had to, in the least, send him away from there for good. Had he committed a serious enough offense, and maybe they would have also had to leave.

Had he screwed up badly while guiding the bear hunters, it could have cost his aunt and uncle their business.

The fact that he fully lived up to his responsibilities as a local ambassador for their business and a professional hunting guide never meant anything at all to his two completely unappreciative relatives. Fin and Marty never say one good word to anyone at all about what their nephew has accomplished as a kid from the suburbs who moved way up into the woods and successfully fit right in. He gets along nicely in the, typically more or less closed to outsiders, American small town society there. He risks his life nearly everyday for Fin and Marty, while learning to master numerous woodsmen’s skills; and as I have already said twice before, but is worth repeating, that included tracking wounded bears at night and unarmed, and even by himself at times—without hardly any fear at all. The young man never screws up badly in anyway. He makes his aunt and uncle a lot of money while helping them get their business going good. Their business becomes the number-one-top bear hunting lodge in the Great State of Maine—partly due to the fact that the young nephew does things the right way, and very well, I must add.

His two completely unappreciative relatives never thank him in any way. Ever.

One thing that really bothered him severely, about the situation in Maine, was that he could never allow his paternal grandparents to come visit him at the Lodge.

For the main character, not having the pleasure of showing his sport fisherman granddad some fantastic fishing, and other fine times in the Great Outdoors of Maine is a loss that he can’t seem to get past. His granddad was an old West Virginia mountain boy, and Granddad was the quintessential, natural born strong as an Ox member of the young guide's family. Granddad had worked for most of his life in the blast furnaces of the steel mill that Finley had worked in, as a bricklayer, before moving to Maine. The old man had retired as the foreman of the two largest blast furnaces there. Those blast furnace foremen were good bosses, they were good with a handling a shovel, and were experts at running the overhead cranes that were in each furnace—in an extremely hot, terribly dirty and very dangerous place. Back in those days, blast furnace foremen were all around about the hardest working men that the grandson ever knew of. Granddad was just the kinda’ down to earth fellow that his grandson's older friends in Maine would have enjoyed getting to know. Both the men and the women Mainers would have like meeting Granddad. Granddad was a self taught car mechanic, and if he had gone up to stay there at the Lodge for a week or so, he would have definitely tried to get into working on the Lodge’s trucks, or something. Granddad came from the old school, where you pitched in and helped without being asked to. The young guide's paternal grandfather was as good a man as ever lived.

The young guide's paternal grandmother was a Welshwoman who had come to America as a US Army Captain’s children’s nanny, during World War One. Grandmom was about as good as they get at home cooking and other homemaking skills. She would have fit right in with the countrywomen who worked for Marty, at the Lodge. Grandmom would have pitched in and helped around the Lodge too, without being asked. If her professional woodsman grandson could have invited his grandparents up for a visit, Grandmom woulda’ definitely had to get into that kitchen and cook something for the crowd there. It was a matter of pride in her skills. And not being able to sit still with a great big, well equipped, well stocked kitchen right there where she could get to it. She could cook and bake as well as any grandmother ever could. And clean too. She’d have been right up there beside the other women and helping them to make beds and all. She loved good conversation, and the women working at the Lodge did too. It would have been a wonderful experience for all involved. If Fin and Marty could have controlled themselves, while their nephew's grandparents were there.

Unfortunately, had the young guide's father's parents come to visit at the Lodge, when Fin had started in on his daily verbal abuse of the young man, the paternal grandparents would have gotten thoroughly upset about it. After a few of those stomach turning scenes, the grandparents would have informed, in no uncertain terms, you can believe me that his loving grandparents would have informed Fin and Marty just how lousy of a pair of relatives that they were. The young guide’s paternal grandparents were not going to start a big argument, because they were too level headed for that kind of an embarrassing confrontation. They would have looked Fin and Marty straight in their faces and let them know eggzzactely how they felt. Then when the grandparents drove on back down to Sparrows Point, Maryland, their grandson would have left out of there with them.

Fin and Marty had known their nephew's paternal grandparents quite well—the tight, extended family that I already told you about. And because the grandfather had held a blue-collar man's very respectable position in the steel mill, Finley may have laid off on the emotional abuse, against his nephew, for a while. But that's doubtful. So for the nephew, it wasn't worth the risk of asking his paternal grandparents up for a visit.

Had the nephew's paternal grandparents come up to visit and Fin and Marty had not calmed down a little and respected their nephew's grandparents, then when those grandparents had witnessed enough of Fin and Marty's abuse, the situation would have gone real bad, real fast. And that young hunting guide might have had to kick his uncle's ass all over the place. His paternal grandparents had always been his favorite family members. He might have silently suffered that abuse against himself, but if one itty-bitty bit of that crap had splattered onto his paternal grandparents then he would have put a stop to it, immediately.

Fin was much larger and stronger than his nephew, but Uncle Finley had no idea how good of a kick that his nineteen-year-old nephew had. The kid had a bit of a good punch too; his father had taught him the basics of boxing; the kid had taken a few months of Karate classes, and knew just a little about tight-fisted-double-knuckle, and also heel of the hand type punches; but the one thing that he had gotten down pat was a good Karate kick. Just the most basic, simple, forward kick, but he had a real good feel for it.

Had Uncle Fin disrespected the kid's grandparents, welp, now, Fin never would have expected what came next. That young man would have kicked his bombastic, belligerent, disrespectful, foul-mouthed uncle's legs right out from under him. The element of surprise. Yeah! And the young man would have never allowed his larger opponent to get back up again. Not until foul-mouthed Finley was subdued, and he apologized.

This is not wishful hindsight. Recall the workload that I carried everyday. Look at the photo taken of me when I was nearly finished up with splitting the better part of nineteen cords of hardwood. I averaged ten, hard laboring hours a day at working on that wood pile. I did that for each of the five weekdays during a two-week period of time—about ninety hours worth of splittin' and stackin' time in two weeks. Now add in the justifiable anger, followed by the subsequent surge of adrenalin. I would have, friggin' aye right, kicked Finley's gahdamned ass—good and proper, too.

Ten years later, in 1979, Finley had tried to strangle and then punch me, but I easily handled him by using my limited knowledge of defensive moves.

The main character in this movie's maternal grandparents had visited the Lodge while he was there. They had witnessed what their young grandson was being put through up there. But Finley was their pride and joy; he could do no wrong. They did not care about the abuses. At all. And mother and father and son, all three, were an argumentative lot, for sure. After more than one of their arguments, Finley and his father did not speak to each other for a long time. And the young guide’s maternal grandparents often quarreled with each other. Some nasty quarrels too.

For years, the main character in this movie holds it all deep down inside of himself…the abuses and the losses, his anger at his Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley for not paying him all of the money and respect that he had earned at Katahdin Lodge. He lost family. He lost the fully deserved privileges of spending time with his friends in Maine. He lost the pleasures of showing his other family members and his other friends, who did not live in Maine, a very good time up in the vast North Woods. He lost the many natural benefits, the character building responsibilities and the personal satisfactions, of being able to work as a professional outdoors adventure guide. And he holds in his own ensuing loss of self-respect. The swirling, confusing combination of all of those awful feelings churns around inside of him, like the fuel components of liquid explosives mixing together—while corroding his psyche and soul.



{End of Section 1 of this 4-part document. Please continue on to Section 2 / Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie, in the blog post below this one, the previous post. It'll be well worth your time--I swear to it! READ ON! }


{This is Section 2 of a 4-part document that is read from the top of the blog down--from the latest Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie blog post down through the older ones; just the opposite from how blogs are normally read. I guarantee that this well written document is full of interesting, entertaining, and even shocking snippets---all the way through. I do believe that you'll enjoy this. Read on! }

The main character in this movie left Katahdin Lodge in November of 1969, to enter the US Army. He was glad to go. He went back to visit them once, while he was home on leave during May 1970; and they treated him like they always had. Not like a soldier home on leave—on vacation from the Army. Then he went to Okinawa for a year and a half. While he was serving on Okinawa, all of that abuse that Fin and Marty had put him through finally sunk in. Consequently, he did not have anything to do with them two rude relatives of his for the next seven years.

In early summer of 1977, the nephew called his aunt and uncle and suggested that it was time that they tried to mend the broken family ties. He had heard that they needed help up there. So he made a deal with Fin and Marty that he would go up to the Lodge, stay for two weeks, help out, and if it worked out then he would stay and work for them. He told his aunt and uncle that if it did not work out as a business relationship, then they could consider that two weeks of work to be a vacation for him. Then he would amicably leave, and the rest of their family would be relieved to know that he and his aunt and uncle were on friendly terms again. He ended up staying and working for several months, but they still did not pay him a salary. Nor did they change their attitudes towards him. He stuck it out until it was time for the fall college semester and went down to the University of Maine at Farmington. He had set it up to start classes and go there by using his GI Bill benefits. But those GI Bill monthly checks don't start coming in until about two months after classes begin. He had expected to receive a fair lump sum payment, from Fin and Marty, at the end of his summer of working for them. He got $150.00 from them. The friggin' grass and weed cutting, alone, that he did that summer was worth more than that.

So he never got to take those classes at UMF. Instead, he worked down there in Farmington for a while, took some Veteran’s Educational Enrichment Program classes—sort of high school refresher classes—and went back up to stay at the Lodge for Thanksgiving, and then also for Christmas.

Fin and Marty went down to Maryland together to see their families for that Christmas. That was great for them. Because ever since they had moved to Maine in 1965, they had only been able to leave and go to Maryland separately—one of them always had to stay and watch the Lodge. Then after they returned from Maryland, their nephew went back to Farmington, gathered up his belongings and moved back to Maryland.

He was so pissed off at his aunt and uncle for not paying him what he had earned, that he did not tell them that he had left Maine. He needed his salary from that summer to pay for college expenses, until the GI Bill checks came. But he was determined to mend family ties and not start a fight over the money. It would have been a fruitless effort to try and get that money, so he just moved on.

In early summer of 1979, he was living back in Dundalk, Maryland. Marty had called him by telephone to ask if he would come back up and work for them again. He agreed, but only because she made all kinds of promises of fair wages and full benefits. She did pay him a full salary, and he got to use one of the Lodge's trucks to go out socializing on Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons, but the promised medical and several other earned benefits were never going to be given to him.

When Marty had contacted him, that summer, Finley had two hunting guides working for him, and he needed one or two more. One guide was a native Maine man, Richard Libby, a top-notch woodsman—all the way. The other was a jerky, nineteen-year-old kid from Pennsylvania who was a wana’bee a real Maine guide. In the whole of Northern Maine, no one else was willing to put up with Fin and Marty's bullcrap.

It is important for me to say here that on the up side of all of this is that working with top-notch Maine Guides like Gary, Richard and Finley was a privilege to the main character in this movie. It was a great honor. A good way to put this in its proper perspective is to say that if the nephew were given the choice of being able to say that he had worked alongside of those professional woodsmen or that he had traveled the world with The Rolling Stones on tour and as their personal photographer, he'd take the time spent up in Maine. Those outdoorsmen are that high caliber in their profession.

That summer, Finley—the number one bear hunting guide in Maine—had told Marty that he and his other two guides could only handle twenty bear hunters per week. But greedy ol' Marty was taking in all of the hunters that she could get. The first week that their nephew went back to work at the Lodge, there were thirty-six hunters there. That is a lot for four guides to handle, and too much for three.

During bear season, the guides were never given any time off on weekdays, or Saturday mornings and afternoons. If any bears were shot on a Saturday evening, then Sunday morning was bear skinning time. The Sunday skinning chores went with the territory, the nephew fully accepted that, but Marty was loath to allow the guides any time off on Sundays, because the new batch of hunters comes in on Sunday. And hunters like to meet their guides as soon as possible, to start asking them bear hunting questions; and they like to go across the road to the Lodge’s rifle range and do some target practice—to sight their guns in. It is best to have a guide over there being a range safety officer for them, unless the hunters are already known to be competent with firearms. The main character of this movie understands what the hunters want and need, but the guides all need some time off.

His aunt and uncle could have given each of their three guides separate half-days off during the middle of the week. That half-day off could compensate for any Sunday bear skinning time, and it would have worked out OK if each guide was assigned to hang around the Lodge on one Sunday afternoon per every three weeks. Then that guide would have a half-day off in the middle of the week.

Neither the nephew nor the other guides would ever be so damned dumb as to suggest that to Fin and Marty though. Fin might go along with it, even though he was a workaholic who didn’t ever want much time off for himself, he might have been willing to give his guides a break. Marty, though, greedy, brutally greedy Marty would have gotten disgustingly nasty about it.

In 1979, the twenty-nine-year-old nephew greatly desired to finally have that chance to live and work up in Maine again, but only because he was going to be paid fair wages and benefits. He wasn’t working for nearly nothing, besides room and board again, like in 1968-69 and ‘77. But due to circumstances beyond his control, that 1979 attempt at family reconciliation, and having more wild and wonderful adventures in Maine, ends quickly—in a near murderous situation. He nearly explodes when his uncle does him wrong one time too many.

His uncle and aunt blame it all on him.

Fin and Marty and their nephew never have anything to do with each other again.

His experiences in 1977 and '79 add more fuel to that 1969 instilled soul and psyche eroding explosive mixture and it continues to ferment inside of the nephew.

Many emotionally excruciating times, when the nephew is casually conversing with some other person or a small group of people, and he is telling some of his entertaining and informative oral histories about his adventures in Maine there often comes a time during the warm conversation when his happy, attentive listeners ask him why the hell it is that he isn't still up there in the Maine woods and having some more of those great adventures. That hurts. Then he has no reasonable choice but to inform his listeners about the demoralizing and depressing facts concerning how he was miserably mistreated and cheated by his aunt and uncle. What a bummer.

And then, here and there, now and then, someone will ask him why it is that neither his parents nor grandparents never told Fin and Marty to set things right with him.

The answer has several layers to it:

His maternal grandparents had raised their son Finley to believe that he was better than everyone else.

Finley, in fact, actually was better than most others at anything he did.

Before Finley moved up to Maine, when he worked as a bricklayer down at the Bethlehem Steel Mill in Sparrows Point, Maryland, he would often work double shifts while outlaying any man there. Most of the time, he definitely laid more brick and block than any of the other guys on a job site; and those rows of brick and block that he laid were straight and level, always.

The men who worked with Finley "Down The Point" had nicknamed him "Loud Mouthed Finley Clarke." Finley's young nephew heard that from a guy who had worked Down The Point as a bricklayer too, but that guy also jovially informed the nephew that no man down there would ever so much as utter that nickname anywhere near where Finley could here it. As the Beth Steel bricklayers all worked there together in the heat, or the cold, and always in the ever-present iron ore based mill dust and dirt, Loud Mouthed Finley Clarke would sometimes tell anyone and everyone around him just exactly what he thought of them.

Finley was a rather large man, well fed and possessing well-hardened-working-man's muscles; and there was very little fat on him. To the best of the nephew's knowledge, his Uncle Finley had never actually threatened or outright went about to intimidate anyone, but no one ever dared test him.

There were times, though, when ol' Fin was right on key when he was singin' one of his improvised on the spot, bombastic songs at certain unreasonably uppity individuals or groups of people who had fully deserved to be put back in their place. Fin certainly would run his mouth more than was ever necessary, though. It was one way—an unhealthy way—that he dealt with stress. That is now known as a clear-cut symptom of PTSD. Korean War induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

When Finley K. Clarke got pissed off at something or someone, he was no one to be around. He would yell and swear and cuss and throw things all about. It did not matter to him whether it was a coworker, his wife Martha, his young nephew, another hunting guide working at Katahdin Lodge, a paying hunter or anyone else at all. Finley Clarke said what he felt like saying to, and blew his top in front of, anyone and everyone. He often lost his grip. That is also a clear-cut symptom of PTSD.

Finley used to go down to the state house in Augusta, Maine to fight for sensible hunting laws and also for infrastructure improvements to the state owned roads up around Patten. He did some real good things down there. Including getting the laws on the books for a one bear per hunter, per season ruling and also the law that established the hunting rule that finally made it illegal to kill bear cubs.

Naturally, Finley's way of doing things and speaking in front of the state house assembly there had earned him some antagonists and enemies.

Finley despised, absolutely despised, setting there in the state house, while waiting for his turn to go up to the podium to speak. And he especially hated having to listen to the Native Maine Indian leaders fighting for their tribe's treaty rights. The well deserving Indians finally did win part of their battle to begin receiving some of what they had been promised for generations. And that historically fair turn of events had riled Finley to no end. He and his wife Martha were one locked-tight pair of completely prejudiced persons. They outright hated any non-white people. They had no respect at all for the God given equal rights of African Americans. Their shared and stated opinion was that, "when a white woman is walking down the street, and she walks past a colored man, he should tip his hat to the white lady, and step down off of the curb, until the white lady passes by."

Throughout the entire course of human kind, whenever human beings deny other human beings their God given rights, it has never, ever worked out well in the long run.

Well now, one day down at the state house a lot of people—politicians, news reporters, citizens, lobbyists—were waiting in the lobby for the doors to open and allow them to go in to do a session of political wrangling, on each other. All of a sudden, from somewhere in there amongst that crowd, one of Finley's antagonists boldly blurts out, "Well Finley, what are you down here for this time?"

I can never remember exactly how the whole story goes. I had heard my uncle tell it twice, but can't recall it all. What I do recall is this:

Finley stood there in that crowded state house lobby and loudly replied to his bold antagonist, "Well, let me tell you now. I'm tired of the Indians, and the niggers, and…", and I sure wish that I could remember the rest of what he had replied. But he always ended the story with a big wide grin spread out all over his ugly white mug, and deep throated, devious chuckles spouting out from between his lips, when he added, "And you shoulda seen 'um all moving away from me. Heh, heh, heh."

He had been that way all his life, and my family was resigned to accept him as he was.

At the opposite end of Finley's, oft shocking, personality's spectrum, he could be a lot of laughs and told entertaining stories. When he was in a good mood, he was tremendously enjoyable to be around. This movie's main character's family, and many other folks, loved Finley's sense of humor and the great stories that he often told. At family gatherings, Finley was a wonderful man to sit near and listen to—especially for his young nephew. Fin was generous and would help anyone in his family with anything he could. You could rely on that. His friends could always rely on him too.

Though the nephew understands that his family has always accepted Finley the way that he is, the young man feels deeply hurt by, and angry at, his parents and grandparents. Had the nephew confronted his aunt and uncle and demanded his full rights and benefits, they would have gone nuts on him. That was obvious. He had seen plenty enough to know that. But he has his own life to live, and he needs some of his older family members to tell Fin and Marty to get their heads out of their asses and to pay that young man all of the money that he had earned, along with the full respect that he had earned.

If Fin and Marty had finally been convinced/forced to pay their debts to our main character here, and to admit to anyone and everyone that their nephew had done an excellent job for them, whilst working at Katahdin Lodge as a Registered Maine Hunting Guide, it would have made everyone's lives much easier. And because of the hard, cold fact that Fin and Marty would never admit to anyone at all that their nephew had become such an accomplished young outdoorsman, they would never, ever give him an employment reference, so that he could go work somewhere else. He had not planned on working at Katahdin Lodge for the rest of his life, after his military service obligations had been satisfied, but his Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley had.

When he was working in Maine, in 1969, and then when he was in the Army, in 1969-71, he had actually planned on doing a lot of traveling and working all around the world, after he was going to be discharged from the Army. He wanted to be an outdoors adventures guide who catered to the needs and wants of the types of paying clients who were into eating his, made from scratch, fresh baked goods and delicious, healthy meals that he had prepared over an open fire. It would not have mattered to him if his clients were hunters, fishers, photographers, hikers, campers, snowmobilers, artists, meditaters, primal screamers or whatever, as long as they enjoyed leaving the confines of any lodge that he might work for and to go out and rough it up some in the wilderness.

But for the young nephew to be able to work someplace else, besides Katahdin Lodge, at the same high level of responsibility at being an outdoors adventure guide, the level that he had successfully risen to at Katahdin Lodge, then he needed an honest employment reference from his uncle and aunt. If them two ignorant relatives of his had not actually been ignorant, he would have somehow included working at Katahdin Lodge and helping them out now and then into his traveling outdoorsman's life. But whether they were good to him or not, he was planning on experiencing living and working in many more parts of the world than just Maryland, Northern Maine and Okinawa.

As far as Fin and Marty were concerned, though, their nephew was to either work for them forever, while being thoroughly abused and grossly underpaid, or he could go to Hell.

After the nephew was discharged from the Army, he had wanted to have had the opportunity to work at Katahdin Lodge during some hunting seasons. And maybe would have helped out at the Lodge during some winter times to be able to enjoy the fun and adventure of the snowmobiling, snow shoeing and cross country skiing opportunities up there. It would have been a fair deal for Fin and Marty, because they needed lots of snow shoveled and plowed, plus other outside and inside maintenance work and also upgrades done for the Lodge.

While working and living at the Lodge, the young nephew is very limited in his possibilities for having all types of various outdoors fun and adventure. This is due to the sad fact that Fin and Marty are too crude and rude to be providing other types of lodging and guiding services for potential paying clientele besides for men in a hunting trip frame of mind.

Many a time, throughout his post Katahdin Lodge life, the nephew feels stung by the fact that his aunt and uncle in Maine would never have allowed him to begin providing guide and lodging services for non-hunting clientele. He knows that it would be good for the Lodge's business.

He wants to take tourists on photography tours, and out mountain biking, or on off road four wheeler and motorcycling trips. He plans, in his head, to build hiking trails all back through the 500 acres or so of woods that the Lodge owned, which lay behind it. And those woods are the beginning of 90 miles of vast forestland that stretches all the way to Canada. He makes mental plans for putting in primitive campsites back there. And outhouses. Then, from that campground and trail system, he could cut all kinds of trails all back through those woods. And, of course, there is always plenty of room back there for bushwhacking through the woods without the benefits of cut and/or marked trails.

He is an all around good swimmer, due to the fact that by the time that he was fourteen-years-old, he had completed four levels of Red Cross swimming courses. He had passed his Junior Lifesaving course, which only differed slightly from Senior Lifesaving. In Senior Lifesaving the students swam more laps during training, and in order for them to pass the final test they had to swim out three times as far, as Junior Lifesavers did, to rescue a lifeguard who was pretending to drown. But the pollution in the water where he lived at in Maryland closed the local beaches to swimmers, before he could take Senior Lifesaving classes there. He is very comfortable and competent in and around deep water, so any canoeing, boating or swimming trips that he may have guided clients on would have been considerably safer, because he was there. And {Man O' Day!} there's a lot of naturally clean water up there to swim in.

He desires to become a top-notch Fly Fisherman and to guide other folks who want to Fly Fish, Ice Fish or enjoy the outdoors pleasures of doing any other kind of fishing that their hearts desire. He doesn't mind cleaning fish and loves cooking them.

He wants to build Star Huts. Star huts? Gazebo style huts set up so that people can take telescopes out into the woods and view the heavens through minimally polluted skies, and in relative comfort. And during biting-insect seasons, the huts would have bug proof netting hung across all of the openings in them. There would be Velcro zippers in the netting where the amateur astronomers can stick the ends of the telescopes out of, then tuck the zippers tight and keep the bugs out. The Star Huts would have nice little wood heaters in the center of them.

He thinks up plans for a goodly number of other possible additions to the Lodge's business and property. Including: a small movie theater, a radio station, and maybe a dance hall—with a spring mounted dance floor. But will the heavy boozers and other troublemakers cause too many problems and ruin the business of a peaceful-fun oriented dance hall? Yeah, probably, but it might work. Would rowdy drunks and other troublemakers shut down the movie theater? Not if it was small and mostly for guests who were staying at the Lodge. The radio station would play a variety of musical styles, and there would be both recorded and live music broadcasts. Most of those live music playing musicians would be as local to Northern Maine as possible. There would definitely have to be Maine humorists telling jokes and stories, for both live and recorded shows. Maybe the movie theater could double as a venue for live broadcasts of homegrown Northern Maine entertainment—musicians, comedians, story tellers, and comedy skits put on by little theater groups. The folks up there woulda' certainly enjoyed listening to, and participating in, those live broadcast radio shows.

In the summer of 1973, the 23-year-old nephew’s back is injured. It happened when a car ran a red light and hit the nephew, while the young man was riding on his 1973 Yamaha 650 motorcycle. As a result of the red light runner’s negligence, the young nephew suffers from a degenerative back injury—for the rest of his life. That injury gradually, steadily increases in levels of pain and disability.

During the first few years of his degenerative back injury, the nephew realizes that he may, someday, become permanently dependent on a wheelchair for personal mobility. Consequently, the resourceful young man begins to plan out how to hunt and/or to take wildlife photographs from a motor vehicle, which is set up for the maximum convenience of people in wheelchairs. He ponders how to work it so that he can guide wheelchair-dependent clientele on hunts and photo safaris. He knows that some people need time in the woods alone, so he thinks through ideas on how to coordinate safe, soul-satisfying time out there alone for anyone in a wheelchair. Nobody wants to sit out there in the peaceful woods with a two-way radio crackin' and hissin’ all the time. Guides for people in wheelchairs must stay close enough to their clientele to be there incase of emergency, but the guides must stay far enough away from their clientele to allow for the wheelchair-dependent folks to live great, pleasantly memorable, personal adventures out in the woods alone. That all, of course, could only be worked out safely and correctly by the nephew while living up in the Maine woods and testing wheelchair lift equipped vans, small trucks and busses and trying out various types of radio equipment, and then the new cell phone services.

During the mid 1970s, the nephew taught himself how to bake homemade deserts, from scratch only, using whole-wheat floor, honey, and other all-natural ingredients. His Aunt Martha once told him that he should use Vanillin, instead of real Vanilla Extract, because Vanillin's cheaper. The last thing that he would skimp on is the price of a measly little ol' teaspoon of Vanilla flavoring. Marty was very serious about that, and she would be very upset if he had tried to do it any other way in her kitchen. So ya' know that he would have never been able to get into the Lodge's kitchen and comfortably bring some delicious all natural recipes into use there. He also likes to prepare big, wholesome, meals made from fresh ingredients. He makes, what an old friend of his once called, a super salad. He loves to fix huge bowls of garden salad. But Marty did a lot of her food prep work by opening those large, commercial sized, Number 10 cans. And she hired a local woman to do most of the Lodge’s baking. The nephew really woulda' loved to have gotten in that kitchen and learned a lot from that countrywoman who did the fresh baking. That pleasant and plump old country gal mighta' used white flour and sugar in her baked goods, but she knew how to really do it right. And she would have enjoyed his company in the kitchen, because he adored her—like a grandson would have.

The nephew knows that there are old, abandoned, fallen down, overgrown hunting lodges, hunting camps, and logging camps scattered throughout the woods of Maine. Some of those lodges catered to wealthy clientele, who came on hunting and fishing trips to Maine. And they came with the best bottles of booze that money could buy, back then in the early 1900s or late 1800s. Those old booze bottles were some kind of fancy, and are now worth a lot of money to bottle collectors. Those lodges and camps all had their own dumps, somewhere near by. Those old dumps, along with the lodge and camp areas, possess great possibilities for a person who wants to search for old bottles and other buried treasures. Had the main character in this movie been able to spend more time hanging out with his older Mainer friends and acquaintances, he could have found out from some of those old timers where some of the abandoned lodges and camps used to be; and he could have explored those locations for treasure hunting purposes. Plus he could have stumbled onto to a few of those old places, while performing his everyday outdoors adventure guide duties, or during his personal hiking and exploring adventures. He could have had his own prized collection of old bottles and artifacts, plus added to his monetary wealth by selling some of those antiques. After Fin and Marty got their cut of the take, of course.

He wants to buy and sell old barn wood. Weathered old wood from barns is used for arts and crafts, interior decorating, paneling club basements, and picture frames. There is a lot of it up in Maine. The nephew and his aunt and uncle would all profit from this, and so would many local Maine folks who owned property with old barns, sheds, or other old worn out and falling down buildings on it. But there are two reasons why this would never happen. One is that it was the nephew’s idea, not his aunt and uncle’s, and they could not have him completely under their control if they listened to his good ideas. Two is that if they did listen, and had allowed their entrepreneurial, young nephew to buy and sell barn wood, they would have taken most of the profit for themselves. Because as long as their nephew worked for them, his time was all theirs, and they wanted to control all of his work time—anything that he did was to be done for their profit.

During his 1977 experiences at Katahdin Lodge, the nephew learns that there is a thriving Asian market for bear parts. In certain Asian countries, Black Bear's gallbladders are used in natural medications, and they are worth a lot of money. Bear paw soup is a prized delicacy in Asia. Sometime in the early 1970s, Finley had begun collecting the gallbladders from all bears killed at the Lodge, and Fin sold them wholesale to a Chinese guy in New York City.

After the nephew had been stationed on Okinawa, as a US Army photographer, he had wanted to go back to travel all over Asia. He could have financed at least one really good yearly trip to Asia with the sales of legally harvested bear parts. He'd have shot his own one bear per year, ate the meat, had the hide made into a coat or something, made jewelry out of the teeth and claws, and he'd have frozen the gallbladder and paws then taken his frozen bear parts and the frozen gallbladders from the bears killed by the Lodge's paying hunters and he'd have done alright in Asia with them bear parts for sale. He'd have never gone in for poaching, illegally killing, bears for their body parts, though, because that is not his way of doing things. Neither was it Fin and Marty's. If the nephew had been able to work for them two and take the parts to Asia himself, Fin and Marty would have made a much larger profit off of their bear part sales. But to Fin and Marty, that time in Asia would have been time that they wanted their nephew to be slaving away for them at the Lodge. And the idea of them loosing complete control over the bear parts business transactions would have broiled their very own gizzards.

Finley was in the Regular Army, the Reserves, then the National Guard, until he retired from military service. His nephew was a US Army trained photographer. So you would think that Fin and Marty would respect their nephew's photography training and work and that they would endorse it. You would think that they would have helped him do some of his photography in Maine. But they could not control it if they let him do that. They could not make most of the profit from it.

It would have helped their business to have some of his great photos of the everyday goings at Katahdin Lodge floating around to advertise the place. Paying hunters would have bought many of his photographs then taken them home and showed them around, and would have given some away to their family and friends. The nephew would have had wonderful photos of the Maine countryside and of Mainers at work and play. That sells. The Maine folks there would have loved his work too. And he wanted to build custom photo frames out of old barn wood for those finest kind of Maine photographs of his. But Fin and Marty completely dismissed and disrespected his photography. Everybody lost out on that one.

Another substantial loss to the nephew is that he never had the opportunity to live with, love and nurture a nice little family of his own up in Northern Maine. He had thought this through, and at one time it was something that he had hoped to do, but it would have turned out badly. Because if he had gotten married and he and his wife had conceived or adopted children, and he had gone back to working, and maybe even living, at the Lodge, his aunt and uncle would have mistreated both him and his little family.

Fin and Marty never would have allowed him to live or work at the Lodge if he was cohabitating up there with a woman whom he wasn't married to. That wasn't going to happen. They were not religious, just a bit old fashioned in their view of the world.

During the summer of 1968, on his very first teenage, social excursion into the Town of Patten, he had become enamored with those attractive, young women up in Northern Maine. He loved those country girls, and they loved him. Well, 'ah mean now, there weren't a bunch of 'um fightin' over 'im, but he never had much of a problem gettin' good girlfriends, back then. Up there, or anywhere, he did all right for himself with the young ladies. He has never lost his desire to marry a woman from up in that part of the world. He simply finds country girls to be far more attractive than any other type of fine female.

Whether it had been a little darlin' from up there in Maine, or from anywhere else, if he had gotten married and taken his sweet, young bride up to Katahdin Lodge, for any reason or amount of time, it would have been a bad situation for that young couple. The young husband's aunt and uncle would hardly have had any respect at all for the feelings of that young nephew of theirs and his young wife. Fin and Marty would have reinstated their self-serving, selfish, rude, mean and ignorant daily dumping of their crap on him. His wife would have been mercilessly spattered with that crap. The husband would have been humiliated by how Fin and Marty treated him in front of his wife; and his wife would have been appalled and humiliated by the way that her young husband was taking that crap from those two dungheads. That crap could have ruined, probably would have ruined, any married life that the nephew may have had, if he had indeed tried to resume working, and maybe even living, up there at Katahdin Lodge.

Oh yeah, now. As long as the young husband was willing to work for them again, Fin and Marty would have given him and his wife a place to live. In fact, Fin and Marty would have done their self-serving best (with too many false promises involved) to invite, entice, influence, persuade, and cajole their young nephew, and their niece—by marriage, to move in at the Lodge. That would be so that Fin and Marty could regain maximum control over their hard working nephew and to try and bring his new wife onboard, as their semi-slave too.

Had the nephew been married, his young wife may have had a good career going for herself that she was working in up in Maine. Or she might have worked at the Lodge in a paid cooking or housekeeping staff position.

Or maybe she would not have worked at any of those occupations, and she was a busy housewife raising a small child, or two, or more. Let's say that she was always busy with her housewife chores. Say that she was darn good at: taking tender-loving care of the kids, preparing wholesome-homemade meals, keeping the home tidy, and nurturing family love with her husband and their children. Let's also say that the married couple had bought a trailer home and parked it on the Lodge's property. It is quite normal up in Maine to see someone's trailer home parked on one of their relative's property. But no matter what the young wife had to do during the day, if she was living on the Lodge's property, whenever she was on the Lodge's property, Fin and Marty would have expected her to find some time to do some work for them; even if the nephew had negotiated full compensation for the trailer's ground rent to be deducted from his weekly wages.

Had the trailer occupant wife been a hard working, successful, personal career oriented young woman, who may have preferred to only cook and clean for herself, her husband and their children, she'd of still been expected to help Marty do the Lodge's cooking and cleaning work. No matter how many hunters and others were there to cook for, if the wife was there at meal preparation times, she would have been expected in the kitchen. Consequently, any healthy, married life strengthening mealtime privacy for the young couple would have found no place at the Lodge.

If the young couple had not been able to afford to buy a trailer, the amount of love making privacy that the newlyweds would have enjoyed would have all depended on where Fin and Marty made them sleep. It would have either been out in one of the Lodge's uninsulated, unsheetrocked or paneled, cabins that did not have a full bathroom or a full kitchen, or it would have been in the main building of the Lodge. In the main building, the walls of the bedrooms are not very soundproof, and the paying guests and the Lodge staff are often plentiful in that building. The paying guests were mostly men—groups of strangers who were there a week at a time. You damned well know that in amongst that many men there were going to be a few jerks who were gonna' try some sexual advances on that young wife or make other rude insults to her. Especially if she and her husband had been making a lot of noisy love the night before. Ain't no doubt about it.

If that young married couple had tried to raise children all knee-deep in Fin and Marty's crap, it most definitely would have caused them kids to loose respect for their hard working father and mother. And, while growing up, as witnesses to that crap they would never have gained very much self-respect for themselves. With Finley and Martha Clarke, it was all about keeping their nephew emotionally hobbled, under their complete control and in semi-slave-like-servitude for life.

That is a soul scrunching loss to the nephew. He would have loved to have been able to settle down some day and raise a family up in Patten, Maine; after he had done a heap of traveling and working all around the world as a professional outdoorsman.

Whether he was married or not, if the nephew had come back to work at the Lodge but had chosen to live in his own home, like in a great big, comfortable, inexpensive fixer upper country house, or a snug and comfortable little lakeside cabin, then Fin and Marty would have had to pay him more than just room and board plus a little bit of pocket cash. They did not like the idea of paying their nephew a full salary.

If the nephew had lived in his own home while working at the Lodge, then Fin and Marty would have continuously been real-low-key-type-always-a-bit-extra-mean-and-nasty to him. They'd have done all that they could to make him miserable. Anytime that he was late for work, the nasty shit would fly—furiously so. When it was fair times for him to be let off work to be able go home, maybe to his wife and kids, Fin and Marty would have found more work for him to do.

I'm telling ya' now, them two friggin relatives of his were somethin' else!

While he was in the Army, the nephew had plenty of time to think through the slave-like limitations of what his future at Katahdin Lodge could be like. He knew that his aunt and uncle wanted him to come back there to work, after he was discharged from the Army. He was also sure that, some time in the distant future from 1971, the Lodge would one day be his, if he did go back there to work. But the reason that he had not gone back to the Lodge for six years after he received his military discharge was because of some of the easily foreseeable problems already written about on here and then one more.

The final decision not to go back to Maine, after the Army, was made when the young soldier realized that he would never be able to invite his Puerto Rican and African American GI buddies and their families up to the Lodge. He figured that if they were all there serving and defending their country together, while helping each other through that crappy time in United States history when many Americans were very disrespectful to their armed services personnel—both active military and recently discharged Vietnam Era Veterans—then his non-white friends were all good enough people to visit each other in each other's homes. He was a natural born guide, so he wanted to show a few of his GI buddies and their families great times up in the woods. One of the best friends that he ever had was a Puerto Rican GI from New York City. Showing a bunch of New Yorkers, or anyone from anywhere else, some good, memorable times in the wild woods of Maine was something that the nephew always enjoyed, while guiding bear hunters. He'd have really gotten a kick out of showing his Army buddy's Puerto Rican family the finest kind of a family vacation time in Maine. His Puerto Rican friend had never even seen a live moocow till he was 12 years old. You can imagine how cool, fun, adventurous and rewarding it would have been for the nephew to have had the NYC friend bring his growing family up to Maine to spend time with the nephew's growing family. Then the nephew and his family would get to go visit NYC and see the real New York with lifelong residents of that, fantastic and wondrous, city as thier guides.

But Fin and Marty were not about to allow any non-white folks to stay at their Lodge. They did not want them as paying guests or any other kind of guests. If a black man called the Lodge to ask about going there on a hunting trip and whoever answered the phone, Fin or Marty, could tell that it was a black guy's voice, then they always said that they had no openings for whatever week that the black man wanted to go hunting. Uncle Finley K. and Aunt Martha Clarke were 100% prejudiced against all non-honky peoples.

Fin and Marty also hated Hippies. They outright despised it when any white men grew their hair long. Whether they were Hippies or not, no longhaired man could work there for them. And in 1969, no longhaired men came on a hunting trip to the Lodge; very few came in the later years, but when they did, Fin and Marty did not like it at all.

In 1969, when either Life or Look Magazine published a special-extra-insert for the Woodstock Music Festival, and that magazine was delivered to the Lodge, Fin and Marty launched off into quiverin' conniptions. They were truly pissed off at the world because Woodstock had happened.

If you think back on the music that I have written about for use in the sound track to this movie, you will easily figure that I would possibly have been at Woodstock myself, if I had not been way up in Maine where the young people did not yet know of those types of events to be happening.

The main character in this movie had wanted to grow his hair longer, but even if his aunt and uncle had allowed him to live at the Lodge with his hair grown long, he would have had a hard time fitting in with the teenagers up there if he had worn it long. He would have gotten into fights at dances and parties, for sure. In the summer of 1969, there were Hippies and other longhaired men living in other parts of Maine, but not up around Patten. It is a fact that the nephew only saw three or four longhaired guys up around Patten, Maine, during that entire first time that he was working and living there.

There were never gonna be any Hippies welcomed at Fin and Marty Clarke's Katahdin Lodge. And you must realize, now, that during the late 1960s and the early 1970s a large majority of the world’s youth were more or less what many people considered to be Hippies.

Due to all of the afore mentioned, serious prejudices of Finley and Martha’s, there was no way for their nephew to build up the Lodge's business with a campground back in the woods behind the Lodge, with star huts, or to provide lodging and guide services for hikers, photo tourists, mountain bikers, motorcyclists, etcetera, etcetera, because Fin and Marty could not stand to be around most of the people who would come to the Lodge for those outdoors activities. So the nephew had to live his life knowing what was very possible for great times at Katahdin Lodge, but never achieving his entrepreneurial dreams of what he deeply desired to accomplish there.

You cannot imagine what a stinging, lifelong loss it is for the seriously frustrated nephew to know that some parts of his well thought out plans and dreams for a good life in Maine, after he had done a few post-Army years of traveling the world as a pro-outdoorsman, could have been successful—if it hadn't been for his aunt and uncle's bullshit. The stingin', stinkin' emotional ramifications of these frustrating losses has pretty well run that nephew through a bit of a living hell.

This info about how the main character in the film is sometimes planning these dreams out, in his head, has a place in this movie somewhere. But from what angle does it come in? Do we make some of these dreams come true on film, and add some of these ideas into the Lodge's business? Or does the nephew talk about them to someone? A talk that takes place years after 1979.

The last time that he worked at the Lodge or ever saw his, once much loved, Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley was during the summer of 1979—on a bad day at Katahdin Lodge.

Once he had become that young woodsman up in Maine, it is simply a major part of who he is. Loosing verification of that level of achievement in the outdoors adventure world, due to his own beloved aunt and uncle's selfish ignorance, was too much for him to stomach. It rendered him emotional ill. The real gut kicker in this case is the hard, cold fact that he had risked his life, on a daily basis, for his aunt and uncle. That disturbing knowledge added some unbearable emotional weight upon the matter. And that terrible, soul crushing weight rendered him down into being a thoroughly disenchanted young man.

After living with and working for his aunt and uncle, the myriad of painful, emotional injuries inflicted upon him, by them, greatly contribute to him having a lifetime of family and other problems.

He suffers from severe depression, for his entire adult life.

He drinks way too much booze. Smokes a little weed.

He is more of a disappointment than not, to himself, his family, his friends, his employers and coworkers.

Has a lousy, nearly empty life.

His parents eventually die without ever seeing their only son become the full version of the good person, talented photographer and writer, loving family member, and professional outdoors adventure guide whom they knew he has the full potential to be. This hurts.

Fin died, after not speaking to anyone on his side of their family for many, many years. Marty has refused contact with Fin's side of the family too. But their nephew doesn’t know why that they had estranged themselves that way.

It isn't because of the nephew. About a year after Fin and his nephew had that near murderous encounter in '79, and parted ways for good, Finley had visited his sister, the nephew’s mother, at her house.

The estrangement has something to do with the way that the nephew's mother had handled the sale of her and Fin’s mother’s house. But Fin got his full 1/3 share of the sale (there is another brother in that family, and he and Fin never got along too well, Fin was rude and cruel to his younger brother for their entire lives). Finley definitely received his regular monthly share of the mortgage payments from the people who were buying his mother's house. The nephew's mother received the large mortgage checks from those people, and then she wrote personal checks to her two brothers. Fin's nephew even saw checks that had been made out and sent to Finley, had been deposited into Finley’s bank account in Maine, then cleared by his mother's bank, and returned to her. But Martha had endorsed the last year or so’s worth of them. The nephew's mother knew Marty's handwriting, because they had often done some of their school homework together as kids. Finley had gotten pissed off about something to do with the sale of the house. Maybe the price was not high enough to suit him and Marty, but Fin had definitely said, "the hell with it," and refused to sign any more checks. That's how he was. But Marty wasn't going to let that money slip by her. This info is not in here to say that this is an example of Marty's greed, she and Fin were the rightful recipients of the funds, but it shows how Fin was when he got angry and said, "the hell with it."

After Finley had gotten so overly angry that he had stopped signing the checks, Marty could easily have found opportunities to call her old friend, Fin’s sister, and talk to her now and then. Marty also could have talked to Fin about how he should calm down and take a less monetary based view of the family situation. Marty could have made those efforts, in order to try and smooth things out for the sake of the family. But money-more-money is more important to Marty, than Finley’s family is. The whole deal with the anger about the house sale has Marty’s signature all over it—not just on some of the checks. She was quite possibly even angrier than Finley was about it. She most likely had to have been prodding Fin, all along, about him supposedly not getting enough money from the sale of his mother’s house. That’s how she was with him. When the nephew had lived at the Lodge, he had seen plenty enough of that type of marital interaction between his aunt and uncle to know what it was all about. And the young guide’s mother had known it for a long time before her teenaged son had first witnessed it. Most likely, after Fin had had enough of hearing Marty tell him that he had gotten ripped off, he had said, “the hell with it,” and that he didn’t, “want any of the gahdamned money anyway, she (his sister) can shove it up her ass, as far as I’m concerned.”

After that, Finley never spoke to, or ever saw, his sister again.

It is a shame that Martha and Finley had to be so self-serving, greedy and hardheaded that they destroyed all relationships with Fin's entire family.

Marty has maintained some contact with her family. Not a lot of contact though, because they were either afraid of Finley or just can’t deal with the way that he was. That has, though, still worked out well for her, because the greedy bit-ah-whoa-uh-witch has always wanted the whole-entire substantial Fin and Marty estate to go to her family. Why? I don't know. And Fin and Marty’s family had lived next door to each other for years, in the tight-little, mill town community of Sparrows Point, Maryland. The young guide's father’s family had lived there for years too. They all knew each other well. Martha is greedy, and she has an evil streak runnin' right down through the center of her. The witch.

In 1994, this movie's main character gets sober. Stabilizes his life. Then applies for and begins to receive an SSI disability check each month. His serious and legally compressible disabilities are a combination of a bad back and a good dose of depression.

In 1998, he begins attending classes at Dundalk Community College, which just happens to have an excellent photography program. While attending that local school, he works hard to get off disability. Thanks in part to the top-notch photography instructors and photo lab aids, he begins to become the photographer whom he and most of his family and friends have known he was all along. He produces a large portfolio of his work. He learns how to use a computer. Learns how to go on the Internet. Finds out all about some of the great web sites that are from Maine, and he researches for all kinds info about the Patten, Maine area that is on the World Wide Web. He makes darn good use of the Internet. He begins to write out his stories about his experiences up at Katahdin Lodge in Patten, Maine. And then he writes some about his life as an American GI on Okinawa. The kind and generous staff at the community college writing lab coach him well.

He begins to send printed copies of the autobiographical short stories about his life in Maine to his aunt and uncle, and to various other Patten Mainers. Fin and Marty refuse to acknowledge those stories. Fortunately for their now 50 year old nephew, he is well aware of the fact that even though his aunt and uncle would most likely, angrily throw the copies that he sent to them into the trash, they would definitely hear about his stories from some of the others who had gotten copies of them too.

The first three stories he sent to them were The House Fire, The Day I Fell In Love With Patten Maine and The Rocket Scientist. Go look those writings over and you will see three very nice stories with some serious surprises contained within them. In those stories there are no criticisms, no complaints or any explanations about how he had been mistreated by Fin and Marty. He had hoped that by having his aunt and uncle read his stories that they would finally realize what he had truly been like as their nephew and employee. "The Rocket Scientist" tells of a deadly dangerous, near out of control situation that he had instinctively taken control of and safely lived through, but that he had never told anyone up in Maine about before.

When those benign, true tales failed to elicit any response at all from his aunt and uncle, he called them on the telephone. Marty answered the phone, and as soon as he identified himself to her she hung right up on him. It was time to take the kid gloves off. No more mercy. They had shown him none. Nor his parents. Not only was Finley his mother's younger brother, and Martha had been like a sister to her, his father had, for a long time, been Finley's best friend.

He begins sending hand written postcards to his aunt and uncle. He knows that they probably threw out the envelopes containing his short stories, but they can't escape seeing the words written on a postcard. After they had received his first postcard, upon receiving the next postcards they may have immediately looked away, before the written words on them could transfer from the paper and up into their heads, but it was worth a try. Among other truthful things that he writes on those 40 to 50 postcards he sends them, he tells them that they are liars and thieves. One time he went on the Internet, found a web page where he could calculate what 1969, '77, and '79 dollars equal in year 2002 money, and using that web site, he added up what he is owed by Fin and Marty; then he sent them 24 postcards with the same message written on it, more or less saying==You Owe Me, and the amount, pay me. That was 24 sent at one time, so that they would get the message for sure.

Back in the year 2000 or 2001, when he first began sending his Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley copies of his short stories about his life at Katahdin Lodge, all that those two hard heads had to do was to acknowledge the reality of what their nephew had done for them and to pay him. Then he would have moved on, while still writing his stories, but he would not have contacted them again. He was open to potential full family reconciliation, but has no real hopes for it as long as Marty is alive. She always keeps a boiling, bubbling and steaming cauldron full of anti-Finley's family feelings all stirred up and witchy-working to her advantage.

That unjustifiably withheld full acknowledgement of reality could greatly relieve the nephew of his depression. And he would use that money to put together a photography and writing office, where he can finally become his full self again. He needs a reliable motor vehicle, professional grade computer and photography equipment and an office that is furnished and set up to aid a person with degenerative back decease. Had his aunt and uncle responded to those first three true stories with true family love and concern, then their nephew could have gone on with his life and lived it well. Instead, their refusal to face the facts has plunged him even deeper into depression and despair then he already was. His life is damn near a living nightmare. It is dismal. He does write and publish stories and photographs, but he rarely ever goes anywhere or spends time with other people. He never gets paid for anything that is published, nor ever sells any photographs.

The nephew begins to submit his stories to numerous publications in Maine. After the requisite rejections, one Internet newspaper begins to publish his stories. That web site, Magic City News out of Millinocket, is the closest newspaper web site to Patten. A fair number of people up in that part of Maine, or from that part of God's Country, read his stories on Magic City News; thousands of other people from around the USA and a few from around the globe read his stories too. They enjoy reading them, and a goodly number of those kind folks send him emails telling him so.

After, the now 50-some-year-old, main character in the movie gets a few of his Maine adventures short stories pretty well completed and published, he begins to write about his US Army adventures. When the US Army had sent him to Okinawa, or as the GIs called it—The Rock—he was assigned as the 'official' photographer for the 30th Artillery Brigade. That was a missile unit with Hawk and also Nike Hercules Missiles. And some of the Nikes had nuclear warheads on them. His experiences as an Army photographer on Okinawa, during 1970-71, were in many ways typical for most American GIs over there. They were serving non-combat tours of duty, during the Vietnam War. He writes wild and crazy tales telling about spending lots of time in the bar and red light districts. His stories are historically informative about that wild nightlife scene. And then also about the way that GIs lived in their barracks, what their music listening pleasures were, their solid friendships, and how they loved being in a foreign land and getting along well with the local Asian population. He tells some very strange and funny stories about their leaders—their sergeants and officers. He also tells of exactly what it was like having the big fat Book of US Army Rules and Regulations brutally smashed down hard upon, and broken right across, his head, by the 30th Artillery Brigade on Okinawa. His assignment as a photographer to the 30th Arty Bgde, and also the photo lab that he was forced to work in while he was assigned there, broke more rules and regulations than you could ever imagine—it was 100% illegal and militarily immoral. That was devastating to the dedicated young soldier. Still is, to some degree, today.

Eventually, the biggest and best outdoors adventure web site in the State of Maine, Maine Outdoors Today, publishes some of his stories too, and also some of his photographs. His work is well received by visitors to that web site. The editor of Maine Outdoors Today convinces him to start blogging.

With only the rudimentary computer and Internet skills of a Computer 101 community college course to go on, he begins to blog, and blog, and blog. He desperately needs his own full sized, commercial grade web site, but he is stuck with teaching himself how to turn free blogs into poor man's web sites. And it works well for him.

He blogs about Maine, and that receives great responses; he blogs about his time as a United States Army photographer on Okinawa, and that garners him a lot of emails from other Okinawa veterans; he blogs about his hometown of Dundalk, Maryland and puts many of his mighty fine photographs of that much misunderstood community on the blog; he photo blogs about the Eastern Baltimore City and County areas near where he lives at now; those Baltimore area photo blogs receive good responses; then he has another blog about dumpster diving—he is very successful at doing safe and sanitary dumpster diving.

Why is it that Finley and Martha Clarke did not take legal action against me, in order to try to stop me from sending those stories around, all over Maine, to anyone and everyone, and also for sending those postcards to them two hard heads?

{End of Section 2 of this 4-part document. Please continue on to Section 3 / Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie, the blog post below this one, the previous post. It'll be well worth your time--I swear to it! READ ON! }



{This is Section 3 of a 4-part document that is read from the top of this blog down--from the latest Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie blog post, down through the older ones; just the opposite from how blogs are normally read. I guarantee that this well written document is full of interesting, entertaining, and even shocking snippets---all the way through. I do believe that you'll enjoy this. Read on! }


I know that Fin and Marty Clarke have declared that my stories are full of lies. Somehow, their ignorant bullshit has made its way down here to my father’s side of the family, and I am pissed off about that.

Hows’ comes’ big bad, considerably wealthy and well armed—lead based and legally—Uncle Finley did not head on down the road to Maryland and get right up here in my face about it?

Why is it that they have not taken any defensive action against me?

Hmmm?

They must know that their near-impoverished nephew does not have the funds needed to properly defend himself in court, or to bring a lawsuit against them up in Maine. They must know, because they hear stuff about me the same as I hear stuff about them.

I can’t even afford to go to Maine for any fun and enjoyable reasons—and it is killing me to miss out on every beautiful fall foliage display, every Deer and Moose and Bear and bird season (no matter if I get to harvest any wild game or not, it's always well worth going hunting just for the time spent out in the woods that I love), all that fishing, them deee-lightfully attractive Maine Mommas, the snowmobile riding, the hiking, the camping, visiting with any local Mainers and fellow travelers as well, or just relaxing on the front porch of a lakeside cabin, loving life.

How about a lawsuit against my editors in Maine who publish those supposedly falsified, libelous stories on the World Wide Web?

Why have there never been any lawsuits instigated in my direction, by Fin and Marty?

My stories are true, that’s why.

Every other single individual who is featured in any of these stories and who has read them knows that they are true. And they tell some of their family and friends that this is so. Some of those individuals have emailed me and a few have spoken to me on the phone, and they tell me that the stories are as true as they can be.

Finley K. Clarke died on Thursday, April 27, 2006. There was no mention in his obituary of his side of the family—my side of the family. No mention at all. That's Marty for ya'.

If Marty were not a driving force behind the separation of Fin from his family, then she would have written about us in his obituary. Whenever Finley wasn't around, she usually did what she wanted to. That's why, in 1979, she took in far more than the twenty bear hunters per week that Fin had told her to, because Fin was not in the Lodge's office when she was taking the hunter's reservations, for week long bear hunts. And it was why, one day while Fin and I were driving out of the Lodge's driveway, Finley had stopped the truck, had turned to me, looked me straight in my eyes and said, "David, I've gotten myself into something that I can't get out of."

The obit included:

Besides his wife, Martie of Shin Pond, Finley is survived by two sisters-in-law, Mary Jane Thomas and Bette Thornton, both of Maryland; many nieces and nephews; and close friends, the Birmingham family, Chuck and Karen Chanadet, Jack Swartz, Wayne and Linda Melvin, Bob and Jeanne Smallwood, Vic Drew, The "Italians," Diane Lane with her special care and many, many more, too numerous to list. Finley loved his "Maine Family."

Reading that obituary, and not seeing Finley's natural family mentioned in it, in anyway at all, makes me feel like I have been shot at and missed, but shit at and hit.

The following sentence belongs in Finley's obituary: Finley is survived by his brother Nelson Clarke, of Maryland, and is predeceased by his sister Doris Mae Crews.

And some obituaries include info about the deceased person's parents, but not always, especially when the deceased is as old as Finley was when he passed away.

By leaving out the info about Fin's sister, brother and parents, and by strategically placing many nieces and nephews after Finley is survived by two sisters-in-law, Mary Jane Thomas and Bette Thornton, both of Maryland, then stating Finley loved his "Maine Family," it is clear to me that Martha is neither including me, my sisters or cousins in the many nieces and nephews part of this obit. She is outright implying that Finley had no love for his blood relatives at all.

I do not believe that. Because at one time, he was too close to his natural family to not always feel some love for us, for his entire life. Finley's loving feelings for his family were all messed up by his anger. My Uncle Finley was a victim of PTSD aggravated anger—extrememly intense anger that is very difficult for its bearer to control or to understand, without Veteran's Administration PTSD counseling. The VA is very good at PTSD counseling now, so if you know any vets who need that kind of help, it is available to them.

But that was a fair enough mention of his closest, long-time friends. That is good and right. The statement, his "Maine Family", is fair enough with me. They were all very close. I have no problem with some of those folks getting parts of Finley's estate—some of his guns and other things and maybe some money or some of the land holdings that he and Marty had together in their names.

John Birmingham, a member of the Birmingham family who are mentioned in the obit, is the son whom Finley never had but always wanted. John worked at the Lodge, until Martha refused to give him a raise in salary that Finley had told her to. I heard this from friends in Maine and from my parents too. John was worth every penny of what he had been paid at the Lodge, and more, but Marty would not pay him that "more." John Birmingham is about as good a woodsman as has ever lived; he is the best shot with a rifle or shotgun that anyone, whom I knew in Maine, had ever seen shoot. John was home on leave from the Army, one time, and he volunteered his guide services at the Lodge. John worked with me, and we had great times putting out bear baits together. John was a lot of fun to work with. Before that, when John was on leave a different time, while Fin and Marty were visiting family down in Maryland, and I was watching the Lodge, John and I hung out at the Lodge a lot, and we did some wild snowmobile riding together. Had John come back to work at the Lodge after his first hitch in the Regular Army was up and he had remained Fin's number one guide until Fin retired, as Fin had so desired, and Fin and Marty had paid me what I had earned, including the respect, then I would say that John should get the most out of Finley's estate. John still does deserve a nice chunk of it, but that amount has to be balanced against what is rightfully mine.

After it was clear to Fin that John was never coming back to work for him, he had hoped that I would take over the business after he had retired. He had let me know this, but I could never trust Marty in there handling the Lodge's business paperwork. She always cheated me. And Finley had, at one time, written me up in his will to receive 2/3's of his estate. But he later rewrote his will and cut me out of it, after he had committed that one final, grievous wrong against me, in 1979, when he had accidentally cut me while we were skinning a bear together, and I would not allow him to blame me for what he himself had done wrong.

But that crap about, Finley is survived by two sisters-in-law, Mary Jane Thomas and Bette Thornton, both of Maryland; many nieces and nephews, is all part of a well planned out design to exclude myself and my side of the family from getting anything of Finley's. We won't get old photos, some of which will be thrown away after Marty dies, or maybe some have already been thrown away. We won't get his war medals or any other personal mementoes. We won't get a small selection of his firearms, hunting knives or any other hunting gear. He had plenty of tools, but none are going to be set-aside for us down here in Maryland to go up and retrieve. We sure won't be given any money, land or motor vehicles, and Fin and Marty had plenty of it all. Marty has it now.

Marty's sisters, and the rest of her family, did not ever have much to do with Finley, at all. Shit! Most of those many nieces and nephews have no real idea who Finley is, or was. They'd probably have never even recognized him if he had knocked on their front door. Not only that, during the past five years or so, there was a long stretch of time when Marty and her family weren't even on speaking terms with each other, because of Finley. Someone in her family had died, and Finley had not allowed Marty to come down here, to Maryland, for the funeral. Some of Marty's family members live in my neighborhood, and I heard this directly from them.

A member of the Thomas family informed me that Mary Jane Thomas, Marty's sister Janie, is a proud lesbian who married another woman.

That's all fine with me; I accept that. I am strictly heterosexual, but that's me, not everybody.

Finley, though, oh lordy-lordy, Finley, though, had no tolerance for the homosexual lifestyle. Marty didn't used to either; she sure hated gay men, and I'd bet that she still does. She should be fully accepting of her sister Janie's sexual preference, but Janie and her wife(?)/husband(?) sure as hell were never going to visit Martha, at least not as an openly gay couple, while Finley was still alive. I don't know for certain, but it is doubtful that Janie ever was up there while Fin was alive. Janie can feel free to contact me and set me straight on whether she has ever gone to Maine to visit her sister Marty. I do not hold any animosity towards the Thomas family, but they have to understand that Marty committed grievous wrongs against me.

It is outright hogwash to imply in that obituary that Janie and Bette and the rest of the Thomas family will miss Finley. They certainly may very well be sorry for Martha's loss. No one has ever doubted that Martha and Finley truly did love one another. But most of the Thomas family members sure-as-flyin'-flip ain't gonna' be missing ol' Finley Kenneth Clarke. Not one bit.

I believe that Fin's friends deserve about a third of his and Martha's estate, and Martha's family gets a third, and my side of the family gets a third.

But I say that until all that I am owed, by Finley K. and Martha Clarke, is dispersed to me, nobody gets a thing.

And fuck anybody who views things differently.

If I had ever possessed the funds necessary to take my Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley to court, I would have done so a long time ago. Now the stakes are much higher. If there is ever anyway for me to afford to bring a lawsuit against Martha Clarke, alive or dead, I will.

Unfortunately for the main character in the film, as he ages up and past 50 years old, his disabilities gradually worsen. Consequently, he cannot get a photography business going. He remains unemployable and has no money coming in from his photographic or written work. He has to accept his fate, so he applied for and now receives a small, monthly, non-service connected disability check from the Veterans Administration. To receive such a regular disbursement, a veteran must be totally and permanently disabled for life.

He is fully, painfully aware though, that his screwed up military experiences warrant him a 70 to 100% service connected disability rating. He applies for it several times, is given the royal run around by Veterans Administration doctors, and is denied his benefits. But he is determined to continue fighting for those completely well deserved benefits, that which are immediately due.

Based upon his own VA Hospital inpatient experiences, during 90 days worth of alcohol and drug rehab stays plus a total of 5 1/2 months in VA Hospitals due to his degenerative back disease, he writes three, very well-done articles about how more than eighteen of our country’s Veterans Administration Medical Center properties are immorally being leased out to private developers and being turned into condominium complexes (for vets and non-vets alike), and/or turned into anything else but better veteran’s health care facilities. State of the art medical facilities that we veterans and our families desperately need. Those three articles inform the veteran’s rights protection world about what is happening, and many of the individual peoples and veteran’s groups who are active in that world take action to try to save their local VAMCs for veteran’s health care only. His articles are either republished on or linked to from every kind of veteran’s issues oriented web site imaginable. From far right wing, old hard charging veteran's web sites, to a Department of Defense web site, and all the way over to the far left—where the anti-US Guv’ment ranters and ravers dwell.

The combined successes of all of his published written works gave him what he had, for a very long time, needed to be able to write important letters to the local newspaper editor. And those writings were published in that newspaper.

He currently lives a rather dismal, reclusive life. Can’t afford a motor vehicle. He rarely ever goes anywhere farther than a half mile from his home. Never got married or had children. Hardly has contact with any of his family, except for his very young grandnephew. And his primary means of communication with the rest of the world is through the Internet.

His work receives very little, to no, attention or respect from his family. He has tried and tried to convince most of his family members to read, view and enjoy his World Wide Web published works, but most of them simply ignore him.

Most of his old friends are all either dead, burnt out on alcohol and/or other drugs, or are off somewhere successfully living their own lives. He sees a few of them now and then, is relieved to be able to tell those old friends about his success on the Internet, but they hardly ever go look at his well published work.

There are many people whom he has never met in person who have emailed him and told him how much they enjoy and appreciate his work, but that's about it for any complimentary, positive feedback he receives.

Even though he has achieved significant portions of his life's goals, he does not actually fee like anybody or anything. He has reached his goals of having some of his short stories nearly all the way written out, published, and then read by thousands of people; he has achieved some of his goals of having his photography published, viewed and greatly appreciated by thousands of people; he has always needed to have his true explanations of just what really did happen up there in Maine and over in Okinawa published where all the world could see them; another goal that, for many years, he so desired to achieve and has finally achieved is to be able to write comprehensive and effective articles about veterans affairs and also community issues. Of all of those thousands of people who have read and/or viewed his published works, only a very few are his family members or his friends. He himself has no real idea who writes his stories or produces those wonderful photographs or who it is that builds his blogs. He very rarely connects in any way to that part of his personality. When he receives any, of the numerous enough, positive comments from strangers about his work, any resulting self-satisfaction or any pride that he ever feels, well, unfortunately for all, those good healthy inner feelings are fleeting, to say the least. Generally speaking, he has no idea that he even walks around in that prolific and proficient writer, photographer and blogger's skin.

He is far too deeply humiliated by his living conditions, his poverty and lack of professional success as a photographer and writer to be going out in public very often.

But he is fairly well known, somewhat popular, and much appreciated on the World Wide Web.

Though the main character has no children of his own, when his grandnephew lost his father in a road accident, the little boy's great-uncle (the main character) took over as the male authority figure in the life of the fully deserving young child. The child has no uncles, and the grandfathers are irresponsible, flaming assholes who refuse to have anything to do with the child, so the next in natural line of family responsibility is the child’s great-uncle. The great-uncle has never regretted a moment of shouldering that responsibility. He loves all that it entails.

The boy is a lot like his great-uncle. And those two guys are the best of friends who enjoy the outdoors together at every chance they can get. They teach each other plenty about how to live good lives. They love each other dearly. The great-uncle sacrifices anything he has to in order to help raise the child. The child adores his uncle. So much so that his uncle lovingly gives the little boy the Indian style nickname, "Little Shadow".

One thing that I have often thought about is, what angle do we tell this movie's story from?

Should it simply be a “period piece” that starts at the beginning, stays in the 1969 era, and goes to where ever it ends?

The main character did go back to try and work at the Lodge in 1977 and ’79, so it could be told from that more matured view of the main character. He could be there for that two and a half weeks in ’79 and seeing things around him and talking to people and all of that can trigger specific memories of 1969, and then the film pans back to that time. It was in 1979 when his uncle blamed him that one final time for something Finley himself had done wrong to him; then, the nephew being steeped in his resulting, exploding, justifiable anger, he saw strange things floating through the air, and he walked off down the road to keep from throwing the chair that he was sitting in through the window and beating the crap out of that sum-beechie uncle of his. Which was better than his first thoughts of cramming a loaded shotgun up under Finley’s chin. This part is already written out in my story, Then They Own You.

I was in two different Veterans Administration alcohol/drug rehabs. Though my problem is mainly the booze, I had to put up with a bunch of jive-ass junkies in the first rehab. It damn near ended as a running battle between them and me, and I won.

While there in those rehabs, I thought about how the main character in this movie could begin to tell his story to a councilor, a group meeting, or to a good buddy in there. Maybe he could tell part of his story to someone else, then just be shown thinking through his memories of Maine as the film moves into the flashback stage.

He could very effectively be shown in a depressed state of mind going over his past in his head, while in any number of different locations.

The plot could be written from when he has no warm place to stay and is sleeping in his best friend’s unheated garage loft, nearly freezing to death and wondering how his life had gone that way.

What about having him telling his grandnephew stories about the photographs of his Northern Maine Adventures that are hung up on the main character's living room wall? Or talking to the child about the same ones that are on his blog?

Yeah, that is good, a totally 21st Century way of telling the story. Have him telling his grandnephew some of the story while they are looking at the blog together. Then, after his grandnephew goes to bed, or gets bored with looking at photos and hearing old stories told, like kids do, and goes back to playing with the toys on the floor, have the main character begin going over certain parts of the story in his own head, pan to flashback. Make it a full weekend with them two together and spread the parts of the Maine story out between brief, gentle scenes of his life today. This is an excellent way to have that nice ending that American moviegoers always want to see.

Yes, America loves a winner—a nice ending to every story. How else can that come about? By showing the main character as part the movie making process? By showing how he is living after he gets paid some of his money for his story? Ayy?

Will he narrate the story? Narrate from what age and from where?

Or just have him begin telling it to someone, anyone, then let the flashbacks take over.

His story could be told from that courtroom where he has always wanted to confront his Uncle Finley and Aunt Martha on even ground. That could work out well. More ways for the filmmakers to portray drama and emotion, comedy and errors, that’s for sure.

These are all excellent ideas for the scriptwriters to work with. Or, one or more of the writers or someone else may come up with a different and more effective angle to tell the story from.

After I was worked over all mean and nasty by Fin and Marty, and I enlisted into the United States Army and was sent to Okinawa, I ended up in an even more screwed up situation over there—that is all completely laid out, for the entire world to see, on my two blogs, 30th Artillery Brigade Okinawa 1970-71 and An American GI On Okinawa 1970-71.” The Fin and Marty experiences caused me to loose faith in my family, and then the 30th Arty Bgde experiences caused me to loose belief in my country. Consequently, by the time that I was 21 years old, I had pretty well lost any sense of family and country. The deeply painful combination of those two separate sets of fucked up experiences hit me with a one-two punch that damn near knocked me out of myself completely, and the rug was pulled right out from under my feet. I fell hard.

For a long time after that, I wasn't much good for anything useful.

After my honorable discharge from the US Army, in November of 1971, all that I have ever wanted to work as is a professional outdoorsman, photographer and writer. Not only had I had earned the right to do so, there has always been plenty of room within these combined professions for me to have worked hard and been successful at them, in every possible way. When I became an accomplished professional outdoorsman, then when I also became a US Army trained photographer, a very good photographer with a natural eye for capturing great images in photographs—no one can teach a person that natural quality of a good photographer, because it must come from within you—once I had become that outdoorsman and photographer, I was never able to be anyone else.

After my military discharge, in order for me to remain being that person meant that I must continue doing most of the exact same things that had more or less cost me my family and my country. You may not understand this, but for the following 28 years, I was rarely ever able to work at what I was best at, within the chosen professions that I had fully earned the rights to work in, because I could not find anything much left to work for. Though that was an unhealthy reaction, which made an extremely bad situation much worse, very rarely does a person ever want to walk right back up a trail where they had just been viciously mauled by two Tasmanian Devils, then robbed by bandits.

Severe depression caused by that set of experiences still dogs me to this day.

I do have to take responsibly, though, for the fact that when I more or less crawled off of that trail and on into the underbrush, to try and figure out how to recover from those deep wounds caused by my devastating losses of family and country, I drank too much booze. I must take responsibility for any bad effects that I, and others around me, suffered through when I was heavily abusing alcohol.

My spending so much time getting drunk and emotionally numb was no way to solve any of my problems. I apologize for doing that, and for all that I did that was wrong.

Up until my last gulp of ethyl alcohol, in 1994, I had gotten sober a number of times. Then relapsed.

Whenever I got sober, one remaining problem always was, though, each time that I got the soul and psyche anesthetizing booze flushed out of me real good and clean, and the low hanging clouds of fog cleared out from in front of my eyes, about all that I could see and feel was that I still had no returning sense of family and country.

But when I was a growing American boy, family, country, American style freedom and the higher power of yours or my choice was all that I had ever believed in. Family, country and freedom—including our God given freedom of religion—have always been and always will be our most valuable treasures. I have always been and always will be most willing to love, nurture, defend and to work, sacrifice, fight, kill and die for those principles. The sum total of my work that is now published on the World Wide Web provides full testament to this.

Telling the world about the personal frailties and vulnerabilities that allowed me to become so severely depressed by what had happened to me while in Maine and then on Okinawa, to have to inform you here that most of my adult life has been lived all down and out and out of touch with the rest of society then barely back on my feet again, is excruciating for me. But telling about these things is only fair for your well-balanced consideration of who I am and for you to be able to decide if you are willing to work with me on this movie project.

Now I am back on my feet again. Barely so. But fighting back with all of the inner strength I can muster. Fighting fair but hard, by continuously working for long hours on my Internet projects and struggling to survive on a day-to-day basis. It is a decidedly dismal life I am living through today, but you could never know that this is so by looking at my photographic and written works that are published in numerous places on the World Wide Web.

All of what has been written about on here will provide a lot of challenging and rewarding work for screenwriters, directors, a casting agency, set designers, set builders, cinematographers, various technicians, costume designers, makeup artists, caterers, security personnel and everyone else who is needed for the movie, which includes me.

Besides working with and advising the scriptwriters, location scouts, director and cinematographers, one job that I shall be performing myself is, I will be taking candid photos of the film production team and anyone else who happens to be on the movie sets. And there will be copies of my photos given out amongst them all, for them to keep for themselves or to give to their family or friends. This is the one type of photography that I do about as well as has ever been done, or ever will be done. I love capturing complimentary photographic images of people being themselves, whether hard at work or hard at play, or just taking a relaxing break from their hard work or play and socializing with others. Like a big ol' Owl studying the forest floor for the most opportune moment to swoop down upon its intended prey, I have a keen eye for determining the exact instant when all of my intended photographic subjects are looking good for a photograph. During those, rather thrilling, times, a photographer has to sorta' blend into their surroundings, to clandestinely disappear from the conciseness of their intended subjects; the photographer must to stay alert, and also already be agile, swift and skilled at using their camera gear, in order to be able to capture a great photographic image of all of the individuals, in any given group of people, looking good at the same exact moment. I was well known for fully mastering that photographic technique, in 1970, when I was performing my military photographer duties at US Army social events.

This movie definitely should be made somewhere in Northern Maine. The Patten area itself may not be the right place for filming it, and that is to be decided later. There are far to many unknown and fully expected variables when choosing the best locations for filming in. All filmmakers will know this.

During the times when some of the cast and crew will be working on movie sets somewhere up in Maine, those individuals will be spending a lot of time with the local Maine population there. That interaction will greatly add to any ideas that they have for the film. There will be some local Maine folks working in various capacities on the movie sets, hanging out behind the scenes, and sitting around eating the catered food. At times, non-Mainer members of the cast and crew will be eating in the small restaurants up there, shopping in the stores, carousing in the pubs, and going hiking, fishing, hunting, snowmobile riding, off road four wheeler riding, mountain biking, road biking, motorcycling, taking scenic auto tours through the countryside, canoeing, boating, dating and 'you name it', the film crew will be doing it with local Mainers as their trusty companions. The entire time that those social interactions are taking place, there will be optimum opportunity for the cast and crew to learn more about those wonderful folks in Maine—and to be able to portray them Mainers much more realistically on film. Ya' simply can't be around a bunch of 'um for very long without hearing some really cool stories, told well. Some Mainers' conversation casually overheard by a cast member or a scriptwriter could become the basis for a great scene in the movie.

We could hold an informal competition to see which Mainers can tell the most entertaining and outlandish tall tales for use in the movie; for like when the young nephew is hanging out with some local folks. The Mainers who get their tales written into the script get paid for their stories. Every entry would win something, like having some of our most famous movie stars there for a casual, pleasant autograph signing and photograph taking session. The Maine folks can bring their own little personal cameras. I can take lots of digital, pro quality informal shots of the whole get together. Then we could either print up mighty fine photos right then and there, or give out digital copies on inexpensive CD disks, or email them to the recipient of the Mainer's choice. I'd, friggin' aye right, enjoy that immensely.

If any of this movie is filmed in the Patten, Maine area, then that will bring in good monies to good folks living there. No matter where the movie is filmed, for years to come Patten will be more popular with money spending tourists. This movie will provide a considerable boost to the ailing local economy of Patten, Maine.

Fin and Marty sold Katahdin Lodge years ago. I have had some contact with the new owners. They may very well be willing to allow the Lodge to be used during the filming of this movie. And that place has plenty of room for a large film crew to stay there in comfort. And that crew's free time outdoors activates potentials are simply awesome there. Yeah!!

I will not compromise on the quality of anything that this movie needs for it to be well written, beautifully filmed, entertaining, exciting, memorable, popular with audiences for generations to come, financially successful and a credit to the good folks up in Maine. If you are not interested in working in accordance to those standards, do not contact me.

This story equates to my life's savings. I need the money that I will earn from it as soon as possible. If you are not prepared to aid me in gaining immediate financial wealth and security and if you do not expect me to earn every penny of it as a member of the film production team, then I do hope that when this film is released you will enjoy going to see it even more because you read this today.

You have no idea how pleased and grateful I will be if this film project leads to me getting off of disability pension. I may never be able to work on any more movies after this one, but the money that I will make off of this one will save my life and change it for the better. I will then possess the funds that I desperately need to properly furnish, equip and adapt a photography and writing office so that everything about it prevents and relieves my constant spinal discomfort. I can make regular visits to physical therapists. I can finally go to a Chiropractor and also to afford therapeutic massages. I can hire helpers and personal aides. And I do believe that my depression will subside and quit dog'n me so severely, after all of these positive changes come into my life.


{End of Section 3 of this 4-part document. Please continue on to Section 3, of Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie, in the blog post below this one, the previous post. It'll be well worth your time--I swear to it! READ ON! }


{This is Section 4 of a 4-part document that is read from the top of this blog down--from the latest Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie blog post down through the older ones; just the opposite from how blogs are normally read. I guarantee that this well written document is full of interesting, entertaining, and even shocking snippets---all the way through. I do believe that you'll enjoy this. read on! }


The following was added on September 25, 2007 at 3:56 AM


I am bankrupt in just about everyway possible. Each month, I rely on local food banks to survive. I no longer possess camera equipment. I need to have my personally done, custom hand printed photographs professionally matted, mounted and framed. They cannot be displayed in a gallery without that. In 2002, I had to turn down one offer for a personal showing at a local gallery, and there would be other's who would be pleased to have my work displayed on their walls. I have several hundred unused negatives to work with, which, to an old pro like me, means that there are a couple of dozen portfolio quality photos waiting there for me to print. I have so many more photographs planned out that I want to take that it's nearly killing me not being able to. Everyday, I miss great opportunities for doing more outstanding photography. I need top of the line, professional computer equipment and software. I already have displayed, on the World Wide Web, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am talented and I am self-driven towards hard work and success. It takes money to make money. Once I begin receiving profits from this film project, I will be able to work harder everyday.

I also need the monies owed to me by my aunt and uncle, and the monies from my long overdue military service connected disability rating.

I have done everything that I am supposed to do in order to prove the facts about what happened to me up in Maine, and also what it was that happened to me in the US Army on Okinawa. And, yet, another poor excuse for a Veterans Administration doctor, Dr. Jacob (Jackass) Tendler, has declared that all I say about my service on Okinawa is lies. My Aunt Martha and Uncle Finley have always declared that I am thoroughly lying about what happened between us in Maine, and the Army and the Veteran's Administration have refused to believe anything that I say about my being illegally assigned as an official photographer for the 30th Artillery Brigade. Finley is dead, and Martha is dying fast. I say that a large chunk of the sizable Finley Kenneth Clarke estate, that Fin left to Marty, and that Marty is keeping from my side of the family, is mine. The United States Army owes me an apology, and the Veterans Administration owes me a lot of money. Because of those two devastating losses, I live a miserable life.

The money from either one of those debts owed to me could get me what I need to recover the other. The money from the movie would allot me the working capital to take care of both problems.

I have located two 30th Arty Bgde veterans who are witnesses, reluctant witnesses, who can testify that when I was working as an Army photographer on Okinawa, I could neither order equipment nor supplies, that there was no slot for a photographer in the 30th, so I could never advance in rank, and that the photo lab had indeed been illegally and immorally set up in a nuclear fallout emergency decontamination chamber. They are each written about on my blog, 30th Artillery Brigade Okinawa 1970-71. And they know it. They are T. Gordon Barber and Jim Whitcomb. I found Whitcomb through an Internet search for 30th Arty Bgde photographers, and Barber found me through my web published 30th Arty writings and emailed me. I have exchanged emails with Barber, and one time I talked to Jim, on the phone, for over an hour last year. Since then, I have emailed each of them several times, but they do not reply. While on the phone to Jim Whitcomb, he verified to me that he remembers well that all that I say and write about concerning these military matters is true. At the time of that phone conversation, he had no idea what it has meant to my empty life, my lost family, my long gone friends, and me. Both of those witnesses do know it now, but they are not cooperating.

The money owed to me from Fin and Marty is enough for me to do what I legally need to do in order to take care of unresolved military/Veterans Administration related issues. Had the monies owed to me by the Veterans Administration come, when I had proven my service connected disability case to them, it would have been enough and in time for me to have gone to Maine, while my uncle was still living, and remedied the situation with Fin and Marty.

Monies from this movie project will be enough for me to take care of both of those long-term problems.

I have been working on this synopsis for eight days straight, during most of my waking hours. And when I am trying to go to sleep I have to sit up now and then to write down notes of what I just thought about to write out on the computer in the morning. This started out as, "Ten Reasons Why My Northern Maine Adventures Will Make A Great Movie." Now it has a life of its own, and it keeps growing.

Yesterday evening, I was walking up to the shopping center, which is two blocks away from my home, to buy a sandwich, when I heard what sounded like a gun being fired from around the corner of the large building that I was walking next to, on the sidewalk. Then two 13 to 14 year old boys, on one small bicycle, came rolling by from behind me there on the street, and they slowly moved past me. I heard another gunfire-like popping sound and turned around to see another 13 to 14 year old boy on a bike slowly rolling towards my way. I was getting a little scared, but hoping that the pistol popping type of sounds that I was hearing coming from behind, and now also to the far side of that third kid, were from some of those little Snappers that kids throw against the pavement to explode. I was actually afraid to turn back around and look to see if I could see what I did not want to see—a pistol in the third kid's hand. The first two kids slowed down, and one said to the third kid, "Give that guy some. Hey, give that guy some." As the kid spoke those words, he was grinning like the smartass little piece of crap that he turned out to be, and he was pointing his finger at me. I was the only other person out on that side street. As the third kid came up next to me there, about thirty feet away, he pointed a pistol at me, from his waist level, where the gun was being held slightly hidden under his overhanging shirttail. I heard a pop and saw this little puff of white smoke blow out the end of the pistol barrel, right towards my midsection.

I immediately looked down all over at my body to see where I had been shot. I become overwhelmed with an instant, terrifying rush of fear. I also instantly expected my fatally injured body to begin crumbling down onto the pavement, and begin dying. Fortunately, I only thought that I had just been shot and murdered. I don't know whether it was a real pistol that was loaded with blanks, or a loud CO2 pistol, but it made me believe for the longest short eternity that I have ever lived through that I had been murdered.

When I was serving in the US Army, on Okinawa, an Army buddy of mine, a Vietnam combat veteran who had only been out of Vietnam and on Okinawa for a short time, told a group of us guys who were drinking a case of beer together with him, "If you're ever in combat, or if anybody ever shoots at you, back home, always check yourself over real quick to see if you've been hit. I always do, because you don't always feel it when you get hit. Sometimes it burns and hurts like hell, other times you don't feel a thing. Always check yourself for wounds."

When that punk, in Dundalk Shopping Center, pulled that trigger, if he'd a had that gahdamned gun crammed right up in close to my midsection, I would have had no way of realizing that I was not actually being shot. When I saw the end of that gun barrel pointed right at the very vulnerable center mass of my body, had that kid with the gun been close enough for me to have reached out and grabbed him, I would have had no other reasonable choice but to hurt him badly. I know a little about self-defensive movements, just a little, but enough to have had him, or even a much larger aggressor, on the ground and disabled in an instant. Had he wheeled over closer to me, or had he been on foot and had walked right up to me, and pointed that pistol and popped off that round of lead free air in towards my gut, I would not have had the time to realize that I had not been shot before I would have taken the initiative to prevent him pulling that trigger again. In order to prevent him from pulling the trigger more times, I literally could have been forced to seriously injure him, and to quite possibly severely maim him for the rest of his life, in self-defense. Now how in the hell was I supposed to deal with the knowledge that I had been forced to critically injure a kid?

Had that incident with those three punks occurred in closer quarters, with the shooter so close to me that I could have grabbed a hold of him before I realized that there were no murderous bullets being fired into me, well now, we all best thank the Saint of Circumstance, that it had not gone down that way.

That crime against my person happened in Baltimore County, Maryland, and within about a 1/4 of a mile from the Baltimore City line. Baltimore! Ten times the national average murder rate. Baltimore, Maryland. Bodymore, Murderland!

I know that those kinds of punk kids who shot that gun at me have more and easier access to guns than most adults around here do. Just about everybody around here is aware of that!

Being shot at was terrifying! But there mere fact that a kid that age was in possession of a pistol was not that much of a surprise to me, at all. You can expect that here now. In and around Baltimore, you can rightly fear that you will encounter a punk kid with a pistol. Up until around five years ago, it wasn't that way in these Dundalk suburbs, but the neighborhood here has changed.

Two of those punks on bikes were white, and one was black; a white kid had the gun, and the other white boy was the one who sicked his sick little white buddy on me. Some of the kids around here emulate the inner city thug lifestyle, the thug ways of talking and walking, and the gangland/street-corner-drug-dealer clothing styles. The kid with the gun had an oversized shirt on, that is perfectly designed for concealing the shape of a gun that is stuffed down into a person's pants. These kids listen to thug music—music that worships violence. Thug mentality has spread like a social plague all throughout our local young people here, and is influencing them in all of the wrong ways, turning them into thugs, or just lame little thug wanna'bees.

Then add the violent video games, which these kids play, into the mix of bad influences. Then the violence in the movies that they watch, over and over again. They witness many acts of faked or real violent behavior on TV, everyday. Parental Guidance Warnings on video games, music CDs, recorded movies, and TV shows do no good for children whose parents provide little, to no, guidance to their offspring.

If you go to my blog, "Blue Skies Over Dundalk Maryland" you will see plenty of good and beautiful in my neighborhood. But I am an outdoorsman who needs plenty of deep forest near his home. I gotta get outa here.

So anyways, after I realized that I had not been shot, my terror was replaced with instant, overpowering rage. I flipped-the-fuck-out on them punks. I can't really run anymore, so I couldn't go after the little punk who had the fired gun. I can't afford to own a cell phone, to have called the police with. So all that I could do was to let loose with a loud, angry string of extremely furious cursing and swearing at those punks. Anytime that I walk anywhere near a group of those kinds of kids, they are liable to be talking like that too, and sometimes they have parents who talk like that to them, so don't give me any grief about it.

What'd ya' say? Did you just say that I am supposed to be the reasonable, decent acting, clear thinking adult here? Right? Screw you. I was too pissed off to think straight. You do understand that I believed, ever so briefly, but powerfully so, you do understand that, for over a full second, I had believed that one of them had just shot me with a gun and had possibly murdered me, and that they all three of them were thrilled to see it happen? Right!

Unfortunately, that act of emotional violence that they had committed against my person was probably only just a substantial part of the beginning for them three. They won't stop indulging into that senseless garbage until they are somehow made to, or they get put in prison or killed by the police because of it.

After that lead-free pistol shot rang out, as the three little thug wanna'bees slowly pedaled on, they were loudly laughing, grinning broadly, evilly, and yelling curse words at me all the way—with pure, self-satisfactory pleasure written all over them.

If I could have gotten my hands on that punk with the pistol, well, you can imagine what I would have done, and how it would have played out in a courtroom.

As I walked along the sidewalk cussing and screaming at the top of my lungs at those smiling and laughing little punks, I knew that, because I am so deeply sunk down into poverty, that I have no money to defend myself in court with. I usually don't even have the money for taxi fare to the county court house.

I can't take this any longer.

I went on up the street and bought my sandwich. But instead of eating it in the café there as I had planned, I was still raging inside, far too intently, so I took my food home to eat it. I thought that I might be having a heart attack or a stroke, so I looked up the symptoms for each, on the Internet. All that I could think off was that the discomfort was only from stress, and would subside without killing me. I was more fearful of calling the Ambulance, and then later on having to take a bus home at 3AM, than I was of dying at home last night. A Baltimore bus at 3AM? Screw that. I don't have any money for a taxi. If I wasn't having a heart attack or a stroke, I don't have anyone whom I could have called, in the middle of the night, to come get me from the hospital. I couldn't deal with going out of my house to go be in the hospital, either. I couldn't stand the thought of being in the hospital over night, so that tests could be done on me. I chose to stay here and whatever was going to happen was going to happen.

Now I have to worry that every time that I am walking around outside in my neighborhood here, those punks will come rolling on by me again, or walk up to me, then begin to belligerently and mercilessly harass me, come real close to me, threaten to physically assault me, and I will get my hands on them. It is very difficult for a person not to always feel some residual anger towards their once perceived, cold-blooded murderers. For as long as any victim of a once perceived murder lives, they will most likely retain some of the resulting, raging anger that an assault like that instills in a person. Mine sure as hell hasn't subsided very much. Though I only felt those horribly intense, gut-smashing feelings of being murdered for a second or so, the anger at my attackers remains.

Those three boys are punks with piss-ass parents who don't raise them right. Parents who are probably used to trouble; they probably are trouble themselves; and they may be used going to court, every few years or so. They may very well be family neglecting, abusive drug addicts and/or drunks. And them three boys have plenty of punk-ass friends who would all cop the attitude that those three little idiots were just playing around, and that I did not actually get shot, so what's the problem? They can do what they want to whomever they want to. They're bad-asses. But if I booted them three punks' butts around some, they would be portrayed in court, and in the media, as innocent, harmless little children. (He's a good kid, would do anything to help anybody, he was just playin' around. He didn't do anything bad to that big, mean old man.) If I see them again, they will harass me. If I ever encounter them within a larger group of teenagers together, they will jump me. During the past couple of years, there have been several older men jumped, by punks like them, up in our small, local parks here. Those little felons have no respect for anyone else, at all.

Last night, I lost all patience with the rest of the world. No, my patience had been worn down to next to nothing; then those three little punks destroyed the rest of it

My life is a mess. My home is the kind of a jumbled up mess inside that I never imagined it could be. Due to degenerative back disease, I can't hardly bend down to pick up stuff off the floor, and I can't clean up around here as well as I used to. The depression has also painfully restricted my daily activities. Physical and emotional pain has nearly ruined my life. To top it all of with, the telephone company has a very loud, piercing signal they send out to people who dial a number wrong, in a certain way, and that screaming damned signal pushed my Tinitus right up past tolerable, but my primary care Veterans Administration doctor refused to send me to a hearing loss specialist. The ringing in my ears is LOUD.

For the past decade or so, I have been gathering up items such as tools and other home-fix-it-shop supplies, from the many dumpster dived garage cleanouts that I run into. I have antiques and collectables and plenty of other goodies from dumpster diving; including a Skunk fur jacket, in perfect shape, that I want to sell. I have numerous items for using around the nice sized, single home that I was going to purchase and move into, when my service connected disability checks and the money that Fin and Marty owe me came in. But for now, this stuff that is intended for use in that larger home is piled up all around me—in this smaller sized, low rent townhouse. And I can't take the losses of getting rid of it. I worked as hard as I could to get this stuff. I could stock a nice sized booth at an antiques mall with what I have here, and still keep a few tools and antiques and collectables for myself. I don't have the working capital and the rest of the where-with-all to be able to stock that antique mall both, or to sell some of it on EBAY. This is frustrating and demoralizing.

In the past few years, I have had to pay to have several of my teeth pulled. And there is another tooth that is going to need to be removed, sometime soon. Two years ago, I was ripped off badly by an auto mechanic, so my little truck broke down again, and I could not afford any more money to fix it. I contacted the proper authorities about it, but they did nothing to help me resolve the issue. Then they said I have to sue the crooked mechanic. That truck was then sold for a measly $50. Without that truck, I had no reliable way to get to court for any lawsuit that I could have brought against that mechanic. Due to the costs of the dental work and the mechanical work, I had to pawn my camera gear to survive. Since then, I have never gotten that well earned, much deserved break from my poverty that I have been struggling steadily for, ever since 1998. I have never given up hope for being paid for some of my photographic or written work. So I kept paying monthly pawnshop interest rates, until I could no longer do that, and I lost my camera gear. Now to pay for that next tooth extraction, I expect to loose my stereo equipment. And I cannot replace my reading glasses or anything else of any value—like my TV set—that gets lost, gets stolen, is broken, or stops working. My computer is scrapped together from dumpster dived and donated parts, it is old and barely makes it on this Internet.

If I do not take care of this well stated Maine, and also the military/Veterans Administration business within a very short period of time, I can't survive. Because surviving without collecting those two debts owed to me, or without selling my story and turning it into a good movie, means selling off almost everything that I own.

Then what?

An empty heart, barely beating inside of a worn down, constantly pained body, a heart surrounded by an ailing soul that is fiercely struggling to survive, that is inside of a person who dwells in a nearly lifeless home. A person who is wracked with tremendous anger aimed at their debtors—anger eating away at their insides. That nearly empty person receives harassing daily phone calls from the entities that they owe money to. How can I pay my debts if I can't collect the ones owed to me? Hardly anyone else besides a few entities I owe money to call me on the phone, and it rings several times a day. Good thing I was given a used phone with an answering machine to screen my calls. I only talk on the phone an average of 2 or 3 times a week, and usually for very short lengths of time. But the worst part of this bummer here is that as a 100% disabled person living on a tiny pension, I am supposed to be relieved of my largest debt, federally backed college loans. But those debt collectors did not accept, as true and legal, the information on the form that my Veterans Administration doctor filled out and signed for them, the form that declares me to be 100% disabled for life. For some reason, one friggin' asswipe US Government agency does not accept the legal word of another.

I am stuck here in this small, messy home, without benefit of the protections of many of my rights, here in this grossly limited, lousy life, with no hope for the future, outside of the hope that this future movie project allots to me. And with no way to go where the movie makers are, to be able to approach them with the full, detailed information about this project, that is presented here within this synopsis.

How long could you last like that?


If you have not yet gone over to the site that has the set of great photographs about my Maine adventures on it, then now is the time do so. These photos will definitely aid you in visualizing this future movie.

All of this together, all that is written in this synopsis here, the stories, the photographs, and the other blogs of mine that are published on the World Wide Web, all provides you with more than enough to convince you that this will be made into a good movie someday. If it does not convince you, then you are not right for this project. In that case, I do hope that you got something good out of reading this. It was my pleasure.

Thank you for reading this. I hope that you at least found it to be thoroughly entertaining.


{End of section 4 of a 4-part document. If you didn't start reading this document at its beginning, please go to Section 1 / Northern Maine Adventures / The Movie from there. It'll be well worth your time--I swear to it! }