Vincent L. Dowling

In 1934-44 1 found the ASTP @ SUI to be a great interlude from the US Army's "call-to-arms". When n the ASTP folded I was returned to the Air Force at Truax Field in Madison, Wis. They decided that I needed more education so for another year they schooled me in radio and radar mechanics at Truax Field; at Chanute Field, ILL and at Boca Raton in Florida. Early in 1945 it came time to go overseas which turned out to be the Philippines, Okinawa and finally Japan. With enough points to go home, the army found an X-ray spec# in my records and declared me "essential" for an extra 3 months.

Following discharge I returned to my home state of Maine, married a former classmate and attended the U of Maine long enough to get a BSEE. I accepted an engineering assignment with a Conn. utility company in Stamford, CT which merged and merged and finally became Northeast Utilities. For the next 12 years I was the Regional Supt. of the Hartford area. We had moved several times within the state, raised a family of four , and bought 4 houses with the assistance of the local banks.

With retirement on the horizon, we visited Florida and decided if hurricanes didn't get us the traffic would; we visited Alaska and decided the mixture of long days followed by long nites wouldn't be too good for retirees; California had earthquakes and fires; and the Carolinas were pretty dismal in the winter. We took a boat 1000 miles up the Amazon River and decided the Indians were better off doing their own thing without us trying to convert them.

So when we retired in 1984, we came back to Maine, built a house overlooking the water and settled down to helping some of our aging relatives (the bushes are full of them). The air is clear, the population is stable and most of the tourists leave after Labor Day. So people generally live to ripe old age in our town of 500. My mother lived to 92 , my father made it to 102 and my mother-in-law was 90 when she died. So we figure we have 25-30 years more to go and when our knees give out we'll sit on the deck and become members of the new breed up here -- The Harba Gawkas" -- and help the young folks with their genealogies --- who is going to argue with the memory of a 100 year old?

Meanwhile we keep pretty busy --all you have to do in a small town is say "yes" about twice and you find you are on the local school board, chairperson of the town budget committee, trustee of the local church and er of the planning board. And with an electrical background you may be replacing fuses for little old ladies or patrolling lines for the local power company. And my wife, an ex-school librarian, is essential in a number of areas from church historian to library aide to clerk of the ladies auxiliary.

Our eight grandchildren also help keep us on our toes even though they all live in southern New England. And up here the County Fair has priority over everything so if you want something done you better learn how to do it yourself or at least hold the ladder for your wife. If you do nail down a local handyman who will repair your roof on Wed. you better find out which Wed. he has in mind or you may have rain in your face. But we haven't had many hurricanes, the seasons change slowly (spring hardly even gets here) and if you get cabin fever about Feb., you can always run down to sunny Fla. for a couple weeks and get back before the last snow storm.