Digging his way out

Published in the Current

SCARBOROUGH (Feb 17, 2005): Deen Kirchner wanted some company this winter. The Scarborough 12-year-old has "adopted" a fire hydrant for each of the past three winters, and wants everyone in town to do the same.

After big snowstorms, Kirchner shovels snow away from the fire hydrant across the street from his house, which helps firefighters respond more quickly to emergencies.
It takes firefighters about 45 seconds to hook up a hose to a hydrant, Kirchner said. But if they have to dig the hydrant out from under the snow, it can take as long as two minutes -- an eternity for someone whose house is on fire, or who is trapped inside.

Just down the street is another hydrant that regularly gets buried by storms and plows.

"I tried to convince my friend Eric," who lives down the street, to adopt that one, Kirchner said. But it didn't work, so Kirchner is thinking about adopting it as well.

He has encouraged other family members to help him out with "his" hydrant, and after last week's big storm, he got a neighbor to come by with a pickup and a plow to clear away the big mess around the hydrant.

Kirchner, now in sixth grade, started three years ago, after his mother heard about an "adopt-a-hydrant" program in South Portland, where residents were asked to take a few extra minutes while clearing their walks and driveways, to dig out hydrants as well.

"There's not really anything else for kids to volunteer," Kirchner said. A lot of local non-profits are happy to have young people volunteer, but require them to be 13 or older.

"I want to help," Kirchner said.

He also carefully removes any ice from around the fixtures. He said it takes about 20 minutes for him to fix up the hydrant, though he is a fastidious worker and checks back regularly to ensure that warm temperatures and passing vehicles haven't conspired to cover any portion of the hydrant.

He has even brought a degree of engineering to the task. He knows which direction the town plow usually comes from, and keeps that side clearer. That way, the snowplow dumps its load of snow before the hydrant and doesn't cover the hydrant itself.

He keeps an eye on the weather, so he knows when his work will be needed. "When I wake up, I look outside," Kirchner said.

He eats his breakfast in front of the local TV news. And when a big storm is on the way, he makes sure his tools are ready, except this last time.

He forgot to put his shovel upright in a tall snowbank, and after the storm, had to spend 10 minutes looking for it. He eventually found it on the ground, "under all the snow," near the grill.

He also knows how to handle his workload. "When I'd get tired, I'd build a couch" to sit on and rest.

Burst pipes flood Ruth’s, damaging stuff

Published in the Current

SCARBOROUGH (Feb 2, 2005): A non-profit school supply group in Scarborough, Ruth's Reusable Resources, is looking for donations and volunteers after pipes burst flooding the Bessey School, the group's home.

Two pipes burst in the building in the frigid weather over the weekend. The water was not discovered until Tuesday morning. Ruth Libby, the head of the organization, is looking for volunteers to help sort through the debris and donations of money and space to move supplies to.

"It's still pretty wet," Ruth Libby said Tuesday afternoon, as the recovery effort began. Some volunteers have told Libby they will come by after school in the coming days.

Several rooms throughout the old school building are stacked high with paper, books, arts and crafts materials and other school supplies donated by local companies and available for schoolteachers to collect at no charge.

School districts pay $1.50 per student per year for membership in Ruth's. A single teacher can take as much as $300 worth of items in one visit.

"There's enough stuff thrown away daily in this whole state to take care of pretty much every school district," she said. She also has nine 18-wheel trailers filled with items, some filled as many as eight years ago.

The damage is "depressing," Libby said. The building is old and hasn't received much maintenance in recent years. "We're past the spot where this building is feasible."

She has begun a fund-raising effort and is seeking donors of money and space for the items to move. Donations are coming in, though slowly, and warehouse space is hard to find. Those wishing to donate should call 883-8407.

For the moment, she will stay in the Bessey School, where several storage rooms were flooded, some with several inches of water. "It just looked like a waterfall," Libby said workers who found the damage told her.

"A lot of the good computers that we had in there are wet" as are mounds of paper and other supplies that would have been available at no charge to employees of school districts that are members of the Ruth's group.

"Now we have to throw it away," she said, though she is trying to find a way to salvage as much as possible.

There are huge rolls of felt sitting on the floor of what used to be the school gym. Only the bottom couple of inches are wet. "I will figure out a way to cut it, if I have to unroll the whole roll to do it," she said Wednesday.

Some areas of the floor were still wet Wednesday, and Libby was waiting for a Dumpster to be delivered so she could begin clearing things out.

Many of the supplies are stacked in piles, meaning most of the supplies are still dry. But those have to be moved before the wet things on the bottom of the piles can be thrown away.

Several large rooms have water damage, and some rugs may have to be removed, Libby said. That would require moving everything out of the rooms.

She is asking for volunteers to help moving and sorting items. By press time Wednesday, she was not sure when would be the best time for volunteers to come, and suggested people call the office (883-8407) to offer to help.

The flood is the second in Ruth's history. The first, about seven years ago, was the result of roof repairs that let in a deluge from a rainstorm.

That time, she had to throw out more stuff, because most of it was stored directly on the floor. After that flood, she stored many items on wooden pallets or shelves, lifting them at least a couple inches off the ground.

Buxton woman maintains labyrinth

Published in the American Journal

A Buxton woman is creating a peaceful refuge off Joy Valley Road, including a couple of stone circles and a labyrinth, for meditative walking.

Françoise Paradis built her labyrinth, 60 feet in diameter, out of local sand and stones three years ago, when she moved to town from Presque Isle.

“I moved here because I found this place,” she said. Her home, where she also runs a psychotherapy practice, is in a secluded spot surrounded by trees and grass.

“I have all this lawn, that just called for a labyrinth,” which she had been working with for years to help patients.

Labyrinths date back to ancient times, and are often traced to Crete, though most are not like the labyrinth that trapped the mythical Minotaur, which was a series of winding passages hard to find your way out of.

Before the Crusades, wealthy Europeans went on pilgrimages to the Holy Land. During the 12th century, the Crusades made roads too dangerous to travel. Some cathedrals were declared “pilgrimage cathedrals,” where people could visit and make symbolic journeys by walking a labyrinth. One of those was at Chartres in France.

Labyrinths, like the one at Chartres, on which Paradis’s is based, are not mazes, but rather single paths with multiple turns between the entrance and a destination spot in the center.

In modern times, they are used for spiritual or reflective purposes in many faiths, and not solely as surrogates for Catholics’ journeys to Jerusalem.

They can be used as part of walking meditation, or as a way to spend some prayerful or reflective time.

“The walk in is kind of a metaphor for your life,” Paradis said. The center is a place where realization and enlightenment can be found, while the walk out is a time to integrate the new realizations into your life.

Labyrinths exist all over the world, in various forms, including labyrinth-like designs made by native people in the Americas and Africa.

Paradis, who learned about labyrinths from a friend in northern Maine, had typically used seven-turn labyrinths, based on the Cretan design. “I had never done a Chartres labyrinth” before moving to Buxton, she said. Now, she uses a 13-turn path based on a design at the Chartres Cathedral.

She uses what she calls a “soul-directed approach,” in which she encourages her patients to understand what their souls want to do.

“When our life is aligned with our soul’s purpose, or our soul’s journey, we’re happy,” she said.

Paradis took a similar approach with the labyrinth. Having felt that the space was asking for one, she followed what she felt. “It’s like it guides you,” she said. “You’re not the one that is in control.” She determined the location of the entrance and the positions of stones in the center, and laid out a 60-foot circle by using a dowsing rod and a dowsing pendulum.

Dowsing, most commonly known as a way of seeking underground water, has also taken on a spiritual significance for some, who believe it can be used to determine energy lines in the Earth, or even in the human body.

“A whole bunch of synchronicities happened” during the construction. The man who dug a hole, to be filled with sand for the base of the labyrinth, recommended a landscape architect who lives nearby.

During the early work, Paradis went away to a dowsing conference and attended a workshop on stone circles. When she returned home, the architect was in the middle of laying out a stone circle, having chosen the plan on her own.

The excavator also owned a gravel pit, and delivered a load of stone, which Paradis used to mark the outside of the labyrinth. She went over to the pit and chose stones to line the paths. “I thought it would take me three or four years to collect rocks,” but it was done in a few weekends of work.

Mostly, the labyrinth is used by her patients, either as a way to relax and focus before a therapy session, or during a session, “when they’re stuck” on an issue or need to make an important decision. At those times, Paradis will have her patients walk the labyrinth with a particular intention, and seek inspiration and guidance during the walk.

But other people find Paradis’s Web site, www.HiddenSprings.info, which is
named after her property. And four or five times a year, they call up to make an appointment to walk it, or ask about retreats Paradis offers.

She has room for eight people to stay, and is working on renovating a barn to allow more lodging.

Most of her retreats are for her patients, though occasionally other groups will be a good fit for her work. She also opens the labyrinth to the public around the summer solstice. Without an appointment, the labyrinth is closed to the public, to protect her patients’ confidentiality.

Her therapy clients have different reactions to the labyrinth. Some walk it once and don’t ever do it again, while others have transforming experiences.

“It takes so long to go through that your mind just goes quiet,” Paradis said. “Once you’re in the path, if you’re going to continue in the path,” you have to focus. Many people are “amazed at how quieting it is.”

Gorman asks Law Court to reconsider

Published in the Current and the American Journal

The lawyer for convicted murderer Jeffery Gorman says the Maine Supreme Court made a mistake when it upheld Gorman’s conviction, and will ask the court to reconsider. He may also ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.

Last week, the Maine Supreme Court unanimously upheld Gorman’s conviction for the murder of Amy St. Laurent after a night out in the Old Port in October 2001. In 2003, Gorman was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the crime.

Gorman initially asked the Law Court to reverse his conviction, saying the prosecution’s key evidence should not have been heard by the jury. That evidence was a tape recording of testimony given by Gorman’s mother, Tammy Westbrook, to a Cumberland County grand jury.

Westbrook told the grand jury that Gorman called her Dec. 9, 2001, the day after St. Laurent’s body was found buried in a wooded area off Route 22 in Scarborough.

In that conversation, Westbrook said, Gorman confessed to the crime, and told his mother something nobody but the killer knew: St. Laurent had been shot once in the head.

During the trial, Westbrook testified she had no recollection of speaking to a grand jury, and no memory of any conversation with her son about St. Laurent. She also testified that she was receiving psychiatric treatment for delusions and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The prosecution argued an audio tape recording of Westbrook’s grand jury testimony should be presented as evidence during the trial. Superior Court Judge Nancy Mills agreed.

The evidence figured strongly in the prosecution’s case against Gorman, and jurors in the criminal trial asked to see a transcript of the recording during their deliberations. That was not permitted, but they were allowed to hear the tape played again.

After five hours of deliberation, the jury unanimously convicted Gorman of the murder.

Gorman appealed the conviction, claiming that the tape should not have been played because Westbrook could not be cross-examined about the statements she made in the recording.

The right to cross-examine witnesses is guaranteed in the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Westbrook could not be effectively cross-examined because she did not recall making the statements, or any discussions regarding the case, said Christopher MacLean, an attorney who represented Gorman during the appeal.

In a February interview, MacLean said there might have been enough evidence to convict Gorman of manslaughter, but not murder.

Asking for reconsideration Monday, MacLean reacted to the judgment of the Law Court, which upheld the admission of Westbrook’s recorded grand jury testimony, the murder conviction and the 60-year prison sentence.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. MacLean will ask the court to reconsider its decision, “focusing on the fact that the Maine Law Court really didn’t deal with the problem” of what is and is not admissible testimony.

The appeal process was halted earlier this year when a U.S. Supreme Court decision clarified some aspects of admitting recorded testimony into evidence. Lawyers for Gorman and the Attorney General’s Office updated their arguments before the Maine Supreme Court in light of that ruling.

But in its written decision last week, the Maine judges did not address the issue fully, MacLean said. The new decision demanded that “cross examination really take place,” he said. At Gorman’s trial, “clearly there was no cross-examination on the subject matter” of Westbrook’s testimony.

The Law Court could deny the request or ask for MacLean and the Attorney General’s Office to submit new arguments, either in writing or orally.

Taking the case to Washington
MacLean also said he would discuss with Gorman an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We haven’t made any firm and final decisions in that regard,” MacLean said. He had not yet talked to Gorman, though he had left a phone message at the Maine State Prison and had mailed Gorman a copy of the Maine Supreme Court’s ruling.

“I’m very interested in getting this before the U.S. Supreme Court,” MacLean said. He assumes Gorman will approve the move, which MacLean admitted is “a bit of a long shot.”

A case appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court is not automatically taken up by the country’s highest judges. Instead, lawyers must ask the court to review the case, a request the judges can either accept or deny.

“Who knows whether they would take a case like this,” MacLean said. “The vast majority of requests to the U.S. Supreme Court are denied.”

MacLean, who has never before asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case, and has never handled a case before the court, said he believes the court may take the case because it has “public policy” implications, particularly for
domestic violence cases, in which witnesses make statements to police and later claim they cannot remember what they said.

If statements recorded earlier but later disclaimed by witnesses are still admissible, “I shudder to think” of what could happen in large numbers of cases across the country, MacLean said.

A ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court would clarify the rules regarding that type of testimony, even if the justices affirmed the decision of the Maine judges.

Editorial: Covering suicide

Published in the Current

When I spoke to Tim Thompson, father of Timothy L. Thompson II, Tuesday morning, he expressed his hope that "something good" comes of his son's suicide. Several times, he urged me to "be sensitive," saying the community needs togetherness and healing. He also told me that he did not want the issue of suicide "swept under the rug."

In my Page 1 article, I have tried to respond to the community's very public grief, and to provide the assistance a newspaper can: information, context and resources.

The numbers are chilling: 1 in 11 Maine high school students attempt suicide each year. And 1 in 5 of them have seriously considered it. Also, according to Ingraham, 58,000 Mainers call the crisis hotline at 774-HELP every year.

That demonstrates a powerful need. Parents and teachers of young people need to watch for signs of depression and suicidal leanings in every child. Friends need to keep a close watch on each other. Mental-health workers and agencies need to get anti-suicide programs deeper into our schools. A crisis hotline, though an important start, is not enough.

Suicide is something that society at large has typically not addressed directly. Newspapers, as a part of and mirror of society, have followed that lead. But this issue is important, and should not be ignored.

It is heartening that members of the Cape Elizabeth community are joining together to grieve. That may turn, in time, into action.

The decision to cover - and how to cover - Thompson's suicide has been the most difficult of my 10-year career in community journalism.

Initially, my reaction was not to cover it at all, to let the family and friends grieve in private. But when a community grieves, we at the newspaper grieve with you. One way we do that is by telling stories and sharing information.

During my conversations with media ethicists, friends, colleagues, mentors and others - including members of the Thompson family, other Cape residents and mental-health experts - I came to the conclusion that the issue, and this incident as an example of it, is too important to turn our backs on.

Suicide is an important issue in our society, but it is a topic newspapers have traditionally handled poorly.

While older studies created concern that media coverage could lead to additional suicides, more recent studies have shown sensitive and educational news coverage can help teach people about suicide, and may even help reduce risk.

Without news coverage, "the consequence for the community is that a very important issue is not discussed," said Kelly McBridge, an ethicist at the Poynter Institute, a research and education organization for journalists.

In writing the story, I tried to avoid elements that research indicates could have negative effects, and remained sensitive to the concerns of the family and the community.

Please let me know what you think.