To the Editor:
Growing up in our beloved Lincoln County, I enjoyed the small-town atmosphere, the warm friendliness of our people, and the willingness to go out of one’s way to help a neighbor that so typifies what a “State of Mainer” is.
In the manner of our much-admired former Sheriff Bill Carter, Todd Brackett and Lt. Mike Murphy have maintained that tradition of “going the extra mile” to help a fellow citizen. This letter to the editor is to thank them for that.
My roots in the county run deep. Many of you reading this remember my father, Judge Paul MacDonald, who passed away in 2006.
I wonder what he would have thought of a deadbeat con-man from New Harbor who tried to cheat his son after a “hand-shake” deal that apparently this liar never intended to honor in the first place.
Five rare 90-minute tapes of World War II radio broadcasts I produced in a documentary during the 1990s, when I was a correspondent with United Press International, were swapped by me in exchange for several volumes of old Maine newspapers.
Having purchased three of the bound volumes myself from a dealer at the Montsweag Flea Market, I entrusted their shipment, along with several others, to me out here at my retirement home in Arizona by the self-proclaimed former Hell’s Angel who played on my sympathies for disabled veterans, of which I happen to be one. I was a US Army combat correspondent in Vietnam (1966 – 1969).
This verbal agreement I mention to you was made last summer in Maine.
As the months went by, this dishonest individual who deceived me, came up with one excuse after the other as to why he couldn’t (actually wouldn’t) send me the promised volumes, including my own property that I’d already bought and paid for!
Finally, a few weeks ago, I got past his voice mail – he was ignoring my calls – and managed to catch this person home and answering his telephone.
He laughed mockingly when I once again asked him “when” he was going to keep his end of the agreement and ship me the bound volumes. Disgusted with his evasiveness, I asked flat out: “Are you trying to rip me off?”
“Goodbye, (expletive deleted),” was his crude reply, and he hung up the phone.
Not knowing if he would come to my aid, as I no longer live in my native Lincoln County, I phoned Sheriff Brackett and asked for his assistance.
I am pleased to tell you that he and Lt. Murphy lost no time in paying a visit to the deadbeat and peacefully recovered my personal property.
For that, and going out of their way to help me, I am very appreciative.
I was happy to pay my old friend Tony Gatti of Wiscasset to ship the volumes out to me.
The spirit of “helping one another” lives on in Lincoln County. Maybe that’s why, whenever I am in Newcastle or New York, Portland or Phnom Penh, I will always love my State of Maine most of all.
Maj. Glenn MacDonald, USAR (Ret), Chandler, Arizona
[Ed. note: Glenn MacDonald began his journalism career here on The Lincoln County News 40 years ago, and is now the editor-in-chief of MilitaryCorruption.com.]
