Hard Core XXX - read on!

There's a tiny ferry dock (with a waiting room hut) on Cousin's Island near Yarmouth, Maine.




This is the official looking boarding gate.



And motoring in the bay close by, I noticed 2 men on a barge working with the mooring buoys and their long underwater chains that keep them anchored.



After he got off the barge, I asked Bill Reagan about the work. I didn't expect the scientific explanation he gave me about the preservation of the equipment and their interactions with the corrosive salty sea water.

Bill (Yale educated) told me until the past few years, he's been a prep school biology teacher (as well as his wife). Now he works for a marine company and also does TV ads (The Crocodile Man) for the local NBC station.

When I mentioned Ron from Rockland, Maine (WRFR FM radio/environmental report) who I met a few weeks ago (see a previous Nov. 19th blog entry here), Bill started laughing and told me his own WRFR FM radio station story . . . that the man who started that small local station way back in the 1970's, became a local icon who had an amazing talent for turning on the local lobster fishermen to . . . -guess again- . . . classical music. Bill added, "You know, not that elevator stuff - but the real deal".

Long before NPR ever offered classical music in the area, WRFR was unfortunately bought out by larger forces and the locals (including the fishermen) were horribly saddened to lose that bit of culture they had grown to appreciate - plus the esteemed, intellectual DJ/station founder who made it all possible.

Well, during the purchase and take over, Bill Reagan (a student at the time) working as a plumber with others, was hired to fix things at the radio station. One job needed to be done through a back closet and as Bill opened the old jammed door - completely packed, floor to ceiling stacks of XXXX hard core porn of all types came tumbling down . . . spilling smut over everything and everyone!

Kids they were then - with WIDE eyes and they couldn't stop laughing as they looked - as the very prim and proper Mr. Classical DJ was - yes . . . of course . . . out of *that* closet now!

Eye Catching Buoys of Sorrento, Maine

I saw the unusual Christmas colors of these lobster buoys and wondered about them.

Fortunately the lobster fisherman who owned them was nearby. He told me he's had those colors since he was 3 years old - that his dad (also a lobster fisherman) registered those colors for him - telling him, "As soon as you can be on my boat without wetting your pants, you can have your own colors".

He added, "My poor parents - it took a good year longer to potty train my sister, because she wasn't interested in boats, lobsters or buoys".

Ron from Rockland, Maine

We've been wandering the working lobster docks along the coast of Maine since we first drove in from New Hampshire 11 days ago.

Many of the docks are old, smelly, strangely quiet and piled high with unused lobster traps.

Today we met Ron, the first person we've seen on the docks in days. Ron told us he has a weekly radio show on WRFR/93.3fm out of Rockland, called: 'The Penobscot Bay Report'.


Every Thursday he reports on environmental issues. Today he said he was just "Checking on the lobster business" - one that has been recently so affected by the slow economy and a glut of cheap lobster available from Canada.

Before the wind blew too hard and the air got too frigid, Ron answered many of our questions - that lobster fishermen can earn upwards of $200,000 . . . that cams lowered into the water have recently revealed the lobsters climb freely in and out of those rusty cages, they don't actually get trapped by the funnel shaped holes . . . that the local herring (lobster bait) is being fished out and could soon cause serious problems for the Maine lobster business . . . and that the Australians tested using strips of cow hide for bait but their main market, the Japanese gourmet, didn't like slicing open their freshly boiled lobster for dinner and finding fuzzy chunks of cow hide inside that lobsters can't digest.

The Rooster of Lordsburg, NM

On a very desolate stretch of I-10 just east of the Arizona border is Lordsburg, New Mexico. With nothing but dry desert as far as one can see, there's a small NM Vistor Center huddled by the side of the freeway.

A pet exercise area is offered with two signs next to the parking lot. A third sign but a few feet away warns, "Beware of Rattlesnakes".

Gordon is a volunteer at the visitor center and has been protecting and guarding Harvey the rooster for a year now since he was abandoned in the parking lot, left behind when a RV drove off without him.

Gordon offers lots of stories about Harvey to anyone who will listen . . . how Harvey was nearly dead he was so starved . . . how Harvey eats a special mix of food that Gordon buys for him each week . . . how Harvey can be coaxed out of the bushes for visitors who want to take his photo.