So long and thanks for all the fish!

From the December 15, 2005 Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier

Talk about pressure and expectations . . .

Sure, I had a lot of ideas about what I could write in this space, but since most of us are smack dab in the middle of celebrating Christmas, Chanukah, Ramadan, Kwanza or the winter solstice — none of my ideas seemed appropriate.

For my last column, I wanted something clever and pithy; something that would make readers say, “boy, we’re sure going to miss that Seaver guy.”

But given the talent that is set to follow me in this space, it’s far more likely that most people will be very glad once my rambling has finally ceased. So this is it. This is where it ends. Kaput.

Jack Anderson, one of the best political columnists to ever bang on a typewriter, died on Saturday. His column ended roughly two years before his death, but his legacy inspired a generation of journalists. I was one of them.

No, I’m not comparing myself to the king of political muckrakers, it’s just that I’ve always hated bullies, and that resentment became the fuel for this column.

Maybe it’s because I was routinely bullied when I was a kid. Although I lived in fear of guys like Gray Phillips, I suffered at the hands of much less noble kids whom shall remain anonymous in the spirit of the approaching holiday.

I got to see Gray a few weeks ago, when I wrote an ad for his Saco-based real estate agency. When we were all kids at Young School in Saco, Gray Phillips was ranked as the second “toughest” kid in the school, but the funny thing is — I don’t recall ever seeing him in a fight.

When I reminded him of his ranking, Gray had only one question: “who was No. 1?” Not surprisingly, the toughest of the tough landed in prison, and his flawed reputation doesn’t need an additional public potshot from Randy Seaver just a few days before Christmas.

Gray, unlike the bullies, never flaunted his power. He was as confident and gracious then as he is now. He was (and is) a big, tough guy with a soft spot for the little guys. Many other kids were not as compassionate or decent.

Those little cretins know who they are, and they better hope their paths don’t cross mine anytime in the near future because I’m a lot bigger now than I was in the sixth grade.

When I think of all the milk money they stole from me (and the interest owed when compounded over a 30-year term) it’s like thinking of winning the lottery.

So, yes . . . I don’t like bullies, especially those who have been entrusted with power by voters and then develop egos that couldn’t fit into the new Biddeford Middle School gymnasium.

This is the 323rd installment of All Along the Watchtower, and it is the last one that will be published on these pages. I look back on those columns with a combination of loathing and fondness. As with all things, some of those columns were better than others.

I never played favorites. I went after liberals and conservatives; Democrats and Republicans; men and women, without discrimination.

But I wasn’t always as gracious as people like Gray Philips who know better than to abuse their power. The only thing I can say about my mistakes — when I crossed the line of public advocacy — is that I tried to learn from those follies without losing my zeal for exposing the bullies and their agendas.

Political bullies are very much like their school-yard counterparts. They’re just not as clever, and they often cloak themselves in robes of self-described nobility and purpose.

Jack Anderson went after the heavy-hitters like Richard Nixon and Sen. Chris Dodd. I had to settle for people like Richard Rhames and Jim Grattelo.

I have fond memories of this gig. I remember driving my old, beat-up Subaru around the Thacher Brook subdivision in Biddeford with Kyle Noble hiding on the floorboards of my passenger seat while we attempted to unearth a secret meeting of the City Council that was reportedly happening at Marc Lessard’s home.

Lessard spotted us as we circled the cul-de-sac for the fifth time and invited us inside his home for a drink with him and Grattelo. There was no secret meeting. So there you go, I’m no Jack Anderson.

I remember when Biddeford City Councilor Christina Manikas pounded the council dais with a stick that some public works employee errantly left on the front lawn of a Lamothe Avenue home, doing her best impression of Nikita “we will bury you” Khrushchev to the delight of public access television viewers throughout Biddeford.

And I remember when Saco City Councilor Leslie Smith fell asleep during a public meeting, just moments after he said, “I could give a zippity-doo-dah about being the deputy mayor.”

There are a lot more memories, probably enough to fill another 323 columns. But it’s time for me to move on and to say good-bye.

If you haven’t had enough, and if you’d like to read Laura’s thoughts about my pending departure from this gig, you can visit the All Along the Watchtower blog on the Internet.

There, you can read more of my (unedited) insipid ramblings about local politics while also viewing photos of my family and my beloved lawn. You can also post your own comments and help keep this column alive, if only in cyberspace.

The address is http://randyseaver.blogspot.com/ Or you can drop me a line at randyseaver@hotmail.com

So long, and thanks for all the fish. And yes, have yourself a very merry Christmas!

Charge It:

From the August 4, 2005 Courier

Bill Clinton’s new book: $29.95

An autographed copy of John Kerry’s campaign sign: $350.

The look on Karl Rove’s face when he is fired? Priceless.

There are some things that money can’t buy.

For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

No, that’s not a real commercial, but it could be, especially when you consider that Maine Democrats are now seeking to raise money by promoting a new, low-interest rate MasterCard.

Although it seems more bizarre the longer you think about it, Democratic activists throughout Maine don’t seem to flinch when asked how they could get behind a program that urges increasing personal debt in order to fund the campaigns of those who claim to be the champions of the impoverished.

Republicans, by the way, don’t need a credit-card program. The GOP, in fact, would tell you to save your money for a rainy day and advise you not to use your credit cards.

And members of the Green Party don’t need credit cards. There’s plenty of seaweed on the beach that would make for a tasty stew if you want to go out for dinner with that special someone.

Okay, so it’s pretty easy to poke fun at this program, but it is a disturbing concept. As Americans’ personal debt numbers continue to skyrocket, the party of the working class says you can help yourself by applying for yet another handy hunk of plastic with a magnetic strip.

The GOP, according to July reports from the Federal Elections Commission, has roughly $36 million on hand. The Democrats have raised less than a quarter of that during the same time period.

I guess it’s a no-brainer for someone like Pat Colwell, chair of the Maine Democratic Party, to label GOP donors as “corporate fat cats, but Pat ought to look a little deeper when pondering how his party can get back on track.

And here’s a secret for all you Democrats out there: credit card companies, whether “progressive” or not, all function to make money . . . lots of money.

But the news just gets more bizarre. Take, for example, this week’s revelation from the Associated Press that Jimi Hendrix claimed he was gay in order to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

The information was apparently contained in Jimi’s military medical records and was revealed for the first time in Charles R. Cross' new biography “Room Full of Mirrors.”

Since he “faked” being gay — long before Mr. Clinton’s infamous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was put into place — Hendrix was discharged from the 101st Airborne in 1962.

From there, Hendrix became a musical legend. Even now, years after his untimely death, Hendrix is often mistakenly credited with penning the song that inspired this column’s name, All Along the Watchtower.

As a reminder, the song was written by John Wesley Hardin and later released nationally by Bob Dylan long before Jimi got his hands on it.

Although the song was later covered by many other musicians — from Michelle Shocked to U2 — Jimi’s version is still the one that gets us white, middle-aged guys all worked up as we crank the stereos in our SUVs whenever it’s played on “classic rock” radio stations.

Hendrix, even for those of us too young to remember his heyday, was certainly the least gay person to ever crawl the planet. But I doubt it would have mattered to his fans. The only people who would have cared would be guys like Karl Rove, Michael Heath and George, Jr.

There’s no reason to get excited, fellas. Jimi’s no longer a threat and he’s no longer wielding a guitar or a MasterCard. Excuse me, while I kiss this guy . . .

And then, there is the sad news.

If Darth Vader were a real person, I suspect he would have said there was “a disturbance in the force” last week.

After more than a decade of service, veteran Biddeford City Councilor Raymond Cote told the Courier last week he would not be seeking another term on the city council.

Speaking just for me, Mr. Cote will be a sorely missed presence on the ever-entertaining city council. For the record, Mr. Cote (the prefix serves as a symbol of my undying respect for this man) never found himself on the biting end of my pen.

The reasoning behind that is not complicated.

Mr. Cote, as one of Clint Eastwood’s characters once said, was the “one constant in an ever-changing universe.”

Whenever his name appeared on the ballot, Mr. Cote would lead the pack with number of votes received. Although I was not around when “Babe” Dutremble was the mayor, it is abundantly clear to me why Mr. Cote was consistently so popular with the city’s voters.

He remains today, a straight-shooting, no-nonsense guy. His wiry frame and genuine smile belie a life lived on simple terms during extraordinary circumstances. A member of this country’s so-called greatest generation, Cote, 79, lied about his age so he could enlist in the Navy and serve his country during WWII.

The love of his life, his wife, Rena, passed away in May 2003. “I kept going after that,” he told me. “It gave me something to do at night. But now, I want to have a little time to myself. I just think it’s time to move on.”

In the days following the Sept. 2001 terrorist attacks on America, Ray and Rena Cote quickly organized the Biddeford-Saco Patriots’ Parade. He seemed never to tire, and was always willing to give more to his hometown.

If I can ever be half the man Raymond Cote is today, I will be more successful than my wildest expectations. His deft sense of humor, his unassuming wisdom and that famous smile served the city well for many years. I wish him the best of luck during his well-deserved retirement from public life.

Family begins with "F"

It may be hard to believe, but yes — I do own a dictionary.

In fact, the dictionary I use at home weighs more than my wife. It’s the Encarta World English Dictionary and it’s proven over and over again to be a valuable resource.

And such was the case on Saturday morning, when I was drafting the routine I would use later that evening in my debut performance as a comedian at the second annual Maine Family Fun Festival in Biddeford.

Many of those who organized and operate the Maine Family Fun Festival are former volunteers for Biddeford’s more well-known La Kermesse Festival.

The newer festival got its name because organizers wanted their three-day event to be more focused upon family activities than any particular cultural heritage.

But when I found out that Tim Sevigny, a Biddeford firefighter who is one of the MFFF’s key organizers, doesn’t have children, I immediately understood why he would think it makes sense to combine the words “family” and “fun.”

I don’t know, maybe the MFFF organizers are into alliteration. If so, I think there are a lot of other “F” words that come to mind when talking about our families.

Now get your mind out of the gutter because this is where my dictionary comes into the picture. This is a “family” newspaper, after all.

When I think of “family,” I think of fighting, feuds, fanatics, felons and freeloaders.

I also think about flatulence because of the trauma that is rekindled whenever my mother tells me to pull her finger.

Although our society is encouraged to think of families as breeding fond familiarity, when you peek just beneath the façade of that fable, it’s easy to see the propaganda as not much more of a fantasy, a fallacy or more accurately — a falsehood that relies favorably upon fiction.

My dictionary describes the word “family” primarily as a noun, meaning “people living together with several things in common; a group of people living together and ‘functioning’ as a single household, usually consisting of children and their parents.”

In my dictionary, the word “family” follows variations of the word “familiar,” a derivative of the Latin “familia,” which when properly translated means “something that defies logic and conventional wisdom.”

So, if family is about familiarity and co-existence, then isn’t it appropriate to describe our greater community as not much more than one big, extended family? Work with me here.

We all live in the same community, and we all share common challenges and goals. And as much as you disagree with some members of your own family, the same could be said of your larger family.

Under this hypothesis, we could all begin addressing Biddeford Mayor Wallace Nutting as “Dad” (Or maybe as Sir Dad, sir). And Saco Mayor Mark Johnston, already known for his ability to feed many people with short notice, could be “Mom.”

Old Orchard Beach Town Manager Jim Thomas is more like Uncle Lou, the guy who always passes out after Thanksgiving dinner and likes to tell you stories about how he used to fight off grizzly bears with nothing more than his Thermos.

In a few weeks, Biddeford will again host the annual La Kermesse Festival. Some might think that La Kermesse suffered a schism of sorts when Sevigny and other volunteers decided last year to do something different by organizing the Maine Family Fun Festival.

But I think both festivals can coexist, so long as we can remember that we are all part of the same family, regardless of our zip codes.

Festivals are, in many ways, a community’s version of a family reunion. Once a year, you get to eat, laugh and play with relatives you have not seen in a long while.

So, can our larger family handle two annual reunions? It remains to be seen, especially if the first one always happens during weather that’s more suited to Seattle than Biddeford.

But we can all be proud that our extended family is willing to make such an effort, especially when you think about how much work and sacrifice the festivals/reunions require.

Let’s face it, family life is seldom fun. More often than not, we are confronted with daily challenges when it comes to finding a peaceful way to “live” with people who really don’t have as much in common as my dictionary would suggest.

Your family, however — whether it’s the people you share a home with, or the neighbors down the street — will still take you in when the rest of the world is ready to throw in the towel on your failures. And what’s wrong with celebrating that?

Family is the foundation that shapes our future. It’s just one of the many things we all have in common, and that’s worth remembering, especially when many of us are so quick to point out our differences.

Families may not always be fun, but they can be funny — as long as I’m not the one fretting his own three minutes on the stage. Based upon my performance as an amateur comedian, I think I’ll stick with writing and my big dictionary. Besides, I’m running out of “F” words.

In the meantime, whatever you do — don’t pull Mark Johnston’s finger.

Me & Larry

Me and Larry — we have a problem.

You already know me, but you may not know Larry.

“Larry” is a 65-pound, four-foot squirrel with razor-sharp teeth — and he is wreaking havoc with the oasis of tranquility that I am trying to create in my back yard.

Okay, maybe I am exaggerating just a bit. While we already covered my penchant for stretching the truth in last week’s column, there is no denying that Larry is a “big” squirrel; and he does represent a clear and present danger to the lingering strands of my sanity.

Just this morning, I got up early to help the kids make a Mother’s Day breakfast in bed for Laura. If you know my wife, you also know that I didn’t need to get up early. I could have waited until noon, but I was concerned that the kids would start without me.

Standing at the kitchen sink, I looked out the window. And there was Larry, gleefully feasting on the premium bird seed that I bought just two weeks ago. I think he saw me in the window and sneered in my direction, using his little paws to make the shape of an “L” on his furry forehead: LOSER.

To make matters worse, he was hanging five feet off the ground, sitting atop my new cedar bird feeder. Somehow, Larry figured out the new pole I bought last week. He ignored the so-called “squirrel-baffle” I installed. Again, he anticipated my every move and outsmarted me, just like Liz Gold does on deadline day.

Ignoring the rain, I ran outside to take up arms against my oppressor, but I forgot that I was only wearing a tee-shirt and boxer shorts. So there I was, in all my half-naked glory, screaming like a lunatic in the rain and throwing rocks at an animal that is obviously smarter and faster than me.

The rocks missed Larry, but I did hit the new bird feeder, cracking the glass where the seed is stored. “You just wait,” I screamed, marching back into the house and searching for the BB gun. “Say hello to my little friend,” I said, still mostly naked but now armed with my Daisy Sharp-Shooter as I stomped back outside.

Larry finally scurried back to the hills of Lessard Avenue, but I’ve got a funny feeling that he’ll be back — just like John Martin, the man who dominated the Maine House of Representatives for nearly two decades.

John Martin and Larry have a lot in common. They both have beady eyes and razor sharp teeth. And they both like to feed on the fruits of southern Maine’s labor. Thus, our state’s term limits law has become a lot like those so-called “squirrel baffles” that you can buy at home and garden stores: inefficient and expensive.

Just like Larry, John Martin — the most famous Democrat north of Bangor — and his band of merry men have figured a way around the law. The champion of Eagle Lake is now back in the Legislature; this time in the senate.

Maine’s term limits law accomplishes little to nothing when it comes time providing a level playing field for others who would like to go to Augusta to raise taxes, create new laws and get a voice in the debate of whether Moxie should be the state beverage.

While term limits does wipe out the Legislature’s institutional memory base, it also makes our state lawmakers look like a collection of 186 pinheads, especially when compared to the more seasoned lobbyists and bureaucrats who have burrowed themselves into the corridors of power in Augusta.

Just as we got rid of Johhny Martin and his “ballotgate” antics, he found a loophole and went back to Augusta. Term limits did nothing but interrupt his feeding frenzy.

Now I don’t blame the people of Eagle Lake for voting repeatedly to send Johnny back to Augusta. He’s smart and effective. He knows how to bring home the bacon for a region that is known better for its moose-vehicle collisions than for its new technology firms.

Term limits, at least, provide an interruption of the political power grab. For those of us who live outside any particular legislative district — such as Eagle Lake or Biddeford’s District 135 — term limits allows us some relief from a smaller group of apathetic or over-zealous voters.

Besides, you can’t very well go into northern Maine to “hunt” John Martin dressed only in a tee-shirt and boxer shorts with a Daisy BB gun or any other kind of weapon, unless, of course, you’re wearing hunter orange. And then, you’ll blend in perfectly.

I’ll be returning my squirrel baffle, and Maine voters should follow my lead and dump our term limits law. Let’s face it. The squirrels will never change, and we all have more important things to do — so how ‘bout that Moxie?

Favorite Columns

By popular demand, I am providing a sampling of some of my favorite All Along The Watchtowe columns from my tenure as editor of the Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier (1998-2005)

To access these columns, simply search the scroll bar on the right, and click on "All Along The Watchtower"

Enjoy!

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