The Order of Streets

It’s incredibly sad. For more than a quarter-century I’ve been working the crime beat in downtown Lewiston. For more than a quarter century, I’ve failed to memorize the order of streets that run between Pine and Ash. Is it Blake, Pierce, Bartlett, Howard, Howe, Shawmut, Horton? Does Pierce come before Blake? Does Howe come before Howard? Does Horton hear a Who? No matter how many millions of times I zip up and down those streets, I just can’t remember the order of them. I’ll probably have to write a catchy little song to commit them to my memory. Be sure to look for that on iTunes.

By the way

Doesn’t “The Order of Streets” sound like some secretive cult? We should totally start one. We’ll get secret handshakes, long robes, cool rings and everything. You bring beer, I’ll bring the paddles and we’ll get this club off the ground.

Mark LaFlamme: Fat cat

Well, my friends, congratulate me. I’ve made it to the big time. I don’t know how it happened – I don’t recall any big bump in pay here at the paper, but clearly I’ve acquired wealth by some means. I know this because twice this week, I’ve received emails offering me rock bottom prices on some fine personal aircraft. Here’s an offer of a 2017 Cessna T206 for a measly $695,000. Why, that’s mere pocket change for a fellow as heeled as myself. I’ll have to decide between that plane and either a 1984 Lake LA-4-250 Aerolineas Ejecutivas or a 2009 Malibu Matrix PA-46R. But first, cigars and brandy for all!

Don’t fret

In Auburn’s Bonney Park Wednesday, a young lady chose a radical way of tuning her guitar by bashing a young man over the head with it. That’s cartoon behavior right there. The fellow wasn’t badly hurt, but witnesses reported the poor lad couldn’t stop humming the opening notes to “Teenage Wasteland” the rest of the day.

Let’s play Jeopardy!

Got a message on my machine from a woman who asked some good, solid questions about our crime coverage. Problem is, she didn’t leave her name or number so I can’t answer her directly. I’ll just leave the answers here and hope she sees them: A. If there are injuries, we’ll note them in our accident logs. B. The courts will enforce that young man’s restitution. And C. Boxer briefs.

That got a hemi in it?

In Lewiston Wednesday, a caller reported to police that she had seen the passenger in a pickup truck drinking a beer. Is that even illegal? And here I thought that in Maine, passengers in pickup trucks were legally REQUIRED to drink beer. My life has been a lie.

Beer math

A fellow was spotted walking up Pine Street in Lewiston sipping a beer from a 12-pack he had just bought at the corner store. By some standards, if you can walk all the way home and still have at least eight beers left from your 12-pack, you don’t have a drinking problem.