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The English explorer David Ingram, shipwrecked on the coast of Mexico, allegedly walked all the way to New England before discovering "Norumbega" at the present site of Bangor, Maine, where the streets were "far broader than any street in London," the men were bedecked with gold and silver bracelets, and the women with gold plates and pearls as big as thumbs. He told of houses with pillars of gold, silver, and crystal, and spoke of how he could fish fist-sized nuggets of gold from the streams. Though Ingram may have lied, he did spark interest in the New England region, and other explorers followed in his footsteps, in search of this mythical land of Norumbega. After Champlain visited the Bangor site in 1611 and found only the remains of a small village, this myth was considered as bogus as its later variant, the mythical Viking settlement on the Charles River at Watertown and Newton, Massachusetts. But, the name lives on in Maine in the form of inns, mountains and companies, just as it lives on in Massachusetts. Until the explorer, John Smith called it “New England”, the region of Maine and Massachusetts was called Norumbega by the Indians and Europeans.
The word Norumbega connotes quiet waters, a peaceful place, a rich place and a safe place! When we return there, we have no memory of war, past family separations, injury, illness or death. This is a place, that even now, after many years, we can return and feel we have come home. Many have called such a tranquil refuge, "Shangri-La" or "Valhalla". I will call it "Norumbega".
I have an old photo of me, with my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother Fann, taken in the summer of 1940. Four generations together at that moment in time! It's where I remember the most about my mother. After my parents divorced, we moved to Georgia. I lived with my mother and grandmother near Atlanta, and my father would pick up me and my brother, Gene, and drive us 1,300 miles to the Maine Sailing School in Bayside, for the summer. There, my brother and I were under the watchful eye of my Godmother, "Commodore" Marion Eaton. I learned to be a competent sailor, tying all my knots correctly. As a teenager, I had my first kiss there. Now, this place has the same feeling for me as a dear family member. It welcomes me back, and is always the same as I remember. It's rocky beaches have welcomed me there as a baby, as a boy, as a youth, and now, a man of middle age. Bayside has been there in every stage of my life. I can not be in Bayside every time I want, but a part of me is.
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