The Bangor Daily News from Bangor, Maine • 13

-'y -'-y My fi-yyy iyyiy My -yyy 10 nyy M-yig i yyyry rjg gy- gp I ALL it Bangor Dally News Tuesday February 14 1989 t3 ro- Eight years after her murder will there be justice for Joyce? awaiting the results of the television pi gram which will i air at 8 pm Wednesday Feb IS on Channel 2 (NBC) They are exhausted-but they are also fueled by rage a rage we share with Pam as and unfolds to There is nothing Pam McLain The Concerned Citizens for Justice for Joyce the Maine State Police or I can do to make people talk Nothing but implore or beg To all of the people who were present on the football field behind Schenck High School on Aug 8 1980 and saw anything that would help the police locate Joyce killer or killers please dial 1-800432-7830 and give the Maine State Police your information If you are afraid you can ao it anonymously If what you saw you think is unimportant call uueoiawsroiice or icanuow ople talk Nothing but implore or of the people who were present i itball field behind Schenck High Scl Guest Column By Nancy Lippincott daughter had been found dead he could not speak He just stood there she said What the police chief had just seen was the severely mutilated body of Joyce McLain what he yce mcuiin wnai ne I 1 1 IMSil anyway If you know someone who knows something about that night call yourself if you cannot convince them to call sy ber what she told me but not the words listening to her was hard and I lost it there Pam has known the dreadful details of her death for years For years this tiny dynamic woman has been filled with an all-consuming rage that continually eats at her heart and guts but miraculously has not devoured her The McLain family knows this misery The committee The Concerned Citizens for Justice for Joyce knows and shares misery It is time her rage and pain were shared It is devastating for us to learn what we learn as time passes It is devastating and it is not our child We look at Pam McLain who knows more of the gruesome details than any of us with wonder and awe-' How has this 110-pound paragon of strength survived? The committee The Concerned Citizens for Justice for Joyce was formed to bring the murderer(s) to justice and they will not stop until their task is completed They have during the past six months raised more -than $8000 and succeeded in getting the story aired on Mysteries Not bad for six months of work completed by housewives who just simply got tired of the yearly announcements in the paper on the anniversary of death that nothing new had surfaced the case Pam Fas known the dreadful details of her more more us If the outcome of the next month after theu showing of story on Mys- teries is a disappointment the group will continue to work toward raising the funds to hire a private investigator They will not let this case just fall by the wayside again and be forgotten except for every Aug 8 when the sad anniversary comes around again They let it blow over until their goal is achieved Up here in Katahdin Country we have candles burning in our windows in memory of Joyce The group originally requested we do this until Feb 15 when will air her story Mine however will remain lit in memory of Joyce in support of The Concerned Citizens for Joyce and in sympathy with Pam and Wendy McLain to honor their courage and share their sorrow until they and Joyce finally rest in peace Nancy Lippincott is a staff writer for The Katahdin Times in Millinocket was facing as helookecf at Pam McLain was a tiny woman crazy with anguish and fear for her child been missing since Friday evening The child a sweet girl and a beauty was one he had known and liked all of her fife In a town of 2200 people everyone knows everyone Everyone knew and liked Joyce His shock at finding the child dead and her remains must still haunt him There are not words dark enough to describe the condition in which Joyce body was found I did not learn some of this until recently Sitting at table last October she told me the undertaker had implored her to not look at her body She told me he was unable to prepare body for viewing not able to reconstruct her head I remem I have lived in this small northern Maine town (East Millinocket) since May 1 1988 1 heard about the McLain murder shortly after I arrived I met and interviewed Pam McLain mother on a Friday afternoon in October I sat at her table and listened as she told me her story I make it through the entire interview without crying She told me of that weekend eight years ago while she crazily searched for her child Unable to report her missing for 48 hours she drove the streets in a misery that thank God few of us will ever know She told me when the police chief arrived to tell her that Sunday morning that her i Joyce McLain Right now the group is exhausted and emotionally overwrought sharing load of suffering They are anxiously President budget has nice music but few lyrics classic Republican-Democratic rich man-poor man argument Speaker Jim Wright promised as much in his televised Democratic response would have to reject any kind of flexible he said would bend with flexibility for the rich and powerful but freeze out the middle-income families of And Chairman Dan Rostenkowski of the House Ways and Means Committee put it more succinctly when he Germond Witcover WASHINGTON Compared to the budget-presenting extravaganzas of his predecessor President address to Congress on his budget plans was pretty flat but welcome nevertheless Congress and the viewing public were spared the theatrics and the hyperbole that usually marked Ronald performances from the podium of the House of Representatives The difference in atmosphere as well as tone was striking There were no heroes sitting in the balcony to be applauded and saluted and few of the automatic applause lines that peppered the reports of The Great Communicator Instead the country was treated to a sober yet friendly man who talked of worthy objectives particularly in meeting the needs of the less fortunate And he continued to extend the hand of cooperation to the Democrats who control Congress The speech was a happy contrast too to the Bush bombast on the cam the Bush bombast on the campaign trail last said: not about to tell the wage-earners in Chicago that they should pay a than tax the spirit of glasnost in the Soviet Union has taken the edge off the issue When Reagan asked for a slight militapr increase in his final budget last month it was widely predicted he was doing so to enable Bush to look better asking for his one-year defense spending freeze The same is true about decision to up Medicaid spending budget went to Capitol Hill last month with cuts in the program leading Democratic Rep Edward Roybal of California chairman of the House Select Committee on Aging to suggest that Congress was being treated to the old cop bad routine It seemed he was right Of more concern to Hill Democrats are proposed restraints on Medicare and in the cost-of-living adjustments for federal retirees Chairman William Gray of the House Budget Committee says the Democrats will never stand still for them simultaneous call for cuts in the capital-gains tax within his guarantees an eventual showdown on the stead he invited Congress to join with him in negotiating the specifics As a result the speech probably sounded better to those whose pet programs will be cut and whose favorites will be increased than it will read later on when the hard numbers are sorted out The lack of specificity enabled Bush in effect to whistle a happy tune and worry about the lyrics later This is precisely what the Democrats in Congress want They want Bush to do now what he do in the campaign tell them how he intends to make good on his various domestic promises while cutting the deficit without increasing taxes It is always hard for Congress to resist a new honeymoon plea for cooperation But it is straitjacket it is being forced to wear in his read-my-lips uncompromising commitment against new taxes decision to institute a One-year freeze in military spending provides some breathing room but it was no surprise Polls show the American people believe the Reagan military buildup went far enough and The president Gray says has attempted with his generalized budget message and offer of negotiations to put the budget ball in court While negotiations apparently will go forward the more likely eventuality is that the Democrats will grind out an alternative budget at which time George honeymoon will encounter some rocky days and nights tackling the federal deficit solving the savings and loan crisis cleaning up nuclear waste and air and water pollution and coping with what he called' the of homelessness But the same shortcoming that existed in what little he said in the campaign about the allocation of resources was present in the budget address Bush again trotted out his concept of a without providing much detail on how much money would be cut from specific programs and how much would be added to others In Jack Germond and Jules Witcover are columnists for Tribune Media Services year The mind was off the pledge of allegiance and prisoner furloughs and on important national business like Columnist wrote nothing but the truth with lots of color thing else Yeager said: World War II planes that fly today are like some of the stories more colorful than they really were But mostly the truth itself makes one hell of a sure the readers laughed at my few exaggerations as they were supposed to At times writing this column has been hard work but always rewarding and always fun When I told him I planned to discontinue my column Kent Ward said has been a good relationship over the years and I hate to see it end I know your many readers will feel I wish to thank those readers for their expressed appreciation and encouragement Furthermore my main goal in writing this column was a simple one: to write about my generation and our generation The NEWS helped make that goal a reality Wendell Hartt is a free-lance columnist who lives in Millinocket It my intention to write history but I did check out the events and equipment that I wrote about It was surprising how often my memory differed from the research material I was even more surprised how much the experts differed with each other and how easily some people forgot However I was amazed that a few others remembered so vividly Summers ago I was attempting to find information about an old school-house that had been gone for years and was directed to a man who had lived in the area most of his life After I mentioned the building gave him its name and told him the former location the man said between spurts of tobacco juice was a schoolhouse Later I asked a retired teacher she said taught there one year The present highway runs over the area where the building Checking a 1931 Geological Survey map I found the school just where the teacher said it had been Thinking about those people and that schoolhouse now I recall some This past January marked the beginning of the fifth year of this column this column marks its end The era of the 1920s and 1930s were tough for most Yet the men and women of that time hoped for the brass ring but seldom mention the might-have-been Instead they re? sponded with a colorful display of humor the immediate thoughts about my writing experiences makes my mind respond similarly When the NEWS ran my first sto-' ry a man called me to say he could remember when my mother worked at the Mountain View a former hotel in Millinocket I was about to tell him that mother never worked at the hotel when the man injected I rememer when your grandfather died My maternal grandfather died about 1905 before the teller of the event was born My paternal grandfather died in 1917 at home a long way from Millinocket Some time ago in my column Em published in Wendell Hartt Windsock I mentioned that smoke in the cabin of an old trimotor was so thick you could cut it with a knife A reader asked me if I sometimes ex-aggeratd just a mite I explained Chuck Yeager had a better explanation In his foreword to Vintage Aircraft of World War by Philip Makanna he said realize that some things I remember doing in the Mustang (P-51) possible I thought I flew it 600 miles an hour until I became a test pilot and found out it fly that Our readers write Cruel experiments on animals concerned about all the experiments being tested on animals for scientific and medical research I saw an episode on the show about these cruel animal experiments If these experiments must be done why -should they be done on harmless animals that are not even like a human? I think that another source of experimental objects should be found They should be tested on an object that would not have to suffer or feel the pain that these experiments bring upon these animals Dogs cats and some other animals are supposed to be household pets not objects of an experiment and something should bp aDout it What do you think? Curt Harvey Student Fort Kent Snowmobilers ride for charity i Snowmobilers deserve a lot of credit when it comes to charity On Feb 4 and 5 the Pine Tree Camp for Crippled Children netted more than $58000 for a snowmobile ride-in that converged at Sebasticook Lake in Newport The organized snowmobile clubs of Maine make it possible for many disabled and ill people to make ends meet and they make it possible for everyone to enjoy this great state on 9000 groomed snowmobile trails It is time for the media to focus on the good that our snowmobile clubs do for the people in the state of Maine Linda Bean-Jones New member of the Dixmont Gold Crest Riders Snowmobile Club and participant in the 16th Annual Pine Tree Camp Ride-In Hallowell When not to pull the trigger Frankly the NRA frightens me The only brainwash they recognize is other while theirs is held up to be true and right and honorable for the common good In a family of eight children being reared in the 1940s I learned respect for guns Mom taught us to view it With one perspective only gunl WILL kill As a little girl I was taupt to haAdle a rifle When that rifle was not in use it was unloaded I understood early on that a loaded rifle was in that state for one reason only to be used to fire AT object or animal Mom need the NRA brainwash she had only an elementary school education her husband had long ago run off leaving her with an invalid mother and eight children and only her abilities as a housekeeper to keep the family afloat (and limited outside assistance) and she had something too many hunters with all their safeguarding laws and NRA monies seem lacking in: compassion anacommon sense Compassion says that Karen Wood was a human being and is now shot dead Common sense says that even the best hunter in the world has got to use his or her head and fire that gun when you know or can see that homes are nearby or you are close to a tarred road Hunters need to to stop kidding themselves the kill (the wildlife being stalked) IS the goal and a few too many respect that kill more more than they respect the about-to-be error in judgment A truly good hunter and gun owner who knows what he is doing has allowed himself to learn when to hold back from pulling that trigger that is in what circumstances Our Maine woods and our nation are filling with people who know only how to pull the trigger and sorely lack judgment in defining when not to pufi it Joyce A Plaisted Bucksport Letters addressed to Our Readers Write should be brief and must include the signature address and telephone number The NEWS reserves the right to edit submissions for libel taste and clarity and to tit available space Fitting end to Ted Bundy story On Jan 24 at six minutes past 7 am the executioner pulled the switch on Theodore Bundy Bundy was believed to have killed 36 young brunette women and before his death his confessions closed the bodes on 20 unsolved crimes One victim was even a 12-year-old girl In our opinion Bundy deserved to die Put yourself in the shoes of the 12-year-old mother and see how you would feel toward Bundy We personally would want the worst possible sentence for him Bundy never pleaded insanity but someone crazy enough to kill and torture that many people be sane Capital punishment is a reasonable sentence if the charges are extreme enough But where do you draw the line between death and prison? Nathan Pusey Matthew Kinney Fifth Street Middle School Bangor Primer on Family Planning Once again misinformation in the media concerning abortion and Family Planning has raised many questions Family Planning is not Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood is a private organization that provides ser- vices in some states but not in Maine Family Planning -which is a publicly funded program provides reprodu-five health care in Maine ana does not and will not -provide abortions or prenatal services using either eral or non-federal funds Our function (which is mandated by federal law) is to' provide anyone regardless of age or income faced with an unplanned pregnancy with all the information needed to make a safe and informed decision about their own health care That information includes the pregnancy options of parenting foster care adoption and abortion as well as all contraceptive options includingabstinence Our staff does not attempt to influence our decisions concerning a pregnancy and in most cases is not even aware of what a final decision is among the options presented We believe that all women have a right to reproductive choice be that contraception use or pregnancy options of parenting adoption or abortion We do not feel any -decisions should be made lightly and understand the painful dilemmas pregnancy can pose We also feel that family life education which is man- -dated by this state should include sexuality education and decision-making information We see too many individuals at Family Planning who have been taking chances sometimes for well over a year before coming to us chance that not only involve a pregnancy risk but also exposure to sexually transmitted diseases Com- plete information can only help with future decisions and we value our right to provide that Laurie Eddy RNC -Director Penquis Family Planning Bangor Geography lesson from Alaska We enjoy reading news clipped from your paper and sent us by relatives in Maine A recent article in the sports section about Alaskan Tony Link playing at the University of Miane in Orono caught our attention for several reasons The author makes mention of a flight back to sure like to know what airline can do that our last trip between Bangor and Anchorage took -J almost 14 hours Also Anchorage is not on the tip of There is quite a bit of Alaska below us all of it beautiful Dick and Joan Brewer Anchorage Alaska Military news hits close to home I want to thank you for the full page of military news Having two family members in the service I know it provides a big morale boost to know that the folks back home know what doing One Navy son spent two six-month tours in the Persian Gulf and hardly anyone knew Please keep it going Betty Smith Dover-Foxcroft Bangor looks like Beirut now Doonesbury BY GARRY TRUDEAU UEUTHATOP UHATTFHE COURSE WOULD DOES SOME- VIOLATE THE THING REAUY SPIRIT OF THE REALLY BUSH- HONEYMOON KlEP UKBYf HAVETOeAUIT ncB ITS KINO OP AN EXPERIMENT MARK0URH0PEI5THATIFWE REMOVE THE FEAR OF RIDICULE PERHAPS BUSH RALE DO SOME' THING THAT'S ACTUALLY STATESMANLIKE! AJOUJ AIL OP YOU ARB REAWY GOING TO LAY OFF BUSH TOR A whole week Yes citizens of Bangor it is pothole season again There are numerous streets in Bangor which look like they belong in Beirut This is one of those aggravating things in life eveyrone likes to complain about but we never do anything to correct the situation We try to swerve our cars around the gaping holes in the street but usually end up paying unbelievable front-end alignment bills This year we should do something about it I suggest that those of you who regularly use the steets of Bangor bill to bltmwtmmpiNcmxTO HUPGEOREEEUSHQETAHANPIE on me visw thing po declare a 1 CARTOONISTS' HONEYMOON WEEK" 2 ANPPIEPGE TO ABSTAIN mom RIDICULING THE PRESIDENT TOR NO Less THAN SEVEN DATS 'Mmm i (W mi AND A LOT OP OTHER GUYS compii Thatrs what paid to do Sean Stillings Bangor.