Community made an impression

To the editor:

This letter is so dang late, but my mother would be somewhat proud that I was better late than never.

My name is Pat Clancy, retired lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department and an ambassador for Tunnel to Towers Foundation (T2T). I was part of the event Museum of the Soldier held at your remarkable fairgrounds last September.

I have been privileged to represent T2T for over a dozen years now and have visited many of our great towns in the USA. I can't say any of my experiences were like what we experienced with our visit to Portland. When I was first asked if I was available I thought, “Oh great, I will be visiting Maine.” I didn’t know about the one “IN Indiana,” as my t-shirt that was given to me says. 

Your town is Mayberry — well, maybe a bit bigger, but my experiences must be similar to those in that make-believe town on TV. The children that visited us all were so very respectful. They looked in the eye and said sir more than I heard in a lifetime in New York.

I started our day by having coffee in our hotel while reading The Commercial Review. We ate breakfast each morning at Richards, an iconic small-town diner where the people who worked there and the people who ate there I sensed worked hard and loved our country.

Then there was the parade. That was the icing. Waving from our jeep at the children and adults on the route again gave me the feeling of what is great about our country. 

I learned that Jim Waechter of Museum of the Soldier spent a couple of years fundraising to get the T2T 9/11 exhibit to your town. We are all volunteers but it costs the foundation operating and maintenance for the exhibit. The founder and T2T CEO Frank Siller noted that and presented Jim with a piece of steel that was from the World Trade Center.

I am asked to be part of the exhibit three or four times a year (other firefighters do the same) and tell the story about 9/11, Stephen Sillers's heroic story and what the foundation does for our soldiers, police and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty.

I will always remember my stay in Portland and will go out of my way to visit the town and say hi to my many new friends in my future travels.

Sincerely,

Pat Clancy

FDNY retired

T2T ambassador