Pauline Cates took most of an hour on November 16 in the company of an appreciative audience inside the Lubec Memorial Library to tell stories from her days as a teacher, principal and member of the community known as Whiting Village School.
      Her lesson for those gathered is that memories are what people are left with and by sharing them they provide a glimpse into the past so that others may know the time spent back then has a lasting impact today.
      Cates was an educator for more than 35 years. She spent 28 of those years as both a teacher and principal when she began her Whiting school journey in 1986. Her introduction to the gathering was something she wrote early on as she began that journey.
      "Our two room school housing 35 students is situated at the center of a small village next to a church and a cemetery. My classroom windows overlook a mill pond, and three old apple trees border our playground. Outside observers may only see a 150 year old building and the apparent impossibility of four grades in a classroom, but my years at Whiting Village School have convinced me that our small school climate offers unique advantages and exciting possibilities for our students and our staff."
      Cates's teaching career began in Cutler as a long term substitute teacher. She also volunteered as a literacy teacher and high school equivalency tutor. In May of 1986 she was hired to finish out the year as the teaching principal at the Whiting school. She then stayed on in that role teaching all subjects in grades 5 through 8. "So many wonderful things happened after that that touched my heart. The energy of a classroom that is alert is indescribable."
      "I never played school as a little girl," Cates said. She then told the story how at the age of 4 she yearned to follow a group of older children to school. "One afternoon my mother arranged for me to visit that school. The teacher gave me some animal figures to trace, but mostly I observed the kids. From my corner of the room, I could see the worn floors and the blackboard wearing its film of white chalk dust. At the age of 4 never could I have predicted that 34 years later I would spend 28 years of my career in a similar room. But perhaps that one afternoon paved the way for me to cherish the years of tradition represented in my historic classroom."
      Cates reminded everyone that with the lessons taught on those worn floors and chalkboards what mostly happened was that a community took shape inside the school and was continually built each day, one student and one family at a time.
      She then filled the remaining time with story after story of her time spent at the school as it slowly changed and expanded yet in certain ways remained the same. Stories of older students helping younger students, an engaged community participating from time to time, combining grades to work and learn something together, reading, reading and some more reading, timeless seasons that brought with them community gatherings, student-created theatrical plays, apples that tempted to be thrown, monochrome textbooks countered by colorful stickers as rewards for contributing, and always that sense of family that pervaded the classroom throughout the school year.
      The highlight of the talk was a large timeline of history created by way of a questionnaire former students and teachers answered in 2000 to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the school. The Whiting Village School will celebrate its bicentennial next year.
      Perusing the school's history through that timeline provides not only a glimpse into yesterday but reminds viewers how far society has come. With categories such as popular music and clothing styles, recess activities, national events, mode of travel to school, building changes and much more it was the perfect exclamation mark on the impact the school had on students and the community.
      The chart's cumulative impact of 175 years of memories also allowed one the opportunity to imagine the impossible -- such as standing outside in saddle shoes or loafers, thinking about recess and a game of kick the can, while looking up and seeing the Hindenburg dirigible track across the sky above Lubec.
      "If only these walls could talk, what a story they would tell" was said often during the discussion. Pauline Cates certainly did that and much more with a presentation she was visibly enthusiastic to share.