Editor:
The 350th anniversary of Scarborough will soon be off and running. There will be gala events to show and celebrate the progress this town has made through the dedication and hard work of its citizens during those 350 years. When I arrived in Scarborough, with my wife Nancy and my young son Scott, we moved into our new home on Pleasant Hill, which was a very small development back in January 1970.
We were soon welcomed to the neighborhood and as no surprise, because my wife and I had spent my last two years in the Air Force stationed on the Brunswick Naval Air station in the 50s and met many wonderful Maine people that their friendship just seemed to come natural as well. It was not long before I joined Engine No. 3 Pleasant Hill Hose Company and our social activities and civic duties began.
After all a fire station was the center of all neighborhood activities and politics and at that time anyone who was anyone belonged to the fire department. You also had the feeling you were protecting your own home as well as others. My wife and I also owned a little country store where Rite Aid now sits, it was great fun, it too was a center of town doings, it made it possible for us to know people from both ends of town. We saw many a prominent citizen grow up.
As time moved on and the years passed you could notice the fire equipment and trucks getting more modern and the firefighters getting younger. The rescue guys becoming more like doctors then scoop and scoot guys. You realized it was harder to keep up both at work and as a firefighter as it seemed just over night, you like to tell yourself, you became a retired “senior citizen.” You have now become, along with many other Scarborough senior citizens, a part of this 350th history, each senior being a thread in a tapestry called the town of Scarborough.
This tapestry in its many colors shows the hard work the now seniors of Scarborough did in the past to make Scarborough the star of the sea it is or the farming community it is, but sad to say much smaller.
There is also a space on this beautiful quilt showing the many volunteer seniors who, over the years and now, are still trying to bring back that spirit of the old barn raising or the days when a certain group of friends would roll up their sleeves and build a neighborhood playground – not ask the town to build it.
This great town, which has been so successful in staying prosperous and able to grow while other towns and cities are floundering in this economy, owe a lot too, not just to the good planning of our town manger and town councilors, but to the wise planning, dedication, sacrifice and love our seniors – both past and present – had and have for this town.
We humans have a tendency to remember great deeds, moments,  and people. If you read the 350th celebration publication you will see that we as citizens now owe a great deal to our senior citizens for what Scarborough is today. These seniors past and present have left and are maintaining a solid foundation for Scarborough to stand firm and to grow on.
So, I, as a senior citizen and one who has seen first-hand the dedication and love these seniors have for this town, think Scarborough’s next monument should be a senior center built at Memorial Park.
I think it is time we as a town recognize the many contributions our senior citizens have made and are making to this town. In addition, we should recognize how much more they could add to this town if they had a senior center.
This town can give very generously to most any youth program that request aid. This town has a sports complex that most junior colleges would envy.
If you read community services catalog it is very youth and young adult oriented. Yes we do have a “WOW” program but you do the math, our senior programming comes up woefully short compared to other programming for other groups in town. I do speak from experience and service to our seniors.
With the cost of gas, being what it is and community services having only a 13-passenger bus and our seniors being asked to hopscotch from one venue to the other to participate in “WOW” programming, a senior center would be an economically sound investment for our seniors.
Bill Billings
Scarborough