BOOTHBAY, Maine — Across five towns on the Boothbay peninsula, telephone poles have become rather full with banners screwed into them.
A group in Southport got an idea, as many as two years prior, to put up banners around town — one brightly colored piece for each local veteran whose loved ones wanted them displayed.
Jim Singer is a Vietnam veteran who spearheaded the cause and said, after a trial run the previous Veteran's Day, he and others began taking orders from anyone who wanted their relative displayed. The banners themselves are red, white, and blue with an image of each person and a description of their branch, rank, and years of service.
Singer said the response had been incredible.
"Here, in little old Southport, where our winter population is 600, we've got 107 banners up now and I got orders for another 25 beyond that," Singer said on Thursday.
He explained the so-called banner committee only charged for the cost of materials, not including chipping or the hardware to attach them to the poles. No money would be asked of families of POWs or soldiers killed in action, or those who later died from their wounds.
Singer said donations to the banner project could be made to American Legion Post 36 in Boothbay Harbor.
As of Monday, Singer reported 240 banners were flying in the towns of Southport, Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, East Boothbay, and Edgecomb. The Boothbays still had 100 more to get up, with more than 50 in an order the committee had just placed.
Though they would not all be up for Memorial Day, the committee planned to fly them through Thanksgiving, store them for the winter, then repeat for three years. That's the the length of time the Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based banner company estimated the banners would remain free of weather damage. Then, the banners would go back to the loved ones who ordered them.
Singer said he’s proud of his community and hopes the area’s many summer visitors notice the display.
"What I hope is that they see what a wonderful, patriotic area this is, and how people care," he said. "They care about their veterans and they care about the service that everybody put in during their years, whatever years they were."
Southport Fire Chief Gerry Gamage bought a bucket truck and had been erecting his town's banners himself. He went through the extra effort to try to put veterans from the same family on adjacent poles and near their families' homes.
Evelyn Sherman, 96, made sure to take advantage of that discretion.
Evelyn enjoyed a long life together with her husband of nearly 50 years, Maurice Sherman. In the 1950s, he built the Southport home in which she still resides. Maurice was a World War II veteran who served in northern Africa and was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds sustained in Italy. He died in 2000. Evelyn requested his banner be placed on the pole within sight of her kitchen window.
"I say he's keeping an eye on me," Evelyn laughed.
"I hope they will just remember the veterans and what we owe to them," she later added.
Her daughter, Sarah, spearheaded the work along with Singer.
"We've been joking with Gerry Gamage that we're gonna run out of telephone poles if this keeps up," Sarah smiled as she drove us through town, telling a story about nearly every veteran whose banner we passed.
Now through Thanksgiving, this is how each visitor to town will be greeted.