Meyers 1

Jonathan Meyers

Ms. Lucinda Stein

Senior English

10 January 2018

Philip Bushey

Philip Bushey was born June 13, 1959, in Fort Kent, Maine. He grew up in Madawaska,

Maine during his childhood. Madawaska is located on the Maine/Canadian border at the most

northern point in not only Maine but also the United States. Four Corners Park commemorates its

location as the most northeastern town in the contiguous United States. There is a bridge which

links Madawaska with its Canadian neighbor across the St. John River. The city’s name is

Edmunston which is in the province of New Brunswick. It is common for people to have

relatives in Madawaska and Canada.

The town’s French-Acadian heritage, Catholic environment, and small-town culture

make for a tight-knit community, and those bonds continue throughout the citizens’ lives even if

they move away from the area. Phil still holds strong relationships with many of the people he

grew up with. Despite his parents have passed away and all his siblings not living in northern

Maine, Phil continues to visit Madawaska. Like his religion, it is part of his identity and gives

him comfort.

Madawaska is home to many of French/Acadian descent. Eighty-three percent of

residents speak French at home, but Phil does not. However, his parents spoke French. Phil grew

up during a period in which speaking French was looked down upon. Some parents intentionally

avoided teaching their kids a second language. Phil was one of them.
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The town is a paper mill community with a strong Catholic presence. The Twin Rivers

Paper Company was formerly known as Fraser Paper. When Phil was growing up the town paper

mill employed thousands of people but now has about five-hundred employees. As reported in

the November 28, 2014, issue of the Portland Press Herald, “the number of people employed by

Maine’s pulp, paper, and paperboard mills declined from 10,208 in 2001 to 5,723 in 2011 and

continues to fall, according to industry officials.” When Phil grew up during the nineteen-sixties

and nineteen-seventies, the downtown stores were all busy, and the school had plenty of kids to

play with each other.

When Phil was growing up in town, the population was about 5,500 people. The

community, however, has declined over the decades. The most current 2010 U.S. Census

estimates it at 4,035. Many of the population in Aroostook County are moving towards southern

Maine. Phil’s high school graduating class was about 150 students. The 2017 graduating class

was 35.

Phil was born nine years before the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War and

eighteen months after his sister, Debbie. His parents were school teachers. Phil’s mother became

a stay-at-home mom to help raise him and his sister. A teacher’s salary was much less than

someone who worked at the paper mill. They lived on a tight budget. The apartment they rented,

which was above a group of small stores, was an interesting design. The building was set into the

side of a hill. The apartment was only one of a group of flats rented by other people.

His dad taught high school history when Phil was a kid. He eventually was promoted to

vice-principal at the high school. Phil’s father was a very strict disciplinarian. Phil said, “My

mom was probably the go-between, you know, you have the tough person, and you have the
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mom who usually is more moderate.” Phil’s father was born in Sheridan, Maine which was and

still is a tiny town in northern Maine. His mom was born in Caribou Maine. Neither of them was

born in a hospital.

Despite Phil’s mom closely supervising him, he still could get into trouble. She used to

frequently have him in a baby harness when outside in the second-floor apartment. Phil

convinced his mother to let him off the harness for a few minutes while she went inside. He was

three years old at the time. When his mom came back outside, she saw Phil driving his tricycle

down the long flight of stairs. He also intentionally placed his tongue against a metal pole during

the winter. Naturally, it stuck.

Phil was born with flat feet. At that time, orthotics was different than it is today. He wore

big shoes with inserts in them, so he wasn’t wearing sneakers all summer long like most kids.

Phil found it frustrating because he was a very active child.

He liked sports. Phil played basketball, soccer, baseball, and volleyball. He also loved

running cross country and competing in track. Phil would play, especially basketball, whenever

he got the chance. His dad mounted a basketball hoop against the house that Phil used to

practice shooting. Instead of being regulation ten-feet high, it was eleven-feet because it’s the

lowest point his dad could mount it. He had to follow his parents’ curfew which was six or seven

o’clock. He made a lot of friends by playing sports because they also liked to. Phil struggled

more with school than with sports. In fact, he is now 58-years-old and continues to enjoy playing

and watching sports.

When he was five-years-old, his parents bought a small house in town because of the

birth of his brother, Doug. They needed the extra space. It was close enough to the high school
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that Phil was able to walk to school. However, despite him being a short distance away, he was

frequently late. At the end of his senior year, his dad as the vice-principal gave out the award for

the tardiest student and it went to his son, Phil. Everybody in his class thought it was funny. Phil

was embarrassed. Some of the students were bused to school, but Phil walked to the three

schools he attended. They were St. Thomas School for grades kindergarten through third grade,

Acadia School for grades four through six, and Madawaska High School for grades seven

through twelve.

Phil’s memories of his childhood seem to include a few around his fourth grade. He

remembers being curious about an electrical fence and urinating on it. Understandably, it

shocked him. Phil was surprised when a classmate Paul Cyr was stabbed with a pencil into his

eye socket by Janet Cyr because he was continually bullying her. They were not related. Cyr is a

popular last name in the French-Acadian town of Madawaska.

Potato picking was a yearly event in the St. John Valley. Madawaska students between

grades seven through twelve were given three weeks off in October to help farmers pick their

potato crops. It was long hard work. The tractors would dig up the potatoes, and the pickers

would pick the ones that were in their section. They would place the potatoes in baskets and then

empty the contents into a barrel. Once the barrel was full, the picker would put a numbered card

on it, so the farmer would know it was them who did it. Each picker was given a specific number

at the beginning of the season. If some other picker replaced your ticketed barrel with their ticket

and were caught, the farmer would immediately fire them. It was not a common thing for people

to steal other picker’s barrels.

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Much of the money that kids earned potato picking was to help buy themselves winter

clothes, extra spending money, or to help their family out because of money problems. Phil’s

parents allowed him to keep the money he earned, but some had to be put away for college.

Today, potato farming is mostly mechanized. It does not need as many young laborers as it used

to. However, farmers do rely on seasonal workers to help in tasks ranging from rock picking and

soil sampling to storing potatoes and driving trucks. SAD 42 Superintendent Elaine Boulier said,

“The benefits of harvest break far outweigh the ‘costs. The harvest break is a long-standing

tradition in Mars Hill that gives students an opportunity to earn a great deal of money in a short

period. It is a valuable learning experience for students that teaches them the work ethic.”

In fourth or fifth grade, Phil began hunting with his dad. He first started out by hunting

partridge in October. Phil was and still does participate in the long Maine tradition. Hunting is

such a part of Maine’s culture that Bowdoin College professor Chris Potholm, who studies

Maine politics claims, “Maine’s long hunting and fishing tradition underpins much of Maine

politics.” For instance, Ed Muskie’s campaign posters for 1954 governor’s race pictured him

with a hunting dog and a dead pheasant. Former Governor Angus King gave sportsmen much of

the credit for his election. Potholm said, “Maine remains ‘The Wild, Wild East’ in politics.”

Every year Phil takes vacation time to spend a week in the woods hunting partridge and

white-tail deer. It used to be a tradition with him and his father, but since his dad’s passing away

Phil goes hunting alone or with one of his dad’s old friends.

Along with sports and hunting, religion plays a big part in Phil’s life. He was raised

Catholic. His parents were God-fearing, and they practiced the faith. They followed the Ten

Commandments and instilled those values into their four children, Phil, Debbie, Doug, and Paul.
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Phil firmly believes in the saying ‘do to others what you would have them do to you’ which is

Matthew 7:12 in the King James Bible. He has been a loyal Catholic throughout his life. Phil

does not believe in abortion because of the Church’s stance. He goes to church every Sunday as

well as individual holidays such as Easter, Christmas, Lent, Ash Wednesday, and Thanksgiving.

His Catholic beliefs stand out in his kind and caring nature. People quickly come to feel at ease

being in his company because of how kind and polite he is. Another outstanding quality is that

Phil does not swear or swears so infrequently it shocks people who know him when he does.

Phil’s Catholic faith is not of a forceful nature. He does not try to push his beliefs onto

others. He is respectful of other people’s beliefs and thinks all religions believe in the same God,

no matter how they practice it. He tries to always see the good in people.

Steven Meyers is one of Phil’s closest friends. They have known each other since first

grade. Their friendship became more intimate when they both began playing fourth-grade

basketball. Sports were a strong link between the two of them. While they both were raised

Catholic, Steve drifted away from the religion in his late twenties and became agnostic. Despite

Phil and Steve having different perspectives about religion, they have remained close friends. It

shows that Phil is accepting of other people’s beliefs. His gentle, trusting nature is what Steve

values most about Phil. This is a big deal for Steve because he does not trust people very quickly.

It says a lot about Phil’s character that Steve is so accepting of him that he said, “We would

never stab each other in the back. If we would ever do that we would both think that it was a

miscommunication in a sense. And that kind of friendship is unique. Many people don’t have

that.”
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Monique Meyers, Steve’s wife, thinks Phil’s and Steve’s close relationship is good for

both of them. She said, “They’ve had different paths in life, and Phil has always been part of

dad’s life. Even when we were married, Phil was at our wedding. When we adopted you guys

(Jonathan and Zachary), he was part of your life. So he’s kind of like an uncle too (Zachary and

Jon.)” Phil’s values and personality are viewed by Monique and Steve as a massive asset while

raising their two sons. They believe Phil is a good mentor for their sons. Steve views Phil as

more of a brother to him than his brother.

Once Phil graduated from high school, he attended the University of Maine at Orono and

eventually earned an English degree. His college years were uneventful.

Phil never had what he called a dream job. Because so many people encouraged him to

work with kids, Phil decided to try being a substitute teacher. A substitute teacher is different

than a regular teacher. A proper teacher has more training and creates the teaching syllabus for

the entire school year. A substitute teacher is responsible for carefully following the lesson plans

left by the teacher when they are not there. Substitute teachers can work in multiple schools. The

requirements in Maine are the person must have a high school diploma, are not allowed to teach

for more than ten days in any one teaching assignment, and must have two or more years of

college. All substitute teachers must submit to a criminal background check.

Phil found it was not to his liking. He said, “I just couldn’t handle the… (chuckled) You

had to be a disciplinarian to be a school teacher. It’s hard to be a friend and be a teacher. So

that’s what I thought, ‘Well, okay, I’ll try being a teacher.’ I did some student teaching. I took

some classes, and I did some substitute teaching when I was in college. I did that at the high
 Meyers 8

school level, and I realized that I wasn’t into being a disciplinarian sort. I wanted the kids to

behave, but I didn’t want to have to do all the work to make them behave.

It’s tough being a substitute teacher because you’re put in the situation where all the kids

there look at it as a day-off. They don’t look at it as, ‘Okay, Mr. Bushey’s here and we’re going

to listen to Mr. Bushey or Mr. Meyers or whoever the teacher is.’ Most of them are just ‘Well,

this is a day-off for us. Our teacher isn’t here.’ And I found that difficult to do and a difficult

situation to be in, so I said, ‘Ya know, maybe teaching isn’t for me.’” Phil distinctly remembers a

student swearing at him. It was a real eye-opener. Kids swearing at Madawaska High School

teachers was unthinkable when he was in school.

During Phil’s college years, he met Steve’s future wife Monique Dube when he came to

visit them at the University of Southern Maine. They developed a friendship. Once Steve and

Monique started dating, Phil’s and Monique’s friendship got closer. Her first thoughts about Phil

were that he was “very friendly, very nice, very polite.”

Monique was comfortable enough with Phil to let him stay with her and Steve soon after

they got married. Phil had moved to Portland, looking for work, but did not have a place to stay.

Monique and Steve lived in a small apartment. Phil slept on the couch. It was the only place to

sleep. Monique said, “He didn’t know anybody in Portland. He didn’t have a job. He didn’t have

an apartment, so he stayed with us in our apartment for a few weeks. And we were on a tight

budget. And I remember eating a lot of spaghetti. It was cheap. We’d buy a lot of extra bread

because Phil had quite an appetite. So we would just stock up on bread and pasta because that

was a cheap way to keep him full. And we didn’t have a lot of money. We were just starting out,

right after to college.”

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After a few weeks, Phil got his own apartment with two other roommates. They were a

guy and a girl. They were strangers to each other. He had a job at a hotel in Portland. Phil didn’t

interact with his roommates very much. Monique recalls, “One Christmas he got a job working

at a hotel in Portland, and he had to work Christmas Eve, so Steve felt bad. I think we were

going up to Lewiston that year for Christmas Eve. So Steve made him a batch of cookies, and we

brought them to the hotel. They were meant as a Christmas gift. He was going to be working all

night. And that’s when he told us that his girl roommate overdosed on drugs and he was there

when it happened. He was the one that called the ambulance. They couldn’t save her. I remember

telling him, ‘Oh my gosh, that must’ve been so traumatic.’”

Phil said he was not traumatized by the suicide. He did not know her that well. They had

not been living together for very long. They also did not hang out together. She was in her room

most of the time. Phil was twenty-two at the time.

Despite Phil’s claim that he was not affected by his roommate’s suicide, the National

Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) which is part of the United States National

Library of Medicine (NLM) and a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) states there

is a strong relationship between suicide and depression and the bereaved survivors of suicide

could also be a high-risk suicide group. Estimates range from as low as six to eight people or as

many as twenty-eight who are affected. The NCBI report also states, “However, a bereaved

person may not necessarily experience grief. A bereaved person is someone suffering a loss. It is

more about the fact that a loss has occurred. Though the word “suffering” is used, some resilient

people may go through that loss without showing much emotional distress or physiological
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symptoms.” Phil did not show any signs of emotional distress, but Steve said that Phil keeps a lot

of his personal feelings to himself.

After working at various hotels, Phil eventually was hired by L.L. Bean in the

mid-nineteen-eighties and has been working there ever since. In that time, he lived in various

apartments with other roommates. For one period, Phil shared an apartment with his brother

Doug. After Doug married, Phil eventually became a tenant at several different homes in which

the owners also lived. The various places he lived were in the greater Portland and Freeport area.

As a result of the 2007 Subprime Mortgage Crisis, Phil was able to afford a small home in

Brunswick that had been repossessed by the banks.

Phil has been a bachelor his entire life. This is not by choice. He dated women in high

school and while in college, some of them for years. Since Phil is uncomfortable discussing his

relationships with women, much of the following is based on Monique’s and Steve’s

speculations.

“Well, when I first met Phil in college,” Monique said, “he was talking to me that first

night about how his girlfriend from high school had just broken up with him.” This talk occurred

during their freshmen year in college. “They had gone out for a couple of years. They went to the

prom together. He was distraught that they had broken up.

“When Steve and I were first married, we tried setting up Phil on several double dates

and blind dates. But he didn’t seem too interested in any of them. I got the sense that he never

got over his first girlfriend. And that no other woman could be as good as his high school

sweetheart.”
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Steve, however, takes a different view. He said, “I’ve asked (Phil) in the past because

he’s single and he’s never been married. He’s said he’s been interested and I did address, years

and years ago, if he might be gay and would he tell me? There was a long pause, Phil doesn’t

like to make quick snap responses, and he said, “Probably not.” So there is a point where there is

stuff that is too personal for even me to hear.”

Monique continues, “I don’t know if he ever had other relationships. If he did, he never

talked to us about it. He told me the other day that he seems resigned to the fact that he’ll never

get married, but I told him, ‘He should never say never because of look at Claire and Gordon.

Gordon was sixty-three and when he married Claire and that was the first time he ever got

married.’”

Monique believes that Phil struggled a lot with his religious beliefs and how he fit into

the world. Church helps him some form of stability. Being around people with similar beliefs is

reassuring to him. He grew up in a predominantly Catholic environment and found, as an adult,

he was surrounded by a variety of different beliefs.

Over the years, Monique sees that Phil has become more open-minded and he does not

seem to struggle as much. She recalls Phil bringing up religion quite a bit during his twenties and

thirties, but since Monique and Steve adopted their sons, has been less outspoken. Steve

remembers having a private talk with Phil about his efforts to come back to the Catholic faith. By

that point, Steve was agnostic. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines an agnostic as “a person

who holds the view that any ultimate reality (such as God) is unknown and probably

unknowable” It also says, “One who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the

nonexistence of God or a god.” He said, “I explained where I was with my faith and that he
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needed to back off because whatever road I go down is going to be based upon my choice and

whatever roads he goes down will be his choice.” Phil came to accept that condition to the

friendship. Monique and Steve do not know if he tries to persuade other people.

It may be that his deep faith has contributed to his difficulties in finding a spouse.

Monique believes Phil’s beliefs are more conservative than typical Catholics here in Maine,

especially in the Portland area. Maine has fewer residents who claim a religious affiliation than

any other state in the United States. According to a census conducted every ten years by the

Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, Maine is the only state in the country

in which less than 30 percent of the population belongs to a religious organization.

For most of his adult life, Phil has worked in one of L.L.Bean’s warehouses. He knows a

good deal of the employees on a first-name basis. This is impressive because L.L. Bean employs

a year-round regular staff of five thousand. Of course, he does not know all the employees, but

Phil does have a very good memory in recalling people’s names.

Though Phil is not in his dream job, he tries to be creative in improving the work

environment. He said, “Whatever I’m doing I like try to improve the process. I try to think of a

way that would improve the job, improve production. I count inventory for a living, so that’s an

interesting thought. For instance, most companies count inventory. They give a fiscal inventory

like once a year where they shut down for a couple days. Well, my company is so big and has so

much inventory that they can’t do that. You have to count inventory every day. So how do you

get that inventory into the system? So it’s always nice to say, ‘Well, how about we try doing it

this way or try that this way?’ I try to improve the process. That’s what they are paying me to do.

You try to do the best you can.”

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Phil’s biggest strength is not something you can put a price on. It is his kindness.

However, his low self-confidence hinders him from his full potential. Monique and Steve do not

believe L.L. Bean is the best he could aspire to. The work he does is honorable, but it does not

allow Phil to use his strongest traits.

Phil lives a productive and faith-centered life. Many people like being around him

because he is a gentle decent human being. His friends and coworkers feel he would have been

great teaching or dealing with kids. A social service job in which he is helping people become

more empowered, such organizations as Big Brothers/Big Sisters. Because Phil shies away from

stressful encounters, working in more challenging jobs such as in Maine’s Department of Health

and Human Services would not be a good fit for him.

In conclusion, Phil has unfulfilled dreams in areas such as his job and getting married.

But he has also had some success such as buying his own home and staying healthy enough to

play sports, especially basketball. Keeping his friendships alive with people who lived in

Madawaska has been a bright spot in his life. Even if the people are decades younger than him

and they have never met, Phil makes an effort to connect with them because they are from “The

County.” It is the common term used by people from Aroostook County where Madawaska is

located. Phil is an example of how strong social experiences from their past remain important

and help a person cope with everyday life. His religious faith has also been a great deal of

comfort in all parts of his life.

 
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Works Cited

Bible​, American King James version, Matthew 7:12, http://biblehub.com/matthew/7-12.htm

Blint-Welsh, Tyler, ​The Maine schools that have shrunk the most​, Bangor Daily News,

December 12, 2017

Brina, Anthony, ​Aroostook County schools re-examine potato harvest book​, Bangor Daily News,

December 21, 2015.

Eno, Don, ​Madawaska seniors look to the future following graduation​, St. John Valley Times/

Fiddlehead Focus, June 6, 2017

Harrison, Judy, ​Got faith? Maine the least-religious state in the nation​, Bangor Daily News,

May 18, 2012

L.L. Bean​, https://www.llbean.com/customerService/aboutLLBean/images/FactSheet_2014.pdf

Madawaska, Maine​, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madawaska,_Maine

Madawaska, Maine​, http://www.townofmadawaska.com

Smith, George, ​Why Maine Needs Hunters​, Bangor Daily News Blog, October 5, 2016

Teaching Certification.com, ​Maine Substitute Teaching License,

http://www.teaching-certification.com/teaching/maine-substitute-license.html

The National Center for Biotechnology Information​,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2931588/

The Owl 1978 Year Book​, volume XXXXIII, American Yearbook Company, 1978.

United Divide: A Linear Portrait of the USA/Canada Border,​ Chapter 1: Northern Maine and

New Hampshire, The Center for Land Use Interpretation, Winter 2015.

Whittle, Patrick, ​Paper mills fold, rewriting Maine history​, The Associated Press, Bangor Daily
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News, November 28, 2014