Glenn Humphrey for Kennebec7
Kennebec7 became intrigued by my clash with the ring of pedophiles when I was a youngster. I don’t know quite how they found out about my story. It was so many years ago. I’m 68 now, so I was only 14 when the evil began in my life back on Fourth of July, 1956.
To me, the most remarkable aspect of the adventure, which was also so tragic and painful for so many people, was that it marked the beginning of the greatest love story I could ever imagine.
Carolyn Niskanen Asher is now also 68, some six months younger than me. We’ve known each other since 4th grade in our small town in central Massachusetts. We still stay in touch. Last I heard, Carolyn is climbing mountains in New Zealand where she now resides. She tells me she plans to live to 150.
I haven’t retired either. I still have my two bookstores up here in Maine, one coincidentally less than 15 miles from the Kennebec River. This group, Kennebec7, has its roots here, so I understand, but today they’re all over the world, and from what I’m reading—beyond this world, too.
Fourth of July will come again in a few months. Since that summer when all the evil entered my life, I haven’t been inclined to celebrate that holiday. The fireworks and everything just set off all those memories, particularly of Hollis and Louis Nash. Who were Hollis Cooper and Louis Nash, you might be wondering. Well, Nash is long deceased. He didn’t make it much past his 14 years in prison for what he did. You’ll have to wait for the book, Mattipax, which will be published next year, for the full story. Hollis was a 16-year-old inmate at the Sherman School for Boys. (It wasn’t really a ‘school,’ folks.) Carolyn and I saved his life.
Nash was a deacon in our church and the superintendent at Sherman. He was also a pedophile. More about them all in my next blog. Much more about Carolyn. She was the Lisbeth Salander of my life, if you’re familiar with that amazing Millennium series.
One brief word of explanation about ‘Mattipax.’ It was Heaven for us kids. Up here in Maine you can still find some of those places. It was a Great Forest with a Great Lake and it was forbidden for most folks to use. But we kids used it, where we could be Robin Hood and Maid Marion and whomever we wanted. No Parents Allowed.
Glenn Humphrey
Bath, Maine
03/23/2010