2385 Congress Street • Portland, ME Dave Hamilton Anthony Inverso Joan Hopkins Risk Management • Construction Hospitality • Professional Liability Employee Benefits • Hi-Tech Cyber Liability • Bonds Home, Auto & Life www.clarkinsurance.com Josh Fifield Meet Josh. •Board Member of American Red Cross • Planning Committee Member of Opportunity Maine •Biddeford Saco Rotary Member Josh Ellis Senior Account Executive (207) 523-2297 •Specializes in Insuring the Construction Industry n o v e m b e r 2 0 1 8 4 1 braid sweetgrass for her. They’d have a lit- tle lunch, and then they’d make it a night. They’d braid a hundred yards of sweetgrass that one night. Then the next week they’d go to somebody else’s house, and then she’d give them a lunch and they’d braid all her sweet- grass. Everybody helped. Everybody got their grass braided.” Have you heard before of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act? I wondered what you might have thought about it. “Well, I don’t know. It’s hard for me to say. Because I have people coming in here ev- ery day of the week, telling me that they have…whatever blood. Cherokee or what- ever. I say, well, that’s nice. But when it comes down to that, like you say, with this arts thing... I don’t know, I think they should be registered or connected with a tribe somewhere.” You always told me if something wasn’t local, you knew where it came from. “Right, yes. I try to avoid that kind of stuff, you know, if I can. It’s so darn hard to- day. But most of my stuff, I try to get natu- ral made stuff made by Natives, you know? If possible. And I get a lot of stuff made by Mohawks up in St. Regis. And now I’m getting these from Canada. From the tribe up there. Anyway, I try to get Na- tive American stuff made by Native Amer- icans. And some things we make right here. Like those dreamcatchers.” Areyouplanningtoretireatsomepoint? “When it comes to that time, which will probably be next year or the year after, some- thing like that, I will be here still to help my daughter get acclimated and everything.” Itjustwouldn’tbethesamewithoutyouhere totellthestories. “That’s what everybody tells me. They just thank me for talking to them. And I enjoy talking to ’em. Just like my dad. He’d stand right there, making his moccasins, and cus- tomers would come in here and talk, talk, talk. They’d talk for hours. And sometimes they don’t buy anything. He didn’t care. He says, ‘I just like to talk with them.’ So I guess I must take after him.” At a spritely 88, June Ranco carries the stories that transcend across generations of Maine. It you’re willing to listen, she’s will- ing to tell them. “They love it,” June says, “and they’ll ask me questions, and I’ll an- swer their questions, you know. And some- times they buy something, which is fine. But they keep coming back, you know? They keep coming back. So that’s good.”