{"id":3438,"date":"2010-11-24T00:23:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-24T07:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=3438"},"modified":"2018-02-06T17:01:43","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T22:01:43","slug":"of-ghosts-guests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/of-ghosts-guests\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Ghosts & Guests"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 2010<\/p>\n

By Colin W. Sargent<\/p>\n

\"colin08\"\u201cLady Gaga, meet the ghost of Lucky Lindy\u201d ran like quicksilver through my brain when I heard the lady in question had chosen Deering Oaks as the perfect place in Maine to make a speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s because famed aviator Charles Lindbergh made that same unusual choice of venue when he came to Portland on July 23, 1927.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why connect these two figures (beyond the certainty that both loved to shoot their mouths off, based on significant achievements they made in other fields?) Can the living and dead occupy the same space at the same time? <\/em>Should we appreciate more than just what\u2019s in front of our eyes? I think it\u2019s more a matter of loving Portland on both the \u201creal\u201d and the \u201cfantastic level,\u201d as the Rev. Dr. T. Lawrence Shannon says in Night of the Iguana<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the real level, consider: According to USA Today<\/em>, 400 people came to hear Lady Gaga speak about abolishing \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d in the military.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, resonate that against the fantastic level: Twenty-five thousand<\/em> crowded into the Oaks to hear Lucky Lindy in the same spot in 1927, with electric amplifiers set up so everyone could hear every word that came out of his mouth. His hot button? \u201cUnited support of U.S. Air Mail.\u201d Of course, the Lone Eagle was having a fabulous year. He\u2019d just become the first human being to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in his iconic monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis<\/em>. For that matter, Portland was having a great year, too. Lindbergh was the celebrity chosen to open the doors of the brand new, posh Eastland Hotel. (A fragrant tidbit I learned on Maine Memory Network: When Lindbergh was about to fly away\u2013having landing on Old Orchard Beach\u2013he tossed a piece of seaweed into the air to determine wind direction.)<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter your flight level, real or supernatural, it\u2019s a good idea to know which way the wind is blowing.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll have a chance to experience the same kind of mystical duet this winter while watching the Maine Red Claws play basketball at the Exposition Building. While our new, charismatic, 6<\/span>‘<\/span>-11<\/span>“<\/span> center Magnum Rolle, from Freeport, Bahamas, is dunking the basketball, I\u2019ll be cheering for him on the realistic level while still spellbound by the ghost of the great Paavo Nurmi, who will be running rings around him \u201con the fantastic level.\u201d Nurmi, the greatest of all Olympic distance-running champions, came to run here on February 9, 1925\u2013lapping the field in the 3,000-yard run at the Exposition Building.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t Nurmi\u2019s spirit be with us, too, while we\u2019re watching Magnum Rolle? Don\u2019t all of Nurmi\u2019s nine<\/em> gold medals count for anything? Isn\u2019t it time for us to admit there really was a world before we were born?<\/span><\/p>\n

We asked the Red Claws if Rolle himself believes in ghosts, and they said, \u201cbeing new to the area\u2026Magnum [is] not comfortable participating in the ghost story.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Smart choice. It\u2019s best to know the ghosts around here before you take them on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Colin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 2010 By Colin W. Sargent \u201cLady Gaga, meet the ghost of Lucky Lindy\u201d ran like quicksilver through my brain when I heard the lady in question had chosen Deering Oaks as the perfect place in Maine to make a speech. That\u2019s because famed aviator Charles Lindbergh made that same unusual choice of venue when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-3438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-december-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3438"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14499,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3438\/revisions\/14499"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}