It was back in the winter of 1972 that I first met Chip Carey. Chip was the mountain photographer and vice president of marketing at Sugarloaf/USA and I worked for the daily newspaper. I remember every year Chip would take me in a pickup at the first snow up Chicken Pitch (so steep that we were stuck to the side of the mountain). I would be screaming and Chip laughing and all of this was just so I could get that first snowball that Chip would make and throw at the camera.

Then Chip told me one year the only way I could get a “good photo” was to ride on the snow cat to the top of the mountain with Forrest Parsons. I guess you can tell by now I hate anything higher than a kitchen chair. What I did to get a photograph really amazes me now.

One thing was for sure I could get a story or photograph out of Sugarloaf everyday. No wonder in 1994 that Chip and Warren Cook gave me that beautiful plaque for “putting Sugarloaf on the map” and in 1976 a plaque naming me “Woman of the Year” from the Sugarloaf Area Association (the only downfall I had was I had to share it with Ed Rogers as the Man of the Year!).

Franklin “Chip” Carey and Laura Dunham at Kingfield Festival Days. Now Chip and Nancy live in Teton Village, Wyo. since leaving Sugarloaf in 1997. There Chip is Chief of Marketing at the Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort and gets a chance to see our very own former Sugarloaf Mountain Manager Harry Baxter who Chip says is retired from the resort but not from skiing, hunting and all those other outdoor sports. I used to love to go to Sugarloaf back in the Harry Baxter days when you could just walk right through the door and just sit and visit.

It sure was good to see Chip again at Kingfield Days I hadn’t seen him for years although we had made plans every year to meet, the time flies and we don’t spend enough time keeping in contact with old friends.

Nancy Marshall is another dear friend and I remember taking her photograph out on the back deck of the Base Lodge when she graduated from Colby and started at Sugarloaf. Well, look at her now! I’m so proud of her but I always tell her “remember I knew you Nancy when you were nobody!” I do keep this special photograph of Nancy laying on the bed with me when I was bed ridden from surgery on my foot now I will add Chip and me to it.

I spoke with Scott Nichols, Police Chief of Carrabassett Valley, who along with his wife, Lorna, enjoyed a trip to Rome recently and then a seven-day Mediterranean cruise that took them to several islands, Italy, Spain and France. The best news is that their son, Scottie, will soon be arriving home from Afghanistan.

It sure is a small world we had a three-day garage sale last weekend and of course lots of people whom we both enjoy came by. I was talking to one woman, Lorraine Marcoux from Coplin Plantation, who said she was a “transplant” from Massachusetts and as we got to talking I found out that she and I had both worked for the American Greeting Card Company back in Webster, Mass., back in the 1960s. When Lorraine told me she guessed she would never be a “native,” I told her the story about Win Robinson who after years of living in Kingfield thought he must be a “native now.” I told him when you came across that bridge in New Hampshire you were a transplant and that is hard to change.

Don’t forget the first meeting for Kingfield Days 2011 committee will be held Thursday, Aug. 19 at 6 p.m. at Longfellow’s Restaurant. Chairman Myra Coffin is look-

ing for input for next year’s activities and possibly any necessary changes from this year’s events.

Austin and Kitty Thompson of Redmond, Ore. have been in town this past week. We had a wonderful afternoon with Austin as he and Howard recalled many memories from Kingfield High School and growing up together in the community.

Please don’t forget to send cards to those in the nursing homes: Florence Hall and Merlin White at Edgewood Manor in Farmington and Arlene Murray at the Sandy River Rehabilitation facility. My prayers also go out to senior citizen Ruth Dolley and my friend Dawn Taylor.

I understand the senior dinner held at the Kingfield Elderly Housing was a huge success with some 40 attending on Saturday. I was glad to see my friend Virginia Buotte from Edgewood Rehabilitation Center at the Dutch Treat Cruise Night Wednesday. (Virginia is avid Irregular reader, counting the days until Wednesday’s.)