Katie Irwin: [0:00:12] I’ll just start by asking your full name.

 

BH: [0:00:14] Herb Baum III.

 

KI: [0:00:17] So where did you grow up, Herb?

 

BH: [0:00:20] I grew up right here in Kennebunk, born and brought up here. So, down in Kennebunk Lower Village. My dad moved here when he was in high school. My mom was born and brought up here, and they met that way. So, the next generation is still here.

 

KI: [0:00:39] What was it like growing up here for you as a kid?

 

BH: [0:00:43] As a kid, this area was totally different than it is now because it wasn’t as crowded and touristy, but it was a good town to grow up in. It was a lot of stuff for kids to do. Back in that generation, it wasn’t movie theaters and bowling alleys and good things like that. It was a quiet town, [a] fishing village. It was a nice area.

 

KI: [0:01:06] Did you spend any time fishing?

 

BH: [0:01:08] I did. Actually, my dad was a lobsterman. So, he lobstered his whole life. During summers, I lobstered with him. It wasn’t my best job that I liked, because I got seasick. But I did it and grew up on the water. So, yeah, my grandfather was a boat builder, so they came by it naturally, and fishing was a thing. You went fishing all the time around here. You could fish off anywhere.

 

KI: [0:01:35] Do you have any memorable boat trips or times fishing with either your grandfather or your dad?

 

BH: [0:01:42]  Memorable. I mean, going, seeing whales and different things. It’s always a treat. But just fishing in the area was just so beautiful because it was right off of Kennebunk, so right off the beach, and so you’d see all kinds of activity going on. It was just a quiet – it’s a hard life. Fishing is not an easy thing. But I only did it in the summer, so I was fortunate; it was good weather most of the time. Going out in the winter is not easy. Memorable was like I said, just seeing the beauties of this area. I mean, we’re so fortunate to grow up here and live here on the coast.

 

KI: [0:02:23] And what’s your family like growing up?

 

BH: [0:02:28] I had three sisters, my parents, and my grandparents. We all lived in one neighborhood next door to each other. My dad’s parents lived next door to us, and my aunt and uncle lived on the other side. The boatyard that my grandfather owned was right there. So, we grew up right in a – I call it – family complex. It was alright together. So, family was big. My mom’s family lived only a quarter mile away, so it was a nice area to grow up with, with siblings and friends, and everything was walking.

 

KI: [0:03:00] What do you like to do with your friends and siblings for fun as kids?

 

BH: [0:03:03] Oh, as a kid, it was always playing games – marbles and things like that because there was no TV or Internet back then. It was mostly outdoor games. Growing up, [we] lived on the river, so we always had a rowboat and could go up and down the river. The boatyard goes right there. So, you could always play down where the boats go in and out of the water. Back then, the river was clean, and you could swim in it. It was muddy, but it was good. That was summertime. Winter was always snow. We had a lot of snow here. It’s just way different than now. You did a lot of outdoor activities with skiing and sledding. There was a lot of nice sledding hills. That was as a little kid.

 

KI: [0:03:46] Have you spent your whole life living in Kennebunk?

 

BH: [0:03:50] Yeah. Other than going to college. I’ve never lived anywhere but Kennebunk.

 

KI: [0:03:57] Where did you go to school as a kid, and what was that like for you?

 

BH: [0:04:01] Elementary school was Cousens School, which is now senior apartments down the street. Then Park Street School, which is actually right behind us, is also apartments. And then Kennebunk High School. It was a good school system. We were very fortunate to get through the school system and good teachers, K through twelve, right in the same schools.

 

KI: [0:04:27] Did you enjoy school? How did you find it as a kid?

 

BH: [0:04:30]  As a little kid, I hated going to school. I think my mother said I used to hide behind the tree when the bus would come. I think that’s just typical of any kid. In high school, I enjoyed high school really because of Salt. That became the key factor in high school. I got so involved in that that it just made high school a great experience.

 

KI: [0:04:56] Was there any particular subject or area that you were really interested in?

 

BH: [0:04:59] In high school? Salt. I mean, I took all my classes as much as I could in Salt. Other than that, I didn’t like math as far as algebra and geometry and stuff. I like business math. It was mostly history and writing – English. But if you had to pick a favorite subject back then, I was fortunate because Salt was a subject. The Salt class was the key. So, I had three or four a day. My whole schedule revolved around that. You could make your schedule.

 

KI: [0:05:33] I guess I didn’t ask this question earlier, but can I ask when you were born and what were the decades that you were growing up as a kid?

 

BH: [0:05:39] I was born in 1958. So, the late ’50s. When I went to school, [it] was in the early ’60s and high school – I graduated in ’76. So, it was, like I said, back before internet and all those good things. Like I said, the tape recorders, the old push buttons, and reel-to-reels, and all those good things. It was different. My first car was a ’66 Volkswagen. It was given to me by my grandparents. I thought that was great to have a [car].

 

KI: [0:06:14] What have you noticed from when you were growing up to now – the changes in Kennebunk?

 

BH: [0:06:21] Mostly, I think it’s the population. It’s just become so intense around here. It’s not the quaint little town that it used to be, but it’s still a good town. But it’s different. Traffic is obviously way heavier. I mean, traffic in the summer was always heavy even back then, but not to the extreme it is now. So, it’s different that way. And you knew everybody. You couldn’t go into a store without knowing ninety-five percent of the people in there. Now, it’s like the opposite. If you know five percent – if you see one person sometimes in the store that you recognize, you’re like, “Oh.” It’s just different because everybody changes and moves. That’s pretty much the biggest change, is population.

 

KI: [0:07:04] You mentioned changes in the climate and stuff as well. What have you noticed?

 

BH: [0:07:10] We don’t get anywhere near the snow in the winter that we used to get. I mean this occasional year that we get some heavy snow. But I mean, as a kid, I can remember the snow banks were up above the top of the garage because you could ski down them in your driveway from where they plowed them. The summer was – we had warm spells, but it was always called the dog days of August, which was the hot spell, and now August isn’t our hot month; it’s June and July. It definitely has warmed up here and changed, no question. Like I say, the winters are – as hard as they are, they’re nowhere near the extreme as they used to be.

 

KI: [0:07:47] Does Kennebunk still have fishing and boating? Is that still a huge part of the community?

 

BH: [0:07:54] Yes, it definitely is. The river is still very active; it’s an active waterfront, and it’s different than it was because commercial boats are less than the pleasure boats, but there’s still a big fishing port down there, and a lot of families as next generations of or third generations of the same names [inaudible] type of family that continue to fish. So, yeah, it’s still big, and it’s a big factor in the economy because the fishing supports the tourists because the lobster businesses. It’s a domino effect, so it definitely is the key factor.

 

KI: [0:08:28] What do you remember about your dad being a fisherman?

 

BH: [0:08:33] He was an avid fisherman; he lived it. He did everything from lobstering to dragging back then, different types of fishing and he just loved the water. Like I said, it’s not an easy job. It was a hard life. He was a worker. Your days weren’t just out in the boat. Working on the traps and getting them ready. It was a seasonal type thing sometimes, but you continued. He was fortunate. In the winters, he would work for my grandfather at the boatyard, so he wouldn’t fish in the winter back then. Then, as he got older, he started doing some winter fishing. That’s not easy.

 

KI: [0:09:12] When you would go out on the boat with him, what was that like for you?

 

BH: [0:09:17] Going out lobstering, I mean, [inaudible] it was a job. You went out, and you did your job, and you baited the traps and hauled them. But it was fun watching the expectation when the trap would come up. What’s going to be in it? Like I say, once in a while, there would be a shark, a baby shark in it or something, treats, things like that, that you kind of always looked forward to, but you never knew. It was always fun. Like I said, it was the beauty of the ocean. Unless it wasn’t smooth, then it wasn’t fun.

 

KI: [0:09:47] When did he start taking you out on the boat?

 

BH: [0:09:50] We went out as kids all the time. But I started actually going working with him when I was in high school. I think it was eighth grade – eighth or ninth grade. I started summers, and I went with him. Because lifting those traps, you got to have a little bit of strength to you and size. He was a rugged man, and I wasn’t, so he did all the heavy work.

 

KI: [0:10:12] What do you remember about your grandfather being a boat builder?

 

BH: [0:10:16] Oh, I mean, we grew up there, like I said, next door. So, I can always remember we had – the boats were always being built and worked on, and it was active. It was one of the most active boat yards at the time. So, it was busy all year, and you can still smell the wood. If you go someplace and your memory comes back. It’s like, “Oh, I remember that smell.” He was a craftsman. He was a very talented – he built some beautiful [boats], not just little lobster – I mean, he built everything from lobster boats to big yachts. So, he was very talented.

 

KI: [0:10:50] Is that a craft that anyone else in your family has kind of continued on?

 

BH: [0:10:53] I mean, my dad built boats with him. My sister actually loves woodworking, but none of the rest of us had that craft. No. It was a knack, that’s for sure. He started when he was very young, my grandfather. When he lived in Rockland, he built little row boats and started that way and then worked his way up and worked back in the – I guess in the ’20s and early ’30s, and they called them the shipyards in Portland. He and my grandmother both worked there. Then he bought the boatyard here in ’45 and moved. That’s when they moved here.

 

KI: [0:11:29] What’s the status of the boatyard now?

 

BH: [0:11:32] It’s condos. Right now. It’s had a lot of history since he sold it, but it ended up being condos. It went from the boatyard to Salt bought it in ’77, and then after Salt sold it, it became a restaurant, and it was a really nice restaurant for many years, a beautiful spot. Then, when the restaurant sold, there were two actual restaurants that were there, but the last one that was the good one sold got bought [inaudible], and they completely renovated it. It’s a beautiful complex, but it’s all condos. I think there’s four or five in it. It sits right on the water, looking at Dock Square. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Kennebunkport. It’s in Kennebunk, but it looks into the town of Kennebunkport. You’re familiar with it? You know where it is.

 

Travis Clough: [0:12:16] Yes.

 

KI: [0:12:19] How did it come about for Salt to take on the boatyard?

 

BH: [0:12:23] Well, Salt started at Kennebunk High School, and then when we negotiated with Doubleday Books to put together the first Salt Book: [Lobstering, Sea Moss Pudding, Stone Walls, Rum Running, Maple Syrup, Snowshoes, and Other Yankee Doings], they encouraged us that we needed to incorporate for tax purposes and the book sales. The school board at the time struggled with an organization within the school having a separate organization, and so they decided that Salt didn’t belong in the schools anymore. So, Pam [Wood] started looking around at different options, and the boatyard went for sale – my grandfather’s boatyard. So, she made the deal, and Salt bought the boatyard. That became a school at the time, and we did grants through Kellogg Corporation and through different universities. We had a vocational – let’s say – rehab – it was called back then. Boat Tech school type of thing. So, they had boat building classes in one section of the building with woodworking and the boat building. Then, they had another section that had the writing, the photography, and everything that went with the journalism. And then there were other classes at the same time. So we bused kids in from different schools. Some were school-age, and some were postgraduate-type things, and they had a program there for quite a few years. They sold the boatyard and moved to a building down in Cape Porpoise. At that time, it started getting in with some of the college courses. But it was still – the magazine was still being produced and the photography. So, it was limited more to that than the woodworking. That part went away. They had a boat builder that they had trained that worked with him, and when he retired, it was like they had to find alternatives, and the building was big and old and costly. As you know from the size of the building, it was a big old building. They moved into a nice house that was for sale in Cape Porpoise that was able to be renovated. Like I said, it was more on the journalism side. I can’t remember what year that was, but it was in the ’80s.

 

BH: [0:14:24] What was it like for you to see your grandfather’s boatyard transformed into Salt Studios?

 

BH: [0:14:30] Yeah, I was excited about it, obviously because, being so involved with Salt, it was neat to have it go from – my grandfather retired. I mean, he was in his seventies. The last boat he built was my dad’s lobster boat. The ending of the era was my dad wanted the last boat, so he got the last boat out of there. Then they put it on the market, and they went to Florida for winters. So, it was exciting for Salt all to buy it and be part of it. I was part of the whole transaction and worked with Pam and my grandparents, both sides of the fence. My grandparent’s house looked right at it. It was right there. So, we saw everything. My mom and dad lived next door, so I walked to and from when I worked there summers. It was good.

 

KI: [0:15:19] Did your grandparents stay there across the way all through their life?

 

KI: [0:15:24] Yeah. My grandfather passed away not too many years later after he sold it. But my grandmother stayed there for a couple more years, and then she moved just three houses down to a house that she had and sold that one because it was bigger. [She] stayed in the area until she passed away, and my mom and dad lived next door until my mom just passed away in 2016. We kept the house for another three years after that but then sold it. That whole area was, at one time, like I said, all one family, and now it’s different, but it’s still the same neighborhood. Still looks the same other than the buildings.

 

KI: [0:15:59] And you mentioned you have two sisters.

 

BH: [0:16:04] Yeah, I have two sisters and a cousin that grew up with us that’s my sister. So, I have three sisters. One of them still lives in town. Two of them live out of town but still in Maine. One of them became a schoolteacher and lived right in Maine all of her life.

 

KI: [0:16:21] What was it like? What would you all do together as kids?

 

BH: [0:16:25] As kids, you played a lot of games. My older sister was very active in sports, so she was always on the go and in band. But as little kids, we always did family things, board games, and outdoor games and did all the typical things that you did back then. I can remember you had a TV, and the TV could come on at night. You had a couple of shows [and] one channel. UHF [ultra-high frequency] came out, and you could go up in the roof with the antenna and move it just the right way, and you could pick up the Bruins game. It was a treat to get those Bruins games once in a while. My father would be like, “Wait, turn the antenna this way and that way,” way before cable was ever around.

 

KI: [0:17:07] So, where are you placed in the family? Are you a middle child?

 

BH: [0:17:11] I’m the youngest. Like I said, we had my two older sisters, myself, and then my mom and dad raised my cousin because her mom passed away, so she moved in with us when she was four. She’s younger than me. But as far as blood, I was the youngest. I was requested by my grandparents because they wanted a boy because I was the only boy in the family. So, it worked out. I was a boy.

 

KI: [0:17:36] Are there any roles that you took on as the only boy in the family?

 

BH: [0:17:40] Being spoiled. Yeah, no. Like I said, I did not inherit the craft from my grandfather. I’m not handy, so he got all the craftsmanship, he and my dad. My oldest sister loves crafting. She’s a good worker. Good worker. She could probably build a boat. Not me.

 

KI: [0:18:03] Did you ever overlap with your sisters in high school? Were they involved in Salt as well?

 

BH: [0:18:09] No, they weren’t. My middle sister graduated in ’72, and Salt started in ’73. So, she wasn’t involved in it. We didn’t overlap. I entered high school after she graduated. We didn’t overlap in the high school years. We overlapped in the elementary, obviously, because it’s more years, but we didn’t overlap in the older year. There was four years between us.

 

KI: [0:18:34] Well, I guess I’ll start to hit on some of the Salt questions now if that’s okay with you. When did you first learn about Salt?

 

BH: [0:18:42] Summer of ’73. There was a group of students that went with Pam Wood to Foxfire. When they came back – I did not go with that group. I was young. I was only a freshman then. They had gone and learned the [inaudible], came back and taught. Pam actually approached me and asked me if I would be interested in being on the program because she knew my family connections, and she knew, based on what Salt was looking to do with interviewing locals and gathering all the information, I might have some connections. So she cornered me into it and talked me into trying, and that was the beginning of the lifelong.

 

KI: [0:19:21] What were your initial impressions of Salt when you first –?

 

BH: [0:19:26] When I first started, I wasn’t quite sure what it was going to be. You write a story. I didn’t know the whole thing. It was just interesting, and you just fell deep into it the minute you – it was just really an exciting class because you learn – a lot of people look back and say, “Oh, you wrote stories.” Yes, you wrote stories, but you also started from step one, where you brainstormed to come up with the idea for the story, and then you did the interviews, and then you transcribed the interviews. Then you wrote and drafted, and then you laid out the magazine. I mean, we did right from beginning to end. The only thing we didn’t ever do was turn the crank on the printing press. We had it printed at the local printing press, but we did everything from beginning to when it was print-ready. [inaudible] the layout, and then we would hand carry it to the printing press, stand there, and wait for it to come off the presses. You smell the ink coming off. So, there was way more to it than just writing a story, which a lot of people didn’t realize what was involved. So, it was a real good program. Very fortunate.

 

KI: [0:20:33] Do you remember any of the stories that you wrote in the Salt magazine?

 

BH: [0:20:37] Just about every one of them. [laughter]

 

KI: [0:20:39] What was your first story?

 

BH: [0:20:40] My first story was page one of volume one, issue one, “The Stilly Story.” Yeah, it was a local lobsterman, Stilly Griffin. We did a story on him as a lobsterman, and it was the very first – 1974.

 

KI: [0:20:57] What did that involve interviewing him? Did you go out on the boat?

 

BH: [0:21:02] I didn’t. I can’t remember if I actually went out with Stilly because I knew Stilly my whole life. So it was different going out with my dad. But we interviewed him at the wharf. We interviewed him in his shop where he was building his traps. So, we followed him around a lot. The interviewing process, like I said, that was the beginning, so it was a learning – he was great because you could ask a question, [and] you’d hear a forty-five-minute-long story. Then, transcribing them, you hand-wrote from a tape recorder. You sit there. Your finger would get tired because you push the button and you listen to a sentence, and you’d write it down, and then you rewind and hit the button, and you play it again [and make sure you wrote it down. So, you transcribed by hand. It would be hours and hours of interviews that you transcribe. From that, you had to develop your story. So, it was a long process. It wasn’t just quick. Everything was hand-done, and you’d sit there and type it. I’m sure there’s still – in the archives, I’m sure there’s still pages of the handwritten interviews, because that’s how it was done back then. We didn’t really have video cameras. It was stills.

 

KI: [0:22:12] What was that process of transcribing and making the story like for you?

 

BH: [0:22:16] Back then, that was the good part. You usually worked in groups in the classroom, and then you’d stay after school at night. Like I said, Salt wasn’t just a forty-five-minute class; it became pretty much the whole kit and caboodle. The other class fit between it for me. Like I said, the process was time-consuming. You’d sit there with usually one or two people, and you’d have a headset sometimes. You listen, like I say, then you’d hand-write it, then type it, and then you gather that. I can remember you’d have thirty pieces of paper with stuff, and you’d circle the quotes that you really liked, [so] that you could put them into [the story], and then you started putting them together into the storyline, and come up with the beginning to the end. I can always remember that was the worst part, the beginning and the end. It was like the middle fit together, but the beginning and end were always how do you start it and end it.

 

KI: [0:23:12] Do you have any other memorable Salt stories in the magazine that you made?

 

BH: [0:23:16] One of the biggest ones I did was on my grandfather. I actually did a story for the bicentennial issue, and then it went into the book also. It was good interviewing him, and it was his retirement. So, it was a nice tribute to his work. [inaudible] I did a story on my dad and a lot of fishing stories. I did a lot of fishing stories because of my dad’s connection. So, shrimping and dragging, different stories of that. If you didn’t write the story, you still might have been involved in some of the other stories. I went on all the – they did the logging stories. I went on a lot of the interviews and listened, but I might not have participated in writing the story, but you all worked together on things as teams. So, even though you didn’t write a story, you still remember it because you were part of the process.

 

KI: [0:24:06] Do you remember your classmates that you worked with?

 

BH: [0:24:09] A lot of them [I’m] still friendly with, quite a few of them. The picture that was out there for the 50th anniversary coming up. I’m looking at all the faces and a few names you think about, but most of them – yeah, still very friendly with a lot of them.

 

KI: [0:24:26] Do you remember the last story that you did for Salt?

 

BH: [0:24:30] The last one I did. Oh, boy. I’m not positive if the last one was my grandfather. That was the bicentennial one, which was ’76-’77. It was a double issue that we did because they always did – you did four issues a year. Volume one, issues one, two, three, four. So, it was a quarterly type of thing, and then the bicentennial one was volume three, issues one and two. And then after that, I think I worked – I worked on the story on Swans Island. That was after that. I think Swans Island might have been my last story. I’d have to look back at them. I’ve got them all lined up, all the magazines.

 

KI: [0:25:10] What was Swans Island about?

 

BH: [0:25:11] Actually, my grandmother was born and brought up in Swans Island. So we went out there and interviewed people on what it’s like living on an island, especially back in those days. So, we interviewed a lot of the locals. It actually was a little series; there was more than one story in the issue on Swans Island. So, that was a lot of fun. We went and stayed on the island for a few days. Salt gave us a lot of good experiences that way for travel not just in the States but out – it really was an opportunity that a lot of kids wouldn’t get. I had the opportunity to go to Alaska for a month with Pam. That was my senior year in high school. You’re familiar with Foxfire, what Salt started from?

 

KI: [0:25:58] Actually, could you talk a little bit about that?

 

BH: [0:26:00] Sure. So, Salt developed because – Foxfire was in Rabun Gap, Georgia. It was a folklore magazine that did the same thing Salt did on the coast, to interview the people that lived in the area and learn what they did and how they did things. So, Pam had connected with Eliot Wigginton and learned that. So, Salt became one of the next – we’ll call it – successful – what do you want to call? – side trails of Foxfire. Then we actually went around to different schools that would actually have us come and teach them how to do what we were doing. For example, I went to a little village in Alaska called Bethel, Alaska. We worked with the school system, and we stayed there for three weeks and taught them how to come up with a magazine. Actually, they produced a magazine; we helped them with their first issue, stayed there with them, and did the whole process. So, we taught them from step one to the end how to do it. Back then, Alaska was – it was back when the pipelines were first coming out. Alaska had a lot of money in the school systems, so they were able to afford these. I mean, they had printing presses in this school [that] the papers here would have given their eye teeth to have had. It was like they were way above, but they didn’t know how to run this stuff. They had us come, and so we stayed right with them in this little village. Other kids went to different – one went to Hawaii. There were two or three other places. Local ones too that we went to. We went to some universities and gave series on what it’s like. So, kind of the opposite of what we were doing here. It was a great opportunity. Then the whole state – we traveled to interview. So, from Presque Isle, from potato picking to Kittery for fishing. It was pretty much mostly Maine back then. I think there was a crossover, a little bit of Southern New Hampshire, but it was mostly about Maine because that was what the territory was.

 

KI: [0:28:01] What was your first impression of Pamela Wood?

 

BH: [0:28:05] My first impression? I mean, I was probably scared of her. She was a teacher, and she was relentless [in] getting me to join Salt, which I’m very grateful for, but then she just became the hero of everybody. She was an amazing woman. Just very dedicated to Salt and her students. Very fortunate to grow up – she actually lived – I could see her house from my house, so she actually lived very close. Her family became almost like a second family. I swear I spent more time at her house than I did my own house, working because the backside of her house – she had an apartment area built, and she had all the meetings in there in Salt. We worked there day and night, putting stuff together in between school – summers. She was an amazing woman.

 

KI: [0:28:54] Shall we swap?

 

HB: [0:28:56] He gets his turn now?

 

KI: [0:28:57] Yes.

 

HB: [0:29:00] Uh-oh.  Off comes the coat.

 

TC: [0:29:02] Too noisy. Actually, can I move your coffee cup to the other side? All right. So, this is Travis Clough joining the interview. Just get some of these chords out of the way. Okay, great. So, I have so many questions for you. I might dig in a little bit more. Just going back a little bit, you just said that Pamela was trying to get you to join, and I was just curious: what was that relationship like? How did she know about you?

 

BH: [0:29:41] She actually knew about me because she and her husband owned a local newspaper here in town, and she had actually interviewed my grandfather and did a story on him. So, she knew the Baum family and connection. So, she was like, “Oh, this is the type of student” she was looking for that had family relations in the area. So, She picked students and would approach them to join the class when it was going to start that year. So, that’s how she picked my name. “I want you in Salt.” Like I said, first, I was probably hesitant because I didn’t know anything about writing, but she convinced me and the other students that had gone to the summer learning down at Rabun Gap. They all approached me, “You should be in Salt.” That was the beginning.

 

TC: [0:30:24] Was that also because you had an interest in writing?

 

BH: [0:30:27] I didn’t know I had an interest in writing at the time, I don’t think. I don’t remember that I wrote anything prior to that, but I was interested in the process and how she described it, and it was an English class. So, it was like – you got credit for your English. So, it was like, alright, we’ll try this. Actually, you learned more English than you did in the other programs because you did, like I said, the whole thing.

 

TC: [0:30:49] So you were a freshman in high school, and this was a brand-new program. Were you a freshman?

 

BH: [0:30:54] Actually, I think it was my sophomore year it started. They went in the summer of [’73]. Yeah. So it would have been my sophomore year, and that was the first year because the first magazine came out in January of ’74, and we started in September of ’73, in the school year. That was when Salt first started. So, I was a sophomore.

 

TC: [0:31:16] Salt was one class a day, all year round. It was just part of the high school curriculum?

 

BH: [0:31:22] Yeah, it was an English class at that time. So, you had English class. You could get credit for it as English. There was more than one class a day. It was the Salt class, but there were different times that it was given. So, there were some students in the first period and some in fourth period or whatever and then could overlap, and if your schedule allowed it, you could sit in on the other classes because it was more of a workshop class than a sit-down lecture type thing. Although Pam did lectures and [taught] the process to learn the things, it was more of a workshop-type class, so you come and go in the classroom when you needed to.

 

TC: [0:31:57] Was it competitive to get into this program? Were there enough spots for everybody who wanted to be a part of it?

 

BH: [0:32:05] If I remember right, I don’t think it was competitive in that there wasn’t enough space. Just like any favorite class, sometimes they would fill up, but I remember there was more than one class, so I think people that wanted to be in it could be in it. And then there was always a core group of ones that were way more involved than some of the others that were still good and took it as a class, but they just didn’t live the Salt like some of the ones that did were very active, and it became part of the core base. But yeah, it was very popular. I mean, you can see from that picture that was out there, there was a good amount of people for that year in that class. That probably wasn’t everybody. I’m sure there was some that were missing.

 

TC: [0:32:44] Did you say you graduated high school in 1977?

 

BH: [0:32:48] ’76. I graduated in ’76. I went off to college, and that’s when Salt – they had the issues the next year because we got incorporated in ’76 because of The Salt Book coming out in ’77, and in ’77 is when they bought the boatyard, and Salt had to move from the school system into the private sector, will call it, in the education. But it was still very popular in the Kennebunks. It was quite an uprising in town when it happened. It was typical politics of the schools; some people were for it, and some were against it, but it still remained very popular in the area and supported by the locals for buying the magazines, either having subscriptions or buying them in the local stores.

 

TC: [0:33:31] How many years was it at your grandfather’s boatyard?

 

BH: [0:33:34] I’m trying to remember what year. It was in the ’80s. So, they bought it in ’77, and they moved out to the Cape Porpoise location in the ’80s, but I don’t remember the exact year. I worked there ‘79 -’81. I think it was around ’83 or ’84, but I’m not positive on that. But in that vicinity. Then continued with the program just out of the vocational ed. programs. We had a grant through Saint Louis University at the time. It was called (SLUCUP?), Center for Urban Studies. That was how the funding came for the classes. Some of those programs started going out, and that’s when Pam – we started doing grant writing and continued to help me pay and support – because the tuition that the kids paid was minimal compared to what the overhead was. The boatyard just became too expensive to maintain, so that’s when they looked into the house in Cape Porpoise and downsized that part. Like I say, at that time then, it just became more of journalism, and the whole process became involved with college entry instead of just high school age.

 

TC: [0:34:44] Where did you go to college?

 

BH: [0:34:45] University of Maine at Orono. I started out in journalism but ended up in business because with Salt, like I said, you did everything from beginning to end, and I fell in, and I did all the business side of it for Salt. I ended up finding that and ended up working in banking for years. It all came together from that, really.

 

TC: [0:35:07] So, Salt really did influence what you did after high school.

 

BH: [0:35:11] Absolutely. Yeah, in all aspects. Because, like I said, everyone talked and said it was an English class. Well, it was an English class, but it was also math because you created your own bank accounts. We ran the Salt fund out of it. We actually did all the subscriptions, so we had little index cards that you wrote the person’s name and address and what they paid for, volume – you had to keep track of what was mailed out, and then you created the mailing labels and mailed them their magazines, and they paid for them, so you kept track of the whole system. We did our own distribution, so we’d go to all the bookstores. You’d bring twenty-five magazines, and you’d have to charge them for your price, and then they’d sell [them]. So, it was the whole process. I became really involved in that end of it. I guess that started my career.

 

TC: [0:35:56] It sounds like you went to Orono for journalism and that was probably inspired by Salt. So, what was the change from journalism to business?

 

BH: [0:36:08] When I got to college, the journalism [program] was just so different than Salt because Salt was so hands-on, and it was just a whole different process. I just realized that it wasn’t for me. I did enjoy the business part of it. So, I just made a logical move to become in business. Like I said then, I started my career in banking afterward. I worked for Salt for a few years after and stayed with them. Then got a job in the local bank and stayed there.

 

TC: [0:36:35] So, after you graduated college with your business degree, can you tell me about what you were doing for Salt when you first went to work for them?

 

BH: [0:36:42] I actually went to work for Salt summers through college and stayed there. I worked with Pam when they had the [inaudible] through Saint Louis University. When they bought the boatyard, we had the [inaudible], so I taught classes there. I was in the English part, and then I also did the bookkeeping and stuff. We hired a bookkeeper, and I oversaw them and started that process, but mostly, it was involved with working with the magazine side of it. The boatyard was on – like I said, it was two separate sides of the building. It was a big old building, so I worked with the journalism class and involved in the subscriptions and that part of the business side of things. It was a good-sized class the first few years. I mean, there were a lot of kids there. We had buses and vans that we used to get up in the morning, drive to the next town, and pick up ten to fifteen kids in the van and bring them to class. Some came in their own cars. So, did that.

 

TC: [0:37:40] And so then, how come you stopped working at Salt?

 

BH: [0:37:44] Just an opportunity came up, the timing, and it was back when some of the funding was having some issues, and it just made sense at the time; my career and I was getting older, and it was time to get a job and go out in the force. So, I got a job and actually went to work in a local business in town that led into the bank and then just went into the bank and started and worked my way up.

 

TC: [0:38:09] And that was here in Kennebunk.

 

BH: [0:38:10] Yeah, right across the street. It was a bank. It’s gone now [and] has been absorbed by the other bank. But it was Ocean National Bank. I just started as a teller there and worked up as a manager.

 

TC: [0:38:22] And is that where you spent your entire career?

 

BH: [0:38:24] In banking, but not at that same bank. I was there for a little over twenty years, and then I went to a couple of banks throughout. I actually went to work for the post office for a few years. Then went back into banking and retired from banking as a teller. Yeah, it was different.

 

TC: [0:38:42] And did you keep up with Salt over the years, like the changes [in] media and photography and digital age?

 

BH: [0:38:50] I kept in contact with Pam. I went into when they moved into Portland. I think Pine Street was the first place in Portland – I think that’s the right name – after they moved out of Cape Porpoise and got the tours and always went to some of the exhibits that they had. So, kept up with it that way. But family and lives and stuff. So, I kept up with it only in that and in reading on it, but never really got involved with the process once it went into the university systems and had the Salt – I think it was called Salt Center for Cultural Studies back when it changed, but it was still a good program. I was always still supportive of it.

 

TC: [0:39:29] And as you grew and had a family, did you ever talk to other younger people about joining Salt in its sort of new iteration?

 

BH: [0:39:41] I know I talked to different people when they were talking about different programs and always said, “Oh, look into this program.” But then, like you said, it was in a different area, so it didn’t really – you always still talked about what Salt was, but not what Salt was at the time. It was more of the past of Salt because that was what you were involved in. Then, it branched in and developed into different programs, and I really didn’t know a lot then what was going on with it until some of the other people approached and started. A few years ago, Isaac [Kestenbaum] talked to me about something when they were moving because moving it over to the Maine College of the Art now – because they were doing the archiving. So, discussed with him, and then this came up.

 

TC: [0:40:26] And do you know that your projects are on that archive?

 

BH: [0:40:28] I do. I’ve actually looked at some of the stuff online and seen and found. You look and do a search, and it’s like, “Oh, it’s out there.” I probably have some stuff at home that I should give to the archives and have them put in there because I’ve still got tons of stuff from the old days.

 

TC: [0:40:48] Yeah. I saw the pictures of your grandfather. So, these magazines that you first put together, do you still have copies of those at home?

 

BH: [0:40:51] Oh, absolutely. They’re prominently displayed on my bookshelf. All of them, and I have boxes of additional ones. So, I have more than one copy. We did a couple other publications besides The Salt Book. Pam wrote a couple of other books that we helped her work on; You and Aunt Arie was one of them. She was very talented, and we got involved with her that way on different things. I have copies of all those. The Alaskan books – I’ve still got my copies of the magazines they sent us when we were there for the first one, and then a couple of the other towns that we worked with. Some of them developed their own, and a lot of them didn’t last as long as Salt. Like I say, Salt was one of the longest-lasting, I think. I don’t know if Foxfire is still – I don’t think they’re still doing either. I think Salt is one of the few that’s still continued in different areas, but still in the same type of a program, just different level. I don’t think there’s any in the schools anymore. I’ve never seen anything come out of the schools now because everything’s digital now. There’s not much print. Of course, Salt was all print back then.

 

TC: [0:42:07] Since Salt was a part of your high school experience, do you still know other folks that went through the program that, like you, stayed in your hometown?

 

BH: [0:42:17] Yeah, there’s still quite a few kids. Kids [laughter] my age that are still living in town that were part of the program. The ones that were the biggest active members of Salt, whose names – a lot of them live away. Ann Pierter lives in Canada. She was one of the first ones. Jay York lives still in the area. He lives in Portland. I think you guys have talked to him. He’s still active in photography because that was his niche. He was a great photographer. He continued on his career in that. There’s other names that are still around. Like I say, if you look at that picture, you can – a lot of them are still in the area. Maybe not involved directly with anything that had to do with it, but it still influenced people’s lives in other ways that you don’t even realize sometimes.

 

TC: [0:43:04] I mean, it’s incredible that you got to be a part of this starting. I mean, now we’re celebrating the 50th year anniversary, and you’re really from the beginning.

 

BH: [0:43:12] Yeah, fifty years it doesn’t seem possible because part of it you can still remember. I can still remember the classroom. You’re sitting in the classroom; you can remember how the desks were laid out. And it’s like that was fifty years ago. It’s just amazing to think that it’s still in existence. That all falls back to Pam. I mean, she was such a strong and avid supporter of Salt and education and the writing – talented woman. We’re very fortunate that we had her bring us through that. We used to say we grabbed onto her coattails and followed her around. My coffee is a tribute to her because she got me into coffee since we lived on coffee back in those days. Pam was a coffee drinker. She definitely passed that down. I still have my coffee and think of her.

 

TC: [0:44:02] I’m just curious. Right now, we call each other Salties.

 

HB: [0:44:06] Salties?

 

TC: [0:44:07] Back then, was there a word that you all use?

 

BH: [0:44:09] I don’t remember ever being – I have heard the term Salties. “ Oh, you’re Salty.” But it was the Salt class. That was what the title was on the course curriculum – Salt class. Then, it became just Salt. We actually came up with the name for it as a group. It was decided on what the name of the magazine was going to be. I can’t remember how, when we first – when the first class was registered, it wasn’t called Salt because Salt was developed by the program. I can’t remember how – whether it was just journalism. I think it might have been on the course description – folklore, journalism, or something like that from Pam. Then, as the class – that was one of the first projects was to come up with the name. People threw out – we had pages of different stuff to what it could be called and ended up with Salt.

 

TC: [0:45:02] Was there a vote?

 

BH: [0:45:03] Oh, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was a class decision. I think it became pretty unanimous. I think once it developed, like I said, the different names – and I don’t remember. I probably got a piece of paper someplace at home that has different things written on it that were potential names, but Salt became the choice. I don’t remember who came up with it or how it came up with, but it came into it. It just kind of matched what we were looking to do, and it was simplified – title for a magazine. So, it could look good. Then, we worked on developing the letters, so how they looked. Was it going to be capital or small? And worked on different things.

 

TC: [0:45:39] And that’s still the same logo today, that script.

 

BH: [0:45:42] I believe it’s the same script. Yeah, it changed a little bit only because of the types out there. But if you look at the first magazine, it’s very similar to the way it is right now.

 

TC: [0:45:52] That’s really neat. So, you said your grandfather – the last boat he built was your father’s lobster boat. Now, does that boat still exist somewhere?

 

BH: [0:46:01] Well, as far as we know, when my dad passed away, my brother-in-law actually ran it for several years, but it was a wooden lobster boat, so it was maintained [inaudible] required it. It was sold to someone in New Hampshire, and we lost track of it after they sold it to someone. So, I don’t know. My hope is that it’s still floating out there someplace, and someone’s running it, but a lot of the boats that he built are still around. So, it’s very likely it is, but that was the last one he built. It was a lobster boat. He built all kinds of different boats, but the last of I – he was building a lot of lobster boats, and my dad wanted the last one. It was called the Kathy B after my mom, Kathleen. So, it was named after her.

 

TC: [0:46:40] And where did your grandfather learn the trade?

 

BH: [0:46:42] From what I remember, on his own. He just had a craft. As a young boy, I guess he was building small – I can’t think what they call them – peapods or boats back then in his garage and just continued. Then, he started working in the shipyards back in the war days. Then, started building boats on the side. Then, he bought this boatyard. It was an existing boatyard, a different name. I think was called the – no, I can’t remember what it was. My memory just left me out. I’ll tell you. I’ll find it. But he bought it in ’45, and it became Baum’s Boatyard. I still have the sign at home.

 

TC: [0:47:22] Oh, I love that. So, Baum’s Boatyard is what –

 

HB: [0:47:24] Baum Boat Building Company was the name of the building. The big sign was – when Salt bought it, we kept it up there. But when Salt sold, I got the sign. My dad had it in his garage, and now I have it. So, we still have the original sign.

 

TC: [0:47:41] Today, do you still identify as a writer? Do you still write stories?

 

BH: [0:47:50] Not really. I mean, I love to write some different things, but I’ve never really done much writing since because, like I said, I went into the business side. The background of writing did help because as you were writing different things – like, in banking, you had to write proposals for loans, and writing helped. That part of it was making everything flow together. That’s why I say Salt wasn’t just journalism; it was from the beginning to the end. I can still remember with the little – now, I’ve gone and lost the name of the little knife that you cut because we pasted everything onto the board. I mean, we made up the print so that it was print-ready. You cut out the words and put them into – then you take it off to the typesetters, and they would type set it. Then, you did the layout for it. So, even that kind of stuff you learned, and you think back, and it’s like, “Oh yeah, I know how to do that.” Like I say, Salt taught more than just the writing, just like I’m sure it is in the college. It’s not just writing. It’s the whole process. Some people were very big in the photography end of it. I love the photography, but I wasn’t one of the big – I loved taking pictures, and some of them are in it. But that wasn’t my niche, and someone else did it. There were some great photographers out there that still were taking pictures afterwards.

 

TC: [0:49:11] So, in your classes, were there some folks that were more focused on photography and others were on the development of the magazine?

 

BH: [0:49:18] Absolutely. You worked on the whole thing, but yes, there were people that, really, their niche was photography. They became the experts in that area, and they would help teach the other students. We had our own darkroom and developed the film and did [printing]. Then you’d look at the picture and say, “Oh, is this one going to work for the magazine?” You’d have a hundred pictures laid on the table and have to place them where it was going to go in the article. Because, like I said, you did from beginning to end. You’d have to shrink the size of the picture, so you worked with the photographers that specialized in that, and someone else did some of the writing. And then you had people that were great at the layout part of it but didn’t do the photography. So, everybody had their hand in the area they worked in. But the whole basics was you worked on it as an English class.

 

TC: [0:50:03] That’s so neat. I want to ask a little bit more about Swans Island – you said that’s where your grandmother grew up – and small-town island life. Is there a bridge up to Swans Island? Was your grandmother taking a boat every day?

 

BH: [0:50:18] I guess back when she – they had schools on the island when they were little, but the high schools – I think back when she was young – because that would have been way back – they had schools on the island, but they would go off the island on the ferry, and a lot of them stayed off the island for school and would broad and go to school off the island. I know relatives that lived there. Once they got [to] high school, they went into Bangor or whatever went to schools. I guess there was a high school [inaudible]; they could take the ferry back and forth every day. There’s a ferry system, so there’s no bridge or anything. It’s too far out.

 

TC: [0:50:51] Where was that ferry? What would be the high school that they were going to?

 

BH: [0:50:56] Well, the ferry goes into Bass Harbor. I don’t know if the high school was in that area or if it was actually Ellsworth. I honestly don’t know back in those days. I don’t know what they do now in the island for high school. I know that there are still school systems on the island, but I don’t know how far through the program it goes on the island. I still have some relatives that live there and stay in touch with them through emails, Facebook, or connections. It’s changed over the years, but it’s still a quaint island. Like I said, you still have to take the ferry. I think there’s – three or four runs a day is all it is, back and forth. So, I went last year and visited. I haven’t been for a couple of years. It’s still a nice island.

 

TC: [0:51:41] And what was the focus of your story?

 

BH: [0:51:44] Back when we did the story, we interviewed different families that lived there and what it was like growing up on the island. So, there was a crew of us that went out and stayed there, and we interviewed, I think, three or four different families and just learned. This was back in the ’80s. So, what it was like when they were young, which they were all in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. So, back in the 1900s, we’ll say what it was like growing up on that island. There were a lot of stories about – obviously, a lot of them were fishermen, but there were different types of stories about life on an island [and] what it was like. Very different than what we’re used to.

 

TC: [0:52:22] And is that story on the archive right now?

 

BH: [0:52:24] I believe it is. Yeah, there were several. Like I said, there was more than one. I’m trying to remember. I think it was around issue volume four or five. If I remember correctly, it was in that. So, like I said, that would make sense for the years because we did four years. It started in ’74. So, five, six, seven, eight. It was probably six or seven, volume six or seven. It’s still out there.

 

TC: [0:52:46] When did the magazine stop?

 

BH: [0:52:52] I didn’t get all of the last issues of the magazine that were the college ones. It was on Pine Street. I’m not sure what the last year of publication was, but I think it was in the ’90s. But I’m not sure of that. We’d to look that one up and see when the last – I know it became less regular; it wasn’t quarterly like it was. Like I said, we always did it – the subscriptions you did four a year. So, you bought a subscription for volume one, all four issues, and then you could get back copies if you wanted them. I don’t think at the end it became four a year. I think it was more because it was thicker – ours weren’t as thick, and it was more professional, obviously, because it was college-level versus unprofessional. I don’t know the last year. That’s actually a good thing to look up to find out.

 

TC: [0:53:44] So, we’re just about wrapping up. Is there anything else that you’d like to say about your experience with Salt? Or just anything at all?

 

BH: [0:53:54] I guess just reiterating that people think of Salt as just the writing. It really involves so much more from beginning to end. I mean, the opportunities that allowed high school kids, college kids, and young people to experience not just learning about the people they were interviewing but also the opportunities. I can say I went into the Today Show because they interviewed us for the book. At that time, when Doubleday purchased the book, that was quite an opportunity. That’s what funded the purchase of the boatyard and other things over the years: the two books. It was The Salt Book and then Salt 2: [Boatbuilding, Sailmaking, Island People, River Driving, Bean Hole Beans, Wooden Paddles, and More Yankee Doings]. That was an opportunity to learn and to deal with them, Doubleday, the publishers, and that whole opportunity was different. I know that’s different today, too, because everything, like I said – back then, you didn’t have emails, you wrote letters. I can remember typing letters to all the Doubleday folks and probably still got some of them. And then working with some of the universities, an eighteen-or nineteen-year-old getting to go to a university and speak at a class on what Salt was about – I mean, it was quite an opportunity back then. I can remember we went to Memphis University and Saint Louis University, not just small – I mean, these are big and did a whole program. Sometimes Pam would go, and sometimes she wouldn’t. There were many times that just two students would go, and we’d do the whole program. We had a lot of programs in schools; you went to high schools throughout the area, and you’d go present a whole program. Like I said, a lot of times you did it from beginning to end, so it was a great opportunity. It afforded us a lot of things that became life knowledge that we had to carry with us besides just the writing. Pam was so dedicated to Salt. I mean, she lived Salt [until] the end of it. Her family was part of Salt growing up. I mean, her kids became like brothers and sisters because you grew up with them. We were very fortunate to have her as the head of it. She just looked out for Salt; she looked out for her students, and she cared about them. So, it was a big plus. You just carry it with you. I still take out the magazines and look at them, reminisce, and look back at different stories. As I say, I can still remember most of them. I got to look up now and see when Swans Island was because now you’ve made me question my years.

 

TC: [0:56:33] Well, thank you so much. What an incredible experience that you got to be right from the beginning. I mean, literally right from the beginning.

 

HB: [0:56:40] Very fortunate.

 

TC: [0:56:41] So, thank you so much. Katie, do you have any other questions?

 

KI: [0:56:46] I was just curious. I wanted to know – because you seemed to be super close with Pam. I’m curious about how you stayed in touch with her. I know you were neighbors. How did you stay in touch with her after Salt?

 

BH: [0:56:56] After Salt, in town, when she still lived here. Then she lived in Portland, and I’d still [communicate]. Then, email became a way to stay in touch with people. Then Pam moved to Mexico in her later years, and I reconnected with her with emails back and forth. I talked on the phone a couple of times. Unfortunately, she passed away a couple of years ago. I didn’t get to see her at the end stages. But stayed in touch with her and still, to this day, talk to her son on Facebook. I talked to him all the time back and forth, saying, “Hi.” John still lives in the area, so it’s nice. We grew up with her kids, and they became part of our family. She lived, breathed, and died in Salt. So they had to, too. Good opportunities for them to witness it, too.

 

KI: [0:57:46] Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you.

 

TC: [0:57:49] Thank you, Herb. All right, signing off.

[END OF INTERVIEW]