Neighbors

On the Pond

Rufus Merrill has been interviewed before. His observations are included in a new book about people living within the Union River Watershed. A few years ago, the Bangor Daily News published a story about his resilience during the 1998 ice storm.

Merrill, 93, had spent the 11 days without power in his home, keeping warm with his wood stove. He was prepared: at one time he had 27 cords of wood stacked outside.

He has called Otis his year-round home for more than 30 years now and he is a well-liked man about town.

“He is fantastic,” said Joyce Wasson, the administrative assistant for the town of Otis.

“Everyone knows me,” Merrill conceded. “They all say ‘Hi, Rufus!’.”

Each week Merrill participates in Meals For Me, a lunchtime gathering of about 10 residents ages 60 and older. They meet every Tuesday at the library, which is in the same building as the town office.

 Merrill and his late wife Dolly, who passed away more than 10 years ago, were the first people to live on the west side of Beech Hill Pond. They bought a camp there in 1962.

“Since my wife passed away I have made good friends here,” he said. “I didn’t need them before. I’m awful lucky. People come to check on me.”

Every year, Merrill participates in Grandparents Day at the Beech Hill School. The special day is held around Valentine’s Day and children without grandparents in the area get a substitute grandparent for the day, said school secretary Ann Austin.

“The kids are cute,” he said. “I have had the same little boy for two years in a row now.”

The Merrills retired in 1971 and turned the “small, rough camp” they owned into a year-round home. They had been living in Brewer before that.

Merrill did all the work himself. A welder by trade, he made the pier that extends into the pond. Each one of the 20 bolts that secures the pier to the rock was hand-drilled by Merrill. That task took about an hour for each hole.

The first winter that Rufus and Dolly Merrill lived in Otis,  the road was not plowed.

“We would go back and forth on snowmobiles,” he said. “We kept our vehicle at a farmer’s property near Route 180.

“It was not very long after that people moved in and the road was plowed,” he said.

Merrill said his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all have enjoyed coming to the pond.

“There was great salmon fishing,” Merrill said about the pond when he moved there.

 “My son and I would go fishing and have lunch on the beech,” he said. The pond used to be stocked with salmon, but bass soon took over. Though just last week, a man stopped by to show Merrill a salmon he had caught.

From his day chair, a overstuffed chair right next to the window overlooking the pond, Merrill has a command of what is happening.

An eagle swoops past, and he remembers the three eagles that made the pond their home last winter eating the ice fishing leftovers.

Then he turns to his listener:  “Otis has been awful good to me.”