WTH BWB Happy Halloween! October 31, 2025

Greetings, fellow Ghouls and Goblins! Why YES, Halloween is nearly upon us, and I thought I would get an

early start on this edition of the Bi-Weekly Blog, as it’s Monday the 20 th of October.

Before I recount all the ethereal and ghostly shenanigans I have seen in my 64 years, starting with collecting

money for UNICEF whilst trick or treating at Halloween and growing up in a house in northern Jersey that was

an Underground Railroad stop (due to time constraints I shall share those tales in an upcoming WTH BWB

edition), I should probably ramble on about all the great things happening with Welcome To Housing.

Well it’s now the 31 st and having been sick with a stomach bug for two days, I just want to submit something

readable and engaging.

That would be something great that volunteer Craig Ferguson from Machias Savings Bank arranged for as a

great fund and awareness raiser. He got in touch with the folks with Portland Pie Company in Bangor. Pie as in

“Pizza” pie.

Before I launch into the details I am reminded of a great joke by comic Brian Regan. He talked about being in

college and how people from different parts of the country have different names and different expressions for

things. He met his new roommate and the roommate asked if Regan wanted to go halves on a “pie.” Like

Regan, I wouldn’t have figured it meant “pizza” at first.

So comic Brian Regan then says, “So next thing I know, we’re sharing a half pepperoni, half PUMPKIN pizza.

SO on Wednesday, the day after election day, Portland Pie Company will be donating 10-percent of the sum

total to Welcome To Housing for ALL pizza ordered between 110:00am and 9:00pm as long as they mention

Welcome To Housing. Not bad, not bad at all! In addition to the funds raised, we’re talking about a good deal of

public awareness, to people, especially those who may never have heard of us or those who know our name but

NOT the mission.

Our mission as I keep telling people, can be boiled down to three words: “We HELP people.”

So I made a meme and sent it out to ALL of our 7 social media platforms: Bluesky (like Twitter used to be

before it went all political) Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, X and YouTube. Then sometimes I include

it on my personal LinkedIn, on my personal Facebook page, Christopher & Robin’s Critters and real estate

Facebook pages.

As nice as technology is, I have come to understand that many businesses have what I will call “Polaroid”

Syndrome. I had an Uncle who worked many years for Polaroid and did a LOT of travelling. One of the things

you could guarantee though was that Polaroid kept updating their patents. It came in handy too when Kodak

took a chance and tried to maintain an Instant camera line.

With that in mind, the ONLY constant in technology is CONSTANT change. No, not like the change that jingles

in a purse or pocket, but the ever-present need to change things, like online billing platforms. Case in point was

the updated power company page and it was impossible to get it to accept a new password despite following its

explicit instructions. So, unlike my beloved, I CALLED the company using a TELEPHONE. I was lucky to talk

with an agent named Angel who had great skills, a sense of humor and patience. The password requirements

included 15-30 characters including at least one of the following, an Upper Case letter a Lower Case letter, a

number/digit and a symbol. Still it didn’t work. As it turns out there are only CERTAIN characters that work: ! .

# % * &

Well, the Trick or Treaters have started arriving on Fern Street and it is NOT raining! In addition it’s a

FRIDAY! AND we have a great new neighbor next door as the drug dealers were evicted! Not only that, the

young man who bought the house comes from a family of candy-hander-outers, as his father lives on Maple

Street in Bangor… YES, that block of Maple Street between Garland and Mount Hope, which is nice and wide

like our section but is FAMOUS for having many more ghouls and goblins every year. How many more? To the

point homeowners work together to pool resources for the parade of little and not-so-little people as they do

their candy-pandering.

We had somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 visitors last night, they’re always polite and fun and one young

lady remembers Petey our Tuxedo Maine Coon cat from years ago when as she put it, “She was a wee lad” and

he was a little black and white kitten.

You caught me, it’s actually November 1 st and it is chilly but very sunny with an incredible blue sky. There’s a

debris field of Hot Wheels vehicles all over the guest bedroom floor as I have a 15-foot length of two-lane track

from my office extended into what we call The Kiwi Room, named for one of our late great cats that we

adopted as a kitten from the Bangor Humane Society.

Long-term planning or at least the planning for long-term planning has begun with our SCORE (Service Corps

Of Retired Executives) mentor, Dennis Wint. We’re planning a get together with Dennis at one of the volunteers

homes and it will be great to finally meet him in person.

Here it is November 2, 2025 and I am a couple of days past my bi-weekly deadline, so I will close with this. As

it turns out my wife and I discovered that Portland Pie Company in Bangor has a LOT more on the menu than

pizza.

Before I go into detail for the restaurant that’s doing a promotional fund/awareness raiser, let me tell you who

we treated to dinner there last night.

As I have shared with many friends, my family, both immediate and extended, makes the families in John Irving

novels look completely functional as opposed to dysfunctional.

Let’s start with how I discovered a first cousin several years ago. It starts with a cousin named Greg Miller, who

in addition to being a relative, is also an Elvis Presley “tribute artist.” Not only a tribute artist to Elvis, Greg

actually met, and became friends with Elvis when he was a young boy.

Greg went to Elvis concerts as a kid and was befriended by a family who was close with “The King” and would

sit with them in the audience. Elvis also noticed Greg because he looked like Elvis as a kid.

So in addition to being a great performer, who is now much older than Elvis was, he also found out a tidbit of

information that led to the discovery of Sarasvati the cousin we didn’t realize existed.

Before I go down that bunny trail, let me tell you about Sarasvati’s father. My grandfather fathered my mother,

as well as two uncles and an aunt. He was in the Navy and served in World War I, World War II and Korea. In

WWII he was a Rear Admiral (now buried in Arlington National Cemetery) he worked on logistics for D-Day.

Not only that, he did all that as a high functioning alcoholic.

Well after that marriage to my grandmother, they divorced and he got remarried and in his second marriage he

and his second wife had a son and daughter. Their son was only about 5 or 6 years older than me. In addition to

being a real “character” he was a member of the Hare Krishnas, YES, the group you see in robes and years ago

could be spotted in airports and were the subject of spoofs in the Airport movies.

Years ago Matthew came to live with me and my parents down on the coast. In addition to visiting my high

school drama class and leaving my fellow “drama jocks” with the impression he was someone or something

“special,” he left me with some VERY (at least now, years later) funny experiences.

One was when I was walking home with my lawn mower after cutting lawns that I did for my summer job as a

kid, a bunch of bullies in a large car slowly followed me home to the end of the upper driveway. Matthew saw

and quickly assessed the situation and came jogging down the upper driveway in a long flowing white outfit,

waving his hands and saying “Bad Karma, Bad Karma” several times over. The situation later was defused but

what was funny was when I looked at Uncle Matthew and wanted to say, “Thanks, but these kids (the bullies)

don’t have a CLUE what Karma is, much less “Bad” Karma.

The crowning memory was when he used to drive my Mom’s bright canary yellow Volvo station wagon in a

small lobstering village that was overrun with pick-up trucks and older American sedans.

We were coming down Route 97 in Friendship and it was deer season and Matt saw the hunters first. They were

pulling a deer carcass out of the woods and suddenly he downshifted and braked the bright yellow wagon and

unrolled the window and as I sat stunned, he pointed at them and bellowed, “YOU PUT THAT

BACK…NOW!” and immediately threw the wagon back into gear and we sped away. My reaction was

“WHY??? I have to go to SCHOOL and EVERYONE knows my Mom drives this bright yellow wagon!”

Sadly, Matthew succumbed to cancer at a fairly young age but before he did, he was married and had a

daughter.

Just ahead quite a few years, decades in fact. Greg, the “Elvis in Vegas” cousin and I were chatting in Facebook

Messenger when he brought up the family urban legend that Matthew Miller had been married and may have

had a daughter. He backed it up with a photo of an adult Sarasvati. One look at her photo, I KNEW he was

correct.

Well, I had the pleasure of introducing her to as many family members as I could and we became good friends

and last night was yet another nice visit, this one, with her boyfriend Tim where they decided to come up to

Maine for the weekend and take their time driving through some of the towns and cities of Maine. It’s my hope

that eventually she will consider moving to Maine and making it her home. Her Aunt, Matthew’s sister, sadly

passed so Sarasvati is grateful to say the least to have more family to get to know and love.

Back to our visit and dining at Portland Pie Company in Bangor. It was GREAT! The food was really delicious,

Robin my beloved and I both had our own Calzones and Sarasvati and Tim enjoyed their food as well. As I

mentioned earlier though, the menu went far beyond pizza and calzones and the atmosphere was inviting and

intimate and the service was very good as our server, Albert was attentive and had a great sense of humor.

So, if you read this in time, remember, if you place an order on Wednesday, November 5 th between 11:00am and

9:00pm, and mention “Welcome To Housing” we will receive 10-percents of the sum total of your order. Where

are they located? 91 Main Street in Bangor, right across from the Maine Discovery Museum (the children’s

museum) and to place an order you can call (207) 307-7293. Bon Appetit and talk to you next time from the

WTH BWB!

Sincerely yours,

Christopher Olsen, Founder and

Board of Trustees President