By Nate Jones
Staff Writer
Ever since she turned 100 years old, time has flown by for Blanch Cook.
“Time goes by so fast I can hardly turn around and five or 10 years have gone by,” she said.
At 106, Cook is the oldest Scarborough resident. Last weekend she led the town’s 350thparade through a very different downtown Scarborough than the one she remembers from 60 years ago.
“I ask people if they’ve ever seen horses running out of the fire station,” she said. “They would come out of that station going fast as lightning – I remember that.”
In an interview at her home three days prior to the parade, Cook said leading the parade was an easy decision to make.
“I figured ‘Why not?’ I’ve been through everything else!” she said laughing.
Although she was born in New Hampshire in 1901, Cook grew up in Pownell, where she worked at local candy stores.
“I dipped chocolates,” she said. “That was a good job; I liked doing that.”
Cook eventually moved to South Portland with her husband – a printer who died several years ago – and then to Scarborough in 1947 where they built a house and began to raise their daughter Lorain. At that time, Cook said Oak Hill featured a narrower, quieter Route One and no fire or police station, and the local high school population had a fraction of its current enrollment.
“It seems like just yesterday,” she said. “It was a lot quieter then, but you’re bound to have change. I don’t mind it. What are you going to do to stop it anyway?”
Cook said she remembered attending the town’s 300th anniversary celebration, and recalled a fundraising event where clean shaved men had to pay a “shave tax” – she laughed when she heard a similar fundraiser was planned for last week’s 350th celebration.
“I don’t know why they did that, but it was neat,” she said.
While many of the fields and forests originally found in Scarborough have been developed since Cook moved to town, she said she still knows a few places that remind her of the way life used to be.
“I enjoy taking a ride in the country and getting back, you know,” she said.
Although she has visited Florida several times, Cook said she hasn’t ever felt the desire to relocate to a warmer climate.
“Florida is too hot; I never minded the cold,” she said.
Cook said not even the allure of lower taxes and a better economy could draw her or her husband away from Scarborough.
“What’s money anyway?” she asked. “I never cared about moving.”
Cook is the last remaining member of the original Cook family – her brother died last fall at the age of 100 – and is considered one of the oldest Pownell natives.
“That’s the problem with being 106, one by one they all die around you,” she said. “I am the oldest [Cook sibling] and I’m the toughest! You have to just keep going; don’t give up. I get up every morning with the idea I have someplace to go.”
And go she does – Cook is still able to walk on her own, and although she lives with her daughter and son-in-law, she largely takes care of herself. Cook said luck has kept her healthy for most of her life.
“I fell out of a tree when I was eight,” she said. “They stitched me up and sent me on my way. Nowadays they’d put you in special care.”
Those who don’t know Cook’s eyesight is failing due to the effects of muscular degeneration don’t even realize it until she tells them.
“I can’t see; you’re only realizing that just now,” she said with a chuckle. “At this age, it’s bound to be something,” she said.
While her eyesight isn’t what it used to be, Cook’s appetite takes her to restaurants far and near, which she said can help break up long days.
“I can always eat,” she said.
When she’s not being taken out to lunch at any of southern Maine’s diners or restaurants, Cook said her favorite pastime is to watch the Boston Red Sox baseball team. She said she follows the players by using their numbers rather than their names.
“That number 18, he’s a traitor and went over to the Yankees,” she said. “He hasn’t been well since.”
Cook now has a grandson who recently graduated college to become an electrician. She said sometimes she wonders where he gets not only his knack for knowledge but his physical traits as well.
“He’s 6 foot 3 [inches]!” she exclaimed. “They’re all bigger nowadays.”
Cook said last weekend’s parade wasn’t the first she has participated in.
“I’ve been in much smaller ones, certainly none of them were honoring me. I’ll be glad when it’s all over,” she said.