(1/2) "Bert & I... And Other Stories from Down East" by Robert Bryan and Marshall Dodge (Side A)

[@tenleynelson3667]

My Dad was a Mainah and would play these when I was a little girl. He's passed away, and I don't know what happened to his vinyl records, so listening to these has brought me back. Thank you.

[@chrisdorr5786]

Love that! I grew up on these as well and actually got to see Marshall Dodge perform in my hometown when I was a kid and had him autograph my album! Quality stuff.

[@StrangeChickandPuppo]

I heard about this on Jordan Jesse Go (a very silly podcast) and decided to look it up, and these stories are of the kind my grandfather would play for us as kids, having a pretty vast collection of old radio shows and loving older comedy sketches like it. I'd consider myself a fan, just having heard the one half so far.

[@jmbrinck]

Like?? I love this! My sister was a camp counselor at Seal Bay Camp in North Brooksville, Maine. Somehow she ran across these two--now my history, too.

[@fiberfancies]

Gosh, do I love these guys and their sound effects!

[@benjaminallen2370]

We listened to a Bert and I cassette tape my grandparents had many times, the summers of 1985-90 or so, in Sunapee NH area, when I was a kid. Great memories.

[@jamesgraves4583]

Grew up listening to these as a kid, very proud to be a Northern New Englander

[@stevecolgate8593]

Marshall (Mike) Dodge was my roommate at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH. He had a great sense of humor.

[@banjoman5424]

Mike was my beloved step-brother -- an unimaginable loss to me and his family. Truly a wonderfully eccentric man.

[@suehartman8084]

@@banjoman5424 'unimaginable ' is a mild adjective!

[@Quacks0]

So by your a-sah-yin that he had a great sense of HUMAH, youwuh meanin' that he was wicked SMAHT?!?? :P :D

[@dianehattler1253]

I was born in Maine….just love these stories…always brings a smile to my face

[@benjamineastwood5616]

Here are the timestamps for anyone who needs them. 1. Bert & I 0:01 2. Kenneth Fowler Goes Hunting 5:19 3. Camden Pierce Goes to New York 7:04 4. The sassage 8:22 5. The Lighter-than-air Balloon 8:50 6.Which Way to East Vassalboro? 10:13 7. Which Way to Millinocket? 11:37 8. The Long Hill 12:55 9. The Liar 13:14 10. Mad Dog 13:40

[@tonyangel2052]

i am from maine...thank you so much for posting this and the other part

[@barbieclemons5573]

Love this!!! I used to listen to these when I was kid at my Great Uncle and Great Aunts house on the record player!

[@thomasloch9317]

My dad would play these all the time. Bryan sounds exactly like grandmother from Bangor!

[@francesjecmaloney8977]

This down east, Bert and I commentary is very healing and compassion conducing for me. Happy Thanksgiving to us all.

[@thyasyn100]

I remember listening to this as a young man in Maine. This was the way people told stories or instructions. Wasm't oo damnd pleased seemed like such a goo response. Why did I leave???

[@kimberlycostello8978]

I cannot remember where and when I’ve listened to these, but I know the story’s so interesting and funny!

[@rogerproulx9621]

These are wonderful! I heard these back in high school around 1970. I come from Massachusetts which is known for it's accents also. Timeless humor just as we like it down east.

[@TheFatesLieutenant]

Lived on an island up to Maine (oh, so very long ago indeed) - My grandfather would tell stories, and he sounded just like this - cadence, accent, stories - wasn't clever enough to record his stories way back then (late '70s - no iPhones, tape decks weren't cheap, etc.) until it was too late... Also lived in Mechanics Falls for a bit!

[@atex6175]

Everytime I went to visit my grandparents in Bangor they always played this record

[@Leutchik]

I was hoping to hear "The Parable of the Muddy Road". I heard it on a record about Maine folk tales and stories back around 1959. The "Which Way to Millinocket" was on the record as well. You can hear the hiss on this which means it was recorded from a record. A farmer is standing in his front yard, and a very sloppy, muddy road runs past it About 200 feet down the road he sees a HAT on the mud and it's MOVING TOWARD HIM!. "That you, Bert?" A muffled sound comes up through the mud. "Ayuh". "Oh my gawd, Bert. That mud's pretty deep. How you doin'?" "Oh, not too bad. . . .for I still have my hoss under me."

[@obiwanpez]

Every year at our town fair, someone would sign up to recount the stories of Bert & I all week (one or two time slots every day).

[@jonsmith7220]

I used to listed to this every year I went to cape cod

[@richardjarrell3585]

Ah, the sound of vinyl surface noise. It’s been said that surface noise on a good high fidelity rig sounds like a crackling fire. Sho nuff.

[@danmacdonaldbooks4774]

Hearing this is like living back in Maine again. Before I moved to Maine I lived in New Jersey. It was hard to understand them at first. Gas = Gaz in Maine LMAO I said what? and he said it again after the second time I caught on.

[@JimDangerZone]

I keep wishing someone would post, "Frost, You Say".

[@rpennybrown]

Another native Mainah here. My father's name was Burt, so of course as a kid I thought these stories were talking about my dad : /

[@coachdoc49]

wonderful.

[@johncotti1586]

"That were a good 'un."

[@iluvdaguitar]

I guess I'm the only Mainer here that wasn't related to or once roommates with Marshall Dodge.

[@osmith5086]

.....and the Bluebird slithad out in tha haba......... ....like green corn goes through the new maid......

[@better.better]

the vocal sound effects are killing me, haha

[@suehartman8084]

bringing tears to my eyes, laughter!!

[@Quacks0]

Part of the joke about "Which Way To Millinocket?" --- besides the "main" knee-slapper about the storyteller's having majorly wasted the motorist's time with all of his lengthy hemming and hawing before finally telling the driver that he "couldn't get theyuh from heayuh" --- may have been that if he'd just told him to stay on I-95 (a.k.a., "the turnpike") after he'd gone through the Augusta toll booth, he would have passed within maybe a half-dozen miles of Millinocket, and so he could then have just taken the Medway exit and followed the road northwest straight into town. :P P.S. Well, okay... I dunno if I-95 was even in existence in the more-northern-Maine regions in the mid-sixties when this story was recorded (or at least, during the "way back when" time-period during which it was implied to have occurred, since it mentions that the motorist was driving a "flivver" (i.e., a Ford Model T) --- according to the PBS documentary "The Bangor And Aroostook Railroad", the interstate had been extended into Houlton by 1969. So without said superhighway-extension to use, the shortest route to Millinocket from Augusta would indeed have been a rather-complicated "tortuous path" --- Marshall mentions "keeping the river on your left", so this would imply that the route that the motorist was on was the highway next to the Kennebec River that includes Routes 27 and 9, which joins with US 202 in Augusta. (If you followed Marshall's first instruction and came into Augusta by I-95 north, you would also need to take US 202, which has an interchange with I-95 near that same point where you'd "go through the tollbooth at Augusta" --- bear with me here, Folks. :P ) Then you would take US 202 east/north (and incidentally, about fifteen miles up the road, you'd pass the left-hand turnoff for Route 32 north that goes into EAST VASSELBORO, too, if you wanted to see the sights there, as well :P) till you came to the crossroads-intersection with Route 220 near Unity Pond; you'd turn left to get onto Route 220 north and follow it through various intersections to a T-intersection with Route 69 and South Main Street in Detroit (**not** Michigan --- just a little town that's still in Maine :P); here you would just keep going straight on through the intersection to get onto South Main Street. You'd then follow it north for about a mile till you come to a Y in the road; take the left fork to stay on the main drag and continue on to the T-intersection with Route 11. (Tolja it would be complicated! :P) Turn right onto Route 11 and keep going north straight on through the various intersections; Route 11 becomes Route 7 as you pass through the downtown area of Corinna. Continue north on Route 7 to the T-intersection in Dover-Foxcroft, where you'll turn left, cross the Piscataquis River, and follow the main drag around two 45-degree right-hand turns to get onto Route 6/16; follow it east/north and then straight through the main drag in Milo to rejoin Route 11 north, which will take you into Millinocket.

[@suehartman8084]

Ayuh, but the story would have lost its appeal...

[@Quacks0]

@@suehartman8084 True, deayuh, but that's preciseluh what I was a-SAIGH-in' --- it wouldn't-uh been a proppah DownEastuh yahn, DAH-LIN', if he had taken duh easy wah-ay out. Do you follow muh drift, SWEETHAHT??? You do?! Wicked cunnin', you awre! :D :D :D

[@duckdog8052]

My pop and another Mainer would recite Bert and I skits across the Northeastern cafeteria in 1970 when they were both there just to have the other students in stitches

[@suehartman8084]

[@chadwagner5362]

Anyone else here from Spontaneanation?

[@daved4215]

You must be from away.

[@NateCummings]

The engine noises made with their mouths are troubling

[@suehartman8084]

troubling? marvelous! My younger brother can imitate them! Hilarious!

[@Bennjammin]

I am interested in these stories, but not sure what they are. Do you have to be from the area to get this?

[@suehartman8084]

mebbe ya do...

[@Alex-Runs]

This sounds like an Englishman trying to do an American accent

[@suehartman8084]

It's a Maine accent ... A relative of mine had it. A cousin of my mother's when asked by visiting children who were going to set the table: "Where are the forks?" answered, "Thuh fox ah in thuh draw." Unforgettable! Delightful! Lovable! We miss her!