Malcolm was born in Cundy's Harbor
in a house across from the fire department. He has
one brother and one sister. He has always lived in
Harpswell. His house had only one or two lights.
There was no running water and no furnace. For heat
he had a wood stove in the kitchen. There was no
television. The electricity didn't go out as much,
because there weren't as many trees along the road.
To get water he had to walk 300
yards to the well and 300 back. One time he emptied
the buckets into the tanks in the house and went to
the well for water, and when he got back there was a
bullet hole in one of the buckets. He had no idea
how it got there.
His chores were milking the cows,
feeding the pigs, and chopping wood. Instead of
having a bathroom he had an outhouse.
They had an icebox to refrigerate
their food when he was real small and when he was
six they had an electric refrigerator. He took baths
in the kitchen sink and some times in the bathtub.
When he was twelve, he carried water for a neighbor
who took in wash.
They went to Brunswick to get food.
When he was four or five years old the grocery bill
was less than five dollars a week and Milky Ways
were five cents a bar. Their family ate fish and
caught most of it themselves. His favorite kind of
fish was hake and mackerel.
When he was eight or ten his
grandfather helped him build a string of lobster
traps that he fished. Most of the time he went to
Harpswell Center for school and he went to Brunswick
for high school. He walked a mile and a half to
Harpswell Center for school and he got a ride when
he went to Brunswick.