BATH — It was a quiet weekend in the midcoast, at least it was after the power failed virtually everywhere in our service area.

Thursday night's storm downed trees, some of which fell on Central Maine Power lines and caused widespread power outages in Lincoln County, Sagadahoc County, and coastal Cumberland county. A total of 130,340 homes and businesses were without power throughout the state, but the majority of the outages were in the midcoast and coastal York County. Lincoln county had 16,977 customers without power, and Sagadahoc County had 12,382 customers without power. Coastal Knox County also had some 8000 customers without power.

BRUNSWICK -- By the time the Brunswick LRA, the Local Redevelopment Authority charged with designing the Master Reuse Plan for Naval Air Station - Brunswick, finished its work over 2 years ago nearly a quarter of the 3300 acres that is the Base was designated for use as either Airport Operations or Aviation-Related Business. Aviation-related business as defined in the Plan includes aircraft maintenance repair/overhaul, aviation-related manufacturing, and government and aerospace research and development, as well as general and corporate aviation.

So, it isn't surprising that the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority (MRRA) has been working to bring such businesses to the site. As far back as September 2008, Oxford Aviation announced the formation of a new Brunswick Jet Division, which, according to its website would be "the largest Oxford Aviation division to date." A month later, Oxford Aviation and MRRA signed a memorandum of understanding to negotiate a lease.

BRUNSWICK -- James Sheppard, is slightly bent over, but still trim and dapper at 85. And a heck of a story-teller. He was at Naval Air Station - Brunswick to tell about the Tuskegee Airmen, the legendary all-Black fighter squadron in the Army Air Corps during World War II. "'Colored' that's what they called us then," he told his audience of 50 or so, mostly young Navy personnel who sat in rapt attention for over an hour in the NASB chapel last week to celebrate Black History Month.

Sheppard grew up in New York City and was "in aviation," he said, "since I was 13. I went to the technical high school and came out ready to take my test to be a licensed airplane mechanic." He started high school on September 1, 1939, the very day that Germany invaded Poland to start of World War II.