100 years ago: 1925

“The exhibition of landscape and animal pictures by D. D. Coombs, the well-known local artist, at the old Murphy store on the corner of Ash and Lisbon streets, attracted much attention yesterday afternoon, even though everything was not exactly in place. Nearly everyone who went by stopped in, for Mr. Coombs is especially a Maine painter and many of the scenes were of places nearby in Auburn or Lewiston; places in New Gloucester or Turner, or down to Bailey’s Island or Mt. Desert, or up in the White Mountains. Mr. Coombs was there and never too busy to tell each comer the history of this or that picture.”

50 years ago: 1975

“The 1975 fishing season got off to a rather inauspicious start today, as a large number of anglers braved the cold to wet a line on opening day. A check of Lake Auburn about mid-morning revealed that only one angler had any success. He’s Gary Federico of 33 Pine St., Auburn, who landed a three-and-a-half pound pickerel while fishing from a canoe at the Townsend Brook culvert. Federico, who used a smelt to hook his catch, was fishing with Gardner Scanlon of Auburn.”

25 years ago: 2000

“COPLIN PLANTATION — Watch out! Danny Barker could be lurking in the background. His friends have been watching out for years. Or they should have been. It makes Barker laugh just recapping pranks of the past. Like the time he filled the inside of a car with foam peanuts. Or the time he filled someone’s trunk up with snow. Or the time he kicked a snow-laden fir tree after asking a buddy of his to stand beside it. Or the time he took the keys out of one car and put them in another car. Surprise: The cars wouldn’t start. ‘I see it, and I just do it,’ Barker said. ‘It just pops into my mind.’ The 38-year-old supervisor of snow-making operations at Sugarloaf Mountain says he has pulled ‘little pranks’ on people for a long time. But not at work, he emphasized; he’s too busy. Why does he do it? ‘Laughter. I love laughing. Laughing is great; it’s healthy,’ he said. ‘Harmless pranks are very healthy to people.'”

The quoted material used in Looking Back is produced exactly as it originally appeared although misspellings and errors may be corrected.