"Oh, this might be interesting"
the flamingo might have said,
as, upturned, he approached the ball.

Who am I? Did you ask? Do I answer?
All I know is that I am at that place
where only the normal is surreal.
My town is like Richard's grave,
a little place by the highway, but enough.
My life is like nothing
I ever would have imagined, but enough,
Or I imagine it so.

Bruce Marcus- New York City native, of Russian and Romanian Jewish stock.
Last 28 years in Alna, Maine, a mid-coastal town of some 600 souls. First 5
of those 28 years as a full-time restorer of 18th and early 19th century
houses, at a time and in a place where "restoration" didn't really have any
meaning  that is acceptable now.  Last 23 years as the proprietor of a
cabinet shop where I, and often we, make furniture, restore antiques and
produce interior and exterior architectural elements, with heavy reliance
on hand tools and old methods, for others who practice the preservation
arts in more enlightened times. Also practice a kind of interior paint
restoration as a sub-contractor to house restorers (an example of which,
along with a picture of a cupboard of my manufacture can be seen in the
April/May issue of Colonial Homes Magazine; though I am much happier with
an inlayed shieldback Hepplewhite chair that they pictured in an issue last
year).

Happiest these days as a teacher of hand woodworking skills to the most
recent of the fair number of employees, students and apprentices who have,
over the years, found their way to my door. Also active as an antiques
dealer with a specialty in early furniture and old tools of the woodworking
and allied trades.

Member of the Executive Committee of the Preservation Trades Network.

 Recently elected Second Selectman of my town, which I have also served
over time as everything from Fire Chief to Comprehensive Planner to member
of the Committee for Alna History, an august body which has the
responsibility for, among other things, the preservation of a number of
distinguished buildings including the Alna Meeting House which contains
what is arguably the most interesting and best-preserved interior of any
New England meeting house, noted especially for its faux-grained woodwork.

Explorer, wherever I can gain entry, of the early houses of mid-coast
Maine.

Ponderer over, for a number of years, and activist in, issues relating to
transportation infrastructure expansion and its effect on development, the
environment and historic preservation in rural and semi-rural areas.

Bruce