Maine, when you have less people, more scenery with no Maine, Lazy Is Not A Word To Describe The Upper Right Hand Corner State.crowds, traffic, man made noise, everyone gets along better.
With lots of elbow room, no one in your face. Wildlife in Maine like it better that way too. If you were a Maine moose, deer, bird, you would spread the word about how that state in the upper right hand corner is the one to migrate to.
Maine, playing the face cards down and up, one at a time all four seasons, all year long. It’s not this everywhere like it is in Maine.
But because outdoors is why we live in Maine, it is always a little sad to leave one season when we were just starting to have some serious fun in the current one. And shifting gears for the next one, we get settled in pretty quickly.
Adjusting what we do outside for hobbies, sports, recreation to move to the new slate of fun, scenery the next Maine season brings us year after year.
Right on schedule, with or without us.
Maine, not just one or two seasons. Each has highlights, sparkles in its own unique way.
You know how on line, down at the diner, the lodge and in society everyone has an opinion?
Needing more than ever to be heard. But the tendency to make events, news, blog posts black and white does not mean you and I are built, wired that way. John M Grohol PsyD states there is “nothing in this world that is simply black or white”.
So how do the shades of gray shine through? When it is not always a case of one extreme or the other being settled on, agreed to easily? When folks are overbooked. Lead 200 mile per hour and escalating even faster lives. Looking for Monarch or Cliffs Notes. Taking the easy to digest, quick route. Or someone else’s word for it that seemingly has spent, invested the time to research the issue, topic. Some blog posts SEO machined too.
The tendency of the media is to take a complex issue, try to capture a sound bite, video loop to make it memorable, succinct, to the point.
Basically in too small a time frame, manufacture each article, news story in to a cookie cutter comic book.
So how is Maine not black and white? It is a big state parked up here in the upper right hand corner. Not all rugged coastlines, lobsters and light houses. But mountains, wooded lands, fertile fields, blueberry barrens, 6000 lakes. All with down to earth people proud of their home towns, cities of the Pine Tree State, Vacationland. And Mainers don’t hibernate winters, we get outdoors all four seasons.
Out spoken, not candy coating it is another persona Mainers are often cast as possessing, radiating. The “you can’t get there from here” helpful directions when a tourist asks for local guidance. But with a sense of history “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” there is respect for the simple, basic common sense. Maine is less than one percent of the short sale, foreclosure, real estate repossession market. 46th lowest in the nation in this department. Maybe other parts of the country could learn from our simple, pretty straight day to day living.
Maine Moose Trying To Look Small, Scarce As Moose Season Unfolds.
When you were born and bred, or lived in Maine a long time, it is easy to forget it is not this way many places.
Today’s call from a Philadephia teacher who says a half dozen gangs operate in his school, which is the sixth largest in the US.
There are metal detectors which gang members can clear and then open a side exit door and pick up knives, other weapons they plan to use to keep the education process, hallways on its toes with dangerous distraction.
Sounded more like a prison compound to me when he said there are a dozen police officers permanently reporting to, working out of those schools.
I asked him if he gets hazard pay for the conditions and was told any extra money quickly gets eaten up in the cost of living there. He and his wife have five kids and want a safe place to live. Where he does not live in fear at work, where his kids can walk places beyond the yard without worry.
Maine is the 4th lowest crime state. There is a sense of community. And the whole village helps raise your kids here.
Your property and your feelings, opinion respected in Maine.
Do you live where you and your kids each carry tasers? Why?
Maine, a whole new way to live. The way it used to be everywhere else. See the images, watch the videos, and call, click, visit us. That antsy, itchy , nervous anxious feeling you carry around every day in the populated area of the country. Trade it in, move to Maine. Or at least invest in some land, waterfront, outdoor recreation spot to keep you sane.
The first step in dividing land is to figure out interior access roads needing to be built, constructed for everyone to have a way in. Or better yet, buy, purchase a property in Maine with long long road frontage so the “slices”, parcels each provide adequate frontage. And visibility for a driveway.
Blind spots won’t be approved and where to put the driveway may be dictated by a Department of Transportation site review.
Lots of accidents in this area on a blind curve could mean no driveway permit issued for your own safety. This is part of the “blood on the highway” legislation for your own safety and usually on busier roads in Southern Maine.
Making 500 acres of land, property in Maine split in to smaller pieces could be complicated by wetlands, more restrictive regulations in an unorganized town or plantation. Or more beefed up local town code ordinances and neighboring property owners input.
Soil tests for septic systems in Maine and waste water run off is a big concern.
Maine, we like to protect the environment. Pass it on to our kids in better shape than we received it. The is called good stewardship and a dose of common sense, respect, appreciation for the four season natural resources of living in Maine. We are buggers about erosion, run off of silt that chokes fish, spoils any of our 6000 Maine lakes.
With less people, being insulated from the population centers where you carry a taser, worry about gangs, Maine is attractive, unspoiled and safe. Our schools don’t have, need metal detectors and our police don’t work out of, have offices there full time like many places in the country.
Maine College Kids Ride Of Choice…Orange, White Ford Pinto.
The University of Maine film class was on capturing life, being creative with a little drama.
My UMO film partner and I thought about capturing something a little less textbook. More unique than how to build an entertainment center or swing set. Like the real life of a Bangor Maine taxi cab driver.
Now a 100 feet of film is not much to create with.
Little film gets left on the editing room floor if you are serious about creating anything worth watching.
We had envisioned being on the second story of a downtown Bangor Maine building. Slowly pulling back from cab driver waiting for his fare. Adding sound to the optical audio track about how lonely waiting, sitting thru any weather must be while away from your family at all hours.
By yourself waiting, or driving alone but glimpses, meeting a variety of people, some fares real characters. Vigilant, at your post behind the wheel, being in a cab as a Maine taxi driver service industry worker to get you where you need to be. That was the mental storyboard for the film scenes. We thought as we climbed in to my orange and white Ford pinto.
Andy Kozinski and I heard Orono Maine fire engine sirens as we headed down Stillwater Avenue. Rolling down hill on the way to Bangor, we made a field decision. To shift gears. Save the gas to Bangor due to the never being flushed with college student cash, money situation to “cover” the fire. The smoke from the burning Maine home, the school bus air brake sound as the kids living there get dropped off with large eyes. The growing concern as the reality of the event sinks in. Neighbors gathering on the lawn, silent, watching, seeing themselves in the same situation and what they would or would not do.
Flashing lights, police and fire sirens, two way radios blaring in the background. I thought whoa, what if that was me as an eight year old getting off the bus. Seeing home sweet home so smokey.
Red, orange, yellow fire flames snarling out the window of the room I called mine on the second floor.
What contained my most precious possessions, what Santa had brought me over the years. My world in that room being consumed, fire destroyed, blackened. How it would affect me? Our 100 feet of black and white 16mm film captured the scenes, sounds, reality on a small local Maine town scale. We got an “A” for the project. Video of a Houlton Maine electrical fire a while back a deja vu event.
I know a fellow who lost his wife and two kids in a fire. That will not sleep upstairs and is haunted by the tragic lost. I have never seen, felt, experienced fire up close and personal. And hope I never do.
