Maine is four seasons and hard to put a finger on the favorite.
Because each shine in their own way. Partial to the four. But all involve being outdoors to enjoy them most. Not cooped up, suffering from house arrest. Maine Is Outdoors, Wild Lupines. Summer Living.
Cabin fever or being jammed in like four walls are closing in. That is not Maine.
The fourth of July means working on community events in a small Maine town. Friends, family, classmates from out of town coming home for the patriotic holiday.
Jeeps with missing tops, some ladies dressed not far from the same condition.
In Maine We Dress Warm First, Stylish Second. As temperatures rise, clothing is shed. Water wear takes over the wardrobe. Lakes are the haven to take a dip, cool off. Swim like a fish.
Or to get that fresh cut Maine farm hay baled, in the barn. Before thunder bumpers, dark clouds open up and let loose. With the raining cats and dogs.
Bolts of lightning when it sounds like someone upstairs if bowling. Getting lots of strikes with the heavy pins.
Maine summer living, is home made food, band music. Farmer’s market visits. The goodies made with recipes from long ago and passed down. Strawberry rhubarb pie, hand churned ice cream. Maine Is Music All Around You. The Natural Kind, The Songs The Local Volunteer Musicians Create To Entertain The Whole Family Outdoors.
Sizzling cook outs with background, summer music, laughter.
Refreshments, water melon, potato and macaroni salads.Gathered around the grill, on the open deck or patio. A circle of chairs around the open fireplace.
As the sun sets, moon rises, crickets tune up. Frogs supply the base line. Maine loons belt out the solos.
Get to Maine, cross that big green bridge to the south. Watch a Maine 4th of July parade, see the fireworks. Meet the friendly people who live here. Come to Vacationland. The way life should be. Still is.
Playing cards for money, something more in a small Maine town.
Life is a gamble. And some like the thrill of what four kinds of cards, arranged the right way can cause for a winning hand. Or bluffing your way into making others think you are holding dynamite. It is a skill, art form for many. To put on your poker face. Become ice cold. Blank. Hard to read. A card shark.Four Seasons, Sometimes One Ends Quickly In Maine.
One late night card game in Houlton Maine had a pick up truck on the table.
Up for grabs as the pot grew and the players reached deeper. Got creative. Caught up in the heat of the what to hang onto, discard.
What to wager and when to keep going or just fold. Push away from the felt top table. As a bartender kept the crew lubricated so to speak. Running drinks from behind the bar, the late night watering hole.
Max Escovitz a local car dealership owner in the day that many still talk about. That happened decades ago but still recalled by the few in attendance. Drinking was involved. The hour was marching into the wee early morning region. And the final hand was one that Max had had enough. Folded and wanted to know what was in the hand of Justin Hogan. Who was not a partaker of the fire water.
Justin said you folded, doesn’t matter. You quit. Stopped the game. Had enough.
But Max offered a thousand dollars to know. He had to end the suspense. That would haunt him for the rest of his life. The need to know strong. Watering Holes, This Kind Horse Used In Market Square.
A pair of twos held by Hogan was what beat a pair of kings in the hand of the car dealer. Max told Justin to come down to the dealership later today. Select your pick up. Figure out which color, model and he would do up the paperwork. Pass the title.
Wheeling and dealing.
Playing the odds. Max would order a dozen limos from the car maker, the factory. Knowing they only made these luxury rides a certain time of the year. Then stopped production until next year. He would store them up over Farrar Brown, a auto parts place in downtown Houlton Maine. On the corner of Pleasant and Mechanic Street where Aroostook Auto Tech is now. Maine Veggies, Home Made Products. Meet Your Neighbors. Eat Healthy.
Then auto dealers from around the state, or further away would need a limo out of season from the manufacturer.
Max would get a call. Sure he had a limo. They could have it today. For a price. A tidy profit. Smart man that sold New Moon mobile homes, took potatoes for payment from area farmers. Helped financed your fertilizer bill. Anything to make a dollar, turn a profit. A true business person, mover and shaker. With fire in his belly. Winding himself up to go go go each morning.
But one night, lost a pick up truck in the shuffle, deal, look at your hand. And figure out how to play those red and black cards. To make others think you were holding something you were not. Confessions of a bartender now long retired that I ran into yesterday. And cub reporter like took a few notes after the reminiscing. To spin a tale, create another blog post for you faithful readers.
The drink maker, smoke provider who says to this day after being behind the bar for many evenings, he can still remember what everyone drank, puffed. From memory. When he sees them on the street. Or if passed away asked. Because it was his job to know how this person liked their gin. Something he called pine cone water. That dentist Dr Ira Tarbell could differentiate, not be fooled in any taste test. He knew, enjoyed his gin. All the varieties.
The bartender, giver of advice or just an available ear to listen. Keep pouring them. Taking orders unless that’s enough. Shut off the hose. Just knew what that person preferred to light up. In the smoke ’em if you got ’em. He remembered. Had to, his job. Back when second hand smoke was shared freely. Everyone did light up. We all did not know any better.
When you live next to an city airport, near the elevated train overhead or subway that rumbles under foot. The clanging of garbage trucks on a steady beat to stay ahead of the rubbish. In a place that never sleeps. Quiet does not happen. Without ear plugs, sound proofing, something to replace the sounds of the city.Maine. The Crack Of A Bat. Little Leaguer Sliding In Home Plate Sounds.
Sirens wailing up and down numbered grids of street. With police cars, paddy wagons zinging by. Fighting crime, chasing gangs.
Towing illegally or expired meter parked cars to an impound. Hospital ambulances pretty much running round the clock.
Cabbies hollering, honking. Trading paint. Jockeying for position in the stopped dead in tracks. As tempers flare. But the meter still runs. Bleeds out.
Proving the point for their fare in the backseat of the chariot. That they will fight hard and long. To get to that loading gate for your important flight on the silver bird.
Cities are noisy, dirty, crowded, disconnected, impersonal.
Sure everyone feels good coming out of a sporting venue when the city team won. Maybe the barley pops trigger that letting down the guard. But the pace combined with the sense of crime constantly makes one pretty self contained, careful. Don’t make eye contact, just do what you have to do with safe consistency. I think you could be very lonely in a city.
There are city sections you avoid late at night. Your Combat Zones, outskirts of a Miami, Washington DC, etc all have areas where it is not to so safe. Any time of the day. Crime happens, spreads. You hear gun fire, see folks yelling, road rage erupt. Stop signs in neighborhoods you are advised to roll through. Don’t stop and stay down, low in the car. But keep moving. DO NOT STOP.Kids Laughing, In Safe Small Town Surroundings. Not Noisy Cities.
Being careful, on your toes. Not so trusting is a constant when leaving that dead bolt, extra chain, security camera with a rent a cop compound.
Relax. Breathe. Maine is not that way at all.
All that is gone. It can be a shock and the quiet can be deafening. So if you find yourself lucky enough to squirrel away the time. High tail it to Maine. Often. WARNING :The peace and quiet can be unnerving until you adjust. Figure out what is missing. Nothing is wrong. Go easy. But expect it.
Otherwise it takes time to get beyond the fish out of water feeling you can not put your finger on right away. So foreign. You forget there is another way to roll.
Where I live in Maine we don’t lock doors.
Everyone makes eye contact. You kinda, sorta know most of the people you see. Or someone connected to them. Through work, marriage, church, civic club, your kids. Maybe working a local event experience. You bump into the members of a small group more often in a cozy Maine town. Not swallowed up in the masses, the sea of people that a city comes with. Where just the law of average, probability make the chance meetings less likely.Unplugged, Hard Wired Into Maine’s Outdoor HBO.
Keys are in the vehicles ready to fire up, take a spin in Maine. But we try to walk, bike, use our own power. To enjoy being outside, more aware of our surroundings. Not belted in and doing the 10 and 2. Checking the rear view and watching the speed. Or kids connected to balls racing out into traffic when the sun is in the wrong place.
Take a day or two to come to Maine.
End up feeling like someone turned off the high pitch motors. Or the power went out. All the compressors, music, fans, people yacking, whatever suddenly stopped. Like someone must have clipped a utility pole. All the noise in the background that you forget about until someone shuts it off. When you decide a trip to Maine to unplug, recharge is needed. Where you can hear yourself think if you can stand the quiet. Or learn to turn up the hearing. Realize those are crickets, lake frogs and loons, morning birds singing.
In a completely different way, the sound of your surroundings from a city does a 180 in Maine.
No Neighbors, The Wind In The Trees. Crunching Fresh Snow Being In Some Stove Wood.The sounds of the urban concrete jungle replaced with a lake lapping against the shore line rocks. A stream babbles, gurgles while you cast a line fly fishing. A river forced to push through rapids from a dam release of too much water creates mist, velocity. Noise to laugh, shout over. As you paddle hard left, hold. Hang on. The bottom drops out of the rubber boat.
If the Maine lake, pond is not bottle polished, completely still, calm. It adds background music as you glide in a kayak. Churn the “j” strokes in a canoe.
The breeze in the pines whispering or humming. Wildlife surround you but out of sight. The birds practice their parts in outdoor songs. Maybe the lack of outside noises lets hear your own inner singing. You’re happy and you know it. (Clapping hands). That gets drowned out when quiet is not part of your routine.
But in Maine where crime ranks in 4th lowest for the nation, you may miss the sirens.
The flow of wall to wall sound of people coming and going. Traffic, car doors, construction, just all around banging and thrashing. Added to the pace. The hurry scurry chasing the dollar. Cities are expensive.
You don’t grow fresh garden food in a garden in an apartment cooperative. Sure you could have a topsy turvy tomato hanging plant or two hanging.Getting High, Climbing Mt Katahdin In Maine. To Hear Yourself Think. Get Above It All. Maybe sneak up on the roof and pull off a raised bed garden plot. But you don’t heat with wood you cut, split. Stack for a winter ahead when you have an address in the city population center. You give up much. It becomes store bought. Put in the coin to keep the machine running. Like life support, hooked to expensive hoses, wires. Tethered.
Maine is free, wide open, no or low cost.
That means you are relieved of so much worry from the no crime to no mortgage and more self sufficient living. You feel empowered and self confident. Your self esteem soars because you realize you can achieve much, do greater good in a smaller community where you are really needed. You are the small community in Maine. Not an outside, participant of events but on the committee putting them on. Year after year.
If you live in Maine you get it.
Pull up a lawn chair or something to sit on. Hey, slide that cooler over here. In front of a crackling fire with a circle of other campers. Use that. This is a shared experience blog post.
Preaching to the choir. And trying not to preach at all. But espouse the merits of just living simply in rural Maine. When the mechanics, dynamics of life are stripped down to bare bones. It opens up space for what is really of value. No distractions, deeper appreciation, a sense of joy inside. Jack of all trades working on more skills in the set. That is home grown, built by you. Not for you. Nothing to throw money at to achieve. More blood, sweat, tears and patience involved in the home grown, self directed.
Knowing what you have is more than enough. Being grateful. And all because it is not too noisy to mess it up, miss out on the real natural sounds of Maine.
If you had to use one word descriptions of Maine, it would be better to clarify, streamline the process.
Ask if you could just play the Maine images. One at a time. Like laying down, rotating missing puzzle pieces. To fit, focus, put it all together. For the brand new, tell me about this Maine place, state of mind you speak of so often. Love so much. Open Air, Locally Grown, Friendly. Maine Is Simple Living.
If you could load videos on the local Maine area events, landscape. The need for words to help the online blog post reader get a sense of what’s it like in Maine would be a cinch to convey. Without the need for words to get in the way. For long wordy sentences to read between and decode.
Maine is real, raw, unspoiled. All natural, unfiltered, left alone and protected at the same time.
Under populated so not over used. Combined with treading lightly with all out constant respect, appreciation. Just being a ways up the highway for access, off the beaten path preserves the surroundings best.
Maine for many is like a trip to the Moon or some far away planet.
Just about the time you get there, well, better start the return trip. Because the vacation is short. Time is eaten up with travel. There is a clock ticking back at the place you really hang your hat. For now. Until you can make a run for it. To head to Maine for good. Instead of skimming the surface in short fits, start and stop intervals.
For more than a vacation week a year, long weekend if you are lucky to be in Maine longer.
To see, feel, hear what you are missing.Maine Is Music. The Outdoor Loon On A Lake Kind. The Small Community Band Flavor.By being MIA, AWOL, too busy and distracted with the man made rituals, material items, much that is plastic, artificial, temporary. And comes with a price. Don’t neglect the important relationships in life. With others, with your surroundings. In a place like Maine.
But ah, when you are lucky enough to live in Maine full time.
All that packing, unpacking, lodging expense, expensive meals, tolls. The hustling, tramping hurriedly to cram in as much of the sights in a short window of opportunity. All that is thankfully missing. Freeing you up. Leaving room.
So the experience is more relaxed, casual, enjoyable. Less racing, anxious, sweating happens. You now realize there is plenty of time. To discover a lifetime of new places in Maine.
To explore, return to and reflect on. As your kids grow up, your life becomes more outside family and time for a little more of just yourself. Less absorbed with the non essentials during your accumulation phase. Collecting stuff. You were told you needed in highly effective marketing.
Replacing the store bought luxuries shrink wrapped, often plastic with the genuine one of a kind Maine article.
That are only found in Maine. Outdoors, four seasons, plenty of parking. No lines, no tickets to buy to enjoy these natural events. With just you, if lucky enough to have a partner in the front row seats. The only patrons in the outdoor theater setting. With wildlife inviting you into where they live in sections of Maine the tourist information brochure did not highlight. Most from away never heard about or see talked up online. Maine, Somehow Water Is Always In The Background. Part Of The Outdoor Fun.
You do feel spoiled when you are in Maine.
Not the kind that happens when you captain, sail in a little rough around the edges Indian class or Snipe family vessel. As you glide into a Maine, New England harbor. When now replaced with a 41 foot sleek, graceful yawl named Heart String. Under your command. Where the reception changes a little. Like does a 180 degree about face.
You now look like money. That makes some jump quicker, smile longer, try harder. Offer to help with the land line. Fresh water replenishment. Better slip parking spaces. As if working for a tip. Or suddenly feeling like they are among royalty, someone that has the air, smells like wealth. The old, inherited blue blood kind.
The wealth in Maine is measured internally, in the size of the area, space you make.
Deep down inside where your contentment, joy, gratitude lives. Over by the satisfying feeling of doing it yourself, being resourceful, you apply lots of patience. Deeper satisfaction happens in Maine because it’s not about the store bought. Picked off a shelf or impressing others. It is more secure and doing things for you, not for show or envy of others.
Give Maine the attention she deserves. Then watch out. Surrender. Put your hands up. Stop resisting. She will grab your heart, tugging at your strings. knowing how to pull them to make your dance, sing, laugh. Will never let go. And you hope she never does.
When there is a kink in the funding hose, how quickly does your small Maine town whip out the wrenches?
Start the repairs, adjustment, re-tooling? Fire up the bilge pumps. To short and sweet debate the options on the table. Or is it wish everything somehow restores to earlier levels of funding. And just keep spending as if all is peachy keen, rosy? Small Maine Towns, Should Be Quicker To React To Over Spending Ills.
Just hope for the best and limp along? Ignoring what is happening. Or not liking it so just turn your head and hope it foes away.
That someone steps forward with a magic wand. Smaller David size towns reach for the sling shot they carry on their utility belts. That get used a lot daily. These smaller Maine towns should be able to react quicker than larger population centers. Before bleeding out. Dying on the vine with a rattle, one last gasp.
The options of what to do when they are pretty limited.
In black and white easy to read spelled out with no punches pulled. Nothing held back. Or discussed backroom, cloaked. On a small in number list to study, consider and then double clutch. Throw the plan quickly into gear for the steep hill ahead. To clear it whatever way necessary. To keep the small Maine town moving.
Less people, more thinking on our feet happens in our Maine households, in our small businesses.
It’s called survival. Living within or even below your means because bumps, twists, dips in the road happen. A lot. When stormy weather is ahead or underway around us. Baton down the hatches.
More connection to the small Maine town we all know and love happens here. Because we are all more involved everyday. Everything is up close and personal. Just a case of being on the front lines in the attack on what threatens the small Maine town. To at least maintain the population and long term make it grow, prosper. But a consensus on how to do that and everyone working toward that goal is needed. As the economical landscape changes. The economy tilts.
With rear wheel drive, the apply more power, drive your way out of the skid worked on a Maine country road.
After a Maine winter snow storm left a little surprise of the extra white stuff. But with the delicate small Maine town economy, monitoring the gauges. In all the departments, areas. Checking the pulse of the incoming revenue to make sure the spending habits match the income faucet flow rate. Hold! Grab The Short Rope, One Paddle Hand Extended! Hang On!
Not a case of just throwing money at the problems that spring up. But reduction, like it or not, of spending, levels of service, even manpower.
Working together. Not just concern for your small department, carved out area that’s important to a just few individuals. At the expense of the greater good of the rest of the small Maine town or geographic area.
Other wise it’s like the sink or swim games played on the Titanic when too few life boats hung from the ropes. But it was every man, woman and child for themselves.
As the big vessel groans, creaks, stretches, lists. Prepares for a break in two death snap. Then nose dive, picking up speed. The fast descent to a liquid grave. Into dark ocean’s floor below the icy cold water’s surface. Where the boat used to ride high, wide and handsome. While the music played, food was served on new plates and some folks danced, laughed.
When not enough dollars for the same level of service happens in a small Maine town.
To fund increased costs. For what a Maine small town population has enjoyed in the day to day life there. Hello. What are we waiting for in the simple math exercise of the small Maine town has to make changes. To accept quickly not going to have the same level of service. Preparing Before The Storm. Prior To Being In The Eye Of It.
Or it is a luxury you could try to tax your way out of but in the long run it speeds the decline. Causes folks to have to relocate. Like it or not. Small Maine businesses to go under.
To dig out the hammer, shutter their windows. If it is a course the small Maine town government takes of using raising taxes to white out the red ink of spending more than the towns people can afford.
Deficit spending did not work on the national, state level.
Certainly does not cure ills on the local level. Mergers of nearby school systems, greater cooperation of existing layers of police departments with a duplication of service area. Making a game of how would we do it, an exercise in greater efficiency for the survival of the small region of a county has to happen. Before forced to do it, in the eleventh hour when great expense but time ran out. And folks tempers are frayed, emotions run high. And it feels forced on the small Maine towns.
If we do it, how would we do it thinking. Discussions held coolly, calmly. Not no sir. Not going to do it or even talk about it. Not a matter of liking it, wishing for the good old days to return. But seeing the icebergs before, or worse as they hit. But no time to argue or get mad. Point fingers. We don’t have days to waste. Need solutions, options, but not any further delay. That’s what a small Maine town better be, has to do. It is how that community survived this long accepting needed change.
Learn the excitement of down hill gravity racing. Where weight, alignment, steering, lots of luck and plenty of family support does amazing things. Good clean family fun in spirited racing in Northern Maine. In one of the oldest American traditions, soap box derby racing. Houlton Maine is the state venue for the soap box derby race. Final Heat For Maine Super Stock Soap Box Derby 1st & 2nd Place.
This June 14th, 2014 race was the 19th and held on Derby Hill in Houlton Maine.
Lucky to have an engineer hill for the ease up setting up, tearing down the annual race, spring and fall rallies too.
To use the time in course preparation shifted to safety, fun, the racing heats down the hill.
To determine, create a winner of winners through a bracket sheet, series of heats.
To find out who is going west. To represent the state of Maine out in Akron Ohio.
Where since 1934, the World Series of “All American Racing” in Soap Box Derby has been held. Soap Box Derby Racing. Alive And Well In Houlton Maine.
Houlton Maine’s race has the distinction of being the largest local five years running.
Kit cars in stock, superstock, sometimes master’s division derby cars compete on Derby Hill in Houlton Maine.
