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Houlton Maine State Race Site For Soap Box Derby Downhill Fun.

The 19th local soap box derby race for the Northern Maine area is this weekend.

Today stock and super stock cars are inspected for safety and rule compliance for fair competitive racing. Drivers, especially new ones are given race instructions. What to expect for the big race Saturday is discussed one on one as the cars are checked over.

Trial runs for first time drivers also help ease the derby car racing jitters.

The Coke Car In Lane Two.
Butterflies, nervousness quickly disappears by the time the driver and car are released from the gates Topside. To when members of the zoo crew shout “BRAKE” at the bottom finish line. As the pair cross over, run through the electronic timer area.

There used to be five soap box derby race locals in Maine.

Houlton Maine is the lone wolf now. It’s 19th year for a race is due to a couple factors. After earning the largest soap box derby race city award five years straight, the momentum continues. From days of close to 200 cars loaded into the starting gates, the interest to continue the tradition has not died off.

Building our own race hill and avoiding the cumbersome, manpower hungry job of taking over a public street. Setting up and the tear down to restore a neighborhood location is one big logistically feat.

By having our own engineered Derby Hill, the running a race is simplified. The program does not suffer burn out from worn out committee members developing hernias with all the lugging, tugging, racing to make the race happen year after year.

Built specifically for running a smooth, safe Maine soap box derby race.

With easy set up, tear down. Storage of race equipment, materials in a specially built garage Topside in the staging area of the derby race in the Shiretown of Aroostook County each June. And for rally races in spring and fall on the same asphalt lanes.

So concentrating on just the soap box derby race itself details get all the attention when you have a hill idling.

Not lugging barriers off site, setting up detours around a public street course. Everything transported to the chosen hill in a small Maine town. That cross country caravan of resources and time consumption is delightfully missing.

That major effort is all removed, thankfully gone. When your hill is waiting, always ready to go go go. With a little preliminary house keeping that can be done with a small team of seasoned derby committee members.
Try A Slice Of Maine, Explore, Discover Vacationland. Watch A ME Soap Box Derby Race!

Race winners are decided by individual times in heats A and B.

Where lane 1 and 2 drivers work hard to get to the bottom of the hill first. The driver with the fastest, best time in averaging two heats where drivers swap lanes and wheels, is the winner. Advances from that race bracket up the ladder to the next pairing.

With the eventual winner of the local Maine state soap box derby racing getting to head to Akron, Ohio. For the All American Soap Box Derby world series of downhill kit car racing. A national tradition since 1934. Right up there with hot dogs, baseball, Chevrolet.

The Houlton Maine soap box derby race started with a spark from watching one held on a hill in Camden Maine.

Their race program funded with seed money, $20,000 from MBNA, the credit card financial company during it’s hay day in Maine. Soon soap box derby car race locals in Camden, Houlton, South Portand, Rumford and Brewer Maine were rolling. Good luck to all racers in the big state race in Houlton Maine this weekend. Learn more about the Houlton Maine derby race.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

June 13, 2014
Say Again Your Last.

Communication.

When you are in Maine, lots of time is spent not talking. Just gawking. Finding your special places to get away from people. Lost in nature. To unplug, recharge, relax. Spend a little quality time. Settle in with the guy or gal you brush your teeth, comb your hair with in the mirror mornings.
Weighing About 26 Pounds, The PRC 10 Radio Used In Vietnam.

But radio silence. To not draw attention. Other times to clarify what was just said. That was misunderstood, garbled. Hard to hear with the background fire drowning it out.

In combat, in Vietnam to ask for a “repeat” of a message over the airwaves was extremely dangerous.

Repeat applied only to artillery requests. To lay down some more hot hot ground fire. Spray another pass overhead of napalm. Bring on another round of those artillery shells lobbed in. Showered from above. Make it rain again in a highly destructive way.

But please. Avoid any friendly fire that takes out our own soldiers. Outfitted in GI olive green drab. With the young red, white and blue blood running in their veins. Powered by prayers from family, friends, loved ones. Far, far away.

“Say again your last” was the expression, proper response when something in a broadcast transmission was lost, garbled or just misunderstood.

I talked to local New Limerick Maine store owner Doug Cameron who was drafted. Got a round trip ticket to Vietnam courtesy of Uncle Sam. Who made it back in one piece. Got to use the return ticket to the states. And once in awhile during morning stops for coffee on the way in from the lake, the days and nights spent halfway around the Globe come up.

Not Ordering A Pizza, No No. Field Communications On A PRC 10 Radio.
Doug says one of his commanding officers thought he would be a good candidate as a “tunnel rat”. To slide down into a jungle hole. See just where it goes. Who is down there. What the enemy is up to. Scurry back to safety. Report back what you find.

Instead, when the platoon was asked for volunteers for radio operator, he quickly raised both hands.

Not in surrender. Relief. In eagerness to avoid being a tunnel rat as some suggested he would excel at. Be skilled and helpful in the war cause. That the black and white broadcasts with Walter did the daily reporting of casualties. Tally of each sides body count. The war, death score reports not so popular with the television audience. Watching, wringing their hands, with heavy hearts back in America.

Two days of training on radio electronics in the battlefield to understand the equipment. To develop the lingo to stay live and kicking, grinning. To not put your company in harm’s way. To help inch it back toward stateside. Meet the artillery objective for the day of keep your head down. Eyes peeled, ears to the ground.

Giving up his standard issue M-16 rifle.

Strapping on a holster for a Colt 45 mm sidearm to ride in the leather. Freeing up the other hand to run the radio. Being a shadow of the commanding officer. His right arm. That needed the radio operator to relay coordinates, make requests. Use the lingo code to not endanger American troops. In the deadly cat and mouse with the enemy. Far from American soil.

Pulling up, strapping on a heavy PRC 10 radio transmitter for the field communications. For walks through the hot sticky, humid countryside. Over hill and dale. Weighing 26 pounds, with a range of 3 to 13 miles. The PRC 10 radio operator equipment was the all important one and only link back to field headquarters. No one texting. No LOL, LMAO or OMG being tapped out by any of the troops.

To keep track of, help guide soldiers in, around, out of the bush. Delivered back to base avoiding falling into harm’s way. With back and forth communication if a sniper did not take out the radio operator. Because of the easy to see extended antennae needed. To get range to beam a strong signal that was hopefully a loud and clear tranmission. Roger wilco. Copy that.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

June 11, 2014
The 41 Foot Long Sail Boat’s Name Was “Heart String”.

The owners of the long, sleek boat called Heart String both worked in education.

Safe In Harbor, Maine Boats Anchored, The Crew Take The Dingy Ashore To Stretch Their Sea Legs.
And not flush with money but long, deep with desire, work ethic. To have a vessel to ply the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. To know the peaceful feeling that floods the insides of a person when all alone out on the open sea.

But instead of mortgaging their soul, over extending their financial resources, the boat was not bought with a brand new smell.

No sticker shock or rapid depreciation on this floating toy. Liquid asset. No no. Bought as a basket case with graceful lines but many loose ends.

The husband handy, a self taught magician with tools. And like his wife not one to sit on the edge of a couch or sunk in a recliner. Killing time unplugged, absorbed on the boop tube.

Instead the boat parked side saddle to the garage with the pair usually inside nursing it back to health.

With refinishing, replacement, improvements better than the original elements one by one added to the old boat. To return her to glory days. (Cue up, hit the Bruce Springsteen song.)
Maine Highways, Not The Only Access Route, Option. Float Your Boat. To A Safe Harbor Visit.
Better than original with new advancements in electronics, appointments.

And when school vacation for summer fun arrived, the boat was one of the first in line. To be backed into, floated off, released at the public landing in Newburyport MA. To launch, heading to Nova Scotia Canada.

The cost to repair canvas sails prohibitive on the education pay both socked away.

So sewing, making their own alterations happened. Like other areas bleeding out. In the boat displaying black and blue ten foot pole marks, it was do it yourself time. No other option. Not a case of just stepping out to hire it all done.

Rolling up the sleeves. Doing the research on line, in books and asking around. Chewing the fat. Posing questions for other boat owners. Folks addicted to salt air too. Harbor sounds and blue green water that are fixtures. Always hanging around the marina.

To learn how to cross another item off the long to do list.

Of the needed attention to replace the lack of TLC the last boat owner showed the pleasure boat. The one powered mostly by the wind. No motor to holler over or drown out the sounds of the sea.

The owner said the tranquil inner feeling that is like no other when its just you, your wife and the wide open sea surrounding you is hard to describe. But more rewarding due to the fact that leading into the sea cruises, it was working all the spare time. Investing it into making the boat seaworthy, fully functional.
Floating Parking Spaces, Used To Come Ashore, Sample Unique Maine Harbor Town Lifestyles.

For the much anticipated nautical trips when the classroom bell rang for the last time. Until school resumed in the fall. When leaf color deviated from standard issue green. The air got crisp, days cooler on each end. The sun eased back on its spotlighting the good Earth.

You’ve seen the sporting group that must have just stepped out of LL Bean’s Freeport outlet.

Loaded down with the latest and greatest in neat high tech all weather gear. With price tags still waving in the wind that were missed getting dressed. Heavily armed with the newest sporting doo dads.

But help signal here is someone that jumped into the endeavor hook, line and sinker. With plastic swipes and caught up in the moment. Suddenly deciding to go whole hog in one and only direction. For now. Looking for instant gratification that only retail therapy and a large credit limit can cause. For awhile.

But the guy who’s rain gear was his Dad’s. Passed down. Like the tools his grandfather picked up over the years. Or a neighbor who had no kids. And treated you like you were adopted for the spot. Without saying so publicly, for the record.

But ending up gratefully leaving what he had to fill the hole in his life of an empty nest.

Putting your name on the here comes more tools, collectibles to add to what’s already in your workshop. You the appointed one who shared, lighten up his life. Was remembered when he woke up dead one day.

The sweetest things in life are waited for, built over time with sacrifice. Making the passion grow hotter, glow brighter. Enriching the experience because you did it. Slowly. With blood, sweat and tears invested.

Not everything done perfectly but by doggedly sticking on task. Driven to complete the self inflicted challenge just the same. And if lucky enough to have a first mate, co-captain, partner in the crime of passion. Then it’s a shared adventure.

The best kind where together you make the experience from nothing but a dream.

Refreshing Maine Water, Does Your Involve Boats?
Something pulling on your heart strings. Creatively constructed to enhance your life. To make living it more than just skimming the surface.

And never having to find yourself on a nursing or elderly boarding home open porch rocking. Looking back with regrets on missed opportunities. That are too late to take now and play catch up. You had your chance. Realizing it too late.

The boat was one of two floating hobbies projects. For seven years the back and forth to Nova Scotia, back to New England criss cross happened. Before ending while now still owning an Indian Class boat. But moving on to other hobbies to add to the depth of their life experiences. Life is to be enjoyed, lived, experienced.

What happened to Heart String?

After all that work, almost hitting head on a dead whale. In the middle of the night while clipping right along with a strong head wind. Almost swallowing up, sending the boat to a watery grave. The vessel that turned heads, dropped jaws. Interrupted many a conversation when it slid into harbors?

Heart String was sold to a fellow who changed the name to Maverick. And he and his wife shortly afterwards were divorced. Untied the sailor’s matrimony half hitch knot. Both sadly realized there was lots in life each was missing, searching for but just not together. Not on the bridge, at the wheel of same boat. Not on the same nautical chart page compass position, or living in the same set of dream landscapes.

Maine is a good place to find those extra curricular activities. Offers the settings, provides the neat people in small Maine towns to go with the outdoor fun. That somehow almost always involves Maine water.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

June 8, 2014
How Do You Like Your Water In Maine?

The Maine magic happens usually on water, beside it, looking out over it. How do you like your water in Maine?

The fast, rushing, verbal kind where you have to holler to be heard heading down a Maine river in a kayak or raft? With commands from your boat captain shouted. To paddle hard left, right, to hold. Grab that short robe and wedge a foot up under the thwart in front of you. And hope, pray, you stay in the boat. And preparing for if you don’t. Getting spilled into the drink. When the raft takes a hard angle and starts to turn over quickly.
Hold! Grab The Short Rope, One Paddle Hand Extended! Hang On!

Or maybe you want your water bottle polished calm, smooth as glass Maine glass.

With loons, and birds the only sounds. Maybe the fire wood spitting, cracking and hissing as you add to the collection. The one you started that will take a life time. One by one capturing, experiencing Maine sunsets. Of all kinds, colors, intensities.

Smell of a cook out somewhere down the lake as you kayak around it. Thinking about what is going to sizzle on your own grill when you paddle home. What you left on marinading all day long. For a tasty end to the day. Served up to go with that one of a kind Maine lake sunset.
Smooth, Sleeping, Polished Maine Water With A Dash Of Sunset Please.

Maybe your water is for the sounds of lapping against rocks. Mixed with a little breeze to reduce the heat off a summer evening in Maine.

Lull you to sleep with the sound of rain pelting or gently tapping the roof of the cabin. Where you are snug as bug. Warm and toasty, snuggled up in your bed in dry surroundings.

Maybe your water is best observed alone, perched high up and causing thousand yard stares, detachment.
Pick A Color, Which Maine Kayak Goes Best With Your Personality Today?
That is the aviation grade, high octane Maine waterfront that blows you away. Makes you feel very small, humble, grateful.

Or it’s chilled, frozen water that catches your fancy. Skating, skiing, carving on it. The white blindness of it all with cobalt blue Maine skies overhead. Cutting holes for fish to escape from their wintery water world. To be your supper. Or to get a second change, a pardon, reprieve. A one way ticket. Back into the drink. Escorted through the five inch hole made by the Jiffy auger.

Find your type of water in Maine. It’s all unfiltered, all natural and pure. Maine, where you want to be, need to be. Don’t stay away so long. She’s waiting.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

June 5, 2014
Adjustments, Dialing In New Mindset, Attitude, Approach To Situations.

Nothing stays the same and we journey through seasons in life.

Experiences collected, most involving other people. Mixed in with plenty of four season outdoor settings. Drop dead gorgeous scenery, vistas when lucky enough to live in Maine. Tap into her natural, unfiltered beauty.
Sit, Watch, Listen, Learn. Gotta Relax, Log Out To Do That. To Get Off The Time Clock. Below Radar.

But lots going on right inside a person who watches, listens, grows. Changing slowly from within. Not because those around you want you to be just the way they wish.

But something about being true to yourself, knowing who you are. What you want and are able to contribute as your covered dish to sample.

At the same Maine lake picnic table where we all sit down around. To exchange, catch up, learn, share. Losing pride, being humble, grateful helps speed up that process to come around, settle down and know peace.

Living your own life with values, beliefs protected, applied to the decision making thought process right?

It is all about making wise life decisions. Taking ownership of your mistakes. Building, hanging onto your successes. Striving to be clear headed, bright eyed and bushy tailed to live your life fully. Not waste it in indecision, frustration, being scared.

Plenty of the wisdom of living is gleaned from just logging the hours. Until you are thirty, forty, whatever age, you can not quite look at things with the proper perspective though. Like the puzzle of your life early on is missing several key strange, interesting shaped pieces. To one by one snap into place. Once you figure out where it goes by trial and error. A little patience, sometimes lots of luck. And input from others you can trust. To help in the steering.

There is never an age where playing games is worthwhile.

But as life rolls on, relationships, the most fragile, delicate part of our life on Earth quickly become the all important goal to seek. Vital to preserve at all costs if you can. We do need each other. But not to the point of suffocation. Not being able to breath. That kills relationships. Kinks the hose that waters, refreshes. Things wither, dry up, blow away. Pull up a chair beside a Maine lake for the cure.

Loyalty, consistency, stability, love not just logic needed in large supply for all of us not Vulcan. Given, received, tossed, served back and forth.
Peaceful, Calm, Maine. Grab A Chair. Drink Her In.
So the connection goes both ways. Building something unique, special, lasting.

But ah the kicker. Is everyone on the same page? Did we lose some of the group? All “all aboard”, still seeing the same horizon pathway?

Under the same place in the stars. Out on the water.

Or just going through the motions to be in agreement. Not be the odd man out. To not be alone for legs of the journey.

Knowing what they want? Or just tagging along, until a fork in the road says, we are both know we’re not together.
Relaxing, Enjoying Your Company, Setting On A Maine Lake. Priceless.
Each having to gain their balance, figure out where they actually are in life.

Where they want to go and how to get there. Maine, great place to have a seat with the wildlife surrounding you. Where no people interfere or object to your letting go, generating all those thousand yard stares.

You can be who you are, want to be in Maine. With less input from jammed too close, in your face hecklers. All around you who wish you would stop doing that, saying that, being who you are or want to be. Get to Maine, see the difference.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

June 1, 2014
The Mother Ship’s Eerie Bright Blue Belly Light Snapped On.

Hovering, then slowly descending, the ship lands in a small hidden rear Maine farm field.

Underneath, the craft’s intense wash of blue light stops. The alien crew inside away from planet Earth for thirty years. It’s mission to return. Study, observe and document the day to day changes, advances, attitudes of the inhabitants.
Do You Return Your Shopping Cart? Or That’s A Person’s Job You Want To Protect? Just Leave It.

Like a sponge, the on board computers like none known on planet Earth begin to whirl, hum. The inner cores glow. Collecting, analyzing current broadcast on air signals. Using something a tad more sophisticated than Western Auto rabbit ears.

Tapping into search engine data banks to access historical information.

Filtering the bracket, the data slice to showcase the last three decades only. Quickly making observations from speed of thought scans of newspapers, magazines, industry trade journals.

Accessing cell phone conversations of all the carriers. Monitoring right down to local diner lunch counter stool chit chat. As locals talk it up. Ordering, butter and jamming their home made toast. Having their breakfast eggs fixed, served up just the way they like them.

Advances in medicine, check.

Duly noted. New technology making life easier in someways but at a price paid in others. The population like polar cap ends of distinction. Either high school skinny as a rail and obsessed with fitness, weight, appearance. Or let it all hang out, with you gonna eat that last piece of thick crust pizza Bub attitudes.

And aerial scans of big box shopping centers shows another development.

Parking lots heavily dotted with empty, abandoned wire shopping carts.

Maine Pleasures Are Many, Small, Real & Natural. The Best Kind Are Free.
Left kitty corner, here and there sporadically around the empty angled painted lined slots. Instead of returned to cart corrals.

For eventual round up retrieval by a store clerk. To be escorted, taken in tandem mass with a rear engine pusher wearing a revolving red warning light. To avoid flattening pedestrian shoppers, colliding with motoring shoppers with the wire cart crazy train. (Cue Ozzy song, up and under blog post.) The shoppers in one major hoof hurry. Fast paced, coming and going looking stressed, rushed, not smiling.

Thirty years ago the shoppers returned the carts themselves.

After the unload of merchandise into the vehicle they drove. Left with the keys in the ignition. A clerk more than just offering, actually pushing the cart through the automatic doors with the electric eye. To help elderly, the frail in the escort outside. To saddle up, hit the trail with their purchases.

In the report, the shift from 99% of the shoppers returning their carts to the entrance of the store thirty years ago so noted. To present day where few ever marched, pushed the cart back to the handy dandy, conveniently located galvanized pipe holding pens. Pending the exodus in mass back to beginning store shopping lane’s staging area for consumers.

More handicap plates, lots of cars parking in those designated slots that did not have the little wheelchair designation on them.

Or hanging from inside rear view center dash mirrors. The report on the blue green third rock from the Sun notes the shift from hard working, industrious and happy. Have more than enough, content. To overweight, unhappy and just too much free time on their hands. Lots of retail therapy self medication going on. Never having enough to satisfy the craving artificially.

Lots of ailments, plenty of whining. But thinking leaving those carts helter skelter is creating a job for someone to round them up. That they are helping stimulate the economy by abandoning the carts the further from the store the better. And the rolling around in the wind causing more parking lot dings and dents is good for auto body collision repair shops too. You have to wrap your mind around this from a different angle people.

The purchase of a product more practical, done slowly, methodically.

Because it was needed three decades ago. To now buying for the show, luxury. The effect on others even more important in what you want, gotta have and right now in specific colors, styles from the vast array of what’s in aisle five. And flying off the shelves as what’s hot today.

Maine is home made, not so much store bought. The alien ship observed hope for the folks in the upper right hand corner of the country. That sticks up like a thumb, almost into Canada. Insulated from the ills of the city, the urban jungle of concrete, traffic, crime and smells. The powerful grip of marketing has less of a spell in Maine. Not so important.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com

May 30, 2014