Category: Living in Maine

Maine, Leave Your AR 15, AK 47 Behind…Bring Your Fishing Rod, Shoot With A Camera.

Heading Up Mt Katahdin, Baxter State Park’s “Saddle”.

Folks jammed in a small area with wall to wall people struggling with giant nose bleed high mortgages, stuck in bumper to bumper barely moving traffic….I’m talking somewhere other than Maine.

When you get more people spaced in over lap fashion, clustered, stuffed in too small a confine, like laboratory rats, they start to bite, shove, react in a hostile way.

Callers I have at my day job selling Maine real estate that stop in, phone us when living in an urban area ask about our population, weather, property prices. They learn there are no “bad towns” or risky neighborhoods with Maine’s 4th lowest crime national statistic. But these same folks share with me about how everyone around them is stocking up on ammunition, AR 15, AK 47 and hand guns of varying millimeter. I hear some real horror stories from relocating property buyers who are running away from some pretty scary situations.

Buildings Slowly Fixed And The Land Worked To Feed The Family. Welcome To Maine!

Living just enough for the city to get by is not living.

Survival if money runs out, the food got scarce. And all those cars to maneuver around if you had to bail out of a city. The area that used to be a neat small town but has become too big and expensive to stick around. When you live in Maine, suddenly many worries, concerns a person carrying a taser and looking over his shoulder, calculating the chance of crime about to happen are missing. Not in the picture.

Traffic, noise, high costs of living, pressures and urban stresses gone in Maine.

Income being made in Maine could be lower but so is your operating cost. More careful spending, getting what you need, not always what you think you want. Frugal living to get a handle on your expenses. The money going out not more than is coming in.

It’s safe and simple heating with wood, growing a good portion of your food.

Entertainment not expensive box seats at a musical. It’s all around you to absorb and enjoy. Hiking a Maine trail, seeing two deer, a moose and listening to a series of lake loons while you enjoy a meal cooked over an open fire. Only a half tank of gas the expense of your natural “HBO” living channel.

Lake Life In Winter In Maine Is Peaceful, Quiet And Reflective.

You get more for what you buy and healthier living for less or no money expended.

Money is taken out of the picture living in small town rural Maine. The dollar not depended on so much. Everything not hired out or delayed. Folks help each other in a “barn raising” sort of way. This weekend’s project at your home, farm, camp to fix this list of items. Next week at their place to tackle another laundry list of projects.

Barter. No money exchanged and having fun doing it together. Connected with a sense of small town Maine community spirit.

Is it like that where you live now? Maine, the way life should be. Leave the assault rifles home, bring your camera to shoot the wildlife, to capture the Maine four seasons scenery best.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

July 2, 2010
My Dad John R Mooers Spent 50 Missions In The Small B-24 Tail Gunner’s Tight Quarters.

My Dad, John R Mooers Was A B-24 Tail Gunner On A Liberator 4 Engine WW 2 Bomber Plane.

Two 50 caliber guns, in an unpressurized cabin that is cold, smells like a latrine with a War War Two B-24 bomber plane filled with other young nervous army airmen.

My dad John R Mooers was a tail gunner in a four engine bomber airplane during the second world war. The 15th Army Air Force, the 882nd Bombardment wing and the entire country behind you raising victory gardens, sending daily mail. Praying morning, noon and night you all made it home safely after each bomb run.

Dad was stationed in Italy, lived in a tent with a heater and waited to learn if the weather was favorable for a bomb run the next day.

Morning briefings on the primary target, secondary missions and reminded what to do if shot down over enemy lines. Being outside the wire…way way outside and in the air dodging highly accurate German 88 anti aircraft guns. The smell of cordite in the air, the plane vibrating from the percussion blasts. Fear of shrapnel always on your mind.

The US Army Air Force issued each member of the B 24 flight crew a survival kit.

Filled with a chocolate bar, a map, silk thread, an ampule of morphine, a prayer and some blue seal silver certificate currency. To “buy your way out” and in case the enemy sympathizers questioned the value behind those dead presidents on the green currency you carried. Just in case. The note in the survival kit given to all the flight crew on the B-24 bomber plane called the “Dragon Wagon” was written in several languages. To get help if you had bail out, if stranded in enemy territory if you B-24 plane got shot down. And it was every man for themselves. Hoping not to land in a tree dangling unable to release from your parachute because the drop was too far and would break both legs. Praying not to end up in enemy hands in German controlled lands below.

My Dad John R Mooers Was A Tail Gunner In A B-24 Airplane.

On Memorial Day, and every day I think of how Dad squeezed back in to this very small tail gunner position B-24 compartment.

On a mission of destruction. To kill or be killed. He wanted to be a pilot but Uncle Sam had all of those fly boys it needed.

Dad was slight, skinny and wirery enough to be the perfect fit back in the tail of a B-24 bomber aircraft.

Removed from the rest of the crew of waist gunners, bombardier, ball turret, radio man, pilot and co pilot. Tied with intercom plane communications but observing radio silence at the P-51 Mustangs, your “little friends” bugged out of the escort, dog fighting to get your closer to your target. Some bomb runs were “milk runs” and routine. Others required change of mission plans due to heavy German 88 anti aircraft and squadron damage. Think about being cramped in a tight quarters for six or more hours, unheated, wearing an oxygen mask and wondering if you and the B-24 bomber flight crew will make it back to base. In one piece, or at all. Daylight bombing was very efficient but had heavy losses of life and planes.

Remember Veterans Around The World Like At The Arc de Triomphe Paris France.

As you entered the IP zone, the place where one by one the planes in your B-24 squadron, flight group would open the bomb bay doors.

Pulling the pins first on the variety of bombs to be used in today’s excercise to win the war. Stop the war. Support the troops. I think of the sacrifice my dad the B-24 tail gunner and all his flight crew made. Would you fight for your country’s freedom today and serve in the armed forces to do what had to be done for the United State’s way of life? Would you protest the war, head to Canada? How would you treat the soldiers on their return from fighting the war wherever it was on the blue and green globe?

On Memorial Day, I honor guys like my dad, his flight crew, my two brothers that were in the service and all veterans.

Dead, alive, maimed. Many gave some. Some gave all. God bless America and the freedoms we have, fought for, preserve as the greatest country on the planet. Was being a tail gunner dangerous? Dad always said the ball turret, under the plane had the worse position. Your landing gear gets shot out, the hydraulics worthless and you can not sometimes put the landing gear down manually. The life expectancy of that ball turret airman had way way lower odds of survival on his life insurance policy. Hope you enjoyed this blog post on John R Mooers, tail gunner in a B-24 bomber airplane called the “Dragon Wagon”.

I’m Maine REALTOR, ME Real Estate Broker Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North Street Houlton Maine 04730 USA

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May 31, 2010
You Meet Someone Who’s Never Been To Maine.. Describe The Place.

Cultures, Nationalities Make Maine Unique, Special, One Of A Kind.

Mainers Know Who They Are, Where They Live And Feel Like The Luckiest, Blessed People On Earth. And They Are.

You’re on a game show, at a local diner out of state, filling your car with gas on a trip, and the question get raised..”Maine, what’s it like?”

In this blog post to hit all the highlights is hard. But still as a Maine blogger proud of my state, and ready to toot the horn about it’s people and the way of life and four season outdoor beauty. Here goes anyway.

One reason I have to make a stab at being in the “spotlight on Maine” is because so little about the state is out there on line or very accurate.

If someone moves to the southern tip of Maine and is from the west coast. And suddenly put on camera as a talking head for the place called Maine. More often than not, other than the coast, the rest of Maine is left out is the sound bite.

Like Columbus felt when talk of the world being flat came up at card games, the local livery stable or on board a ship sailing to the unknown corners of the new world. Maine’s like that. Pretty much a secret.

Maine for starters is one big state, and here is a quick ME geography, history, facts, figures house keeping run down from A-Z for up here in the right hand corner of the country.

And for images, rather than worlds scope out this eyeball candy Maine photo, image site. Ok, Ok, Here is a splash on Maine lighthouses too. Happy? Maine is so much more than lobsters, lighthouses, blueberries and potatoes.

Maine people are resilent, know who they are, don’t need life coaches or extensive couch therapy or mood elevators to enjoy life. Mainers are responsible, family oriented, friendly, neighborly, community proud with a ferocity. The outdoor four seasons of Maine is where the answers to life’s mysteries, complexities, pressures are found. The Maine forests, Baxter’s Mt Katahdin and 6000 lakes, rivers know the meaning of patience, time. We Mainers protect what God gave us to be good stewards with, to pass on to our kids.

Like To Kayak Or Want A Big Motor On Your Boat Or Jet Ski?

Maine is coming to terms with lower wages, smaller population centers.

But that makes us more resourceful, stronger volunteers, closer local citizens. Home grown, helping each other, more aware of the priorieties in life. No chip on our shoulder, or entitlement attitude or trying to short cut on any road to riches in Maine. Money to impress people? You won’t find that “look who I am attitude, what I have” attitude game played here. No pecking order, no steerage mentality of anyone being any better or worse than anyone else. We accept people, want the same done in return.

It’s how we roll in Maine.

Grange Hall In Maine Repurposed Into A Home.

Keep it simple, be helpful, make it real. Maine.

We don’t la-de-da as the Van Morrison song croones. Who we are is who you see. Whether talking one on one playing horseshoes or cribbage or at a large municipal town hall, grange bean supper or at a sporting event.

Jumper cables ready in the car or pickup and ready to stop, give you a hand. Make sure you are okay or need a lift somewhere, to call someone. To help you out. Mainer’s need each other but are self contained at the same time.

This small town Houlton Maine Meduxnekeag Canoe race video shows you how we interact with mutual respect, courtesy, friendliness, a mixture of gratitude in this case that spring is here. That means getting out on the water, a Maine river. This year’s canoe kayak race by the way is May 1st, so spread the word will you?

Canoe River Race In Maine, Been Paddling Down One Of The Many River Races On The Circuit?

Growing Without Sprays, Chemicals. Organic Maine Homesteading Happens Around Maine!

Or this Maine winter ski video shows you winter snow is not a dirty word.

Evidence that we thrive on cobalt blue skies, carving down a hill under a bright sun gaining strength signaling that spring is approaching. So when someone asks “what’s Maine like?” if you can only use one word answers, you could do it. If you had lived for awhile to see how different it is from most places.

To describe Maine one word at a time, I would pick “grateful”, “family”, “industrious,” “hardworking,” “resourceful,” “aware,” “outdoors,” “recreation,” “simple,” “grounded,” “clean,” “healthy,” “friendly”, “neighborly”,”unique.”

Fish Fresh From The Maine Coastal Sea. Barnacle Billy’s Crew Ham It Up For Tourists.

Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservation Season 6, Episode 12 television food/travel show covered Maine in broad brush fashion on a recent installment.

But at least with the help of a Milo Maine camera man, Zach Zamboni for a local perspective. Scope out a Maine Bourdain show video clip. It is so refreshing to have more than the Maine coastal areas highlighted, “pressed” by someone as the local talking head who not even raised here. With no childhood, family, local community perspective to really draw from. No real history, or life long experience with this place, state of mind we call Maine.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 18, 2010
Sadies Bakery, Since 1948, It’s Been Time To Make The Donuts In Houlton Maine.

Folks In Southern Aroostook County Are Spoiled With Home Made Sadie\’s Bakery Donuts, Cookies, Breads.

Small Mom and pop businesses, the couple that know how hard it is to make a dollar, eek out a living being shrewd business people like Sadie’s Bakery in downtown Houlton Maine.

Tim and Sharon O’Donnell for over 32 years set the alarm clock to rise and shine very early. Yes because they have beef cows to grain, hay and water. But also because of the local tradition carried out as sacred. It started in 1948 in the Shiretown, County seat for Aroostook, Maine’s largest of sixteen. Time to make the donuts. Because in a small Maine town the hot fresh coffee and a just made local donut are priceless. The experience of sampling each is the key to jump starting your day. Miss that coffee break routine and you start to back peddle. Nothing goes as planned.

A different flavored donut each day. Everyone in the area can smell the fresh donuts that are addictive. Or dangerous if you are try to walk the straight and arrow when on a diet. The fellow that does my taxes next door to Sadie’s says your will power increases. But it was a struggle not to trot over every time Tim brings a new fresh batch in to the world. To resist loading up with a bag or two of hot, just out of the fryer, home made not cookie cutter store box donuts.

He says chocolate donuts are his weakness.

He tries to limit himself to one or two a week but he is in his 90’s and says maybe they extend life! What would you do at that age? Develop some new bad habits because you can? A local made donut is a small pleasure unique to the small Maine town.

In addition to donuts, breads, squares, cookies and other baked cooks come out of Sadie’s Bakery. On Midnight Madness during the 4th of July Houlton Maine celebration, there is a line out in to the street of folks waiting for a carnival like dough boy with confectionery sugar, cinnamon on them. Or Italian sausages smothered in onions and green peppers and home made rolls. (Stomach grumbling…that’s mine from not enough lunch I guess).

Tim and Sharon say the donuts are no secret shared only by local folks here in Houlton Maine or across the border in to New Brunswick Canada either. They ship 8 dozen to Alaska periodically to a fellow that pays a dollar a piece just for the shipping charges thru the US Postal system’s priority mail. The donuts arrive within 48 hours from being made, packed, shipped from Houlton Maine. They went up up and away..all the way to our 49th state, brought on board just before Hawaii.

What the O’Donnell’s make can not be mass produced and it is a hand made one at a time operation. That is the secret, hard work and what makes each baked good so special, sought after. With the internet, and blog posts like this word can spread and demand increase.

But as Tim says “When we sell out, that’s it for that day”.

Similar to the German sandwich shop owner in Bangor Maine that retired recently after sixty odd years with a well known favorite “coffee pot” sandwich. The tradition builds the attachment and spans generations. Nothing trendy or faddish about the delicacy that is not from a copy cat chain but one of a kind offering.

If the Sadie’s Bakery donuts and our local Houlton Farm’s Dairy home made butter could easily get to Florida.

If the Jordan or Rices red hot dogs you can not buy out of Maine could get delivered to the retirees in the sunny south. Those folks would pay dearly for those items. Someone could become a very rich man. Scarcity adds to the sparkle and increases the hunger that improves the taste. Ever had a Sadie’s Bakery donut or other baked goods item? You have no idea what you are missing.

Being just a donut, butter and hot dog merchant, food broker would be profitable. But maybe they are all special because they are unique to Houlton Maine, the way life should be. Breath deep when you drive up in to Market Square. Chances are your nose will lead you to Water Street, the home of Sadie’s Bakery in Houlton Maine. Houlton Maine is the county seat for the Crown of Vacationland called Aroostook!

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

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 1, 2010
Jewell Island Is In Casco Bay Off South Harpswell Maine.

A group of my friends had a yearly tradition to boat out to Jewell Island off the coast of South Harpswell Maine.

To set up the tent. Roll out the sleeping bag. During World War Two, this island was used as one of many for national defense and comes complete with old abandoned bunkers of that era. Our mission on these yearly jaunts to camp out on Jewell? To catch the famous Bluefish. We even have t-shirts made up indicating this is the seventh annual invitation Maine Blue Fishing event and so on. Blues and shoes. Horse shoes that is.

Jewell Island in Casco Bay

Have I ever caught a Bluefish?

Nope. But we had great times despite the drought and will never forget being in a tent during Hurricane Hugo on Jewell Island.

Cooking fresh Maine mussels and the fish we did catch along with the laughter and catching up with old friends make Jewell Island an excellent spot to visit this year.

We brought along Houlton Farms Dairy butter for the occasion. One year hurricane Hugo happened which made the get together extra hard to forget.

If you brought a boat, the buy in for the vacation of fishing, horse shoes and fun is a reduced rate. Let’s take your boat is my thinking. One less loose end to prepare for on the hectic exit to leave work and transform into vacation boy.

The view from the old WW Two observation and gunnery towers is pretty amazing at Jewell Island.

The experience of how close that war was to Maine when you only thought it revolved around other parts of the world.

Floating your boat, camping out, cooking over a fire. Maine is perfect for those kind of coastal adventures. Getting to know Maine starts with camping, vacation time logged and discovering her magic.

Maine is outdoors year round and getting off the couch. Ready for some of that? Is something missing where you live now?

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com | MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

April 1, 2009
Ever Go Without Food? Day After Day? Gone To Bed Hungry?

Lots of Maine potatoes, something to eat is not something everyone enjoys.

Some one special works behind the scenes to stock the food pantry shelves.

That loads up boxes designed for specific families as they are lovingly assembled. There is a local lady in Houlton Maine who works day in and day out at the Catholic Church’s Food Pantry.

She leads the leading force looking for loads of dented cans from large grocery chains and donations from this boy scout troop, civic organization or folks from every denomination. She is amazing and had eight kids of her own around long dinner table. There is a long list of helpers she created for unloading and emergency donations when the need is urgent.

This hard working volunteer lady is like the CEO for world hunger in the local Southern Aroostook area.

I asked her how come this cause…what drives her to be so creative and diligent year after year. She said as a child in the Boston area, she was hungry…a lot. She was raised with little money or food to go round and it became a way of life, survival. She did not consider it out of the ordinary to go to bed hungry without a meal when the rest of us sit down for sustenance or dine out. Not so unlike a concentration camp of past world wars. Or the poverty caused by the conflicts.

Trimming Beets At Nature’s Circle, A Local Organic Farming Operation In Northern Maine.

When you think about it…when was the last time you missed meals for a day, or were hungry to the point of passing out with low blood sugar and fatigue? I don’t mean dieting or young people purging or obsessed with skinny. This nation is so blessed with abundant food and at this holiday season, look around for food baskets to buy to feed a family over the holidays with beyond the bare essentials.

Consider signing up as our Rotary Club in Houlton does for ringing the bell of the Salvation Army’s Christmas donation kettle appeal.

Make it a ritual of what you do around the busy holidays to know the meaning of Christmas every year. Our local rotary club also raises close to a thousand dollars a year in $20 donations from club members to buy a basket with food given below cost by the local groceries in the Houlton area. It is so refreshing and heart warming to live in an area where people care for other people. Beyond the suppers for the cancer survivors or families that lost their homes in fires.

Also, Maine is loaded with farms. So much of the produce grown is wasted and left on the ground after harvest. Over-sized, kitchen grade vegetables are perfectly good for nutrition and just need to be gleaned. Before frost hurts the quality or the sun works its magic on the food left behind by the harvester. It is a same that roughly 30% of food goes uneaten that is perfectly good. Just needs to be channeled to the proper avenues to put it into the food chain before being lost.

You have so much…more than you could ever use and will get back a deep, sobering feeling of community by taking part in local drives.

Teaching Them Young. Mainers Help Mainers Of All Ages. To Learn Life Survival Skills!

Your kids are watching too and they can help ring that bell or deliver food to the pantry at your local soup kitchen! You may need a helping hand some day too. At our local rotary club we also have a Christmas auction with proceeds to help the local library and a portion for extra help for the Salvation Army Christmas appeal! Small towns in Maine are rural but tightly knit. The population pulls together to provide for the needs of all the locals and can expect the same support in life here in Maine.

Help get behind food pantries, soup kitchens in your area.

Shhhh.. be quiet as a mouse and do it like you are the only one that knows about the gift. That’s what makes it extra special and a sense of duty or a mission you can not avoid year after year!

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers – Houlton Maine Has Special People, Low Cost Property.

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 26, 2009