Maine is a lot of blue water, skies and add a zillion shades of green.
A dash of browns and explosions of bright fall foliage colors as the temperature dips preparing all of us in Maine for the approaching winter. But colors, not everyone has white houses with black shutters either.
Maine Is Colorful, The People, The Places, The Properties.
Especially as you venture up into the St John River Valley in Northern Maine’s Aroostook County. Where no one is afraid of splashing on the colors and vivid exteriors are common as you ply up and down small Maine town streets where French is the primary language in many neighborhoods.
But the colors, can be stained glass from quality tradesmen’s handiwork designed to last long after the creator has left the Earth. This red with frosted, cut out grape design from Bath Maine. In the front of the home parked next to the Maine Maritime Museum.
The colors of buoys in Maine that mark the lobster pots, fishing nets and traps below the ocean surface have some bright shades too.
Tell a story about a particular region. Tackling a lobster pot that is not yours is akin to cattle rustling. Stealing, poaching is bad business in Maine and does not win you a hearty invite to a baked beans and brown bread supper either.
The Sea Of Color, Each Coastal Region Of Maine Uses Different Patterns, Shades To Mark Fishing Territory.
To see when the visibility is poor or pretty much missing. The colors means something special and are not just random whatever paint applied from whatever was lying around the workshop at the time.
And are so important to find your way back to the compass coordinates that spell it all out.
Where those pots, baited lobster traps were dropped into the drink. To attract lobsters to come inside to sample the rotting fish used as bait to razzle dazzle them.
So the lobster traps will be full of the green succulent fish that the World hankers from Maine.
Fresher Lobster Than This? Only What’s Still Underwater, Swimming Along The Maine Ocean Floor.
There are close to 6000 lobstermen in Maine bobbing, working, boating the open sea.
Relying on these colorful buoys to eek out a living from whatever they can harvest from the deep. At the helm of something powered by a diesel motor with a lady’s name plastered on each side of the bow or sideways on the aft.
Out working on the open rolling sea pummeled by wind gusts and hard weather conditions that equal the market price that has to exceed the expenses.
Or oh oh. No more Maine fisherman. Just like no more Maine farmer if the numbers are in the red for too long and going belly up occurs.
The House On The River Bank, At The Maine Maritime Museum.
Picking Maine potatoes, working the farm fields inland from the coast makes the colors of the navigation markets and fishing buoys seem foreign.
Ever get tired of the spin, the manipulation and insincerity of the intense marketing that swirls around us? Pull the plug, get to Maine.
It is not land before time or dinosaurs roaming the landscape in Maine. But money to fuel all that hype, the propaganda a growing level of distrust. When it is missing, other miracles happen.
Nothing New, Small Maine Town Pride, The Fun Home Grown & Kept Simple. Nothing Has Changed.
In small rural living Maine towns, the rip open up the wallet every time you turn around is replaced with unfold the community spirit in the a local resident’s heart.
There is nothing stronger than the heart of a passionate native who year after year steps up and takes on the challenge.
To do their part and contribute selflessly because there is never too much competition for that unique part in the day to day play.
Once they determine their skill set, step up and do their part. To add to the local Maine flavor in Vacationland.
The fun is outdoors in Maine. In an urban setting there is none of that space. Excitement is all around us in 91% wooded Maine dotted with clean fresh lakes, a rugged coastline of water facing east. Fast and slow moving water. Some pretty interesting terrains to hike, bike, ski or hoof.
Maine. The Jewels Are Out In The Open, Glistening, Sparkling The Daylight. Not Trapped, Under A Light In A Locked Up Tight Display Case.
Marketing, convincing you and I to buy this, invest in that with three easy payments, one last not so sweet larger one. Living in debt is not what true Mainer’s do.We can live without whatever is on the shopping carousel round and round she goes. We can say no thanks, not for me. But many new to Maine out to change it would say you can not, should not.
That is why an individual invested in the local turf can get their shackles up.
Cause them to raise an eyebrow when someone not from Maine suddenly decides what is needed to improve it.
If you come from an area flush with cash and used to lots of it needed to survive. Burdened by extra levels of spending in the day to day, it can feel like more of that should follow you over the big green bridge on the south end of Maine.
Leave it on the other side of the river. At your old address outside Maine.
As you enter Vacationland and leave the rest of the hustle bustle in the rear view mirror motoring hard to get away from the smells, noise, crime and expensive living in jammed in concrete jungles.
The quiet can be at first deafening in Maine. But then the subtle sounds of crickets, or the hard to miss cry of a blue jay or Maine lake loon can take it from here.
Check The Oil, Your Air, Stick In The Gas Hose. Maine Has Not Lost What Is Important.
The wind vibrating through the pine needles of a large left alone wooden giant. The sound of running water. Or tapping in drops on a tin roof of a Maine wood’s hand hewn beam cabin or sitting relaxing in old farm house porch rocker or swing.
Life still requires hard work being resourceful, developing skills to stretch the dollar in Maine.
But the anxiety to fuel the unhealthy slows down in the less important areas. To make room for the ones that were shoved aside and forgotten. Or never development, no one sampled the no thank you helping. To try it, you might like it.
Why so different in the urban vs rural? Often not an option when all the space, no time robs a healthy habit to enjoy life in natural no money required ways. The just got got no no time as Burton Cummings Of The Guess Who sang lamented.
No time, and all that bombardment of how you should spend it and your pay check best can make a person feel there is no other option. Even that places like Maine only exist in movies, history.
Style, Comfort, Home Sweet Home Made To Last Design. Life The Way It Should Be Protected In Small Maine Towns.
Self medication over indulging in something that’s missing for a temporary fix is expensive. And all that replaced when you move in the direction of under populated Maine. For inner joy, plenty of space and all these natural resources.
Give it a chance, keep an open mind and watch what happens to your heart strings.
As one by one they get wrapped around her fingers. And you don’t mind one little bit. As Maine’s simple living seduces, relaxes,fulfills you completely. So that unplugged, real and raw eye opening living replaces rat racing like Chicken Lickin’ or Henny Penny.
Settle in and get lost. In a place that ends the inability to hear yourself think about the important areas of your life. Get to Maine whenever you can and sample her pure, natural unspoiled beauty!
If you are elderly, on a fixed income and mobility is not so easy.
If your circulation makes it harder to stay warm, you need some assistance. Big time.
Maine Pleasures Are Many, Small, Real & Natural. The Best Kind Are Free.
Finding help with creating handicap friendly surroundings. Financial assistance with wheelchair / walker ramps is what the aging segment of the Maine population needs. Along with heating assistance, help with insulation to tighten up the home sweet home.
On a walk today during a spring like day in Northern Maine I notice a couple aluminum ramp systems of handicap ramp.
Taught How To Fish, Survive Early In Life. Missing His Mate, Crying About It Heard On A Maine Lake.
Instead of the traditional wooden set up so wondered what is the cost and how aluminum ramps would be so much easily to dismantle.
To transport and set up again using the lightweight ramps in a needed, new handicap location. Without missing much of a delay of service if the folks needing them are made aware of the ones out dotting the community.
Ready quickly to be relocated and to find a new home for the same use by another Maine resident needing a little helping help to ease access when mobility is an issue.
From $334 to nearly $1700 the cost I found for a range. Have seen these rust free sectioned wheel chair ramps at churches, residences and less maintenance one of the biggest assets besides ease in re-use.
Hold! Grab The Short Rope, One Paddle Hand Extended! Hang On!
Please share with me other avenues for help with handicap wheelchair access ramp resources in Maine. Will be happy to add them and post on them as they roll in for all to use that really need help getting around.
Help for the elderly, for those that need to have a little discretionary money left over to enjoy life.
Or to save for peace of mind is a good thing for the Maine small town resident. No matter what age. Maine, simple, real, four season living and always most of the time spend outdoors.
How does the song go about what the World needs now, is love sweet love?
Hmmmm. Hum a few bars crooned and scribed by Burt from Kansas City at the center stage Yamaha grand piano and you’ll remember the lines. But today the art of left handed compliments. What they are, how they work, why they happen.
The first time I heard the expression I thought about left handed cigarettes.
Those pick, dry, grind and roll your own herbage that are grown way way out back with the saw tooth patterned leaves and buds riddled with THC. But those make you mellow, maybe feisty for the last piece of pizza or cranked to holler using your outdoor recess voice to “turn it up, cause Mister Man, Chummy here comes the good part”.
As you air guitar with the best of them to “Stranglehold”. Or some Canned Heat, Grateful Dead, Phish tune in the back ground of a smoke filled den of inequity.
Apply Ice. Playing By The Rules. Living Simply In Maine.
But left handed compliments can miss the mark and still be well intentioned enough.
Like Yogi Berra utterances. a string of malapropisms assembled to make a profound statement that lives on and on. But most left handed compliments are designed to malign and have literary prickly barbs manufactured to sting.
To draw blood, hit an artery to do the most collateral damage.
The Wikipedia definition of a left handed compliment.
“A backhanded compliment, also known as a left-handed compliment or asteism, is an insult that is disguised as a compliment. Sometimes, a backhanded compliment may be inadvertent. However, the term usually connotes an intent to belittle or condescend.”
Yeah, what the World needs now is lots more of those. Like anything good or bad, there is an art form, a skill with practice makes perfect.
You must know someone that is gifted at left handed compliments. Can you count the number on one hand?
Maine Explained With Social Media Examples.
You don’t forget these people when you or a loved one is the red dot assassin’s target painted on the mark as the next in line to receive one or two or three.
Made just for you like a chunk of silver melted down, poured into a bullet mold to cool then slid down the long, narrow rifle barrel.
With plenty of gunpowder and cotton wadding to pack it in wicked good for the ready, aim, fire.
Everyday examples of a left handed compliment might include a comment about your newly painted kitchen.
When observed, nothing is said for a pregnant pause moment or two as just the right comment is formulated just so. And then volumes are spewed beyond just the sentence or two. With “Oh my gosh, look your new kitchen color, is that school bus yellow?”
Or “My, my, that dress color is definitely you, it does such a good job of hiding the layer of fat around your waist. Really it does wonders for you.” And “What a beautiful baby boy, just precious and would you look look at how long his arms are, really, just like a monkey he is. Coochie coochie coo. ”
Picking, Grinning, Spinning The Tale At The Maine Affordable Housing Conference. Jimmy Wayne Performs, Tells About His Homelessness Growing Up.
In the movie Step Mom, the jilted ex wife is asked by her young son while the pair ride horses over hill and dale if she thinks Dad’s new, fun, young girlfriend is pretty.
She deliberates, reflects as the steeds walk and cool off from a trot or canter or hand gallop change in the pace of travel. And then utters “She’s kinda pretty, if you like big teeth”.
To which the young son ponders her remark and makes the sincere offer. “I’ll hate her if you want me to Mom”.
To get better at something, to develop a skill of any type, something has to drive the process. The fire in your belly.
Passion to do good, compliment and lift up, cheer a person is the good carrot and stick. Fear, envy, hatred. Not so much good comes out of those lonely ingredients. What goes in, what comes out is black or white but how sensitive the receiving end of the left handed comment is matters too.
If they don’t hit their mark, if no flinch or blush appears on the scene, you’re deemed no fun by the creator of the one of a kind, left handed comment designed just for you. The quip, dig, bite goes unrewarded. The pleasure is in the squirm it would seem. Uncomfortable for all within ear shot matters not to the orator hell bent on election to prove a point eloquently and with perfect timing. To put someone in their place. To call them out.
Maine Is Rich Colors, Simple Pleasures, Natural Beauty.
Why do they do it, have to be snarky?
And how come if you are not the target of the moment, that Gatlin gun will swing high, wide and handsome to your “you are here” location.
To come around and put you in the critical cross hairs. Unless you run for the hills, high tail it to points unknown to shield yourself from the harsh treatment. Or toughen up. Stop being the target.
Seeing the red flag to wave your white one.
An insult insulated to appear as a compliment at first brush or glance. Yup, you have just been served up a left handed compliment.
Can you spot the left handed commenters in a crowd? The pursed, lemon sucking lips are one clue. It takes a lot of energy sucking it out of others and shows up on the face first.
Is the problem we live in a right handed World? And everyone has to just settle down, adjust, toe the line for peace and harmony? And it does take supreme effort because something deep inside, parked down by the soul just makes it that you, I , others can not help ourselves.
Relax, Unplug, Recharge In Maine. There Is No Bad Time To Unwind. Cross The Big Green Bridge. Visit ME.For A Two Nation Vacation.
Maine is the 42nd least dense state and all that wide open outdoors increases our awareness. Helps create the space to get along, to be more connected and to over look faults. Less judgemental and more accepting.
We need each other in small Maine towns for the greater good. Get to Maine. Don’t stand her up, keep her waiting. The fresh air, clean water, all this four season unspoiled pure surroundings does a body good.
Small Maine towns, where everyone is more connected, somehow related through DNA or work, social, church or volunteer endeavors.
Driving in a small Maine town is more personal too.
I have been looking up and down I-19 in Clearwater, Tarpon Springs Florida on vacation before and thinking how do I swim with the other highway fish in this blur? Some drivers I noticed just count to ten and floor the Cadillac or Lincoln. Blast off and hope for the best.
Maine, A Fun Place Inside And Out. Drive The Back Roads And Discover Much About Maine, Yourself.
Sitting too low in the seat and eyes level or just below the dashboard.
And their right foot pushing the pedal to the metal and just going for it. Drive fast not so worried about the accurate part being the rule of the open road in cities where it can seem like dog eat dog.
Don’t give an inch. Don’t drive cowardly, like you wore a yellow streak down your back.
Or I remember being in Santa Monica with the owner of a Volvo wagon that had 22,000 miles on it that was halfway through the third set of brake pads. One foot on the gas, one on the brake and hang on. NASCAR style high wide and handsome with up to six car lanes abreast and packed solid.
If there is half a car length we are going to jockey for position to squeeze into it, make it grow to fit the in and out weaving wagon. That sash shay swayed back and forth at a rate causing vertigo, dizziness and white knuckles for this riding shot gun blogger.
Lifted By The Wind, Powered By Hot Air In Oakfield Maine.
But in small Maine towns this is a typical scenario driving the streets and roadways.
Knowing the vision of say Melbourne Jackins was fading, and realizing he had a Fisher angled snow plow on the front of that approaching pick up.
You wave, stop, move to the shoulder like he was at the wheel of a cop car or ambulance with a ear piercing siren blaring. Get out of the way.
Partly out of courtesy and respect your elders. Also because a date with a fender bender dent puller auto body shop is not on the list of highly entertaining recreational options in small town Maine.
Spare your wallet and the arm wrestling with the insurance carriers of the two cars involved in the crash.
You know the people you hold doors for and let go in traffic. There are no strangers on the in town, country roads.
Unplugged, Hard Wired Into Maine’s Outdoor HBO.
Baldy Inman with his black bow tie dark gray Caddy had swerved into my driveway to sell a ticket on a Rotary function and while backing out, grazed the pick up door of Jock Gentle who was in looking for some Maine property listings.
Jock saw, heard the trading paint mishap as it happened and just raised his hand, shook his head and smiled. Said that’s okay.
“He is a nice old man and I hope to be one some day too. ” Just should not go into box canyons or use the reverse gear at his driving stage of life.
The big car added safety to the equation though and made him easier to see than the dark Amish buggies when dusk approaches and you just don’t always see them on radar.
Eddie Williams, a doctor grew up in Linneus and his raven black haired mom was known for two things. Being the school cook that made kids, teachers and any lucky visitors to the Roosevelt School on US Rt 2A feel like they were royalty in the cafeteria.
Maine. We Stick Together, Like Momma Duck, The Kids In Tow.
Fed cake so thick, moist, delicious that the state investigated and found the frosting had to be a little less tall, the cake created underneath de-tuned, tamed, pruned back.
With more prison like ingredients used so as not to spoil the students and faculty alike. The stuff she cooked was addictive.
Peanut button balls like no others back when they were not Kryptonite to kids that had life threatening allergies that made them lift fingers to form a cross to shun them if down the table lurking in a school lunch. And blondies like brownies with nuts, chocolate chips long before you could find them next to check out counters. As one impulse item you can not help reaching up and snatching for snackage on the way by.
These original squares as big as your head and not shrink wrapped and made local. By a scrumptious, low to the ground black haired school cafeteria happy cook. Gobbled up and history long before their expiration date. No preservatives injected in them needed. Because they disappeared before fully cooled off and hopping off the rack. Kids at the time did not know how lucky they had it and got the same treatment from home, their grandmothers as par for the course in a small Maine town school system.
Simple, Stunning, Real, All Natural. Maine.
The cooking great. But her driving, pull it on over. Lower marks later in life. Not so good eyeball vision wise. But not using her vision to create the recipes that did not need to be read after decades of tickling taste buds practically blind folded.
Cooking with her eyes closed. Tommy Fitz, Aubrey McLaughlin, my Grandfather Albert with the tie, sweater and hat cruising slowly never getting out of second gear. All that should have had their car keys taken away earlier than they did some would say.
But no one hurt because the locals knew who to watch out for and drove defensively to over compensate if they met the dirty dozen on the roadways of this Southern Aroostook town.
The drivers with diminished vision also driving very very slowly cautiously. Creepers, the good kind you look out for in a small Maine town.
Waving, Communication Without Texting, Video, Anything Electronic.
Otis Putnam using his lawnmower to go to the bank, grocery store, to pick up a pizza pie or shop from his backyard.
Before that excellent at left hand turns, not so skilled at the right hand ones according to Joe Inman, a relative who shared the news with me this week.
Everywhere Otis drove when he could was in circles, the left hand ones because that side was the best field of vision.
The only one he had as his other senses stepped it up to compensate. To drive as long as he could with the help of others who saw him coming and took necessary steps to avoid a collision in a small Maine town neighborhood, down town or out on the country roadways.
Face to face can’t be the only way today’s conversation starts.
The happy smile on a text does not mean the sender is not really wearing a frown. As their thumbs rock back and forth or the stylus taps taps on the keyboard of the device they are attached to as they express their thoughts in a condensed, filtered, strained method.
Warm Up, Get Close, Settle Back And Relax. Whew. You Made It. You’re In Maine.
Maine communication, has a different twists because of where it is produced and the all natural pure surroundings.
If your conversation other half is eighteen states away or on the other side of “the pond”, you are lacking some key ingredients on what to shake and bake.
To send back as the whipped up, rolled out next conversation course conversation tidbit.
I worked in broadcasting before peddling real estate in Maine and not seeing did not mean not knowing what the guy or gal one at a time was needing out in the hinterland.
Or how he or she was reacting to what was being communicated as close to conversation easy as possible.
Like predictive text, this is how you do it during an air shift or newscast was predictive communication where other than a few call ins or today texts, tweets and posts around the social media circle, you just make it interesting. Something worthwhile to follow.
In my job today when it is 10:30 at night and they want to “look” at properties for sale or to learn about the local events surrounding the real estate for the flavor of the corner of the Earth where I hang my hat in Maine, I better have all the “communications” stocked, ready, locked and loaded.
Getting Around In Maine, Lots Of Options In Vacationland.
Idling to deliver the message to get them started now, without delay or the actual trip to see you “face to face” to study the expressions and delay and tone of the conversation to shape how it goes next.
Videos, blog posts, image streamsall help that connection building and the Maine attitude about we may not know each other but won’t stay strangers long and quickly become good friends.
When you visit Maine and are say staying at a wood’s lodge in the middle of a T2 R3 type unorganized townships just a dotted line defined on a map six miles by six miles square in Vacationland.
Lots of special interesting things happen.
No people, just your hosts and the other cabin dwellers. The stragglers that come in to dine at meal time on a snow sled, using poles on the cross country ski trail for horsepower. Or angling to fish, itching to hunt for small or large game in Maine.
The sounds are a crackling, warm and inviting crackling lodge fieldstone fireplace. The lodge keeper’s dog barking a friendly greeting and hoping you remember him with a tidbit morsel of what you are about to be served from the back kitchen. Sneaking him a sample of really good food in a setting where you would not expect the five stars and over the top.
Get Lost, Be Found. Find Your Island, Special Space In Maine.
Outside only the hum of the wind vibrating in the pine tree needles is your background with song birds.
No people, but trees. The run away feeling of leaving behind the hustle bustle for some meditation.
Time spent unplugging and recharging next to some waterfront in Maine.
Casual dress with practical warm flannels and stay dry foot and hand wear. Simple living in the Maine woods. Your communication is with yourself more and others less.
Inside discussions and pondering the life turns you already made, the ones at present to consider and making sure not to get too far ahead of yourself on the trail.
Your internet connection is down and spotty. But it feels good after the initial shock of what if some loved one could not instantly ask what you are doing. And you learn they are board. Wonderful.
Weaving, Needling Your Double Clutch, Down Shift That 18 Wheeler. Car, Bike Through The Highway Thread. Exploring Maine.
The active listening when there are no people or just a handful of old souls makes for deeper understanding in the communication out in the Maine woods camp.
Distraction and multi tasking not taking their toll in interrupting the quality of the talk. The glean to take away much to apply to the richness of how we live in Maine.
For years used to take a snow sledding trip sporting lodge jaunt with just the guys at Bowlin Pond Camps in T5 R8. And had the fortune of dining with two couples at the Mt Chase Lodgelast night that made me realize the wonder of the woods. All located under radar just north of Patten Maine. One more facet of Vacationland.
Excellent food, thirty four other diners with the bulk from the Natural Resources Council. For a woods powwow retreat to talk shop without the fluorescent lights and sterile office setting.
The card games and 15 -2 for you out in the rental cabins help add the filler in the wood’s stop reflection setting in the North Maine woods.
Like slow cooking and not fast food the table talk more than chit chat and filler. Relaxation takes place truly when space is unlimited out in the vast wooded sections of Maine, up in the northern most tip of say a county like Penobscot.
Explore. Find what is here, what is missing inside yourself. Plan your next outing to Maine. She is drop dead gorgeous but for a second even think about keeping her waiting or standing her up. You only hurt, deprive yourself when you do.
