Category: Uncategorized

You Wearing Green, Black Today, Observing Singles Awareness Day?

Yesterday, February 14th all about wearing red, spiking sugar levels with delectable chocolates, the mad dash rush for roses by the dozen.

No Man, Woman Is An Island. But For A Time Just Makes Sense Being Parked, Healing, Learning.
Handwritten cards trying to accomplish the how do I love you, let me count the ways. Sparkling, faceted presents in little hinged velvet covered, silk interior slotted boxes.

Candlelight romantic dinners, wardrobes of little black dresses, leather and lace. Flutes of bubbly, grape juice. (Record screech sound, SADE or Chris Isaak background music halts abruptly.) Hear the pin drop in the silence?

Singles Awareness Day, does the term make you think of Misfit Island where one elf wants to be a dentist?

Alone. Not in a couple, relationship partnership for lots of reasons.

But it does not mean unhappy. Or should not be wanting to be with someone, anyone to just avoid being, doing time alone.

As Mae West said.. “I’m single because I was born that way.” Or Jay Leno quips yesterday “Today is Valentine’s Day. Or, as men like to call it, Extortion day.” And from behind the green shimmering sequined curtain The Wizard of Oz reports, this just in “Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”

Or one more “Some people are settling down, some people are settling and some people refuse to settle for anything less than butterflies.”

That from Carrie Bradshaw in “Sex in the City” who treats it like the porridge. Wait for the one that’s just right like Goldie did. Keep walking. Searching. Living. Paying close attention. Taking very good notes.
Happy, Alone, Not Married Says Bingo. Let’s Play, Enjoy The Day. Make It Count.
With no regrets or looking back. Stumbling, tripping over the past. It’s about patience.

Not in a relationship by choice reasons can be sheer fear driven. Marriage. One person. Forever. That’s a little unnerving, BOO, scarey.

Or you’ve tied the knot, given it a whirl. Have the kids to prove it. And just want to finish the job of getting them raised. Out of the nest safe and sound.

Not pushed out prematurely because of a bad blend of two families, tension. Coupled with a brand new relationship adjustment loaded with opening baggage pieces to juggle.

That’s not Brady Bunch smooth, wrinkle free, fun with Alice.

But tailspins, black smoke pouring out the rear end in the steep accelerating screaming dive. Going south shortly after the second I do. With some kids saying “I won’t”. Digging in their heels. Attended the wedding, in the photo proofs but not hook, line and sinker part of the ceremony. Some that will go to their graves in old age wishing, dreaming, hoping their real Mom and Dad reunite, hold hands again. Play footsies. The failure rate of second marriages with two opposing benches of kids on the playing field 72% for lost yardage, game ending penalties in the first two years. Ouch.
Turtle’s Song Playing “So Happy Together.” Hear It?

It does not mean to be cynical either.

Like Peter Wolf in J Geils. His raspy voice broad brush horsely singing. Summing up the entire process with the warm gushing feeling lub dub ends up being “Love sucks”.

Or is congratulations, you just you have found another way to bleed. When the new and different, we talk all the time freshness ten day plates get unscrewed. The made in a prison ones get bolted on way too tightly with lock washers.

Tired. Because relationships need weeding, feeding, watering. And if it is not a friendly division of duties, back and forth on the teetering totter, someone gets drained. Empty, bankrupt. Then (dark cloud rolls over, rumble of approaching thunderbolts charging) resentment. Here it comes. Incoming. Take shelter. Walking on egg shells, tip toe mine field time. You forgot to date your mate. Should have done, gone into the relationship counseling upfront. Before you both realized you needed it but way way too late.

Do this or it is over gun to your head ultimatums don’t make it free and easy. Friendly.

And that kind of “I love you if..” conditional codicil twist to the vows up front before all your family and friends does not have a happily ever after ending. To the life together union where each stays individual but weaves roots, tree limbs intertwined, laced together. To be better off paired, than each could ever hope to pull off alone. Not putting the fun in dysfunction with Alt J’s “she’s morphine, the queen of my vaccine” either. Desperate for all the wrong reasons to keep her in his life to dull his past emotional pain.

Expectations, unmet needs, the previous defensive relationship faux pas, over correction, ownership of the role each plays. And the biggest wrecking ball of relationships, pride.

If one partner microscopes the other.

Finds the flaws we all have and makes it lop sided you are the sole reason for rough seas, that is not a partnership. And exhaustive to the point that partner can turn themselves inside out. Forget who they are. To try to make the other happy. You can not make someone happy. That is a full time job your highness. Eyes on your own paper. Change you, and stop praying that God does the other.

Sometimes it is a break, getting to know yourself better and loving being alone.

Because some think, like Michael Douglas of Fatal Attraction fame that “Being single is pretty good. It’s a nice sense of irresponsibility.” Unless you are being stalked. Looking over your shoulder for the other half of it takes two. When the last relationship ends badly. And like it or not, you are still connected by a single tough strand of rusted barbed wire. Scrapping, chaffing your wrist or hooked to your ankle. And you hope you don’t have to gnaw it off, loose a limb to get away. Make the break from the date.

The National Association of REALTORS shows one third of homes are being bought by single people.

Who some say singles are more fun to be around then their married friends that are not so out going, so social and spontaneous.

Maybe it is as simple as the cat being on the wrong side of the door. Wanting whatever he does not have. The dog with the bone eying that of another that seems to be worth the dropping, replacing exercise.

Work hard, you are as joyful, content as you want to be inside first and last. You should not be chasing happiness that does not live outside your inner thoughts. Wherever you find yourself, make it over the top. The best it can be for you, others. And blessed, lucky enough to be in a relationship where both partners think they are matched with someone way out of my league.

Where each thinks they got some kinda lucky. Each landed the better end of the bargain. Both wonder why and bask in that sunshine of appreciation.

Happy Singles Awareness Day if the shoe fits.

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

February 15, 2014
Music You Get Exposed To, From Your Siblings, Work, Kids.

Music sets the mood, makes the coffee, work, recreation all that much sweeter.

Sometimes for background filler, motivation, or to be turned up and felt deep down inside. To move, shake, buzz, rattle and hum. Because dancing is expression, great exercise. So the music you listen to, how wide and varied and why?
Just Hanging Out Inside, Listening To C & W Tunes, Music In My Box Stall.

My three older brothers, in a ten year difference of age span exposed my Maine family household to lots of artists.

From oldest brother Stephen’s Chuck Berry, Little Eva, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino and Jerry Lee’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”.

(The latter a group my oldest brother got to be warm up performing band for at the old Bangor Auditorium in his local Bangor Maine talented musical group called “Bootleg”).

The next brother in line Jonathan’s “House Of The Risin’ Sun” by the Animals.

That I can see sitting on his bed. Bent over a stringed Gibson, learning to play on guitar.
Spring Time Yellow, 1967 Ford Mustang Easily Got You To School On Time. Anywhere Four Speed / V8 Fast.
And his favorite Kinks, Beach Boys, The Who, The Doors, Traffic, The Moody Blues song cranked louder at home. When Mom and Dad were away. On the front room den hi fi surround sound, not just on his upstairs bedroom two channel stereo.

Or when he was giving me rides somewhere as the baby of the family. To be dropped off, picked up. Very fast. And in the 1967 Mustang bought during a good potato year for two brothers to share.

For their working pretty much round the clock when not in school on the Maine farm.

And next youngest brother Brian’s Cream, Iron Butterfly,and Rolling Stones. His shared harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Add in the Sunday noon after church living room songs from Boots Randolph, Tom Jones, Jerry Vale, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and likes of old World War Two Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller.

Mom’s piano playing of old hymns and Christmas songs like “Up On The House Top Click Click Click”. Her Anne Murray, Glen Campbell, Engelbert Humperdinck, Wayne Newton, other artists always on the kitchen radio. While she whipped up amazing meals for the Maine farm family table. The same one used for counting potato barrel tickets during harvest.

Plus my Aunt Ruth was a music teacher so got dragged around on her operetta circuit with my cousins. Exposed to her pretty amazing voice belting out “Valeree, Valerah.. ha ha ha ha ha” when the camping knapsack song kicked into gear. Heading to swimming lessons at Cary Lake from her horse riding summer camp on the Callaghan Road.

I worked at a local Maine radio station WHOU and went on to the Bangor Maine market to spin tunes during the second half of the 1970’s.

WABI had a Golden Oldie’s format so that helped broaden the segments I was too young to remember. And top forty exposure split with the country music format at another station blew open the repertroire expanse. Z62 was a rocker and you can always get more done with a rock bass line pushing you from behind. To tap your toe to. Feel a finger or two have to go up and down. As you catch the beat. It goes inside your pores. Heading for your soul. Amen.

But listening to XM / Sirius in all the vehicles, being around my own household raising four kids meant non stop tunes to pile on. The hits that just keep on coming. But no longer stacks of wax. Riding on vinyl grooves or 8 track, metal cassette delivery. No no. Digital, not analog and on clean, loud, just music hard drives. In all types of personal devices to plug in the ear buds. For a companion while mowing lawns of angled grass. Or early morning, late night walks. While puttering on projects outside.

The kid’s ipods a music library in their own right. 3500 songs a piece is a lot.

From electronic of Deadmau to Daft Punk. French DJ techno to Alt Nation my current favorite musical watering hole. But then shifting to other channels depending on the day. The Loft or Coffee House genre with unplugged versions stripped down for a Sunday morning. When slicing, dicing onions, mushrooms, peppers of all colors. To mix into the grated cheese, hot sauce, fresh ground black peppered scrambled eggs. Home made toast. The fresh black coffee, weekend newspapers and home fries, sausage links for the breakfast brunch.

I remember the first albums. Saving up to buy, eye balling the art work, reading the lyric sheets. Studying the liner notes, the entire 33 and a third RPM musical collection of tune tracks. Usually five, six a side. Of my favorite Doobie Brothers, Billy Joel, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pater Frampton records. That played in the background of the memory making. That take you back, neck rein so efficiently to earlier times in your life.

The singles, ZZ Top, the little old band from Texas. T Rex, Bang A Gong, Get It On. Radar Love, because I been driving all night, my hand’s wet on the wheel. High school dances with The Raspberries suggesting what the heck. Go All The Way. Elton John crooning about Crocodile Rock, Saturday Fighting being alright. Something about your little sister, wearing braces and boots. With a gob, handful of grease in her hair.

So how about you?

How wide and handsome is your musical background? Keeping it expanding, growing so easily today with a little thing called the Internet. And a slew of the concert series playing at a local venue near you of the old timers who sound better than ever with the new technology. Shorter sets and more variety on the same play bill making it like a musical buffet.

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

February 14, 2014
Books To Enjoy Year Round In Maine, Do You Read?

Just finished Stephen King’s “Joyland” book.

Revolves around carnival park life. Where some unfinished business gets squared away before “The End”.
Maine Is Family, Reading To And Doing Things With Your Kids.
In a Maine winter, we are outside as much as possible like the other three seasons. Dressed with layers and toasty warm. Enjoying the fresh crisp air, strengthening sun’s rays, amazing scenery. A slew of outdoor recreational family options.

But like enjoying a good chowder, soup, stew, a new book to nurse.

To nibble and slay a chapter at a time is a good pastime. To keep your imagination from rusting. Whispering, whining “oil can, oil can”.

Just picked up, getting into “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn about a reporter who is covering a “who done it” story in her small home town.

Her own mysteries from the past percolate to the surface to impact her reporting. Reading is a habit, entertaining and when you finish a book, your two hands feel empty. You reach for something else to scan.

Much like the back of the cereal box, milk carton, place mat to scan. To past the time. To learn something. And your newspaper, even though online and available to tap tap tap into, the eerie glow gleaning is not the same.

Without the smell of newsprint, your two arms holding it high. Or flat on a table, breakfast bar. Opening, flipping the neatly folded, inserts tucked away inside fresh edition. Delivered to your doorstep if a Maine daily. Snagged at the supermarket if a weekly or your don’t hire the postal carrier to add to his hernia load. To keep you in the know, satisfy your curiosity. Making your feel involved, current.

Visit a local library in Maine.

Did you use to read more when you were a kid, or is your job so much technical study that work scanning cures the hunger to be whittling away at literature?

Did you see your parents reading books for pleasure, knowledge? And are biographies, nature, historic, DIY, fiction or non fiction what you prefer?

Have a lot of new to the area folks ask in their top ten after how high are the property taxes, heavy the regulations, zoning end up moving on. To “tell me about your home town’s library, hospital, schools”. That answer tells a lot, reveals volumes about what is important. Where the local community’s priorities are.

Read, learn, think, broaden your perspective and grow. Consider other viewpoints, perspectives, experiences, solutions. Pass that on to your kids to develop so they always remember stories in the early bedtime ritual. Before their prayers, lights out. Cue the Sand Man. Books in their lives for so many reasons, benefits keep getting reached for if you do. Passed down example to follow. My parents did for their four boys.

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

February 12, 2014
Your Small Maine Town Ambulance Service Makes Money.

The emergency call comes in for your small Maine town ambulance service.

To high tail it.
One Worried Eye Watches As Maine Ambulance Blurs By. Sirens Make Wildlife Nervous, Hide.
Make the sick patient pick up, the delivery to a health care facility stat. Three ambulances, with three year rotation updates to keep the fleet in the pink, healthy. Can not afford a breakdown. To be dead in the water. Parked the other side of the Interstate rumble strip right? When the precious cargo’s life seconds are numbering.

Sometimes a new small Maine town ambulance that costs $160,000 give or take a few dollars is purchased.

On other occasions a demo gets the nod off the bench. Put into service. Or the retired, aging rig is put out to pasture. Replaced by unfastening the high tech mini hospital back square box. Slide out the high mileage diesel chassis. Back up, under and bolt on the new frame, plug in the cube’s wires. With there, whew, a fresh power plant, transmission on a new air ride. To be the new life support on wheels crash cart vehicle.

To carry the life and death sick and injured at higher speeds down the Maine highway. Sirens blaring, lights alternating, flashing brightly. To announce to traffic, neighborhoods all along the route. What’s up ahead to move it on over to make way. To avoid causing an accident involving the ambulance. Which would not be good at all.

Could be a loved one of your own in the back of the Maine ambulance.

Isn’t that the first thought you have?
Small Rural Towns, Mostly What Maine Is. Spread Out.
I do. Wondering oh oh. Who is in trouble, hurting, maybe dying? Where I live in Houlton Maine, it is a cut off location for the Life Flight. I hear the whomp whomp thud of compressed air. Felt, getting louder. As the bird circles. Sets down two blocks away at the helipad just outside the Emergency Room entrance.

The ambulance crew for a tenth the cost can be saddled up, on the road though. To boogie with the patient to a larger health care facility with specialty services to the south. But depending on the distance, you are in transit less time beyond Bangor by the time the order goes in, the bird arrives. Disappears over the horizon with blinking navigational lights.

When a town around Houlton Maine signs on for ambulance services the cost is based on a per capita fee to keep it fair.

Monticello Maine to the north has used Crown Ambulance in the past which parked a rig in the Westfield / Mars Hill Maine area. To have it on call for faster turn around service.

The cost for Crown has been $9100 annually according to Monticello town officials. Cheaper than Houlton. Plus the ambulance crew cab ride cost gets billed to the insurance company or Uncle Sam. Paid for the loaded one way delivery. To pick up, answer a call in Monticello, Maine. That has a population a whisker away from 800 people last head count.

And after loading the stretcher into the rear, the back barn bay doors get shut to let the patient, the family flip a coin to decide. Should I go to Houlton Regional Hospital to the south or The Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle to the north? From an economic standpoint for my home town, for this money making arm of the County Seat for Aroostook, I would like to see more stays, bookings at Houlton Regional. Like all of the runs.

Not greedy but quality health care happens at HRH too.

Where the job count flickers, vacillates between 1st and 2nd largest area employer. Jobs are a bigger deal in a small Maine town where they don’t grow on trees. Are chased, hunted down, hung on to dearly.

Another translation | Affects my, everyone in the town’s property tax bill size. Even Emergency Medical Service Director Milton Cone has to dig deeper, who lives in this burg. Where he, his wife, the family of three girls they raised lives are pretty heavily invested. Six other EMT/EMS paramedics jobs happen too because of the three ambulances with their snouts pointing toward the door. To sail out of the fire department’s station automatic doors when the call comes in to turn on the light and sound toggles, roll.

Cone, who rotates lids, wears a couple town government hats. Also leads the Houlton Fire Department, is our local Smokey Bear. Makes sure everything is spiffy, clipped, mowed, trimmed. Proper and respectful at our local cemeteries. Like me, thinks getting Monticello Maine’s business would be a good thing for this blogger’s home town. At a time the lower bidder no longer has the parked ambulance idling, waiting for service when the 911 call comes in. There are behind the scenes changes, adjustments underway at Crown Ambulance. TAMC exploring options. The city of Presque Isle toying with buying some ambulances, housing them in their fire department like Houlton does.

A healthy 1600 runs for the sick last year for the Houlton Ambulance that makes money and that you would like to see the revenue continue, to grow.

That’s exciting economics. Way more than the small Maine town over spending the other way. Hefty hikes yearly in the property tax bill. That hurts business, the individual tax payer. For savings needed to pay the other bills. Luxuries like heating, groceries, mortgage, rent, kid’s braces and prom dresses. Land line, cell phones, cable or dish. All types of insurances, home upkeep, cars with their maintenance nickel and dime and college accounts. To name just a few.

The branching off to new areas when town officials awhile back in the Danforth, Wytopitlock (AKA Reed Plantation), Bancroft area asked if Houlton could service their small towns, can mean have to hold it. The level of service can suffer when you get to far away from your primary target area. If a ambulance department gets over extended.

Sending rigs, crews out during snow storms, poor road conditions into the middle of nowhere.

Not enough runs to have a local pinch hitter crew based closer or volunteers in towns that are just getting so so small. Too tiny to make the expenditure pay. That like their school enrollment, job options too are shrinking, hemorrhaging. In the dwindling not so perky local economy happening all over Maine. As municipal DT addiction to disappearing, trickled back revenue sharing rehab continues.

The call to the helicopter can get scrubbed too. When the whirly bird wind beater can not fly. Is grounded like Santa almost had happen one bad storm condition year. Before the freak reindeer strapped in, took off in red light, saved the day.

Sometimes the Houlton ambulance trip to Bangor, 119 miles away means the no vacancy neon light suddenly flicks on.

No beds are available and keep driving boys and girls. Heading further south. Experienced this when number three of four children, the oldest son was antsy to arrive into the world way way too early. The neo natal unit in Bangor Maine’s California king was booked. Suddenly in use and it was how about Lewiston Maine to hook up the machinery? To calm the tremors, to keep the pregnancy easy does it. Underway and Alex inside Mom until the coast was clear for the delivery hide and seek of the bundle of joy ended naturally.

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

February 11, 2014
Buckling Down In Small Maine Towns.

Revenue sharing trickling back to small Maine towns, the faucet quickly turned off.

Tightly Squeezed In, Rode In The Back Of A B-24 Bomber, In The Twin 50 Caliber Tail Gunner Slot.
Shut down. Funds to write grants, compete for becoming scarcer by the day. The incline racketed straight up. An extremely competitive, time consuming process. Shrinking ROI return.

So what do you, the small Maine town do if the future shows to expect more of the same reductions in funding?

Knowing full well that this is not a momentary blip on the radar. But something to get used to more of the same coming down the pike for years to come?

You shrink, you belt tighten, get creative. Today.

Stop the bleeding today. Take those steps. Strong bold ones to make hard decisions. Seeing it will only be a bigger blood bath if put off racketing it back drastically for the small Maine town, the economic region. If you don’t take action early. All along the way. Especially if the small Maine town’s population is dropping numbers too when they do a head count every decade. See the red flags dropped, white ones waving.

Start with small Maine town duplication of layers. Or you could take the tack that let’s raise property taxes to keep the status quo. Jack up user fees, licenses, permits which are already too high. The last thing you should be doing for a healthy environment for the local businesses, individuals you want to have stay around in your small Maine town. For young folks to find their way back after college, the service, stretching their legs out of state.

Keeping things the way they are, always were.

You don’t have to know Latin to sense there is work to do. It’s not status quo. Different tack needed. Plenty of adjustment much like when the captain of the commercial plane comes on the overhead speaker. And says don’t mean to alarm you folks. But there is a mountain range coming up and we are not going to clear it unless the aircraft is lightened up. Suddenly you are not worried about the inflight movie. The peanuts and soft drink. The who’s your ride after touch down where you thought you were landing today.

My Dad was a tail gunner on a B24 Liberator during World War Two with the pilot announcing one run this same head’s up warning.

Shot up pretty royally after a German bomb run. Trying to just limp away from the anti aircraft 88’s pointing, pumping a steady, deadly accurate shrapnel ordinance stream skyward.

The guy upfront wearing the silk scarf, same 15th Army Air Force patch on his leather bomber’s jacket with sheep skin collar trying to make the point quickly. Not candy coat it. Assess the situation, relay to the crew the limited options. As the plane’s alarm bell starts ringing, flashing interior lights pulsate on and off. And altitude is dropping as the rest of the squadron leaves the lone plane behind like it was standing still. As night fall approaches for the ten man crew all by itself still over enemy air space.

The crew to survive, ends up flying with one last engine.

Due to fire, blown out missing sections. Or plain drained, bone dry on critical oil in the other three. Feathered, shut down one by one. As bad moves over, making way for worse. Crippling the tattered winged war bird’s efforts to flap it’s way, to get back to home base in Italy. The crew pitched in, heave ho’ed interior bomb racks, anything with weight knowing their life depended on it. Or parachuting out the bomb bay doors the only other option on the table, being discussed.

The back of the above photo has my Dad’s handwritten inscription. “The smiles are real, after forced landing.” The ecstatic crew kneel, kissed the ground, literally. When touching down at a forward coastal English base airstrip. Picked up three days later to be assigned another bomber with a different half dressed beauty painted upfront on both sides. Sporting an exotic, racy name underneath to continue making the bombing milk runs. Dropped on strategic daylight targets to win the war. And lose half the planes in the process to get back to a stateside peace time way of life.

The overhead of small Maine towns needs more than eagle eye line item study.

There was not the waste to trim from previous year’s scrutiny for cutting around the edges.

The same level of service across the board is not a tab the local property tax payers, small business owners can afford to shoulder. And a five year, longer plan needs to be rack focused quickly to dove tail reductions in over spending, overhead.

With painful but necessary surgery, an all on board direction, concensus. That no one in the room enjoys, wants to take. But to miss that approaching mountain range called over spending money you don’t have if you don’t Jack. Just as serious a situation as the fly boy GI’s found themselves in. Signed on for to win the war. Small Maine towns, what makes one great?

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

February 10, 2014
The Yearly Habit Of Heading To Helen’s Restaurant For Summer Maine Blueberry Pie.

Once a year, behind the wheel of a 1953 356 Porsche, shifting gears manually, plying US Rt 1 rapidly.

Get Maine Pie Downeast Quicker Using A Porsche.
The five foot, low to the ground, vertically challenged Houlton Maine woman left town. Pointed her car south. Covering ground quickly on her mecca, bee line to Washington County. In search of pie the annual mission. A slice of fresh, native Maine blueberry pie.

Riding with the driver of German descent a local girlfriend along for the jaunt in shot gun position.

Both wearing seat belts. The pair hankering, equipped with the same sweet tooth. DNA gene passion for Maine wild barren berries. Helen’s in Machias Maine the destination marked by the red map push pin. To end up sliding into a booth for two plates of heated dessert and coffee.

The only son and sole child gets a phone call from the Washington County Sheriff’s department.

The conversation starts with do you own a Porsche? Yes, the answer, but not me personally. My mother does. Is your mother there, could you hand the phone over to her sonny? No, she’s somewhere between here and the coast of Maine, Downeast. What’s the problem, what’s up officer?

Silence. The son thinks the worst. Starts to sit down, as he cradles the phone between his neck and shoulder. Mind beginning to race reaching out for a kitchen chair from the ready and waiting half dozen. Stretches the call cord tether, locates, takes a seat. Prepares for whatever comes next.

Seems Mom had outrun the Washington County Sheriff’s patrol. Left them behind, pulling away from the pursuing cruiser at a high rate of speed. But not before the highway patrol scribbled down the Maine three digit plate number. Screwed, secured on the sloped sleek shiny polished back end of the European roadster. Outside, over the louvered trunk hood where the twin carburetor high output engine called home. Lived, produced, churned out plenty of horsepower.

The Porsche designed with plenty of get up and go for the sky’s the limit speeds on one of Hitler’s better visions, the Autobahn.

Not Maine’s US Rt 1 twisting country lane highway. The challenging ribbon that snakes along the rock bound, craggy, jagged Vacationland coastline.

The mother with the metal to the pedal, working the brake, clutch, steering. Aware of tachometer RPM levels, gravity and the forces of the other laws of physics. Working, demanding much from the syncromesh transmission with the gear stick sequence lower to higher on straight aways. Vice versa downshifting the other direction into the curves, dips, hills. Nimbly evading police before sirens, flashing lights, any of pull over devices even thought of being toggled. Turned on, even activated. It was brief, happened so fast. Was over.

Clocked at speeds of 110 miles per hour and climbing.

Before the guys with star pointed badges, a holster with 32 special Colt firepower and dressed for the part shook their heads in disbelief. As they lost sight of the Porsche. She was gone, history. The son explained that what Mom did was wrong. But said he had just one question for the Washington County Sheriff’s department. The patrol car was unmarked correct? Well, yes. Yes it was. No gum ball machines perched on top. Or black and white color scheme to help Mom obey the posted speed limit. Why was that distinction important, pertinent to explain the outrunning the long arm of the law?

The son explained that whenever the Porsche was taken for a spin in the Houlton Maine area, repeatedly local teenagers, drivers with high powered American made Maine muscle cars had Mom’s Porsche in their cross hairs. Wanting to race. The sweet taste of winning a quarter mile or longer Aroostook County course too hard to pass up.

Mom was used to seeing the approaching challenges in her rear view mirror. Wore her German honored heritage of fierce love, the proud reputation for finely engineered auto performance from Germany. But she did not realize it was the police, probably running scared to stay ahead. It was fear doing the AJ Foyt, over the top, a perfect ten driving display. Like the rabbit when the fox with the tongue hanging out trots near. Fight or flight. She reached for the latter, the walnut knob stick. Down shifted, studied the tack swing. Quickly the needle dancing into the red line region. And got to work. Telling her co pilot to hang on to something.

The knee jerk reaction to the unmarked police cruiser did not hurt their sting, but explained why the high speed, short and sweet race.

Mom sensed, never backed down from a challenge when she knew the racers in her hometown. Rose to the occasion out of habit. The son was told to warn his Mom when she spun in to the driveway, returned home safe and sound to cool her jets. To never pull a stunt like that again. When the urge for wild blueberry pie at Helen’s struck her fancy again. And a quick trip Downeast to Machias behind the wheel of the Porsche to enjoy a summer day in Washington “The Sunrise” County was in the travel plan cards.

How does this story end?

Mother passed away as they all do, like the rest of us. The car sold to a Blue Hill Maine lumber yard owner along with a trunk full of duplicate imported parts. With a note signed by the new owner on the dotted line. That “Mother” as the son called the car, would be cared for, respected. And not being bought to flip, for profit. But for he and his wife to enjoy, hang onto and keep preserved as they motored around the scenic highways of Maine. Displaying especially good driving manners. Obeying laws in particular when in Washington County. Where the car has a reputation in police circles, around water cooler conversations.

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

February 8, 2014