The attitude, the tone, appreciation and respect for the surroundings you call home are the trampoline key to how high you get in life.
The quality of your existence on Earth is often hinged on how busy, commercial, populated it is in your circle, corner of the World right? When you don’t live in a rural state like Maine, it is easy to forget a place like it exists. You don’t have time to day dream. Get out of the habit of letting go, you stop the life altering visits.
Other things on your to do list crowd, take over. Robbing the real joy that being in Maine creates deep inside where real joy, peace, happiness and content hang out, live.
When you have huffed, puffed, stuck with the journey of blue broken dashes up the side of Mt Katahdin, the feeling when you climb up and over onto the table land at Baxter Park’s senior pinnacle is Maine, Less Colors Than Late Fall’s Explosion Can Be Dramatic Too!hard to explain.
No words form at first. No matter how many visits. But like the Tim McGraw country song about “I like it, love it, want some more of it” Sugar Pie. Don’t fight the feeling.
Maine, she will have her way with you. And all you know is sign me up for more. Get in line, stay in a row. Mountains cure amnesia.
You may have to head back to work out of state for Monday morning. Get on the green line “T” to be at the job by nine into dragon heart of the city. But you will be back. No doubt about it. Over and for over for a life long love affair that only shines brighter, grows hotter deep down inside.
Distance away from the urban centers is part of Maine’s mystique.
No billboards, there’s a bottle return law. 4th lowest crime state safe. And the rural, remove the large wads of cash stuffed in the pants to live day to day missing. Replaced with more barter than currency exchanging hands.
Means less commercial activity, enterprise happens. More outdoor no cost, low cost fun.
More self sufficiency, depending on your own skill set than paying someone else to tap into their collection for survival, existence.
When you live in a small Maine community of under 200 folks, do you think you can afford a million dollar town office, 8 story ladder fire truck?
Not needed. Over kill. Just like layers and stacks of cumbersome, expensive, time delay regulations for permits, code compliance. To herd all that population. Nope. The simple, kitchen table, common sense approach to living like that mountain top hiking, biking, skiing experience. Works just fine. Is real, honest, simple Maine living. Along with all this wide open, all to yourself waterfront, scenery, wildlife just adds arrow to the heart and keester. To love the freedom, boy we sure are lucky amazement to catch fire.
Real freedom in how you live starts with where you decide to camp out. Without Home Owners Associations, snarky upper crust elite telling you what are not doing right now. And what the fine, penalty is if you don’t cease and desist this instance buster. Or else threats of legal procedures being started up as the poison pen letters, sabre rattling bullying begins. You are not a hillbilly, you may be a fish out of water. A mouse in the wrong landscape. Adjust the GPS selector coordinates.
Ever think if being grateful for the bare necessities is more than enough for real joy was ever replaced with lots of people, plenty of money suddenly invading a small Maine town?
How everything would go to someplace where it seldom freezes over?
Oh sure, Maine could use more jobs, to tighten up on duplication of services and any waste in its government programs. But we pretty much live like we are always ready for a recession in our small Maine towns. Home made, not store bought.
Step up, pitch in, do your part. Don’t waste money, save for a rainy day. Our hand not out, shoved in both of our own pockets.
We make it work, we are happy with what we have. Plenty, we know lots of folks bankrupt in other ways mentally, spiritually. And not just talking about whether its red or black ink you live your day to day using. The lifestyle you show your kids as what is really important to seek out, achieve in life is so important.
Happy Thanksgiving and if you have an empty nest, are not traveling for turkey this year, help make one for others in your home town.
Homeless, shut ins, Veterans or other elderly groups that have no family.
Those that recently lost someone very near and dear that just wish the holidays were over. Because they are struggling with one big ugly, depressing reminder someone is missing. There is a big hole at their place at the table, their role in the home traditions holiday. Kids are the cure at Christmas, Thanksgiving. Make their time special, bright and catch the wonderment spark of the season through their eyes, hearts.
Work the tables at the local church, Elks or other civic clubs to bow your head with others. And be truly thankful, grateful, feeling so so fortunate for how we are really blessed. Pass that butternut squash bowl, cinnamon bun platter and green bean casserole dish to those that look hungry. We need some more light meat of Tom Turkey or Harry Ham carved up too. Let’s eat, give thanks to the table of bounty, abundance of home grown food to feast on in Maine.
Black & White Delivery Of The News Outside A Small Maine Town On JFK’s Assassination. While My Mom Watched, Ironed Clothes Of Dad’s, The Four Boys.
Like 911, the Pearl Harbor attack, events in history hit you where you live.
When viewed from afar. The perspective age wise, geographical from up here in the right hand corner of the country. In a place with all that space called Maine.
I don’t remember the teacher at Bowdoin Street school giving us the tragic news. But I was only six, in the first grade in 1963. A head filled with more thoughts of what I was getting for Christmas. Worried if Santa thought I scored high enough marks or not. On the behavior scale to win, earn, deserve a slot in the right book. Of other good or varying degrees of rotten boys and girls vying for the guy in red velvet, white fur’s favor.
The teacher, Mrs Nelder, the school might have thought, let the parents handle this one, the JFK assassination news.
At this tender age. On Friday, November 22nd, 1963. About what happened 12:30 Texas time. As it made the ripples in the airwaves of news broadcasts from Dallas over the AP, UPI wires to Maine.
What I do remember is it was a cold gray day in Houlton Maine. Hopping down the school bus steps, walking up the long driveway at a Maine farm located 1.5 miles out on US Rt 2, named the County Road at the time. Bare maple shade trees swaying in the wind. No white stuff on the ground. But smelling like snow could happen at any moment. All the locals ready. Winters with more flurries. School was never canceled like today’s quickness to call it off. The long snow fence of wooden slats like you see on Maine coastal sand dunes in place. To slow the drifts, keep them from filling the highways so quickly.
Inside, putting the yellow, empty folding metal Disney lunch bucket bus on the kitchen counter for tomorrow’s refueling exercise.
Grabbing a couple home made, fresh date filled pin wheel cookies off the cooling rack. A glass of ice cold whole milk from our own cow. And wandering after the snack into the front room. Where my Mom was ironing, focused on the black and white transmission of the latest news information. Delivered by Walter Cronkhite.
Mom watching, absorb, distracted, upset.
Shaking a 1957 Pepsi Cola bottle with a green sprinkler head for the moisture to lubricate, help the process of ironing. Eyes and ears on Walter. On the TV set hooked to twin leads that pulled in three channels roof top from the aluminum array. Lots of numbers on the rotary dial not used. Nothing to pick up. No cable, no SAT dish in the Maine farm home at the time. Too many chores on the farm to perform even if they existed. Life was not spent on the couch growing up on a Maine farm in 1963. Pretty much the same way now.
The last two weeks, because of the approaching 50th Anniversary of JFK’s death, the five decades of reporting the President’s assassination has a mind numbing effect. The event approached from so many angles, perspectives, sources. Beyond just the lone, black and white version one Walter reported with journalistic integrity. We trusted him to get it right, tell it like it was. Cause that’s the way it is. How are you holding up and what do you recall from that day? Hearing the news and your reaction to it?
Maine, Dressed In Just A Few Colors. Like Late Fall Brown Blue Hues.
When you tell your friends about the fireworks, the colors of fall foliage in Maine, it is a pretty breath taking, jaw dropping time.
But other combinations of colors can be the perfect backdrop to your Vacationland experience too.
Just blue, mostly white hit a positive major chord. It does not have to just be Jack Frost stealing the show with vibrant colors detonating for the second explosion bloom around the Maine countryside in fall.
The lack of color variety can play, come off to be more dramatic, memorable.
Stark to some, comforting and reassuring to others. If you are looking out from inside. By a crackling wood fire, while snow is falling. A home cooked meal just enjoyed or about to be. Or the sound of rain on the woods camp metal roof is happening. While you curl up with a good book. Play cribbage with an old dear friend. Glad to be high and dry so to speak. Inside, out of the elements while stormy weather plays out.
Maine, Less Colors Than Fall’s Explosion Can Be Dramatic Too!I know revisits to the Maine coast to hang out with the camera to click click capture winter shots of a lighthouse is entirely different than sharing the venue with New York Yankee cap wearing crowds of tourists. Taking turns, waiting, collecting, after the same thing you are in summer. A juicy photo slice of Maine.
In winter, look around. Just you on board. And you get a sense this is really what being the keeper of the lighthouse in Maine felt like other seasons than during the warm sea breeze, strong sun of summer.
Rainbows of colors of harvest gold, reds, oranges, yellows and greens are pretty dramatic.
Hit you deeply. But so do the Maine paint by number settings when fewer colors get solos to sucker punch, suck out your breath pretty hard too. In places you don’t go much. Or were blind, not aware you had locked up, closed off deep down inside. The vast, sheer wide open space of Maine can be served up wrapped in different colors for entirely different take away reactions. Colors Of Just Winter White, Weathered Barn Board Gray, A Splash Of Shaggy Horse Chestnut Brown. Work For You?
It’s all about how you chose to wrap your mind around what is now playing outside in Maine for colors.
And the mood, attitude you dress, wear around that morning.
When your feet hit the floor running.
Swing out of bed to begin your day.
Maine, wide open, all natural, nothing man made. That’s the most memorable take away. Always. Don’t keep her waiting. Don’t stay away so long.
Living In A Small Maine Town, Folks, Families Are Connected, Close.
You hear it a lot about how connected, close folks are in a small Maine town.
And the reasons are many. First because of the smaller population, and the entire community is more involved. Have roles in the social, civic, sporting, community fabric.
Family is very important.
The overlap of living, working, playing with other people makes you part of more than one. You all spend time together. Get to know each other better. Are just closer to your neighbor down the road. The next pew. Two rows down on the bleachers. You need each other in a small Maine town for survival. Worry, pray, check in on each other on a regular basis.
It’s like having just enough players for a full team in baseball. Or the bare essentials to cover the positions off the bench to play a regulation hockey game. With no extras in one of the 108 very small Maine towns. So in a way the local population in a small Maine town causes a greater responsibility to step up, pitch in, work together. And they do. Whether it is a church harvest supper, a grange hall building campaign for a new roof, or the local high school musical. Maybe playing in the local town band, having some role in the community theatre.
Which reminds me of Elizabeth Stone, mine, everyone’s high school English teacher.
Who was in the audience of a local play I was involved in in her home town of Smyrna Maine. I wondered what she would say for pointers if asked. As I recall her total immersion in the role of Lady MacBeth. Showing the class what emotion, acting, passion or sorrow were all about. To express yourself on the stage or in writing.
There are times when hunting, pecking recycled electrons in these Me In Maine blog posts thinking what if this was her English class? Some passed in blog posts would get an A+. But others would be riddled with written in red remarks. Reminding this section could have been shortened up, too wordy. Or you could have taken this area to the next level. If you had gone down this rabbit trail instead.
We all have days when the results could not have been better or other factors caused the opposite to happen right?
Usually your favorite teacher was your hardest. She held your feet to the fire and made you do more when she knew you were capable, could do better work. We were challenged, really learned from teachers like Mrs Stone. It was not just a job, it was their life, purpose in the small Maine town. Who are still looking over our shoulders, dead or alive. Still educating from up front. The lesson seeds planted by them working to shape us, improve us. Make us who we are. She was born to teach. Still substitutes. My kids had her and loved her. Know her magic, presence when she enters the room and takes control. Sit up straight, pay attention. The class ending bell rings too quickly.
Or parallel parking with no room to spare in front of the local Maine courthouse with the clock on top.
To trot into the registry of deeds for a survey plat, a few copies of some legal descriptions, I think of Terry Spurling. Like his colleague Mrs. Stone, and her husband Irvin Stone who was a high school math teacher, I prefer to keep it on a last name basis. Out of respect, because that is how I knew them first and foremost. How I will always refer to them, remember them fondly.
Mr. Spurling, a gym teacher and driver’s ed instructor would have given me a smile, high five for the perfectly executed parking maneuver. I learned how from him. Forty years ago. Mr Scott the principal while listing, selling a Maine lake property told me to call him Woody. Ah, smiling, can I keep calling your Mr Scott? I don’t want to get detention. A call made to my parents for disrespect. A note to take home about running in the halls. Acting out on the bus. Over extending senior privileges and forgetting where the high school was with friends. Close to the time to put on the square hat with the swinging tassel. When lilac trees, snow ball bushes were in full bloom.
In a large city, the degree of impersonal connections if there are any at at all increases.
Can you remember your tenth grade English teacher, driver’s ed instructor, etc with absolute clarity as if yesterday was today? Do you run into them after leaving high school? Maybe it’s like having 300 channels on your cable or sat dish plan. But whining anyway about “there’s nothing to watch.” I grew up with three TV numbers that worked. Pulled in signals from a Maine farm house antennae that picked up two Canadian broadcasts.
One American television cherry picker in Presque Isle Maine that could select from ABC, NBC, CBS for programming fare. And wait. Forgot. A fourth choice. One more option. Public broadcasting, MPBN beamed in Bert and Ernie, Mr Rogers. Turned out okay. Spent more time outside exploring than plopped on a couch. Never lamented to parents that “I’m bored”. On a Maine farm, that never happened. We were busy. Feet shuffling, moving, industrious. Everyone is in a small Maine town.
Life Drifts, Snow Storms, Don’t Get Bogged Down, Miss The Take Away.
The calendar on the wall says put away the swim trunks, pack away the sandals and get that lawn furniture, flower boxes under cover.
Take down the hammock, but don’t put away the gas grill. Use those year round to sizzle the steak, ribs, chicken, salmon right?
Maine’s winter landscape is being squeak squeaked into the background slow but sure.
I plow snow at a Maine farm I grew up at and bought from my three older brothers. And last night bought a new battery for the 1999 Dodge plow truck that only has 11,000 miles on it. Getting it ready to roar, angle the yellow Fisher plow. When the snow fall means jeep into where it is parked. Fire it up and plow, place, tidy it up. So the oil truck can beep beep in to hook the heating hose. And the home can guzzle guzzle.
The smells like snow part of real winter weather is foreign to someone that did not grow up around fluffy white stuff. Hard to explain but combined with dark clouds, a glance at the calendar as Thanksgiving approaches and history living in Maine all combine. Like the person with rheumatoid arthritis joint pain that could be in front of the green screen.
Predicting weather accurately because those tinges in the knee, feet, shoulder, neck or elbow joint means chance of Maine snow fall is approaching.
Like built in barometers. The aching joint could land you a job on the Weather channel. Folks tune you in because you know how to predict that weather better than a meteorologist. You just know, instinctively, in your gut. Sense the difference in air pressure happening around you. The volume on the pain from 40%, 100% chance of snow. Increasing like the shade of red intensity in ET’s chest cavity. When thoughts of home, or a signal is coming his way to lock on to and prepare for exiting Earth.
And the Maine home owner, driver, road crews on the local and state level are. We know how to do snow. Don’t go into a tail spin when it happens. Get good at removing it, working around it and making it fun, tourism dollar generating rich and profitable for local businesses. That count on snow sledding revenues.
And for individuals that like to be outside ice fishing, snow skiing, enjoying walking in it around a small Maine town community. Let it snow. I’m ready. It’s one of my favorite seasons and have to remind, Maine has no polar bears. We get snow, just not all the time. More than 20 minutes of daylight all winter long because we are not in the Arctic Circle.
So turn the top levers on the insulated windows, pull the blinds closed at night, weather strip and caulk, add a little more attic insulation to places where it has settled, but get ready. Winter coat, mittens and gloves. Check. Antifreeze levels in the vehicles up. Check. Ice scraper and snow brush in the back seat and within arm’s reach. Check. Bring it on.
We are ready and prepared for Maine winter snow. Or if not, can always do the snow bird routine. In the sunny south and southwest until the smell of snow in the air is gone. Replaced with the stronger, longer sun. The spring singing birds, fragrance of the crocus, daffodils, tulips, lilac bushes return.
You’ve watched the M A S H television series and spent time in “The Swamp”, the tent in Korean.
That was home away from home for those veterans patching up blown away soldiers. Helicoptered in from heavy action on the front fighting lines of the war. A different kind of medicine being administered than the garden variety ailments, aches, pains the doctors would see in their milk toast in comparison practices stateside.
The show’s humor helped cope with the despair of gunshot, mine, artillery shell de-limbing destruction.
The sacrifice. The Bing Crosby “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”. Being away from family, home, familiar surroundings. Looking forward to a letter from someone, anyone from your home town. Missing holidays, birthdays, funerals while you helped fight the war for Uncle Sam.
In World War Two’s European Theatre, my Dad had a role in the back seat of a B-24 bomber four engine aircraft. He, the other nine crewmen in the 882nd Bombardment wing of the 15th Army stationed, based near Naples, Italy. Sitting in the back, by himself. Trained in hotter than Hell Brownsville Texas to be a B-24 tail gunner.
Eventually, escorted, settled in Italy where winter weather, living in a canvas tent was all that separated, protected you from the elements. With a temperamental gas heater that was hot and cold so to speak. And at night you worried as you tried to sleep. A lot on your mind. Like the other young men in the flapping in the wind, rain, snow exposed fabric tent.
The morning briefings before the plane full of bomb run, decided if cloud cover weather overhead canceled the flight or not.
Except no free tickets to anywhere you want to go being awarded, handed out if the mission was scrubbed. Because it just meant rescheduled for blue skies in the forecast. And doubling up on the effort to drop bombs over primary and sometimes secondary enemy targets.
Dad was relieved of his third year at the University of Maine at Orono college education when tapped on the shoulder for war service.
He made it home, we won the war and he did go back to finish to get handed a sheepskin for agriculture economics. To put to use back up north in Aroostook County. Burton Tingley, another Houlton Maine boy air dropped into the same Italian airbase turned wrenches.
Burton fixed, plugged shrapnel and bullet holes. Repaired, lubed, refueled, kept them in the air. But when it was a day to go off base, head into town where you could buy anything for a pack of American cigarettes, the pair took the scooter. One of a kind. Made with an engine from an airfield gasoline plane pump, some angled tubular aluminum from a battery storage rack, two tires from a shop tool cart and voila. Cheap transportation to zip the GI’s into happy hour off base.
For a few hours to forget why they were in Italy, what was happening to the world.
And to realize we were all in this together. To win the war, whatever it took. But secretly wondering if each on foreign soil would ever really get back to their home towns safe, sound, in hopefully one piece alive. Not in an American flag draped casket. Sliding around in the back of a cold, dark cargo plane. With rows of containers packed and stacked in red, white and blue just like it.
Dad said daylight bombing was so much more effective than moon lit or pitch black missions. As you studied maps. To figure out the bull’s eye in hitting enemy targets. But scored for high casualty losses of men and planes. A third sent up did not come back.
A sitting duck target at times. For the highly accurate German 88 mm that tried to blow them out of the sky big guns. Usually Western movies splashed on the outdoor drive in theatre we went to as a family with four kids years later in life. But when it was a Twelve O’clock High type film, Dad would say “Oh that is so Hollywood”. Not the way it was for accuracy, but the crowds in the cars ate it up. Did not know the difference.
As the youngest of four, all boys, I remember opening up the safe in the front hall.
In the important papers tucked away protected from fire, an 8″ long, 5″ high, 3″ thick light orange tan case with a top flap hid. Everything from European currencies, 50 caliber brass shell bullets, air medals all tucked inside. In a photo album in the front room, black and whites, pages and pages of Dad’s time spent in Italy.
Dad’s valor job of riding in the back of a four engine plane with bomb bay doors to work each day. Protected by six sets of double 50 mm machine guns with tracer bullets. To light up phosphorus fiery trails to let the shooter know where adjustments are needed. To hit, stop, destroy or at least deter the intended target buzzing all around you.
To protect the gas and bomb loaded bomber. With firing pins removed, stacked and racked load of ordinance that must get delivered. Eight thousand pounds gravity dropped from all of the 1200 horsepower motor droning bomber formation airplanes around you. That each B-24 Liberator copy cost just shy of $300,000, which translates into 4.72 million in today’s dollars. Chewing up 200 gallons of gas an hour without bomb load.
Smiling faces of crew of ten young men in the Liberator B-24 just glad to be on firm ground after a forced bomber landing.
In pencil on the back of album images, in his handwriting “The smiles are real, after ditching the plane at an English coastal base. Waiting four days to be picked up, reassigned another bomber.” Dressed in leather, bomber jackets or full flight suits while doing their part in the war effort. There were not any milk runs, it was baptism by fire during daylight bombing. In an unpressurized plane with 30 below zero weather and the smell of cordite exploding around your flying tin can. Wearing an oxygen mask, flak protection and reciting lots of prayers.
Proud of you Dad on this Veterans Day.
The re-reading of love letters between you and Mom written daily shows what it was like inside. What the country was going through and how expensive freedom really is when men and women go off to fight wars. Veterans Day, it’s everyday. Thank a soldier. They are not just men. My Aunt Hettie was a World War I nurse. A real Florence Nightingale. A blog post for another day.
barter than currency exchanging hands. 
would go to someplace where it seldom freezes over? 
