Tag: growing up in maine

Sometimes Something Smaller Can Be Pretty Big.

The Bottle Used To Sprinkle Water Ironing To Rid Those Clothes Of Wrinkles.

When you settle a Maine estate and have to go through the house hold items of a loved one passed away, the small things are the most valuable.

The items you remember as a kid that in a garage sale would be pretty valueless. Passed over or not fetching much of a price.

I remember my Mom using this bottle pictured above. To sprinkle water on clothes being ironed to help remove wrinkles. Before steam irons, before permapress clothing. I can see her like it was today when all triggered by this particular bottle. Because it was the one she used. Not one like it, not one from the same era. This very one.

To anyone else, it is just an old Pepsi bottle with a stopper on it.

One vivid time I remember it in use back in November of 1963.

I grew up on a Maine farm. The home has a long driveway and after being dropped off by the yellow bus late one November afternoon I walked in to the house hearing the television news announcer loud and clear. The President had been shot, assassinated he informed us. The news anchor visibly shaken, removing his glasses and I knew this was serious. As the words sunk in on what he was telling us. My Mom ironing, looking up and watching a black and white telecast with Walter Cronkhite providing the tragic news from Dallas Texas.

Grisly details about President John Kennedy’s death. What happened in the back seat of the convertible 1963 Lincoln Continental and subsequent events. I would be eight years the next month. Sensed from a kid’s perspective my Mom was upset. Concerned like the rest of the nation, the world as I reflect back now to how the news must have hit, affected other adults back in 1963.

So now my parents are gone. The household things divided up among my three older brothers and myself. And life goes on. I have moved up a notch in the family hierarchy.

And the older I get, the more it is the little items I cherish the most.

Because of the person that used them.

Mom’s love of flowers continues. I look forward to spring at the farm when so many flower beds bloom because she started them years ago. Appearing right on time, like clockwork.

Also have a Santa decoration too who is holding a Christmas light. Smiling broadly that always appeared like magic in the farm house kitchen. Like the Pepsi bottle ironing sprinkler, that too has the same priceless value to me.

To anyone else, they see a cracked, well worn plastic red and white dime a dozen decoration. With lots of miles on it from years of holiday visits to the Houlton Maine farm home. That Santa was there during fun, family Christmas holiday celebrations as a kid with my brothers, Mom and Dad. He is still here, and part of distant memories. Bring alive, providing some of the holiday magic as I remember viewing hime through a kid’s eyes.

Maine, families are close, working side by side on farms, other local businesses and active in their small vibrant communities.

Maine, a place where the people, families matter most.

We are all connected and make the state up here in the right hand corner so special. To add to the pure and simple four season’s natural beauty.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker207.532.6573info@mooersrealty.com

April 6, 2011
The First Trailer Truck Was A 1963 White Cab Over Diesel.

Maine’s Fertile Fields Mean Big Yields Of Anything Raised On Them. Like Potatoes.

My dad was a Maine potato farmer and instead of just growing his own for market, he bought potatoes from others too and was a spud broker.

It seemed logical to buy a trailer truck to haul them to market too. Usually in Boston, Hartford, New York City. The first trailer was a 1957 Trailmobile. But after after all the trailers were Great Dane brand.

That first truck a single “screw” with a tag axle with Prem Pak hand painted on the door by local artist Allison Britton. The trailer’s were shorter, I think 38 feet and the loads less until Interstates started popping up and more powerful trucks were put on the roads.

Eventually eight trucks collected. Whites, an International Transtar, A Peterbilt were added to the Maine transportation fleet.

As a kid my three brothers and I took trips from Maine to the city produce markets.

Helped unload and saw lots of other truckers bringing in grapefruit, tomatoes, various produce to go with the Maine potatoes we hauled in. Then high tailed it back to Aroostook County to load up another trailer. Do it again. no matter what the weather.

Having a truck back haul was critical to help with the fuel, and subsidize the trip. My dad and mom had bought ICC rights because cargo hauling was regulated. You had to have the authority to haul certain comodities to market. Loads for other drivers, usually french fry cartoons but sometimes something exotic like Jade East perfume boxes were hauled up to the St John River Valley where it was “bottled” for reshipment. 25% of the backhaul for other truckers that had to tape on a “Prem Pak” sign to their doors went in to the trucking operating account.

Because trucks were one arm of the Maine potato growing business, I had one brother who became a mechanic engineer and worked his way up through the ranks of White Frieghtliner to eventual management of the Portland Oregon truck plant. He grew up designing trailer trucks and cars..working long hours in his room with a desk dad had built to create the new designs, master piece layouts. The businesses your parents are in give exposure to job areas that may lead to your career employment.

My parents also built a large central potato packaging warehouse to store and process the potato orders from the city produce markets. And another brother worked on that construction project. He became a civil engineer and works in the Boston area.

The jobs, careers your parent’s expose their Maine families to can lead to directions, choices, paths their kids decide to go. I am glad I grew up in Maine and in a family where lots of business exposure seen first hand by working in them in my childhood. Maine, neat state, no crime, friendly people. Like to consider owning some Maine real estate part or full time? That’s where I come in when you are ready.

I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

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

January 20, 2011
Alcohol Consumption Growing Up On A Maine Farm…Wasn’t Really There.

Where Author Of MeInMaine Blog Andrew Mooers Grew Up In Houlton Maine.

As a kid helping out, growing up on a Maine farm, alcohol was not preached as evil. Wasn’t prevalent or part of the childhood.

Maybe it was because my Dad’s brother, Uncle Bud was a professional alcoholic. Had eight wonderful kids, but only stopped drinking when he stopped breathing, was dead.

Maybe that is why I do not remember much involving alcohol in Maine on the farm. This is the highlight of what I can recall. On a blistering hot summer day, when it came around to 5 oclock quitting time, my dad might hop in the pickup. Head to Paul Drew’s store on Smyrna Street to pick up 2 16 oz Narragansett bottles of beer. “Nasty Gansett’s” another name for this flavor, octane of beer in Maine. And the kind that had a game in the bottle caps, a brain teaser to figure out as they were opened, put down the hatch I suppose.

Dad would sit under a lilac with mom, enjoying the sunset, savoring a hard day of work but great sense of accomplishment. Slowly drinking, savoring that one lone beer as the motivating carrot for the day, the reward for all that hard work.

It’s mate, the other beer twin staying in the refrigerator for months or longer. Beer was not evil, twisted, the ruination of all…just was not present, utilized. Missing from my childhood.

And once a year, Everett Curry, long gone like both my parents would drop in to the farm around Christmas, the holiday season. Dad would reach under a kitchen cabinet for a little sweetener with that egg nog or ginger ale.

Gurgle a splash of whiskey in his and the company’s drink. One drink sipped while conversing with the annual visitor.

No seconds, hollering, brawls, fights, commotion to spoil the Christmas season.

And that whiskey bottle like the Narragansett in our household lasted a long, long time. Add with a glass of wine once in a while, very very infrequently with Sunday dinner. That’s the small, thin family album of snapshots of alcohol appearances growing up. That’s it. The short list of images of any alcoholic beverage, or use of it in the Maine farm household I grew up in.

I also as I type, tap, hunt and peck vaguely recall, remember dad saying an Aunt Beatrice was a smart business woman, a peach of a lady who loved kids. But he and mom rented from here on Watson Avenue in Houlton in the early years of their marriage. And when Aunt Bea got a snootful of rum or whatever her spirit of choice was for the “recipe”, she would threaten eviction if my dad did not trot to the liquor store and bring her back a new “jug”. Aunt Bea was to be avoided when she was hoisting multiple glasses of ice and liquor, drinking it seems.

Oh sure, I think in their 20’s mom and dad would attend and have parties with more than soda, coffee, tea in that glass folks were holding, sampling, refreshing.

Let their hair down so to speak. Maybe my older brothers have more of a recollection to add to the little I just provided on the subject here in the blog post. But whatever it was, the alcohol usage seemed to run its course. And then they settled down to work on the farm, raising four boys.

There was not much of a place for the alcohol in the operation of farm life as I knew it on the County Road. Too much to do and sitting still for long knowing the farming operation was not whispering, but hollering your name to do this, this and this. Before those black clouds over head opened up and made that task completion a “wash out” for the day. Or cost a crop being planted, cultivated, hoed, sprayed or harvested if you did not tend to chores, business. That’s survival, not just living day to day and staying on a Maine farm.

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

April 22, 2010
Maine Is Living Within Your Means, Being Careful With Money, Pay As You Go Thinking.

Picking Maine Potatoes..Dusty, Hot Sun, Long Days But Part Of Growing Up.
Slow Dowh To Live The Good Life In Maine.

Around Maine, most folks would consider spoiling a child the worse abuse you could lavish on your sons or daughters. Worse than neglect of that child.

When money is in shorter supply, better impulse control with that money comes in to play. Kids watching a Maine mom and dad see how hard they work for what they have. How well they take care of, respect whatever they do purchase so they don’t have to run back out to spend more money. Spoiling a child and giving him or her undivided attention, unlimited resources and not insisting they have chores, odd jobs that increase in time and skill as they get older is worse than neglect. They go out in to the world thinking it revolves around them and expect others to treat them the save lavish way. That is not survival of the fittest, or giving something back to earn your keep.

When Maine kids pick farm potatoes, rake blueberries, dig for clams and help fish or work in the woods, they learn the value of any dollar earned.

Like their parents, they don’t part with that hard earned money easily unless there is value, quality exhanged with those released dollars held so tightly. When money is not the fuel to run the every day living, it does not become the “drug” to keep those kids entertained, from becoming bored or to waste time.

If everything is handed to a kid, and nothing is worked for, saved for, dreamed about owning as he or she labors, the items mean nothing special for long when obtained without effort. And just desire for more “stuff”, happens, more material objects to artificially give joy or temperorary contentment. The buying, spending, shopping help kill ideal time that should be spent with chores, household obligations, helping out in the community and making that child’s own spending money. That is real world and creates self sufficient, reliable citizens of tomorrow that don’t have their hand out expecting the world to provide them a living.

Our Maine youth are not arrogant with an entitlement attitude.

They are empowered with independence and a fierce pride of workmanship, some control of their own destiny and course of their life. They know their place in the family and that the family would not be the same without them because they contribute, are part of it. Not feeling picked on or abused. Seeing the other members pitching in and working to carry their share too. That makes them more involved, partners in the process. Keeps them occupied in a healthy way too.

Because Maine is not known as a super affluent state other than pockets of coastal concentrations of wealth, I believe we work harder to create our own existence from the grass roots up. The “necessity is the mother of invention” thinking serves us well and runs thru famliies of three generations..often under on roof like the family farm. When everything day to day does not hinge on having lots of money, or require spending of financial resources a person worked hard to sock away, save, then freedom enters the room and becomes the pattern, rhythm of life.

Maine’s four season aspect of unspoiled outdoor beauty and license plate label as “Vacationland” means camping, hiking, hunting, fishing local lakes, rivers, streams is the recreation right in our backyard. We’re already in paradise, a heaven on earth setting. And with being the fourth lowest crime state, a sense of local community pride to pitch in and that family is everything, Maine is healthier, sane, simple living. We exist nicely well within our means. Don’t like debt, are not slaves to owing money for anything we don’t really need. Our wants are simple. Family, a house we want to get paid off. Or that we build slowly living in the cellar or in unfinished parts slowing paying as we go with materials and bartered help from friends that we return the favor to. Shouldn’t the country’s government, spending, policies be operated the same down to earth, feet on the ground way? Has that gone out of style or is the pendulum swinging back to minimalist, simple living. Day to day where reduce, resuse, recycle and gain control of spending is the daily goal?

Maine’s property prices are probably what you are used to divided by three and four or more. Way way less zeros in those real estate selling figures.

The low cost Maine real estate is one big reason it is easier to live the simple, lower cash outlay life and depend on less of a salary but get so much more quality of living for our kids, families.

Plus being a little further up here in the right hand corner of the country helps insulate us from all the factors folks do not like about urban areas around cities. We don’t have the crime, smog, traffic, high cost of living. Maine is the way life should be. Inexpensive.

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

March 24, 2010
As A Maine Kid, I Rode In The Back Of A Pick Up….

As a kid, I did not watch television all day, or much at all.

I had a mini bike and explored with my friends. I bought the mini bike with money I earned working on the farm and especially during potato harvest. I used my imagination and played outdoors after the chores were done. I

Youth Show Up On Time To Work, To Earn Their Keep! Kids Contribute To The Family Experience In Maine. Self Sufficient, Self Reliant Happens In Small Maine Town Living.

learned the joy of reading at an early age. I learned everything about the care and showing of a horse thanks to my Aunt Ruth

Little Ponderosa horse riding summer camp. I learned alot about mechanics tinkering on an old snow sled. Driver’s ed was a piece of cake because a Maine farm boy had been driving since the feet were barely enough to reach the machinery pedals.

My mom and dad were big believers in education, bettering yourself, reading.

I did not feel depressed, I was not lonely, I knew my mom and dad loved each other and there was no divorce. There was not screaming or alcohol in the home and we liked to do lots of things as a family. Trips to Uncle Frank’s camp at Nickerson Lake and an ice cream afterward.

My three older brothers were with me on these family outings. I knew I was part of a big family, lots of relatives and we all laughed, played and cared about each other. We were made responsible and became very independent, self sufficient growing up on a farm where we all contributed and knew we were a vital part of the family.

My crib was probably not OSHA approved, I did not get sick much and had lots of fresh air growing up. My childhood was fun and I had respect for my parents. They taught me the word “no” at an early age and in fact, certain

Veterans, Relatives, Others..We Had Respect For Others Fighting For Freedom Growing Up in Rural Maine.

looks meant no without a word being said. I accepted and knew they had the best intentions in guiding me, raising me, teaching me. I had limits, rules and earn privileges, freedom I appreciated and did not abuse. I was treated like a person, not made to feel guilty, and was not raising my parents or other brothers. Authority and routines were not fought tooth and nail.

The clock on the wall was part of the structure that was accepted and not attacked as controlling growing up in a small Maine town family .

As kids, being resourceful to adapt and think on your feet meant a change of plans was not big deal. Roll with it and don’t be a prisoner of a bend in the road ahead by fighting it. We were taught to expect new developments and not told what to expect at every juncture by our parents. We used our imaginations. We conversed and were not stuck on a device and were present not detached in the moment. We had life skills beyond one or two areas where we excelled and the rest had to shrug their shoulders. Or say “go fish”. We were content, happy, productive. We felt empowered to pitch in and stretch, to grow and not to whine or blame. We had fire in our bellies, passion, were driven.

My parents had the controls, and I felt secure in their guidance and slow release of the strings of childhood. They prepared me for when I was on my own raising a family. The time when living a full life after both had left this Earth and gone to the great beyond. We talked about life. We talked about death. Death was a part of life, not morbid, and a reason to live each day fully. Make a difference while you are Earth and give it your all, do your best.

Summer Living In Maine. No Matter What Season We Are Pretty Much Outdoors Year Round.

Counting our blessings, being grateful, choosing to be happy, content, at peace I saw first hand from my parents.

It rubbed off, and my kids will share the traditions with their kids, my grandchildren. Life is good, it is what we make it. Our view point being positive is contagious to others around us. We all ebb and flow … we really do rise and fall together in a small Maine village.

There is an intimate connection being raised in a small Maine town. People care, share, they check in on each other. You are needed in the small Maine town to take on many roles and contribute. When we lose someone it is felt. You are missed. When a new birth is announced, it is special for all in the small Maine town. Others are rooting for you and vice versa. You don’t get that feeling in a high pressure, crime riddled city lifestyle.

Look around, see the unspoiled all natural beauty only a sparsely protected area like Maine can provide.

We are insulated from so much that a person does not need to experience that a concrete jungle provides for an expensive existence and we know it. Are you thinking you want to live in rural Maine and have a simple life, without drama and loaded with lots of four season, unspoiled beauty? That’s what this blog is all about.

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA |

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com

May 5, 2009
Picking Maine Potatoes, My First Entry Level Job As A Kid.

Everything I apply to life I learned in the Maine potato field. Sort of.

The 300 acre Maine farm I grew up on and now own.

Maine youth help area potato farmers get the spuds into winter storage during school fall break.

Seriously, you start each morning, listening to the radio to see what time the Maine potato farmer is going to dig today.

A little frost or rain over night means a delay, or no picking. A reprieve from above in the food chain. But when you do get to the spud field after a big breakfast and carrying your lunch and water jug, you have to pick out a section.

A section is basically, how long a responsibility in the field can you handle?

If the rows are long, and one digger proceeds at a slow pace back and forth uncovering spuds to pick, you have to judge what is doable. To still stay caught up. You don’t want to be waiting for the digger. You need to avoid being hopeless behind, rows and rows out of uncovered potatoes waiting to be picked. That is discouraging but so is life sometimes. The best lessons are mistakes or miscalculations. Taking ownership, responsibility and stopping them from happening over and over. And wondering why.

Four baskets fill a 165 pound Maine farm potato barrel.

You put your ticket on the barrel and it gets plucked. Placed in a can as the barrel is hoisted onto a flatbed farm truck. The potatoes head to storage, your ticket to be counted that night. Sixty cents a barrel was the pay when my four kids picked a few years back. Before graduating to work in the potato house or on the harvester for an hourly wage. Where they thought now we are cooking. Have really arrived.

Kids spend the money if they think the item is worth six barrels of potatoes or whatever the exchange is as they contemplate a purchase. I have seen my kids pick something up, put it back on the store shelf and utter the word’s “Dad, that’s not worth six barrels of potatoes”. They worked too hard to part with their hard earned proceeds for something deemed an unfair exchange or quality for the work required to buy it. Maine potato picking video I posted.

No one leaves the Maine potato field until everyone is picked up.

No one left high and dry. If you find yourself behind due to poor section selection or the hot sun slowing down your production, others will show up to pick up your section. To add to their daily barrel tally. If you run out of barrels, you pick tops off the rows you get behind so when you get barrels, you can pick your section faster.

Digger pulled by the tractor breaks down? You head to the woods to do your business, make a nature call. Or have a snack and enjoy the break. Put it to good use to rest up. Or if hustling for a new bike, you trot down to a section that is behind that has barrels. You pick one or two barrels to tag with your ticket. You stay busy. You make good use of your time.

Another Generation Of Farmers In Maine. Remember, No Farmer, No Food!

Being outside in the Maine fall scenic foliage is exciting and beautiful. Blue skies, cold mornings, blistering hot afternoons. That’s a lesson in picking potatoes, my entry level job that was the blue print for every other job after that.

Growing up on a Maine farm was a valuable experience. And you are needed by the grower, shipper. You and he both are at the mercy of the biggest unknown, the Maine weather. Your section may grow or shorten too depending on the division marker of your neighboring picker. Who may be an ambitious little red hen or become lazy in the afternoon sun like a slug.

The field section markers may mysteriously re-adjust between where you end and your neighbor starts too.

End rows also can grow as the field lengthens. You find grass, tough picking, sods on the ends as a rule. Those are the picking ABC’s of mastering a Maine potato field. Watch the operation first hand with this Maine potato picking video .

Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers

207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |

MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA

March 19, 2009