Maine is a handful of cities and over 450 small towns, plantations, unorganized areas. More open space and wildlife, less people and no billboards.
There is no shortage of opinions on anything these days. Where you should be living is one of those hot topics. Strong opinions and often the pros and cons are deeply personal.
Attractive, Preserved Victorian Style Brick Buildings In Market Square, Houlton Maine. Maine is full of small friendly towns.
This blog post is to spell out the what to expect without the sharp barbs or any resentments about small Maine town life.
For starters, who best to describe living in a small Maine town then someone who lives there full time.
Not a scathing report based on never set foot in Maine, never ever been there but I’ve heard blah blah blah. Or and here-say from one or two not so happy campers where the complaint experience might be legit or their own short comings caused.
So small town living in Maine, anywhere has a garden variety list of differences compared to a populated setting.
Small towns are fewer cars and traffic, more unspoiled outdoors. You experience lower crime, less pollution, friendlier first name basis living but not everything at your fingertips.
Vacationing In Maine. Returning To The Same Favorable Haunts Or Somewhere New? Maine is small town, not crowded, not riddled with crime.
The “gotta have and don’t want” list changes in your life no matter where you hang your hat.
Quality of life, healthier simple living is attractive but as parts wear out, medical centers come into the consideration of where you should live.
Too expensive to live somewhere causes moves, relocations to Maine.
Or you can not afford to retire where you are now can make you go online to do a Maine real estate search. If you live now in a not so great place to raise a family, the pack up the moving truck maneuver is on many folk’s radar these days. Or over population, high taxes, crime and temperatures can cause the pull the plug to want to live off grid in a Maine homestead with land.
So Maine small town, what it is like?
A Toby Keith song but all the time? Everybody thinks my tractor is sexy Kenny Chesney like? I’ve blogged about 4000 population towns in Maine and it is all relative.
How small is the size you are examining for a Maine town?
If the town is 100 people, you might have a church or two, maybe a small convenience gas station outlet nearby to tide you over. Until the trip to a larger population center that can support a Dollar General or maybe a small Piggly Wiggly or Yankee Grocery food store.
Life Is A Maine Beach. Salt Water, Fresh Air, A Summer Breeze At A Maine Beach.
Small town living in Maine can make you think of out west in the farm belt.
Or a small coal mining community where farming or mining is pretty much all your have. Healthy Maine small communities are diversified and don’t have all their eggs in one economic basket.
Farming, woodwork, fishing, tourism for the sportsmen, families on camping trips are all big. So is transportation because unfold the map. See all those miles that separate small Maine towns from large population centers? That’s a big 10-4 on trucking in and out the goods we need and what we grow or create heading the other direction.
Working On A Small Maine Farm. Kids Benefit, The Farmer Wins Too!
So the life in a small Maine town.
You hear about a fire in your home town from a neighbor who posted a photo or two on social media. Or someone down at the service station or in the aisles of Walmart mentions did you hear about it?
If you are two or three degrees separation from the person in the news or making it, you hear through the family grapevine.
If you are not from the small Maine town originally, you will hear some negatives about never being accepted. Or feeling like a true local native of the Maine small town.
More Outdoor Space, Owning More Land With Your Home In Maine. Working Together To Earn Your Keep.
But if you volunteer, join a local club, church or school event, you will make new friends. If you are not always complaining about back in Jersey or wherever you lived last or grew up on how they do it better.
You are valuable if you are a worker, an asset to a small Maine town.
If you have a positive attitude and hopefully a sense of humor, that is a plus when moving to a small Maine town.
Live Music, A Maine Community Band Supplies It Weekly For Free. That’s Maine.
If you are from a sprawling urban area with million of people, it is hard to get your head wrapped about a small Maine town population of under 1000. Lake resort communities in Maine that swell and then go back to small numbers as the “snowbirds” head to the sunny south or southwest.
Long distances to travel for goods or services are part of the drawbacks to small Maine town life.
But access to Interstate 95 makes the travel pretty easy when no traffic and designed for moving 75 miles an hour or faster.
But because we are parked a little further up the pike, the surroundings become less traveled and more unspoiled all natural. Look up, see the stars on a walk at night? Hear the crickets and Maine lake loons in the moonlight? You can not duplicate that in a city setting.
Taught How To Fish, Survive Early In Life. Missing His Mate, Crying About It Heard On A Maine Lake.
So what are you after, what are your expectations and how did you grow up and was it a good experience or not.
You want more of what you like, less of what you do not and a change in zip code is driven by expectations. If they are met, you stay and pitch in to add to the local community in Maine.
Our job in the Me In Maine blog is to introduce the many corners of Vacationland to the readers. Some who grew up here and appreciate what we have in small town Maine living. Others who long for it because it sounds so delicious but so foreign to where they live now. I love living in a small Maine town and think you will too!
It’s happening and it’s not a fluke. This blog post is a look at why the former trend of outward migration and population loss is reversing in my small town rural area of Maine. I see it and hear the reasons why every day as a Maine real estate broker. The call of the country and simpler living up in Maine. It’s all causing the relocation to Vacationland pace to pick up speed.
The Village In A Small Maine Town Raises The Kids.
The tug on the heart strings to move back to Maine small towns.
For some it is an easy decision to make.
They remember growing up in small Maine towns and know what they are missing from first hand experience.
Jobs and financial career goals the only reason that forced the move away from small town living in the first place. It was a reluctant but necessary natural progression. Population centers offered the largest variety of good paying jobs. Maine is a great place to live, always has been. But the catch is you have to be able to make a decent wage.
You gotta eat and want more than a hand to mouth existence if what you or your parents did for employment was tied to farming, fishing, mill work or cutting pulp in the Maine woods.
Bustling small Maine towns before the Interstate and Internet were vibrant with flourishing small Maine businesses. Working hard with the owner in the store dedicated to serving your friends, family and neighbors. Performing with fierce pride in your local school sport teams too. Maine rural communities offer a tightly connected small town way of life.
Able to telecommute to work online remotely during COVID was the dress rehearsal.
Folks everywhere across the land and around the globe learned we can do it from the comfort of our own home sweet home. We’re moving. Lower overheard for companies, happier workers not wasting time socializing around the water cooler. No hassles with traffic, crime, carrying a tazer. It all helped fuel the migration to Maine. Packing the Worldly possessions along with the current job and heading North up the pike to to work remotely in Maine. IF that last mile of Internet broadband connection is long and strong in place to make it a viable relocation option.
You are no longer in a city skyscraper corner office when the kids come home after school living in rural Maine.
The kids can now walk home from school because everything is so close in small Maine towns.
Picking Maine Potatoes, My Entry Level Job That Taught Me So Much.
A block to the store, two blocks to school, and kids hoof it rather than parents providing the valet drop and pick up daily dance. Multi generations living together is more efficient and the kids benefit from the wisdom of older family members nearby or sharing the same roof line. You don’t have the giant city salary but your expenses are way way lower to the ground. No worry about a white van kidnapping your kid either. The village watches and raises all the children.
You do more for yourself than hiring it out in small rural Maine towns.
The cost of living is lower in small town rural Maine because insurance is cut in half. No white vans lurking near your home that you worry about snacking your kids in the 4th lowest crime state either.
So so many Maine vacation places overhauled to be way way more than a three day or week long take a break stay.
When the COVID sky started falling and toilet paper was scarce. As the initial wave of adjustment to life as we knew it hit, anyone with a Maine coastal, lake shore, riverfront, woods retreat toyed with the thought.
What if I packed it in and headed up to Maine as my refuge to regroup?
To weather the COVID storm and tough it out for a spell until things settled down. But COVID is the hangover that did not go away. The virus is not a temporary condition and forces everyone to consider where they hang their hat and why for quality of living.
Perkins Cove Maine, Boats Anchored For The Night.
For many close to retirement, the memory of sea gulls and lake loons on Maine vacations is the all natural pure and simple drug. A carryover flashback OF memories of good times enjoyed during time spent here on the fun Maine rest and relaxation stint. For young folks struggling to make ends meet in the city, getting more for less financial overhead in small Maine town living has appeal.
Less people, more down to early friendly folks and all this four seasons outdoor unspoiled natural beauty.
Maine is a place you love her for what she offers and what she does not at the same time. Less traffic, lower crime, cheaper to live in Maine. That coupled with the friendly people and more elbow room. The ability to pitch in and feel you can make a difference as you add your talents to the mix. You are needed in the small Maine town special home grown connection. The village raises the kids and you are closer to the day to day action in smaller circles you travel in small Maine towns.
Older Teach The Younger. Small Maine Rural Towns Are Tight Family Connections.
When COVID’s trapped inside living stress doubled up, the little space with far too many people in the city made urban dwellers hanker low population Maine.
The common sense and pitch in to help out approach to living in small Maine towns looked pretty darn appealing. Small Maine towns are really like large families. You don’t pay to attend events, you are working them behind the scenes year after year.
Kids Helping Area Maine Farmers. Learning Work Ethic, Responsibility Early On To Benefit For Life.
Home grown beats store bought and the hands on to make the next event even better causes others around you to dig in and do more. That’s how small Maine towns work. You don’t just live and work there. Instead, you are the small Maine town and go above and beyond to maintain and increase the quality of life for others.
The polarity and division of the last national election just added fuel to the fire to pick up and move to Maine.
Feeling like buying 40 acres up in Maine might be the answer caused more emails, texts, office visits and phone calls to pour into our small Maine town real estate office. Land big and cheap. To plant a large garden, to cut, split and stack the winter wood. With next year’s stash for heating your home already steadily added to to be boy scout prepared.
Halloween Is Big, Trick Or Treating Is Safe.
Migration back to Maine for locals that had picked up roots and moved.
That’s part of the Maine real estate market activity. Others buying vacation property that could be more if the new owner decides to head to Maine. This market segment hedging their bets and looking for a fun but sensible insurance policy investment. Maine land is way way under valued and boy can you produce a lot of farm to table food if you work it. Enriched living, everyone from the smallest to the oldest family member has a role in the household.
Dangling, Handling The Ball To Advance Up The Maine High School Soccer Field!
Taught how to do it, to develop the right attitude for success. To approach a task carefully and perform it slowly. Easy does it. Like the early on advice to never run with scissors and to avoid getting hurt. But with expertise to plan your work and work that plan learned from past experience growing up in small town Maine.
Everyone is assessing today what exactly “quality of life” really means.
How to achieve it, maintain it, make it last. Maine small towns have far less obstacles and in most cases, money is not the deciding factor on where you live anymore. We Mainers are more hands on, have a skill set and don’t have to wait around for others to do everything for us. Raised in Maine, kids learn work ethic, gain self confidence and are shaped for adulthood. Happier, independent, not blaming others for why their life did not turn out the way it looks around the artificial social media circuits. “If it is to be, it is up to me” and being grateful enriches your life and those of the folks around you.
Any Season, Any Angle, Mount Katahdin Captivates A Person Any Age.
When you live in a city, the options to provide kids with their own hard earned money are not so common. Obstacles to work… that’s part of it. But also parents that don’t push for Jimmy and Jane to do chores and hold down entry level jobs. COVID fear make parents hover even more but also work legislation restrictions threatens skill building and opportunities first jobs.
In Maine small towns, kids mow lawns, deliver newspapers, have odd jobs around the neighborhood and bag groceries, stock shelves. If kids work out in the gardens, stack wood, pitch in with daily chores around a Maine household. Good things are going to happen.
Maine Home Offices, Working Online From Home Sweet Home Up In Maine. No Worried About FOMO Because We Are Grateful.
But if mom and dad hand you $20 bills and Zeke or Pebbles’ cell phone and car are better than their parents have.
If teenagers are not cutting grass, flipping burgers, delivering papers or helping area farmers, small businesses. Oh oh.
When they don’t babysit and are slumped on a couch peering into an eerie blow glow device, a full and rich dynamic life is not automatic. No skills, lazy, depressed and not able to connect the dots why happens.
Kids suffer when adults are hired to do those jobs they need to learn self sufficiency … that’s another part of it.
Outward migration from say Florida with over 400 people per square mile or California at 250 plus or New Jersey with over 1200 head count.
That’s another piece of the labor shortage puzzle. And why employers are paying so much to attract a labor force. That means the cost of goods and services provided will be sky high too.
A kid getting $14 an hour or higher working at a fast food outlet is too much and only going to lead to wanting higher wages than the job warrants.
The raking blueberries, picking potatoes, apples, working on a farm in Maine builds stamina, responsibility, develops a hustle in your step. You earned every cent you made when it is the sweat of your brow manual entry level kind.
My rural Aroostook County area is growing with folks rethinking where they live in a crowded areas with high cost of living, traffic, crime.
Mid Coast Maine Lighthouses. Lots Of Them To Collect Easily From A Boat Ride.
You will never ever see local signs stating “no one wants to work” because lazy is the by far worst label anyone could wear.
We are not lazy. All raised to work hard, pitch in and make a difference. The local Louisiana Pacific plant is expanding, Smith and Wesson employee numbers are going up and small rural areas a
Pitch In, Help Out, Make A Difference. That’s Why Maine Small Towns Quality Of Life Is Rich And Tightly Connected.
Some of the reasons to explain the move to Maine population increase numbers.
A change of pace and getting healthy by hiking, biking, skiing, kayaking and daily exercise. That’s another perk living in big and beautiful wide open Maine. Maine is the way life should be. Life longer, live better up in Maine is the conclusion more folks are drawing these crazy days. Recreation is second to none on your own and the parks and rec programs are extensive. Lakes, rivers, mountains, scenic trails, picnic spots. Our backyard is outdoors everywhere you look out over the land in Maine.
This blog post nails down the reasons for why people moved away and now are returning to small town rural Maine.
Why new to the area folks are picking Maine as their next mailing address. Real estate inventory is being snatched up to meet the demand and the transplants from out of state are so amazed at small town living benefits. Their kids are learning the skills to be successful adults for wherever they end up living from growing up in small Maine town communities.
Halloween trick or treating in a small Maine town.
Halloween is a big dea in Mainel. I know in large cities, parents worry about sending their little goblins, witches and monsters out on the door to door candy parade. But in small Maine towns, the trick or treating tradition is big. COVID caused a wrinkle. But with precautions in place, the candy show knock knock tradition continues in Maine with individually wrapped treats. The excitement starts early. Planning for what to be this year for a costume, a theme is part of the fun.
Everyone Puts In A Lot Of Thought For Halloween Trick & Treating In Small Maine Towns.
Do you remember trick or treating on October 31st Halloween growing up?
Did you or do you enjoy taking out your kids, grand kids to canvass the neighborhoods around you for candy collection? What was your favorite treat? Which stop growing up along the hop up and off open porches with lights on do you recall as your favorite?
I remember the Chamberlain sisters who lived on the corner of Frandklin AVE and Court ST in Houlton Maine. The pair made the Halloween holiday effort.
Each Halloween the sisters were as excited as the door knockers out front their gorgeous Maine home. Word gets around and you remember last year’s visit to each and every small Maine town home. So this house stop’s popularity only grew greater. Lining up to sample their home made donuts. The warm cider to wash it all down was another treat as they invited you in to their large Victorian Houlton ME home.
The take off your mask, show us who you really are under the Halloween trick or treating costume routine.
That happened in their formal Maine home living room. Kids escorted in and out and everyone got a home made from the kitchen treat. Sugar ed or plain, it’s up to howling werewolf. Looking back, what an effort this sister pair put out to add to the Halloween trick or treating in my small Maine town in Aroostook County.
I used to come in from the country where I lived on a Maine farm to trick or treat.
Not many homes along the Maine rural landscape when you are a couple of miles away from town. And out in the dark, on a busy highway is not a good combination for someone trying to navigate. Carrying candy loot and trying to get your bearings. Wearing a mask with just two small eye holes and maybe a flashlight in the other hand. My cousins lived on the Highland Avenue in a large yellow home that was always the beehive of fun growing up. Seven kids with one pair of identical twins in the mix, I would pair up with my cousins to ply the streets for treats. We covered a lot of ground, hit a lot of houses. Like a politician campaigning for a vote, it was all for the treat.
The Adults Snack Too, Lots To Eat For Treats At Home Or On The Neighborhood Candy Trails.
Some houses had the self service bowl of candy on the table to help yourself for a handful of Halloween treats.
Others decked the place out with a lot of time spent to create the spooky look. To make you question your judgement to really take the dare or not to ring the door bell or apply the knock knock knock. Many of the door to door candy vendors wore a costume too. You could tell who really was a kid again and made the effort to put on a show for the trick or treaters. Boo. Made you jump. Here, let me help pick up the spilled candy.. pretty dark huh?
Give Me A Musical Beat To Go Along With The Sweets. Light Shows For This Halloween Trick Or Treat Pit Stop On Commonwealth Avenue.
With my own four kids, I really looked forward to the door to door.
One of my favorite holidays really. You see other parents as you advance up the small Maine town streets. Say hello, hey there’s an old classmate or another relative walking across the lawn you just visited. Someone you work with is doing the same October 31st tradition. Orange, purple, weird eerie glow of green, it’s approaching. Halloween trick or treating in small Maine towns across the state. Do you stay at home and turn on your front porch light to attract trick or treaters?
Boo. Scared Right? Hey, You Gonna Eat That Snickers Bar?
To let them know you are open and now serving come one, come all as a cavity creators Or do you lay low, act like no one is home? Maybe high tail it to another candy central location to help dish it out and have a Halloween party of treats for all the supporting cast at the home away from home?
I remember one man, Forman Swallow who worked for Nabisco I think. He and his wife lit up their driveway with the weighted paper bags and flickering candles inside.
Dishing out large size cookie packages and candy like you used to only be able to get at the movie or outdoor drive in theatre. Looking back, you want to thank them for creating the experience of Halloween trick or treating for your kids.
Some households would have the apples, the century old dry as dust popcorn balls.
Others would give out a collection of treats in the orange, black and white bags with the witch on the front riding her broom. Someone took a lot of time, spent much time and money to hand out a quality treat. I remember one house stop, the kids waited, waited and were about to nix this visit to go on to the next porch.
The owner finally opened the door, seemed surprised and had forgotten it was Halloween.
He may have had a few too many barley pops and snoozed off watching “Wheel of Fortune” or Gunsmoke reruns. But he insisted, no candy treats to dish out but he pulled the five trick or treaters in the gang down to his kitchen pantry.
Lots Of Spooks, Might Be Halloween Haunted This Patten ME Home.
Each kid came out with a can of vegetables to show for the Halloween stop.
Makes trick or treating a good work out when hefting a couple of cans of corn, peas, green beans or carrots. Boo hoo if your arm gets tired and the next guy wants to give you a piece of firewood to
Yours Truly. Small Maine Towns, Everyone Gets Into The Spooky Halloween Mood.
lug back to the candy beehive. One household, the manager of Shop and Save Grocery store gave out cans of soda.
Hope you have a strong bag to carry the loot load.
Others with the can giveaway choice would strap and wrap a dollar or more around the cylinder. Nice.
Thank you very much. No eggs or toilet paper you older trick or treaters up to mischief for this five star Halloween eatery.
One group of three houses joined forces to create a theme park for Halloween.
Ultraviolet lights and snakes on a pulley. Giant mutant spiders from some other solar system climbing up the sides of houses.
An army tent with a casket and other skeletons, Halloweeen haunted house devices to entertain and scare. My youngest in his bat mat outfit taking it all in and jumped a foot when the body in the casket elevated to say “good evening”.
Some Maine neighbors cause the biggest flock of trick or treaters from their set it up and then tear it down production. Attracting hundreds of costumed characters to visit to pan handle for candy.
Trick Or Treat…Don’t Forget To Say Thank You!
What are you doing this Halloween trick or treating season? Individual wrapped and no handfuls from a bowl to be sensitive to COVID protocols.
What do you dress up as around your place of work or are you thinking just too old for this Halloween trick or treat game of make believe?
Anyone with grandchildren, young kids of their own will be swept into the holiday mood of Halloween living in a small Maine town.
There are a lot of folks with a sweet tooth across the Maine landscape. Trick or treat and go slow motorists to make it safe for all the ghosts, goblins, witches, fairies and super heroes with a candy craving.
Have a candy basket in the real estate office and folks reach for the candy corn, anything chocolate. The house hunters get hungry really from tramping properties and enjoy the treats year round. What’s your pleasure for a Halloween treat?
Some folks argue they don’t like the vibe. The connection that somehow everyone in the small Maine town is wired jointly in a myriad of ways. Beyond just the DNA strands that share common genetic make up.
Many who move, relocate to Maine comment on the closeness with fondness though.
They find the small town friendly way of life in Maine refreshing. And remind the locals here that making eye contact back in the big city where they had to work to advance their career. Had it’s double edged sword drawbacks.
Lots Of Parade Watchers In Small Maine Towns. Your Friends And Neighbors.
Don’t get involved, act uninterested, keep your distance.
That approach to living won’t work if you ker plop, parachute into a small Maine town. Why? You are needed. You have skills, talents. It is time to get involved. There is work to do in small Maine towns. Where everything is not hired. The folks responsible for events are not hired but volunteers.
And everyone knows there is nothing stronger than the heart of a small Maine town volunteer.
The fourth of July. Folks take their vacations to work them.
Spending the entire week hopping from event to event. Not to attend them. But to enjoy putting them
Folks Are Friendly, Easy Going In Crime Free Small Maine Towns.
on. Working the long hours preparing. Manning the posts once the planning is done and it is show time.
Laughing with the others that pitch in, that give their heart and soul in the volunteering.
Learning from others in the labor of love and sharing tid bits, odds and ends of personal information back and forth. So the take away is more than the event.
There is a rich experience that happens inside when you are lucky enough to be part of community events in a small Maine town. People smile, relax around each other and enjoy small town living in Vacationland.
Down Town Maine Small Town Celebrations, Festivals. Home Grown Tasty, Special, Memorable.
Maine’s fourth of July.
You stay in a town that has lots going on. All your out of town family and friends come home too. What did you do over the fourth of July celebration? Here are some other images of just one event, a fourth of July parade in a Northern Maine town. But in reverse, with a twist.
Looking out as the possession. A different direction for the focus. As the parade possession slowly snakes, plys the streets of the special Maine community.
The events that happen in a small Maine community.
That happen year round on the calendar. The people prove the point that they are the small town. Not the sticks and bricks, the structures no matter how elegant or pretty. Take away the people and it is last guy or gal out, remember to shut off the lights.
Please friend me on Facebook. Your other social media outlets so we can connect on those platforms, to exchange easily. Hope your fourth of family fun and special.
Don’t let the blog post title throw you off track.
Not about some shuttered, boarded up industrial factory in Maine that goes belly up. Not about contaminated soil and heavy metals, PCB’s. And in the wake of the defunct, rusting status and emptiness, the sea of pink slips, a major hole that is made from the closure vacuum. Keeping Small Maine Town’s Running Smoothly. Calm Is Nice, But Ripples Happen.
No, this toxin, poison can be the public facing appearance of working together.
But out back nothing could be further from the truth. As small groups struggle to adapt to new economies, technologies that take jobs off shore. And the consumer’s spending habits swerve to make serious adjustment in the small Maine town necessary. Or else.
The answers don’t come easy for what do we do to keep up?
To create jobs for young people to relocate here, stay here when raised in the small Maine village or burg. When distance away from markets, higher production costs due to heavier regulations than other states, countries force us further back in the pack.
But what adds to the list of the ship, the tilt toward starboard when a small Maine town economy takes a series of blows, is the attitude of people. The small Maine town is the folks in it. Not just empty houses in rows, the schools, library, town office, hospital and down town shops. Peace At The Beginning, End Of The Day In Maine.
The antidote to decline to rise from the ashes is the people searching for solutions together.
And whether you agree wholeheartedly or not in group discussions, shape something together to put into action. And think on your feet. Adapt along the way to adjust the thrusters. Using the resources, creative spirit Mainers born to survive are all hard wired with internally.
But. When to your face the reading is all is well and good in those discussions. But behind the scenes, if you don’t agree, endorse and notarize stamp another’s suggestion, they go behind you.
Fighting tooth and nail to discredit. To alienate. To bash. What’s with that? And at the least let the toxins flow, but get them out in the air, into the light one on one. For the what the heck and why the counter productive character assassination of another in the small Maine town?Refreshing, Water Over The Dam Means Regrouping To Work Together In Small Maine Towns.
There are only so many workers, and one by one you put those folks on a list of undesirables.
To avoid at all costs as if infected with an incurable disease. When their only crime is not agreeing with you wholeheartedly. On the direction the small Maine town is headed. Should be steered over the next year, five years, decade.
What fuels the need to go behind backs and tear another to shreds? To take something personal when it was not your own idea, or credit for it is not spotlighted on the one that has to be in charge. Or heads will roll. Hail to Dorothy.
The cure for counterproductive, downright mean spirited backstabbing hatred is an intervention.
Not tip toeing, dodging the elephant’s advance in a crowded room. But confrontation, weeding it out and pouring the antidote for all to drink. Or tapping into the public water system to infuse the elixir. Because valuable time is being wasted in building the future in a small Maine town.
Large crowded areas, high concentrations of people are not so connected with each other.
Small Maine town rural living is way way different. More intimate, open, life freely shared, on a more personal level. I was at a Maine State REALTORS Convention & Trade Show this week to learn, network and improve my career. And at that Rockport ME venue, I ran into an old customer, familiar face.You Meet Lots Of People, Paths Recross In Small Maine Town Get Togethers.
Had not seen Mitchell Small for over thirty years.
The last time saying good bye after selling his Court Street Houlton Maine Victorian home. Having a red, white and blue sign with the country logo on his lawn. He ran a local heating oil delivery outlet of his family’s Maine petroleum products business. And while here tragedy happened.
His wife fueled up at Jack Forbush’s North Street gas outlet before getting on the south bound I-95 on ramp. To head downstate with their only child, an infant son.
The boy was strapped into the front seat of station wagon during the gas station fueling. That according to Jack Forbush’s recollection shared with the boy’s Dad I bumped into this week as a vendor at the MAR trade show. Maine Is Down To Earth, Small Town Living. Folks Share Everything Good And Bad That Happens.
But Small says his wife stopped on the other side of the Interstate rumble strip. Around the next exit in Smyrna Maine, the car left the road.
Down into a gully, hitting ledge out croppings that caused a total loss, twisted wreckage that claimed the mother, driver’s life.
Small told me there is no doubt in his mind his son would have perished too. Had the mother not shifted the location of the car seat from up front to the back. Once grapevine news of this accident spread around the small Northern Maine community where the Small family lived, locals took over. To help the Dad, husband left numbed, in shock and reeling from the loss of a wife, the mother of their son.
As luck would have it, with plenty of guidance from above, a Nanny, with the last name of Schools, a seasoned mom of ten kids if I counted right was tapped for the important job.
Already living near the small boy and his Dad’s home in an apartment made it easy to come back and forth to work. Take care of the lad, cook, clean and help run the home of the oil executive that suddenly had lost his wife. Was on the road a lot. Mrs School could come over in an emergency and was suddenly the new local grandmother on the spot. The son grew up and stayed in touch with this life shaper for the years spent in Houlton Maine.
The boy could not have had a better care taker come into the picture, his Houlton Maine home.
After losing his Mom. The slight, short new provider of love and attention living just next door. Was the perfect surrogate Mom for reading the nursery stories. Tying on the apron strings to help raise the small boy. Create a happy childhood of memories. Simpler Small Town Living In Maine.
One by one others in the community stepped forth to add their contribution. To pitch in and take up the slack, fill the void caused by the car accident. The result of a stroke of the driver, the boy’s mother the conclusion of how it happened.
Mitchell Small says life went on, the boy is doing well I believe he said working in banking out of state.
Small went on to find love again. For the second time, he gratefully stated God guided the most perfect woman into his life. He got a second chance and life went on without much more than the garden variety bumps, bruises, events. Twists and turns. But he will never forget the generosity, the small town community spirit of willingness to pitch in, help he and his son out in so many ways.
