Tag: small maine town living

Bartering And Hey, What If There Was Less Inflation?

Do you have skills, talents beyond just what you do in the primary chase, hunt down?

In the bag and tag of the weekly paycheck? What you may have a background, a degree, training of some type in. That all around you just automatically associated with you. When they think of when it’s time to reach out. Who you gonna call. For someone that does your kind of primary employment.
Surrounded By Island Water, Meet Your Neighbors.

Growing up on a Maine farm, there was lots of exchange of talents, swapping one piece of equipment for another in the arsenal of each farmer’s barn yard.

To avoid buying, tying up precious cash on a farm implement that only was used a couple if that times a year.

My Dad would borrow a belly straper from Don Hagan to smooth up the driveways. The right tool for the job and all set up on one of his 806 IH tractors. Nothing to pick up, hook on our own, unbolt. Remove, return hassle for just a little once in year job.

The feeling in the swap mutual with another Maine farmer.

That returned the equipment, did not let every other Tom, Dick and Harry use it. So when you needed it back, you did not have to do search and rescue. For the MIA red, green or whatever color farm tractor attachment. It can work, the give and take with the right responsible partners.

Had a real estate buyer tell me about her adventures while living in Florida with bartering. She bartered for medical services, everything else she and her family needed. The exchange just was not the cash and carry most of us are used to today. No credit extended. Unless it was I am coming over and shingling your porch roof for the swap of you letting me have that ailing lawnmower, a half cord of cut, split and has to be moved wood.
Pick Your Outdoor Pleasure. Maine Has Them All. Spread Over The Four Seasons.

Do you have something to trade, swap or is it like the card game of Fish.

For the got any skills beyond brain surgery and diamond cutting, whatever ask?

If in this country all heck broke loose, a full compliment of survival skills held in your hand, inside to tout would be necessary. If money was no good, did not do the trick for the other end of the dickering, bartering, exchange.

If can you fix my car, have you got any gas, ammo, food was more important, sought after.

Instead of what if tucked in your purse, folded in your wallet for green, dead Presidents. Or plastic, worthless cards with magnetic strips no longer of any value.

Inflation with money no longer so sought after would be gone from the survival equation.

The folks deep in the hearts of a city that did not live on farms, did not have small business enterprises their parents ran to learn a myriad of skills. From the hands on, the neat feeling of I can do this, that and a lots more too. Empowerrment. DIY before it became a household word like “green”. Where we in Maine lived that way before someone thought of adding a color, marketing as something new, novel. To the day to day approach to life.
Uneven, Rocky Crooked Paths But Still Seeking Alignment. Balance,

Worked at one radio station in Bangor where other than payrolls, so so much of everything else was a trade out, bartered.

For example, we’ll give you a dollar a holler, a radio spot cluster package in exchange from the heating oil company we were bragging up on air.

The cost of the goods, services reduced to strictly wholesale to wholesale. No mark up, waiting and in and out exchange of services. Not so sure taxes, service fees were always tallied up either. It could have been under the table stuff, slight of hand maneuvering. I just spun the records, rip and read the news.

The paved parking lot needs surface crack filling and resealing? Why don’t we tell the world about the great job you provide and reasonable prices doing just that Mr Guy With The Black Tar application devices? While you are out front the little studio with the big stick and guy wires in the back yard beats feet.

Does the job in a jiffy of efficiency. For us to broadcast it all over the listening area.

That that big red and white, lighted tower radiates, connects with on air, shares with all the listeners digging the music, news, other services we provide. Trade outs, bartering that the IRS is not so cranked up about, done below radar with a no paperwork. Just a gentlemen’s agreement. Simple hand shake and fair exchange between two parties. The arrangement that lasts, stands the test of time and just works in small Maine town living.

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

July 20, 2014
Watching, Learning, Growing Up Bumping Into A Maine Sign Painter.

Small Maine towns are filled with lots of interesting people that make the communities sparkle, special, different.

The career path for one young lad in one small Maine town in Aroostook County started early. Always drawing, sketching. Guiding either a number two graphite lead or colored pencil in his hands. Eventually dabbling in paint colors.

Outdoors, Simple Living In Maine Small Towns. Lots Of Natural, Not Store Bought Colors, Tints, Hues.

Shaping, forming, creating simple works of creative art.

The drawings that would never end up displayed some day in the Lourve. Or hanging on some other famous lighted display wall.

Roped off in purple or maroon velvet hip high arched strands. To contain, keep the crowd back. Wearing cameras hung around their necks. Herded to a safe distance away to protect, preserve his one of a kind work.

His dad worked for Putnam Brothers, a local petroleum products dealer on Pierce before it turned the corner heading east. Becoming Leonard Street. Long before 911 jumbled all the Maine small town street names.

So everyone became confused, not so sure. Not just a few to these new parts transplants that needed to raise their hand. Had the need to go ask for travel directions to get somewhere and back.

Busy Winter Woods Trail Traffic In Maine.

Allison Britton, the main, primary local sign painter was sitting on a wooden stool.

Lettering the driver’s sign door of a new service vehicle for the blue and orange brand color oil company. One practical sign painting application demonstrated.

That the small boy of twelve witnessed when he had ridden his bike over to just say hello to Dad. Enjoying the freedom of street to street summer vacation travel with pedal power. Under his own steam of his two wheel bike that all safe small Maine towns afford youngsters that get off the couch.

The liquid strokes of paint, the fluid motion of lettering his Dad’s name just below the driver’s side window mesmorized the boy.

Inquisitive, engaged and thinking I can do that. But finding out at home that duplication of what he had seen, studied was not so easy. But practice makes perfect. The vocation training, inspiration outside his own doodling at home had started. To flatten the learning curve.

Big Pets, Maine Horses Are Also Workers. More Than Hay Burners. Pretty Against The Green Backdrop.

The advancement of the young lad’s career got a little help from one of Cupid’s sharp arrow.

As fate, destiny would have it, the young boy as a teenage used to walk home with the sign painter’s daughter Barbara. They would say their goodbyes, the up and coming sign painter wannabe would go into apprentice mode.

Entering the shop when Mr Britton, the girl’s Dad was in his paint studio on Spring Street. The one beside Chadwick’s Florist on one side. The young girlfriend, classmate’s matching red colored home on the other.

Twenty questions were asked but mostly learning by watching in silence provided the most information transfer.

Observing the ease that the practiced right hand danced, darted with deliberate strokes. Leaning for support on the left one planted on the surface of whatever lettering project for support. Outdoor advertising, billboards in Maine was not illegal. Not banned, outlawed yet around the countryside. For messages aimed to be read at 55 mph by highway motorists. Kept simple to appear in the corner of their eyeballs.

Lettering trucks, service vehicles, window flyers for store advertising part of the sign painter’s operation.

Hand painted work from scratch done for hanging business shingles for out front an enterprise. To be hoisted when the paint dried. To ride high, wide and handsome on a sign belt above the shop doors.

My Dad has this talented painter create an eight foot ear of corn. “Farm Fresh Corn” announced in a crown over the golden kernels. Just peeking through the green skin ear covering. With cascading brown, white and golden silk topping his vegetable creation.

Coming Together, Working Out Solutions In Maine Small Towns.

The one placed yearly on US Rt 2 to announce the Maine farm stand for just picked produce, vegetables, fruits is open for business.

The farmer’s market in the front yard of the homestead. To beckon to motorists that created a steady stream of customers for me a boy of nine to peddle product to after school, weekends.

My Dad also used Allison Britton every time a new trailer truck was bought and needed the Prem Pak label centered, hand lettered on the doors along with the vehicle numbers. To help Mom keep the shipping freight paperwork straight.

I remember being on my hunches squatting, watching the gold leaf applied. Or whatever lettering Allison had been commissioned to do by my parents.

The young Jedi sign painter that learned by watching did not end up marrying the daughter he walked home, then dated through high school. Did not inherit the camel brushes, the wall murals created during the slower winter months by the seasoned teacher, his inspiration. But the skills made the transfer from old to young just the same in a small Maine town connection on the border in Aroostook County.

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

July 16, 2014
The Mother Ship’s Eerie Bright Blue Belly Light Snapped On.

Hovering, then slowly descending, the ship lands in a small hidden rear Maine farm field.

Underneath, the craft’s intense wash of blue light stops. The alien crew inside away from planet Earth for thirty years. It’s mission to return. Study, observe and document the day to day changes, advances, attitudes of the inhabitants.
Do You Return Your Shopping Cart? Or That’s A Person’s Job You Want To Protect? Just Leave It.

Like a sponge, the on board computers like none known on planet Earth begin to whirl, hum. The inner cores glow. Collecting, analyzing current broadcast on air signals. Using something a tad more sophisticated than Western Auto rabbit ears.

Tapping into search engine data banks to access historical information.

Filtering the bracket, the data slice to showcase the last three decades only. Quickly making observations from speed of thought scans of newspapers, magazines, industry trade journals.

Accessing cell phone conversations of all the carriers. Monitoring right down to local diner lunch counter stool chit chat. As locals talk it up. Ordering, butter and jamming their home made toast. Having their breakfast eggs fixed, served up just the way they like them.

Advances in medicine, check.

Duly noted. New technology making life easier in someways but at a price paid in others. The population like polar cap ends of distinction. Either high school skinny as a rail and obsessed with fitness, weight, appearance. Or let it all hang out, with you gonna eat that last piece of thick crust pizza Bub attitudes.

And aerial scans of big box shopping centers shows another development.

Parking lots heavily dotted with empty, abandoned wire shopping carts.

Maine Pleasures Are Many, Small, Real & Natural. The Best Kind Are Free.
Left kitty corner, here and there sporadically around the empty angled painted lined slots. Instead of returned to cart corrals.

For eventual round up retrieval by a store clerk. To be escorted, taken in tandem mass with a rear engine pusher wearing a revolving red warning light. To avoid flattening pedestrian shoppers, colliding with motoring shoppers with the wire cart crazy train. (Cue Ozzy song, up and under blog post.) The shoppers in one major hoof hurry. Fast paced, coming and going looking stressed, rushed, not smiling.

Thirty years ago the shoppers returned the carts themselves.

After the unload of merchandise into the vehicle they drove. Left with the keys in the ignition. A clerk more than just offering, actually pushing the cart through the automatic doors with the electric eye. To help elderly, the frail in the escort outside. To saddle up, hit the trail with their purchases.

In the report, the shift from 99% of the shoppers returning their carts to the entrance of the store thirty years ago so noted. To present day where few ever marched, pushed the cart back to the handy dandy, conveniently located galvanized pipe holding pens. Pending the exodus in mass back to beginning store shopping lane’s staging area for consumers.

More handicap plates, lots of cars parking in those designated slots that did not have the little wheelchair designation on them.

Or hanging from inside rear view center dash mirrors. The report on the blue green third rock from the Sun notes the shift from hard working, industrious and happy. Have more than enough, content. To overweight, unhappy and just too much free time on their hands. Lots of retail therapy self medication going on. Never having enough to satisfy the craving artificially.

Lots of ailments, plenty of whining. But thinking leaving those carts helter skelter is creating a job for someone to round them up. That they are helping stimulate the economy by abandoning the carts the further from the store the better. And the rolling around in the wind causing more parking lot dings and dents is good for auto body collision repair shops too. You have to wrap your mind around this from a different angle people.

The purchase of a product more practical, done slowly, methodically.

Because it was needed three decades ago. To now buying for the show, luxury. The effect on others even more important in what you want, gotta have and right now in specific colors, styles from the vast array of what’s in aisle five. And flying off the shelves as what’s hot today.

Maine is home made, not so much store bought. The alien ship observed hope for the folks in the upper right hand corner of the country. That sticks up like a thumb, almost into Canada. Insulated from the ills of the city, the urban jungle of concrete, traffic, crime and smells. The powerful grip of marketing has less of a spell in Maine. Not so important.

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

May 30, 2014
What About ME ?

When you raise kids in Maine, you teach them there is a big wide open World out there to explore, discover.

To sample in the journey of life. The many neat people we bump into along the ride. And things rub off that help shape a person from the experiences, conversations your kids have in new locations with folks far far away from the Maine home town they spent the first part of their life.
Serving It Up, Dishing It Out In Small Maine Towns.

What about ME ?

Some folks spend their whole life here. Maybe other than a stint in the service, two, four or more years of college. The other side of the big green bridge.

Or when their parents moved during their school years for a brief stint outside Vacationland.

But the kids doubled back. Because the bulk of their family is here. Because they liked the environment of where they were raised in Maine with all that four season outdoor, wide open living, friendly people.

The place with the space. Maine is a popular place.

Often the person who has not lived in Maine long, or at all appreciates this Pine Tree State more than a native.

The locals know we are pretty lucky in Maine. But those that have done time in not so much fun busy, crowded, unsafe and expensive city settings outside Maine appreciate the state much more. Because they know it is not like this many or any other places. They have the scars, stripes to prove what can happen when you don’t hang your hat.
One Potato, Two Potato… Well You Know The Rest.
Are not fortunate enough to live, work and play in a small Maine town.

To at least maintain or better yet grow in population the survival goal. To become a destination to consider living, raising families. Working or retiring in.

Not just reach for off the shelf for hit or miss Maine vacations.

Or all the outdoor recreational pursuits in Maine that happen like clockwork the four seasons.

The trick is how to be the cat’s meow to all the age groups. New and improved. Because all the segments are needed to create a well rounded experience in a small Maine town. What makes a small Maine town great, so special, to shine?

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

May 5, 2014
Maine. Give Me The Big Picture, Don’t Leave Anything Out.

Life comes with pressure. Most we can look in the mirror.

Take much of the blame from ourselves. Let’s face it. Level with me. We just pack too heavy. Adding to the extra baggage of life. Both the trip bag weight, piece count. Forgetting what’s important. Like too many trips to the beat the buffet line. (Burp) Excuse me. That steals the buzz.
Maine Is Real, Fresh, Original.

That’s not the way we roll in Maine. If you were lucky enough to to be raised here, or live here now you know. Catch my drift? We are already on the same wavelength. But down country, in urban centers that seduce, woo, beckon.

Where values are different. Have to be for a new age kind of survival. Riddles not answered by opening up the Mother Earth News copy tucked under your arm. Got my vibe? In Maine a stranger is not that way long. In a city, keep to yourself, eyes down. Chasing the almighty dollar.

Step on it to try to keep up. Things move too fast. Lots of added layers, circles. The wrong bells, whistles priorities in the shift from Maine simple, real, warm, all natural, spacious. To artificial, cold, plastic, store bought, crowded.

That race for more toys, reaching to scale more rungs on the status ladder, whatever the rabbit trail or wild goose chase to fill the void.

What seems missing. All distract, distort. Make a good person go off course. Forget where North is on the internal compass. Hear that rumble strip sound? How about the air raid sirens? Something rotten smells. You don’t pick up that scent, worry?

When what is good, healthy, natural is messed with in life, that’s where the wobble starts.

Dose levels match the stress levels. Simple math. Go hand in hand. Look around you. You do see the red flags, missed cues piling up right?
Natural, Outdoors, Clean, Colorful, Fresh. Maine.

Shake the trees, look under the rocks. Come up for air. Stop holding your breath and surface.

People know each other in small Maine towns. We enjoy our daily walks in small Maine towns. We make our own outdoor fun in small Maine towns.

When you hang your hat in retirement, relocation to a small Maine town, you are part of the blood, sweat and tears of the community.

You’re needed, you step up, your talents and skills get stirred into the pot. Take a victory lap. Light ’em up. Smoke those tires.

These Maine images show you more outdoors, less people. More wildlife, less commercial. Look up, see that night sky filled with wall to wall twinkling stars? And you thought they only existed, that just happened in story books. Discover self reliance. Unlock, solve your own inner mysteries. Feel a tugging at your heart strings? Sense a longing to get in your car and travel to the 4th lowest crime state of Maine? We’re done here. For now. (To be continued)…

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

April 21, 2014
Rattling The Cage Of A Small Maine Town’s Economy.

Fixing, Getting Under The Hood, Under The Engine Of Small Maine Town Economy.

The forces that help or hurt the sustained economy, smart growth of a small Maine town.

It may not at first hit you as a titillating topic headline. But it should cause a pitter patter, lub dub increase deep down inside all small Maine town community dwellers. Because it is vital, life and death important to the small Maine town’s survival. For future generations to have the option to settle down there, to live, work and play.

Change happens in life, in small town Maine living. Small business being strangled with government regulations, reduced profits per unit product or service strain the economic health of the enterprise. Being driven to get bigger, the need for volume sales take their toll in small population centers. When the urban market for the end product or service is many miles away. Involving the extra overhead of shipping, fuel charges, labor expenses to get to the urban market where eight out of ten folks in America live today.

Not so long ago, the small Maine town’s economy was pretty self contained.

Now with Internet, Interstates, and evaporating local options for purchasing many goods or services the vise grip on the guglar of the small Maine business owner tightens. Profit to expand, to update equipment, to add to the payroll, or just maintain status quo has become hose kinked. Income reduced to a trickle in many cases.

So rising costs for providing town services, coupled with reduced revenue means belt tightening. Not raising fees, hiking property taxes recklessly. Which just adds large extra holes to a sinking ship. A band aid to a gunshot wound. Forcing the doors to the small business one by one to close. Jobs in the relocation to head down the road, out of the Maine small town. To places closer to the market. In areas more favorable for doing business.

Somehow making a profit, running a business and ending up in the black has become wrong to many.

Like that return is suppose to be in the hands of those feeling somehow entitled to it. As the ticket to a better way of life at the expense of the little red hen, That toiled, sacrificed to create, carve out, earn it. Small business is the economic engine for social programs, community services like road maintenance, police and fire protection, education, etc. Without the business profit there would in a short time be no programs. Everyone can not be in the wagon.

Someone has to be pulling it, pushing it. Keeping it like the economy healthy, moving. Preserve, protect free enterprise which used to sum up what America, land of opportunity was all about because of the freedom to work hard. Hustle, make the kind of living tied directly to how much labor, effort, long hours you did put in. With a little luck, a lot of creativity, patience. And seeing the market winds to adjust your “sales”.

Making a healthy environment for small Maine businesses should be a priority to all in a small Maine town. Not just throwing money at the economic dart board and hoping it sticks. Is a move in the right direction either. Not done by maintaining current levels of town services if the community can not afford it without year after year property tax hikes.

Careful examination of the town’s strengths, weaknesses and developing a game plan. Removing waste, wrinkles, slack. Having a sound current strategy, long term goals that match it. One course of action that all the local community, the small Maine town says buys into, embraces. That sounds prudent. Let’s get behind it. Give it a whirl as Kevin said about TV dinners. While quizzing the bored gum chewing teeny bop store clerk. As his parents, family was away for the holidays. And he had to fend for himself. Protect the home front. We have critical work to do in our small Maine towns. It starts with education.

The hard reality of small Maine town living is if small business owners ran the town, made the tough choices and critical maneuvers to get back on course, those affected would shun patronizing the shop keeper, service provider.

Often taking it personally. But like cancer, it can be beat. With tough decisions, facing economic reality. For the greater good, not to feather the cap of a few who like things pretty much the way they roll currently.

It does depend on who’s ox is getting gored in life.

The painful pruning, reallocation of funding will be felt, carried by all to guarantee a speedy, healthy recovery of the ailing small Maine town economy. Has to be that way to get the majority of the small Maine town to sign on, help row that boat. Not so gently down the current economically turbulent class five rapids stream.

Let’s all do our home work for the small Maine towns we are proud to call home. Learn more about the life and death of small town America. Learn how to attract or how to cause small business owners to abandon small towns. The problems are complex, dubbed the “brain drain” but realization that small town rural areas can be the ground zero of sustainable green agricultural based living.

Embrace small Maine town living. Because that is what Maine is, 108 small communities, a handful of cities. What makes it so special, tightly knit. But also presents the greatest challenges for survival.

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

November 7, 2013