When you live in a small Maine town, you learn to appreciate the little things more.
And besides being some kind of glad traffic, crime, gangs are nil, the list of what rises to the top of extra special starts with the people. The local population is small in any of Maine’s 108 small towns. So everyone steps up to take on their role of what their purpose is. Why they are in this small Maine town. What they have for a skill set, talent to contribute to the local flavor of the community. That is the gold that all the money in the world can not buy, possess.
Folks are not lost in a sea of faces in a small Maine town.
The cast of characters is not large. The population thinned out. And those smiling faces are not forgotten because the individuals ARE the unique community. For years, like clockwork they step up to do this, put on the apron for that. Work behind the scenes for the events. Raise solid families. With the heart of a volunteer, the strongest thing you’ll find in a small Maine town. Pushing people to go over the top, to contribute, to make the small Maine town all it can be with their help.
Home made not store bought.
Grass roots simple not importedexpensive. And after a trip to the bright lights, big city, and lots of shoulder to shoulder sardine packed people, coming home to wide open scenery hits you. While crossing the big green bridge leaving New Hampshire with the up and over rising curve of the river hop back into Maine, Vacationland.
You can feel a relaxation, a sebse of relief. Or loss of anxiety happening inside as you enter Maine. It floods, washes your insides as you pass majestic Mount Katahdin on Interstate 95 or reflect, relax paddling an early morning sunrise kayak, canoe. Or taking that walk in the woods serenaded by song birds, crickets, the sound of wind in the pine needles.
And the feeling of “glad I am home” gets more kindling, is fueled to a stronger, hotter blaze inside. As one by one the people you meet in Maine brighten your day. Because Mainers are helpful, family oriented, hard working and an interesting bunch. With stories, experiences. Because they are more resourceful, creative than your average bear. Have to be to survive, to prosper and find true happiness during the days on Earth. Making the most of what we have.
We have more than enough around us in Maine to be grateful.
Because it is not this beautiful, unspoiled in other places outside of Maine. All the natural resources to tap into and getting to enjoy year round right in our backyard. The big decision being what to do this weekend for new and different in a state as big and varied as Maine.
When a crime happens which is rare but amplified ten fold by the city papers, a native thinks “that could not have been done by someone who lives, grew up, is from Maine”. It is not because we belief natives to be free from reproach, but are so accustom, engrained with the right and wrong from the time of being a young grasshopper. The woodshed used for a little discipline early on.
Small Maine towns are not easy places to pull shenanigans.
Partly due to our consciences, and like the old song about the Night Has A Thousand Eyes. Small means visible and the ripples are felt through the town limits, region because we are all connected. Care about each other and depend on the individuals in a small Maine town.
When a newspaper editorial that slams our state and is sharp edged, not solution suggesting happens over and over, we get mad. Because that kind of journalism does not build, grow, support an area. Serves no purpose but to tear down and destroy if the readers buy into the notion that Maine is like so many other places in the country. Which it is not.
The one by one images of Maine prove that blaringly. The first instinct when reading editorials like that is the poison pen holder must not be from Maine. Because the venom, toxins in black and white don’t move Maine forward and only serve to cause discouragement, no hope for the future.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573
info@mooersrealty.com