Maine is a big place.
Often crusty coastal folks of few words but ones that drive home the point with an verbal economy. Those are the spokesmen sometimes used in the tell me what Maine is all about stories. Or to weave into the stream of Maine humor if you are Tim Sample, Bob Marley.
The yarn spun, the tales exaggerated but funny.
Just not all so accurate to represent the garden variety folks walking the Earth in Maine. Because it leaves out the rest of the down home town proud locals in the state of Maine. Working hard to survive, raise a family. Just anxious to pitch in and make a difference on the local landscape.
So in my job as a Maine real estate broker, it happens once in awhile. A customer buys a farm, lakefront property or old quaint Victorian smasher of a house.
And less than a year later we get a call to bring one of your red, white and blue signs.
Plant it on the front lawn would ya? We are heading back to wherever we lived twelve months ago.
Maine may have been the third, fourth stop in the move and groove. So they know how to assume the position to relocation, make the transition. Again. Kept all the boxes.
Sometimes the reason is a loved one left behind needs them. Sick mom, failing health brother, divorced daughters with little ones. Someone in the family needs them.
But the motivation to high tail it back and turn the wagons in a big wide circle 180 degrees is not always a bad health situation down country.
Or a hard time to find a job in their field or the employment they had here in Maine drying up. And just for the record, many do telecommute to Maine for work.
No, the reason to move is because the people were cold, they could not make friends.
Whoa. Really? When you ask a few more questions filling in the blanks on the list to sell agreement, you hear some themes. Familiar ones about no one invited us over for beans and hot dogs.
Or we have no kids, everyone around Maine is family oriented. So we feel odd man out. Don’t go to church or sporting events either.
Even though they do admit folks reached out to invite them to holidays. When the neighbors down the road knew they were in the house by their lonesome.
You have to make an effort and to have friends, you have to be one.
Why would someone avoid another human being in their home town? If a steady diet of conversation shared is how stupid the locals are.
That might hammer hit the nail on the head. If lots of “back in Jersey” or wherever the transplant in a new land used to live is salt and peppered in the chit chat. That gets old too if dripping with negativity from an Eeyore.
Mainers love to learn about where you lived before as they bring you up to speed on the way things rock and roll, shake and bake in the local surroundings.
But even though the average run of the mill Mainer can on occasion whine a tad, the first year of a new move to Maine property owner needs to bite the tongue.
Because someone else with a vehicle wearing the same plate that came to Maine earlier could be the problem. The kink in the hose.
That has burnt some bridges rubbing folks the wrong way. Put a bad mouth taste that can taint others that hail from the same location. Guilt by association.
Maine is full of hardworking, super friendly folks because we don’t live in fear in the 4th lowest crime state. We get involved, feel and feed the local connection. But don’t take a cotton to others who dump on the small Maine towns they are so proud of and work so hard to protect and preserve.
Even someone from southern Maine can get on a high horse and start to begin the let’s rescue the locals routine.
Thinking because we lived a stint closer to the big city of Bean town, that that influence adds an edge. That should make the locals some kind of hand stand happy they moved here to “save them”.
Resentment, avoidance and the passion of whatever a group is doing suffers when this air enters the meeting. So new, moving to Maine, want to get along and play ball fairly?
Ease up on the I am up here, you are down there needing a leg up approach.
The expertise, experiences, stories are welcomed from out of town, out of state. The spoon full of sugar approach works best like in the musical. Kind not snide.
Paddle gently in the pool of people, personalities.
The local Mainers are plenty resourceful, well educated, highly committed to their small home towns.
Be the same in the approach to answer the question “what can I do to help”?
I had read rhetoric this week about an individual who went on and on about how lucky their new small Maine home town was that they had landed there.
And the locals should come away being some kind of glad they had.
An air of smugness, a spirit of not finding much good about anyone in the small Maine town shared behind the scenes. Removed all the good. In the me, me, me what a gift they are.
We have lots of saviors in small Maine towns pouring in their heart and soul day and night. That don’t need attention or recognition.
To glean the new experiences working together. That’s the true Maine unplugged, unfiltered and raw, refreshing. For the take away from somewhere else that could benefit a new community in the spirit of kindness and cooperation.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573