Helpful, handy, humorous, welcome to Maine !
When you spend time in Maine on vacation, you pick up on how the local population natives interact. You sense how connected a small Maine community is and witness first hand “home town ” pride in everything on the local level.
Mainers are helpful.
Lazy is not in the vocabulary and frowned on as not pulling your own weight. Maine families are raised to help out daily anyway they can. On the road, Maine motorists roll to a stop. Crank down the window and stop if your car is parked on a roadway to make sure you are okay. “Need me to jump start that dead battery for you or make a cell phone call?””Stuck in a snow bank and need a little tug to nudge you back on the highway?” “Run out of gas, need a lift, is everyone okay?” Or “lost, need directions?” It’s all about helpful, how can I help you living in small town Maine.
Maine local populations maybe small but provide large helpings of caring for others every day, any season.
You don’t have to know or be related to the person receiving the helpful attention either. I hear it all the time in my job as a Maine real estate broker that the local community members are so helpful and friendly. Yes they are but the question I ask “isn’t it like this where you live now?” More often than not, the response is no, no it is not.
Less population is part of it. In crowded urban areas you keep to yourself, eyes forward, get from point A to B as quickly as possible without bother anyone. You hire everything done. In small Maine towns, people are concerned and worry about each other. Mainers are jack of all trades and pretty darn handy, helpful.
Your friends and neighbors get involved to give you a hand on projects in small town Maine.
Mainers know how to change their own oil, shingle a garage roof, replace the guts of a toilet to stop the waste of water. They mow their lawn and shovel their walkways, don’t hire it out. Independent, loaded with skills and a can do attitude. A group assembles quickly to help you get your winter wood cut, split, stored inside the shed or tucked away down in your Maine home cellar. Many hands do make light work in small town Maine.
It’s also nice to know others care about you and check in if you were not at coffee at the local Maine diner this morning.
Or notice that they did not see you at the high school basketball game last night or at breakfast this morning at the local snowmobile club. We look for each other and come to the rescue when the burden gets too tough to carry in life. You give back because you have personally received over and over. You play it forward, you pay it back. That is what it is like in Maine.
Awareness of others in your area and a sense of volunteerism instilled in everyone raised in small town Maine.
Everyone pitches in and tries to help out to do what they can for the greater good. What is it like living in Maine? Simple, real, down to Earth.
Common sense still used here and less games, more dedication to work hard through your troubles. Not blaming someone else or whining about how hard you have it. No time for feeling sorry for yourself. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and taught early on to expect less from others and more from yourself really works. If it is to be, it is up to me.
Maine humor, not just the Downeast kind that can be dry and witty.
The “you can’t there from here” retort when asking directions and lost in Maine is well known. But the local expressions describing events unfolding around you. The woodlot for sale was cut so hard “a woodpecker would have to pack a lunch to make it across the acreage”. Colorful ways to converse in Maine keep it light and bright and cause a chuckle or smile.
If the weather forecasts provides ten inches of new fresh white powdery snow, the native Mainer refers to it as “just a dusting”.
All of us living in Maine have a common task. To have a positive attitude and not be a wet blanket Debbie Downer. To try hard to see the humor in anything happening around you in life. It could always be worse. You and I are pretty lucky overall thinking. Hope, faith, keep at it and don’t give up or get discouraged.
Making less money but better use of managing it in Maine.
Working hard and nothing for free and easy creates a deeper appreciation of gratitude in Maine. You respect other people’s property more. Feel lucky to be on a lake enjoying a sunrise with a fresh brewed hot coffee. Sitting out front on the deck of the humble but your built from scratch waterfront camp. What is it like in Maine?
These Me In Maine blog posts try to convey the lay of the land and what to expect for comparison to where you have been, where you are now. The community videos for Maine do too.
Little things like home cooked meals “uptah camp in Maine” make life enjoyable and not just nose to the grindstone drudgery.
Being outside everyday of the year in Maine provides the fresh air and enjoyment knowing you and I are some kind of lucky to live in Maine.
Less people, more natural unspoiled beauty and no traffic, little crime. Friendly, helpful, humorous, hand people.
What do you like best about Maine? In your short vacation visits or gleaned from living here for generations and everything in between. What has been your experience? And remember, don’t believe all you read and know that the best things about small town living in Maine are not so well documented online.
Please do a search on our Maine blog for topics that interest you or subjects you always wondered about to satisfy the curiosity.
You have to experience Maine first hand and draw your own conclusions. Don’t let others do your thinking for you. Maine, come for a day, end up staying a lifetime. Maine is the way life should be.
I’m Maine REALTOR Andrew Mooers, ME Broker
207.532.6573 | info@mooersrealty.com |
MOOERS REALTY 69 North ST Houlton ME 04730 USA