Am I missing the Maine experience?....In Maine (Portland, Bangor: low crime, buying)

[Jpurvis]

I Really do beleive even as much as I am looking forward to moving to Maine, Home is really what you make of it. If I was told that I had to live in the place I do now and could never leave, I would be very disappointed, BUT, I am sure I could find as many good things about here as I could bad things. The only reason I am saying this is because I think first and formost we have to learn to be happy with ourselves no matter if we were living on the moon.We can pretty much adapt to our surroundings if need be. Living in a place that you have dreamed of or long for makes it just that much better.
I do look so foward to the day I will be making my home in Maine, but I also realize that just because I move there, everything will not be perfect. But it will be close enough to perfect for me!!

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by AliceT

Look into your heart. That's where Maine is. As long as your heart beats, The real Maine will be there for you.

It's not so much a specific town or group of towns as much as an idea about living and how to live, that somehow, everyone shares with you.

There are plenty of little towns all through America that don't register on any map. But they can never take the place of a state full of people who all understand how special Maine is. That's because the real Maine is alive and well in their hearts.

I can go into any Sam's Club anywhere in the country and buy 500# of flour. Anywhere in the country except Maine, people in line near me will question what on earth I need so much flour for. In Maine, if anyone even notices, it would be along the lines of, "You think it'll be a long winter, eh?"
We are all on the same page.

If your friend doesn't find the real Maine in a Maine town he is in, I am afraid he will never find it. It's either in you or it isn't.

LOL

well said

[AustinB]

Having not quite lived here all my life, I'm not dead yet, I have seen the Maine ideal change. It used to be the rugged indiviualism where you basically took care of yourself. You didn't seek help from the town or state if something went bad. Having said that, the neighbors watched out for one another. They would see to it that you didn't go hugry or that there was enough firewood to keep warm. They would help so that nobodys feeling got hurt. No one got shamed unless they were truly in need of some .
A strong sense of self reliance is what I felt "Maine" was all about.

[Boomerang]

Originally Posted by Zymer

There is something for almost everyone (sorry for you folks who like tropical islands or hard-scrabble desert, canyons and tumbleweeds, you'll have to look elsewhere for that)

Hold up there - take desert off your list. You've forgotten the Desert of Maine in Freeport

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by AustinB

Having not quite lived here all my life, I'm not dead yet, I have seen the Maine ideal change. It used to be the rugged indiviualism where you basically took care of yourself. You didn't seek help from the town or state if something went bad. Having said that, the neighbors watched out for one another. They would see to it that you didn't go hugry or that there was enough firewood to keep warm. They would help so that nobodys feeling got hurt. No one got shamed unless they were truly in need of some .
A strong sense of self reliance is what I felt "Maine" was all about.

I think this too and think Maine is still full of people like this.

[MRVphotog]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

Hold up there - take desert off your list. You've forgotten the Desert of Maine in Freeport

I thought it was determined that tourist traps are not real Maine.

[flycessna]

Originally Posted by AliceT

Look into your heart. That's where Maine is. As long as your heart beats, The real Maine will be there for you.

It's not so much a specific town or group of towns as much as an idea about living and how to live, that somehow, everyone shares with you.

There are plenty of little towns all through America that don't register on any map. But they can never take the place of a state full of people who all understand how special Maine is. That's because the real Maine is alive and well in their hearts.

I can go into any Sam's Club anywhere in the country and buy 500# of flour. Anywhere in the country except Maine, people in line near me will question what on earth I need so much flour for. In Maine, if anyone even notices, it would be along the lines of, "You think it'll be a long winter, eh?"
We are all on the same page.

If your friend doesn't find the real Maine in a Maine town he is in, I am afraid he will never find it. It's either in you or it isn't.

Very true!. He actually had already found "his" real Maine. And he longed for the opportunity to get back.....which he did several years later (this was a decade ago).

What I find is that some people are comfortable where they are....I see that a lot where I am. People are comfortable here.....there are things that frustrate them...but this is where their family is, and this is where they grew up....so they stay. I see so Many people living there lives here.....no different then how many people live their lives anywhere else. Get up...go to work....shop...pay bills ect. They could essentially move their operation to any other state and do the same thing.

BUT....when I read post's on this forum I see people in other parts of the state doing more then just living their life.......they are living "a way of life".

Whether it be finding a piece of land to build a home and grow their own food to a point of almost being self suffecient, Or...coming here so that they can own a huge parcel of land to forest....or living in a small town near the ocean so that they can experience that....I am not giving great examples but you know what I mean.....they are living a way of life that they couldn't get anywhere else. In that makes you appreciate your place so much more.

[zedzul]

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.


Sorry

to me Maine is, Looking off of a hight cliff and seeing pine trees stretch out over the horizon, watching a moose eat in the bog, the waves crash on the rocks. It knowing that no matter where i go or what i do I can always come back and find "Home".

[forest beekeeper]

Originally Posted by Boomerang

Hold up there - take desert off your list. You've forgotten the Desert of Maine in Freeport

Wow cool!

I did not realize that this place existed.

Now I wonder how many foot of snow is currently located at this 'desert'?

[Bydand]

Forest, if you don't have a DeLorme Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, they are worth their weight in gold for finding little tid-bits hidden around the State. I have wore out a few of them over the years and am on my 5th copy now. Did you know there is a B-52 bomber wreck in the state (Elephant Mountain trail)? A set of "ice caves"(T8-R14 WELS), A couple of locomotives siting in the middle of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway (Between Eagle Lake and Chamberlin Lake), How about a place were they used to pan for gold (Coos Canyon, on the Swift river)? There is a ton of tucked away, not tourist swamped places that are unique and quite interesting. Get one, they are the best $20 I ever spent, then spend time reading the front few pages. The neat stuff is hidden away in the Hiking Trails, and the other areas write-ups of what they have to offer.

For me personally the Maine experience has been a mixed blessing, with the highlights being: Meeting my wife and having all our sons born here; Some irreplaceable friends; Some beautiful memories of nights spent away from anything, in the middle of "nowhere" and not wanting to be anyplace else; Being close enough to Moose and Bear to reach out and touch them if I were dumb enough to (those are stories and threads unto themselves); Just meeting some wonderful people I wouldn't have if I were not here. For me the Maine Experience has been not so much the where, and the why; but the who and the what... Who I was with, or met, and what we were doing together; regardless of where we were in the State or why we were there in the first place. Maine isn't and cannot be summed up by location, but rather by her people and natural assets.