Considering Maine

[maineguy8888]

I don't know, when I lived in southern Maine (several times), I found it to be wicked intolerant. In general.

[johnjjjjj]

How about Farmington Maine? Do you guys know what is the town like?

[maineguy8888]

Originally Posted by johnjjjjj

How about Farmington Maine? Do you guys know what is the town like?

Spent alot of time there in the past. I liked it alot better before the sprawl took over.
It's never been the same since The Diner closed.

[slyfox2]

Originally Posted by maineguy8888

I don't know, when I lived in southern Maine (several times), I found it to be wicked intolerant. In general.

Downeast seems not to be. But then I am not a minority except in viewpoint. I might not see the reality.

[laurabf]

Originally Posted by Clemvol

My wife and I have been looking to move our family out of our current area for various reasons and have always loved Maine. We are looking to simplify our lives I guess you could say. We live in the South and quite frankly despite being born and raised here, we don't fit in at all. As you all probably already know the South is very conservative and we are a very liberal minded family. Normally, in the past, that has not been a huge issue living here but in the past year or so, the conservative mindset of our neighbors has become extreme.

First, let me explain my family's liberal ways a bit. When I say that we are liberal I do not mean that we are flag burning hippies going around tying ourselves to trees and protesting the cost of ice cream. We are just an open minded family that believe in living and letting others live. We are not the type of people who feel the need to confront those that think differently than we do. At the same time, it's not like we go out of our way to hide our views and therein lies the problem with where we currently live. Personally, I have not had any direct confrontations so far but my wife has been threatened at her job. My two school aged children have been confronted at school and twenty year old son (who is mixed) has to deal with racism on top of everything else. It has gotten to the point that we are miserable here. We live in a very small town. Everyone knows everybody and the town has a very clannish mindset. Once again, this would not be an issue if they weren't so aggressive about it. The problem is their conform to their ways of thinking or die mentality.

Another thing about my wife and I is that we have quite unintentionally gotten caught up in the rat race. We quite literally have found ourselves working for the shiny things that we don't really care about or need. How we have ended up here, I don't really know. Perhaps we just fell into it because it was what was expected of us in the society we live in. I think I just did it trying to justify working the long hours that I do. Either way, where we live it's all about who has the shiny new car or the biggest house and that's just not us. When my wife and I started out we literally had nothing. We struggled many times to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. Yet, we both seem to agree that we were happier back then.

I guess to make an already long story a little shorter, what I'm getting to is we have got to get out of here. Would Maine be a viable choice for us? We are looking to rent for now. Just something simple with no frills at a reasonable rate. We are all willing to work any job we can get. We have no desire to become a burden upon your state. We are simply looking for a place to live in peace and allow others to do the same.

Any suggestions on where to rent and possibility of finding any work would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

My husband and I are also looking to move to small liberal tolerant town. Our story is a bit different but I think you could relate per the 'rat race'. We have been raised in the PNW (Seattle area). We do identify with the more liberal side of things and don't want to feel we need to be coy about our beliefs. While we really do like the area we were working up to 70-80 hr a week for extended periods of time. I definitely agree about when struggling was actually a better life. We might have the money now but with no time to enjoy it and all the stress its not worth it. Well enough about that, I wanted to comment because I feel that we have similar goals in the 'ideal town'. My search however only recently brought me to Maine. We had been looking around the great lakes and if you do a bit of research on Madison, WI it seems to be even more liberal than Seattle, I was quite surprised. Now I have not lived or even visited the area but from the city-data community and other online sources it seems to be accurate or atleast liberal enough. If you are looking for small town vibe there are plenty of areas around Madison that should fit the bill and the unemployment rate is quite low at 2.9-3.9 at anytime in the last 6 months. Just wanted to give you some alternatives to think about. I would encourage you to keep looking. If you all are not happy it wont get any better doing nothing. At worst it is another adventure for the bucket list. Also don't let the negative people deter you- take their point of view see if the concerns apply to you and go from there. From another 'in search of better' I hope you find it.