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Oh, I don't know. I've seen many places where a fair number of new people move in and things become outlawed. Please, don't be so sure of it being otherwise. Rural America is FULL of stories of being overrun by expanding cities. Stories such as zoning being enacted or dramatically increased in scope and scale. Taxes being raised to support curbside trash collection rather than running to the dump/recycling center yourself, laws being enacted against the discharge of firearms especially (even if they can't outright take the gun from you.) Laws go up against RVs or unregistered cars being stored in front yards (or even side and back yards!) Clotheslines become banned. Boards of health start counting how many cats and/or dogs you have, never mind how many roosters you have cooped up. Some towns have fought back with things such as right-to-farm laws - to protect long time farmers against the yuppies moving in, screaming about the hogs, and then outlawing plowing, spreading manure with the honey wagon, etc., etc. etc. People move in, land gets posted "no hunting."
I'm sorry, but it happens ALL too often.
I grew up in such an area where all of this was common. But today it has all been outlawed.
I grew up in such an area where all of this was common. But today it has all been outlawed.
Outlawed?? where?? There are times Forest that you post and I think that you and I don't live in the same state. This is one of them! Not being grumpy with ya, just disagreeing.
Beltrams, I wish I could disagree with that last post of yours, because it bothers me so much, but, unfortunately, it's very true. In addition to what you've said, I'd also add that we're now in a position of having to protect waterfront (ocean) access so that those who make their living on the water can actually get to it! It's not good.
Molly makes a good point. While most of the gererational Mainers living here are far from hostile to people moving in from away we are conscious of the fact that with the influx we have seen our traditions erode as the "summer complaints" become "permanent complaints". Someone actually called the police on a guy who was trying to catch smelts on the Royal river in Yarmouth this past winter. They didn't like the looks of his portable fishing shack as it destroyed the ambiance of their river view. There was talk about Yarmouth banning smelt shacks on the river. Not for safety, but for the sake of "ambiance". They did it to the lobstermen who use that town's commercial fishing docks too. They have left bait in barrels down there for 100 years or more but no longer as it offended the noses of the out of staters who moved here and were mooring boats nearby. They caused enough of a fuss that they made the commercial guys keep their bait at home instead of the traditional spot. They can't even stack traps there anymore to hold them as they take them out 50 at a time to set. Now they have to bring them in a truck load at a time which means more work and less setting per day. That costs fuel..The yuppies could care less.
They tried to ban hunting in a certain section of Yarmouth where there was a 200 acre public park but were told they could not do it by the state. So instead they made it ridiculosly difficult to to hunt there by making you register for a permit, register the gun you intend to use, sign in and sign out when you're hunting on a board in the parking lot so the yuppies will "have a warning" that nasty evil hunters are in the park and they can go jog somewhere else. No one wants to have to go through all of that to hunt that area so essentially the out of staters won that round too. Then there are the huge tax increases, and access problems as the out of state money buys up all of the shore property and posts the rights of way. The school wasn't good enough for the transplant's kids so they spent 22 million building a better one and staffing it with Phd's. The taxes in Yarmouth have gone from some of the least expensive to the most expensive in just the last 25 years. Now our Amvets Hall is threatened as the Town is looking into building a huge new town garage fascility similar to Topsham's to better accomodate the "upscale resident's needs" and wants the land and access behing our Veteran's hall. They already drove the Amvets out of the Clam Festival by allowing the chamber of commerce (run by an out of state transplant) to charge UP FRONT non profit organizations between $8,000 and $16,000 for a booth in the village square. We don't have that money but the Lawyer's kids in the Football boosters and Hockey club come up with it without much problem. Our money is used to help Vets in need not buy hockey and football equipment for spoiled little kids. These Veterans, Firemen and other non-profit groups STARTED the Clam Festival and have been run out of their own festival by the transplants. Is it any wonder that the two sides are at odds?? This is just a few of the many many examples and this is just ONE little coastal town.
Molly makes a good point. While most of the gererational Mainers living here are far from hostile to people moving in from away we are conscious of the fact that with the influx we have seen our traditions erode as the "summer complaints" become "permanent complaints". Someone actually called the police on a guy who was trying to catch smelts on the Royal river in Yarmouth this past winter. They didn't like the looks of his portable fishing shack as it destroyed the ambiance of their river view. There was talk about Yarmouth banning smelt shacks on the river. Not for safety, but for the sake of "ambiance". They did it to the lobstermen who use that town's commercial fishing docks too. They have left bait in barrels down there for 100 years or more but no longer as it offended the noses of the out of staters who moved here and were mooring boats nearby. They caused enough of a fuss that they made the commercial guys keep their bait at home instead of the traditional spot. They can't even stack traps there anymore to hold them as they take them out 50 at a time to set. Now they have to bring them in a truck load at a time which means more work and less setting per day. That costs fuel..The yuppies could care less.
They tried to ban hunting in a certain section of Yarmouth where there was a 200 acre public park but were told they could not do it by the state. So instead they made it ridiculosly difficult to to hunt there by making you register for a permit, register the gun you intend to use, sign in and sign out when you're hunting on a board in the parking lot so the yuppies will "have a warning" that nasty evil hunters are in the park and they can go jog somewhere else. No one wants to have to go through all of that to hunt that area so essentially the out of staters won that round too. Then there are the huge tax increases, and access problems as the out of state money buys up all of the shore property and posts the rights of way. The school wasn't good enough for the transplant's kids so they spent 22 million building a better one and staffing it with Phd's. The taxes in Yarmouth have gone from some of the least expensive to the most expensive in just the last 25 years. Now our Amvets Hall is threatened as the Town is looking into building a huge new town garage fascility similar to Topsham's to better accomodate the "upscale resident's needs" and wants the land and access behing our Veteran's hall. They already drove the Amvets out of the Clam Festival by allowing the chamber of commerce (run by an out of state transplant) to charge UP FRONT non profit organizations between $8,000 and $16,000 for a booth in the village square. We don't have that money but the Lawyer's kids in the Football boosters and Hockey club come up with it without much problem. Our money is used to help Vets in need not buy hockey and football equipment for spoiled little kids. These Veterans, Firemen and other non-profit groups STARTED the Clam Festival and have been run out of their own festival by the transplants. Is it any wonder that the two sides are at odds?? This is just a few of the many many examples and this is just ONE little coastal town.
...And one of the problems that concerns me the most is that, as times change and become more difficult as energy constraints change the world, all these "yuppie rules" from away will make adapting to the new energy reality harder and harder. Heck, I'm from away myself, but I can see that mainly, it is the OLD ways that are more practical, efficient, and hold more promise going forward, for the very reasons that the old ways worked in the past. Well-to-do people from away just haven't figured it out yet. (Or worse, they *have* figured it out but don't care.) Your example of the lobstermen having to truck bait and traps is but one example of why old is better. I think in the long run, however, the stupid, yuppie rules are going to lose to the new, coming reality. Just give it a bit more time.
...And one of the problems that concerns me the most is that, as times change and become more difficult as energy constraints change the world, all these "yuppie rules" from away will make adapting to the new energy reality harder and harder. Heck, I'm from away myself, but I can see that mainly, it is the OLD ways that are more practical, efficient, and hold more promise going forward, for the very reasons that the old ways worked in the past. Well-to-do people from away just haven't figured it out yet. (Or worse, they *have* figured it out but don't care.) Your example of the lobstermen having to truck bait and traps is but one example of why old is better. I think in the long run, however, the stupid, yuppie rules are going to lose to the new, coming reality. Just give it a bit more time.
I hope so, but I can't help but observe that basically, many people care little about anything (or anyone) but themselves.
It doesn't concern them it's more efficient for a waterfront worker to keep his or her equipment where it has always been kept as a means of efficiency. What seems to bother many of them most is that their view of nature is obscured by a pile of 'junk' and it offends them because they pay good money for those views.
It's sort of like those who build their expensive houses in a subdivision 10 feet away from the end of the airport (that's been there since the dawn of time) and then calls to complain when a plane rattles the shelves in their houses and wakes them up in the middle of the night.
Outlawed?? where?? There are times Forest that you post and I think that you and I don't live in the same state. This is one of them! Not being grumpy with ya, just disagreeing.
I grew up in central California, rural farming towns in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Big sprawling farms, nearly everyone hunted, many towns hosted rodeos, etc.
Since leaving there in the 70's it has all changed.
Flood irrigation has mostly been out-lawed, so much of the farm land has been developed into tract-housing. Urban sprawl is crazy there.
Rodeos are being shutdown as being too cruel.
Firearms can no longer be open carried.
Hunting is technically legal, but if anyone hears you shoot you will be arrested.
Dairies, hog-farms, poultry operations have all been forced to shut-down because the tract-housing has gotten too close to the previously operating farms.
My eldest sister's family still farms 400 acres, but the restrictions on their crop-dusting is very nearly shutting them down.
I have observed how urban sprawl, urban-voters, and activists have had the effect of out-lawing the rural lifestyles in the area where I grew up. This has been done partly by new laws being enacted, but also via zoning, commissioner boards who change municipal policies to better suit urbanites,
and of course lawsuits.
Forest Beekeeper's comments get me to thinking that one of the things that I like about Mainers and rural folk in general is that rural folk are more generalists than are urban or even suburban folk are now. By that I mean that the former can do more things for themselves, or at least have some feel and understanding for how and why something is done. That is especially true of people who work on and/or live near farms where one has to be not only somebody who can raise certain plants or animals, but also be a mechanic, a marketer, a plumber, a scheduler, a personnel manager, etc. Even a rural electrician might have to change his own tire, do the payroll, etc. because his or her firm might probably be a one person company, compared with the urban electrician or doctor that probably works for a company that has a dozen other electricians or doctors with a facilities staff on board to do the off-task stuff with but a phone call.
Meanwhile, cities and suburbia have come to be the haunts of the ultra-specialists. Everybody there does one thing for money....be it a doctor or a communications analyst or a school teacher. Such people are all too often trained to hire out everything else, from changing their flat tire to picking up take-out to feed the kids, to even cleaning their house. In fact they are trained that they shouldn't or can't do whatever the practical task is at hand because maybe there is even some kind of law that prohibits them from trying (thinking of all the professional licensing nonsense that goes on nowadays from teaching to general contracting.... Heck, Massachusetts even tried to require a license for doggy daycare centers.) This hyper-specialization trend hasn't progressed as far in Rural America and I think this difference greatly affects the understanding or lack thereof the ultra-specialists have of the lobsterman, the dairy farmer, etc. that they meet in the rural areas. The urban/suburbanites basically are just not as well rounded, vocationally speaking, especially when it comes to the practical vocations, and it greatly limits their ability to understand their adopted rural landscape they've surrounded themselves with. It's also true that the hyper-specialists come from a land where it's assumed that it's illegal to do something unless the state says specifically that it *is* legal. (No, I'm not thinking of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, of course not ) while in most other places, one can more or less still assume the opposite, namely that something is okay to do unless one can find a law specifically banning something. Hence we see the ultra-specialists' passion, when they move to the generalists' area (rural areas), to attempt to write a law for everything.
The trouble is that the hyper-specialists still think they understand the jobs, vocations and other things such as leisure activities of the rural folk when if fact, of course they really don't have a clue.
ahhh.... Forest, I understand. I thought you were saying the opposite of what you were! I can't even blame that on not enough coffee, darn it!
I do apologize if my words came out confusing.
I really felt hurt by the way that my hometown area had changed. The thought of such change happening here in Maine, upsets me.
May God bless all Mainers who strive to keep life here "The way life should be"
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) while in most other places, one can more or less still assume the opposite, namely that something is okay to do unless one can find a law specifically banning something. Hence we see the ultra-specialists' passion, when they move to the generalists' area (rural areas), to attempt to write a law for everything. 
