Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Maine
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Closed Thread Start New Thread
 
Old 04-05-2011, 07:49 PM
 
19,959 posts, read 30,011,147 times
Reputation: 39992

Advertisements

Maine is filled with retirees - they are usually up there in years, dont work, and often medicated, so they have much more idle time than most of us to dwell and get squirrely about the small stuff.

When you have many retirees from away that live in a particular area...they form "causes"

 
Old 04-05-2011, 08:01 PM
 
Location: Florida/winter & Maine/Summer
1,179 posts, read 2,477,069 times
Reputation: 1170
Brokerman....that was hilarious. You are correct we have a few old from awayers, and that is exactly what they do....form causes.

I am in that demographic slot myself, but I like things the way they are here, hell, that is why I moved here.
 
Old 04-05-2011, 09:00 PM
 
Location: Maine
7,727 posts, read 12,327,755 times
Reputation: 8343
Quote:
Originally Posted by mainebrokerman View Post
Maine is filled with retirees - they are usually up there in years, dont work, and often medicated, so they have much more idle time than most of us to dwell and get squirrely about the small stuff.

When you have many retirees from away that live in a particular area...they form "causes"
My DH is a "retiree" and I'm disabled, we're "up there in years". We don't work and take medication. We don't fit in any generalization. I try to be a benefit to my small town in ways they request. The only "causes" we actively support are those that we have been asked to help in.
 
Old 04-05-2011, 09:13 PM
 
Location: Cooper Maine
625 posts, read 786,345 times
Reputation: 634
Quote:
Originally Posted by lrfox View Post
I'm not getting involved in the debate in the last couple of posts. However, am I the only one who finds it a little ironic (and a lot sad) that many of the people griping about outsiders' perceptions, notions and attitudes toward Maine are same people who use the state of Massachusetts' name as a derogatory term ("Massachusetts North")?

Get a grip. I've met some people here (MA) who are incredibly ignorant regarding all things Maine. I've met plenty in Maine (even Southern Maine) who are just as ignorant about everywhere else on the planet. Ignorance regarding other places is (unfortunately) to be expected no matter where you are. I don't know what's so "puzzling" about it. Enjoy where you live and move on.
If you think it is "derogratory" then you don't live here. Maine is divided by many things. Bangor and south ( basically ) are not as rural as we are and because of there population they have far more say in government then we do. IE decisions about us and the way we live ( north of bangor ) is decided by them. IMHO and most of us who live up here think this is very unfair. This is why we consider southern Maine as northern Mass as they think alike. The majority of people living up here would NEVER think about banning bear trapping but we have had to fight people who dont live here dont hunt and do not have our history doing so this is NOT the way life should be. Maine is divided that is the way it is. Reality is just that.
 
Old 04-05-2011, 09:20 PM
 
Location: Forests of Maine
37,239 posts, read 60,963,154 times
Reputation: 30133
Quote:
Originally Posted by mainebrokerman
Maine is filled with retirees - they are usually up there in years, dont work, and often medicated, so they have much more idle time than most of us to dwell and get squirrely about the small stuff.

When you have many retirees from away that live in a particular area...they form "causes"

I will have you know that I, uh, well you see, uh, I am not squirrely.

I mean I don't pack away lots of nuts.
 
Old 04-05-2011, 09:20 PM
 
8,767 posts, read 18,568,663 times
Reputation: 3525
Quote:
Originally Posted by maineguy04654 View Post
if you think it is "derogratory" then you don't live here. Maine is divided by many things. Bangor and south ( basically ) are not as rural as we are and because of there population they have far more say in government then we do. Ie decisions about us and the way we live ( north of bangor ) is decided by them. Imho and most of us who live up here think this is very unfair. This is why we consider southern maine as northern mass as they think alike. the majority of people living up here would never think about banning bear trapping but we have had to fight people who dont live here dont hunt and do not have our history doing so this is not the way life should be. Maine is divided that is the way it is. Reality is just that.
not all of us...
 
Old 04-05-2011, 11:06 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles, but looking for my niche in ME, or OR
326 posts, read 431,449 times
Reputation: 297
Reading these posts for the last couple of months has been very educating for me. I understand now, perhaps even why this Maine "thing" with people from away. It must be awful bad to have people move in your neck of the woods and change everything around you. I get it. I'm from California, and there has always been people from "away" here and things have always changed, rapidly, so I'm used to it, besides I never thought California was "my" land, the land of my ancestors. It isn't. They too came from away, far, far away. What's the solution then? For surely we must have one to live in peace with our neighbors. Separate? Divide? Talk? Shout at each other? Accept? Fight? By God I wish I knew! It is not an issue that only Maine faces, there are many other states with a more rural, less populated areas whose people want to live just like they have done for centuries. Maine however, has always been more isolated. Geographically so, not culturally. And perhaps this very same isolation is what attracts so many of us. The uniqueness of Maine, its breathtaking beauty, its calm and relaxed ways are like a magnet to the rest of us. We shouldn't destroy the very thing that attracted us in the first place, and yet, we also cannot stay rigid forever. Life changes, things changes, centuries pass us by. We need to find a middle road here. A road that would take us to progress and yet maintain and respect the culture, roots and way of life. Maybe that's the word, respect. And that my friends, is a two-way street.
I wish you all well.
 
Old 04-06-2011, 01:03 AM
 
1,963 posts, read 4,730,924 times
Reputation: 1817
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maineah View Post
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.
All valid complaints. We saw Yarmouth undergoing the beginning of " gentrification by the yuppies" when we lived in Maine. Maybe time to move to another town, Maineh?
 
Old 04-06-2011, 04:45 AM
 
19,959 posts, read 30,011,147 times
Reputation: 39992
Quote:
Originally Posted by msina View Post
My DH is a "retiree" and I'm disabled, we're "up there in years". We don't work and take medication. We don't fit in any generalization. I try to be a benefit to my small town in ways they request. The only "causes" we actively support are those that we have been asked to help in.
I half said that in jest, and the retirees, I had in mind, were mostly the southern and coastal maine retirees- I grew up in a coastal fishing village, that is a beautiful area, I remember 35 yrs ago, bringing our days catch (lobsters) to the co-op and having many tourists around, and most were kind and inquisitive asking questions, just wanted to see a working lobster boat unload it's catch- we'd go into the co-op store where many tourists were and never heard a desparaging word-again, those were tourists or day vacationers, that were inquisitive
however, the folks from away that were buying up the shore, was a different story
Much of what Maineah stated about yarmouth has happened to many coastal communities thru the years.

Because I travel alot in my job, and visit more towns and villages than most, I hear alot and a common theme is - many folks from away come to retire in maine to get away from the rat race, yet, for some odd reason, the sticklers try to turn maine into what they moved away from.

In the movie "My big fat greek wedding" a comical scene was his parents coming to meet hers-her family, was having a pig roast on the front lawn, and his parents, brought a bundt cake, they looked abhorred at the sight of roasting an animal- The look on their faces, was priceless, and i've seen that look before, and it has been stated on here, the look some of us get in hunting gear, or smell like bait from a days fishing, (from folks that have moved here)
when years ago, it was a surprised look or view (not use to it) now it sadly seems like a loathing look or viewpoint, "and it needs to be changed"
thats the viewpoint many of us have an issue with.


I remember showing houses in a few towns in the spring, one house they(a retired couple) loved, but there was a big farm down the road and the ripe aroma of fertilizer was in the wind- the wife spoke up and said "oh my, thats gross, we cant have that down the road, while the husband said it doesnt bother me, I grew up with that- its only a few days a year it'll smell and this is a beautiful house. She looked around and said "I bet others around here dont like it either, maybe if enough homeowners got together we could "do something about it"the husband emphatically said "hon, this is there way of life" we wont be changing a thing" let's go" this isnt a battle I could ever participate in.
 
Old 04-06-2011, 09:03 AM
 
Location: Maine
7,727 posts, read 12,327,755 times
Reputation: 8343
MBM,.. woulda "repped" ya but, gotta spread some around first
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Closed Thread


Settings
X
Data:
Loading data...
Based on 2000-2020 data
Loading data...

123
Hide US histogram


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > Maine
View detailed profiles of:

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top