puzzled with attitude towards Maine (Portland: store, safety, moving to)

[peachie_in_maine]

These are just a few of the craziest things I have ever heard from people on my travels.

• • Wow, Maine~ that's in Canada right?
  • Maine... is that up by Greenland?
  • Do you really have polar bears everywhere?
  • How do you live with only 6 hours of daylight?

These are just misguided folks.

[fxtrader]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

Men From Maine

Great link! Bob Marley is a riot. We have seen him in Portland several times and I have some of his CD's. If no one has ever heard his Maine humor he is the best I have ever seen.

[dramamama6685]

Originally Posted by peachie_in_maine

These are just a few of the craziest things I have ever heard from people on my travels.

• • Wow, Maine~ that's in Canada right?
  • Maine... is that up by Greenland?
  • Do you really have polar bears everywhere?
  • How do you live with only 6 hours of daylight?

These are just misguided folks.

Do you have running water, too?

[peachie_in_maine]

Originally Posted by dramamama6685

Do you have running water, too?

lol yeah,
(Respond to them... "Yes we have to milk our goats for milk for the "young'ens."

[dramamama6685]

Originally Posted by peachie_in_maine

lol yeah,
(Respond to them... "Yes we have to milk our goats for milk for the "young'ens."

LOL.. gotta love it!

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by overleaf

Hey All,
My husband and I LOVE Maine and plan on moving to the Portland area in a couple years. Right now we are living in Boston, and we both grew up on the west coast. 80% of the people I tell that we fell in love with Maine and are moving there give me a puzzled look like "Hu? or Why?" People say things like "it is so cold" and "there is nothing up there". Hello!

You can't compare a metropolitan attitude to a rural one. Tell anyone in any large city that you want to move out into the rural countryside and they will all more then likely respond with, "Why, there is nothing out there!"

Your opinion and feelings of Maine (or anywhere else) is just that, yours. You are the ones who are moving here, not them. Seriously, don't waste your time with what they 'think' about it (unless they are good thoughts).

Originally Posted by Chandler85

I must disagree! I tell people here (Minneapolis) that I'm moving to Maine and they get all teary eyed and say "thats such a great place"! LOL - I guess it because its considerably warmer there in the winter and its near the ocean!

The naysayers I run into ask "Why Maine?" and I reply, "Why Minnesota?". It seems to do the trick and then they start to think.

When I was living in Minneapolis and began to let people know that I was moving to Maine I got three basic types of responses:

1--Maine! I've always wanted to go there.
2--Can you ship me back a crate of lobsters?
3--Maine? Isn't that by Cincinnati?

Originally Posted by woolwiTch

I have a lot of relatives in Boston, so I get to hear a lot of comments about Maine from them and their friends. Most of my relatives have been visiting here all their lives and they like it, but there are only a very few of them who would like to live here. They like their urban lifestyle.

They like having a Dunkin' Donuts on every block, since they are so totally addicted to that coffee that they will go out in any weather to get it, even if there is good coffee in the house. They like being involved in so many other people's lives that they go to weddings, christenings, wakes and funerals every week. They can't live without having a different kind of takeout food available every night. They assume there are criminals everywhere, so it freaks them out that it's so dark here at night and it would be so easy to break into our house.

I have one niece who wouldn't visit Maine until she was totally reassured that there was a Dunkin' Donuts and a McDonald's within three miles. Her sister gets the heebie-jeebies in Maine stores because the clerks talk to the customers and she can't get in and out in one minute flat. Maine drivers are too laid back for them; they don't know how to drive except for fast and glued to the bumper in front of them. I have a cousin who loves Maine, but could never live here because he could never give up the local pub he goes to every night. (Actually, I wish I had that kind of pub nearby....)

Ok, I know that the typical response (or thought) is going to be that Portland is not Maine, but just a northern suburb of Boston.......but......Dunkin Donuts are on every block here, in fact, it seems like you can't go two feet in Southern Maine without running into one. And.....drivers in Southern Maine will ride your tail even if you are the only two cars on the highway. People here seem to park where-ever they feel like it (although not as bad as it is in Boston), a posted speed limit of 25 mph really means 45 mph. Maybe in other parts of the state Mainers drive nice and cordial, but not in the Southern half!

The store/clerk thing is true. I have lost count of the number of times that I have been waiting in line while the clerk is sitting there have a full-blown conversation with the person in front of the line, and seemingly doing so without any regard to the growing number of customers looking to checkout. You know, all the guy has to do is step aside, they can continue the conversation, and everyone in line can check out. I am usually not in a hurry, but seriously, it gets real annoying. At the very least they could acknowledge that someone else is in line!

[corgis]

Different strokes for different folks

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

You can't compare a metropolitan attitude to a rural one. Tell anyone in any large city that you want to move out into the rural countryside and they will all more then likely respond with, "Why, there is nothing out there!"

This is typical of any highly polarized state.

I grew up in California.

In a farm belt.

California produces the majority of American food.

Most of California is rural.

But the state also has a couple of massive cities [The LA 'area', the S.F/-Oakland metroplex, the Sacramento-Stockton-Hayward metroplex].

The massive populations of those urban centers far out weighs the population of the rural areas; so the entire state ends up with really stupid urban laws.

A guy could live in a desert where the population density is <1 per square mile, or in a county where 500 acre farms are the norm. Where I grew up it is common to drive 40 miles with only orchards on both sides of the road. Massive modern clean orchards, another county has grapes, and on it goes.

Those rural folk have nothing in common with slicks from LA. A 2 hour drive to the ocean is not beach front property, but that is California.

My point is that these are states which encompass entirely different cultures. Urban and rural.

In my travels around the world anytime that someone learned that I was from California, the stereotypes were set in stone. And yet they were wrong. The first time that I swam on a ocean beach was as an adult on Long Island.

Maine is also like this. Two different cultures sharing a state.

[lrfox]

Originally Posted by K-Luv

Ok, I know that the typical response (or thought) is going to be that Portland is not Maine, but just a northern suburb of Boston.......but......Dunkin Donuts are on every block here, in fact, it seems like you can't go two feet in Southern Maine without running into one. And.....drivers in Southern Maine will ride your tail even if you are the only two cars on the highway. People here seem to park where-ever they feel like it (although not as bad as it is in Boston), a posted speed limit of 25 mph really means 45 mph. Maybe in other parts of the state Mainers drive nice and cordial, but not in the Southern half!

I hear you about the clerks at stores, it's nice, but can be frustrating depending on whether or not I'm in a hurry.

My experience with driving in Southern Maine has been a lot different than yours. Same with Dunkin Donuts.

I've found that people drive at or below the speed limit in the Portland area. Driving along I-295 in and around Portland, I find that most drivers drive at or below the limit... rarely ever can you approach 55 miles per hour. Driving along 302 (and other backroads) it's same story... you eventually end up behind someone slow. I've found drivers to be non-aggressive to an almost frustrating degree in Portland (not accelerating right away through a light, taking sweet time while turning, stopping at the end of highway onramps- all the time, etc).

Maybe it's just that I grew up in the Boston area, but when people visit me up here, they always remark on how much slower and non-aggressive people are in cars (if I get cut off up here, it's usually unintentional). When I'm home for a weekend in MA, it's amazing at the difference (even away from Boston) in speeds.

In fact, I find that drivers in Maine are MUCH faster along the more secluded roadways of Northern ME than they are in Southern Maine. 95 north of Bangor can move quickly, same with 201 North of Bingham, 1 North of Houlton, etc. They drive much faster than people in Southern Maine (again, in my perception).

As far as Dunkin Donuts goes, they're everywhere in New England, but even Portland only has 6 for a city of 63,000. My old hometown in MA had 4 for a town of 9,000 people (including 2 within 100 yards of eachother). They're just not that prevalent here, at least no to the degree they are in Southern New England. There are plenty of places in Southern Maine where you have to drive 10-15 minutes to find one and by New England standards, that's not very far (hell, we had a Dunkin Donuts about 5 minutes walking from our hotel in Madrid, Spain!).

[Northern Maine Land Man]

"And.....drivers in Southern Maine will ride your tail even if you are the only two cars on the highway."

Makes me smile. They are using you as a linebacker so THEY don't hit the moose.