Best "Homegrown" Town in Downeast Maine-No Resorts

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by Zarathu

You can hope for "flowering and fruited transplant".

How about grafted?

[Zarathu]

Originally Posted by AustinB

How about grafted?

Well it depends, Austin. Did you feel that you(or the person) were connected to a piece of Maine that was already there, and which already had roots....?

Or did you(or the person) feel that their whole self was removed from the previous place and re-planted into the new ground of the new place, and loving the soil there, and the moisture, and the nutrients, flowered and brought fourth fruit all by themselves.

In our case we are transplants. We have no one that is close that ever moved to MDI. We do know one person who moved from Baltimore, and the brother of another close friend who bought a house but doesn't plan to live there. So for us, we're not grafted, we're getting transplanted.

We were grafted to our current environment in southern lancaster county pa and the graft never really took, so we're digging up the whole plant, grafted part and all!!

Z

[AustinB]

Originally Posted by Zarathu

Well it depends, Austin. Did you feel that you(or the person) were connected to a piece of Maine that was already there, and which already had roots....?

Or did you(or the person) feel that their whole self was removed from the previous place and re-planted into the new ground of the new place, and loving the soil there, and the moisture, and the nutrients, flowered and brought fourth fruit all by themselves.

In our case we are transplants. We have no one that is close that ever moved to MDI. We do know one person who moved from Baltimore, and the brother of another close friend who bought a house but doesn't plan to live there. So for us, we're not grafted, we're getting transplanted.

We were grafted to our current environment in southern lancaster county pa and the graft never really took, so we're digging up the whole plant, grafted part and all!!

Z

Just call me John Kerry. I was trying to be light, but it failed like a bad joke.

[Fiddlehead]

Originally Posted by AustinB

Just call me John Kerry. I was trying to be light, but it failed like a bad joke.

Thanks for the laugh! Yes, John could debate like Cicero and orate like Al Gore. His jokes? Just plain painful.

Thanks for all the comments folks, I have been following the conversation, but not really had much to add yet. Glad to hear that coastal Maine is full of great towns, but not happy to hear about heavy traffic into MDI. I would need to commute in at least a few days a week year-round. I here there a good shuttle from Ellsworth? Is it affordable? Might as well kick back and let someone else drive.

[Zarathu]

Originally Posted by Fiddlehead

Thanks for the laugh! Yes, John could debate like Cicero and orate like Al Gore. His jokes? Just plain painful.

Thanks for all the comments folks, I have been following the conversation, but not really had much to add yet. Glad to hear that coastal Maine is full of great towns, but not happy to hear about heavy traffic into MDI. I would need to commute in at least a few days a week year-round. I here there a good shuttle from Ellsworth? Is it affordable? Might as well kick back and let someone else drive.

Well.... there is a two lane road on to the island. That it. For people that don't live on island, its called commuting. But the lull in prices of property on island is apparently over. For the price that I paid for a 5 bdr, 2 bath with 1.4 acres in the middle of a huge preserve, you can now get a one floor, 2 bdr, one bath with less than an acre. Prices are rising again. There's really not much property available on-island anymore. There was a window and we took it.

[Zarathu]

Originally Posted by AustinB

Just call me John Kerry. I was trying to be light, but it failed like a bad joke.

Amazing how humor for one person is not-humor for another. I find british humor to be dumb. My mother in law just laughs and laughs till she has tears, and I just don't get it.

One of the problem with written communications without using the smilies is that no one ever knows whether you want a serious response or not. And also very people know how to or want to use the smilies to add the nuance necessary to get people to understand.

Been on the internet since 1992. It is what it is.

[retiredtinbender]

Some folks do get it. Just takes a certain perspective that seems to be an intrinsic quality of Downeasters. I wrote this on another thread but it works well here too:

The dry Maine humor is very subtle. Most folks from away just don't get it. Like Tim Sample said: "You're not going to get these jokes right off. But you have to be awful careful drivin' home." The more folks from away don't get it, the more we tease. Personally, I only dislike the arrogant, condescending, know-it-alls, be they local or from away. And even they are fun to mess with. Snipe hunting, anyone?

[Maineac]

So a flatlander comes up to a farmer milking his cow and takes a couple pictures. Then the flatlander realizes he's late meeting someone for lunch, and asks the farmer "do you have the time?" The farmer, still in the throes of milking his cow and needing to get it done, bends off the milking stool and carefully moves the cow's udder and seems to inspect it closely and says "it's half past twelve." The flatlander, seeing the farmer do all this, and seeing no watch, says "show me how you did that." The farmer says "come down here", and the flatlander kneels next to the cow's udder. The farmer says "now look right here" and the flatlander looks and says "I don't see anything." The farmer looks again and says "RIGHT THERE." The flatlander looks again and sees nothing and says "you don't know what time it is." The farmer, frustrated, says "you must be blind. move her hind teat a little to the north and you can see the clock on the church down the road." Judd Strunk, an old friend and lifelong Sugarloafer.

And this post is relevant because Carabassett Valley has low taxes, a GREAT community and a lot of good people, many from away.

[Zarathu]

I guess that's a "you can't see the forest for the trees" joke. Hilarious!

[maine4.us]

Well, being from Tennessee, I am not a flatlander, and I consider the people of Maine just to be cousins on the other end of the Appalachian mountain range. I even drive to Maine via the Smokies, Blue Ridge, Poconos, Adirondacks, etc. So, basically I follow the hill country. When I was entering the job market, decades ago, the Tennessee economy was a lot like Maine's. Some mills, some farms, a little light industry, but no real decent jobs, except for service jobs. Then, like Maine, the companies relocated overseas, the garment factories closed, timber became more difficult to harvest, and the rest is history. Where I grew up, not much has changed. The people are still poor, just eeking out a living, but managing to get by. I think unemployment there is pretty high there now too. Right now Tennessee has higher unemployment statistics than Maine, except for Washington county.