Life in Maine

[EarthSky]

THANK YOU, everyone, for all your responses! I will take them all to heart, and proceed carefully!

[Spartana]

I grew up 10 miles west of Portland and spent four years in school at Orono.

Maine is a very tough place to earn a living and the taxes and living expenses other than the initial cost of buying is very expensive.

Outside of Portland and Bangor forget about public transportation. The bus both coastal and from Portland to Boston is good.

November and March/April can be dreadful, think 40 degree rain! As long as snow is on the ground winter is enjoyable altough I recall January of 1982 when it didn't get above 10 below for two weeks.

Rural Maine is very depressed. Don't get sucked in from cheap housing.

I was also in Maine in the winter of '82 - although spending most of it floating in a tin can off Georges Banks :-)! Talk about rough!! I agree with everything you said. Maine is great - one of my favorite place on earth - but there are VERY economicly depressed areas and jobs are hard to find. Also dealing with winters and mud season can be tough and a financial hardship with the ever increasing cost of home heating oil. Could be hundreds of dollars a month for that alone - hard to manage on a fixed or small income. And the long winters are hard on vehicles and houses too which will usually need more repairs and replacements then in a more temerate climate. Of course if you are retired and not dependant on a job, then Maine can be ideal - especially if you can afford to get out of town if the winter is too severe or depressing. I'm retired and have seriously thought of moving permanently back to Maine and buying there. But have decided against that even though I LOVE the winters in Maine. But it would be hard financially in the long term and I know that as I got older it would become a problem for me to deal with winters there. But I'll definetly rent there for awhile.

[Spartana]

I understand the winters there are a Three Dog kinda Night.


Well I never been to Maine
But I kinda like the music
Say the ladies are insane there
And they sure know how to use it
The don't abuse it
Never gonna lose it
I can't refuse it

You forgot to add that the women in Maine have no teeth (a standard joke in Maine about rural women there). Finding a gal with a tooth or two is like finding Cinderella - a real catch :-)!!

[Alan]

You forgot to add that the women in Maine have no teeth (a standard joke in Maine about rural women there). Finding a gal with a tooth or two is like finding Cinderella - a real catch :-)!!

I guess I better explain myself before anyone thinks I have an inappropriate opinion of women in Maine. My post was a stream of consciousness thing starting with cold winters which led to it being so cold as to be a three dog night, which led to the band Three Dog Night, which led to a song Never Been to Spain, which caused me to ruminate about Spain rhyming with Maine, and the result is what you see.

[San Onofre Guy]

There used to be a band called The Wicked Good Band, a comical Maine group. One of their songs was titled She's so massive. The lyric included lines such as She's so massive she sounds like a lumber truck when she walks in the room, She's so massive she provides warmth in the winter and shade in the summer.

Granted that some might find these lyrics offensive, but the cold climate, lack of physical activity in the long cold winters, poor economy and tendency to get injured in phyisical work leads to many very large obese people in the State.

[Spartana]

I guess I better explain myself before anyone thinks I have an inappropriate opinion of women in Maine. My post was a stream of consciousness thing starting with cold winters which led to it being so cold as to be a three dog night, which led to the band Three Dog Night, which led to a song Never Been to Spain, which caused me to ruminate about Spain rhyming with Maine, and the result is what you see.

Well I won't tell you what we say about the men of Maine - even worse then Alaskan men -"where the odds are good (of meeting a man) but the goods are odd" :-)!

San O-Guy reminded me about the lumber trucks. One of the facts of life in rural Maine is the endless stream of ginormous lumber trucks barrelling down the rural highways. That as well as the pulp mills and their stench. Mostly up in north and Northwest (ayuh... can't get thar from here-ah). And also while the coasts are warmer and get less snow then inland areas, they get a very heavy fog much of the year. I love that (and the endless fog horns sounding from the light houses) but it can make it seem darker and drearier - and many people have been known to have gone completely insane listening to the endless foghorns :-). Something that seems quaint and charming and endearing in the beginning can eventually drive you into a homicudial rage in the long term. Kinda like in a long term marriage :-)!

And thanks for reminding of The Wicked Good band San-O - LOVED them!!!! So funny. So wicked true ;-)! maybe Alan need to hear "Ballad of the Sensitive Guy" :-)!

[San Onofre Guy]

Earlier in the 70's Al Hawkes of Hawkes Television the big walking service man sign on 302 near the Westbrook/Windham line. Al wrote the song Snowmobile Sal. To ge the sound of the snowmobile he hung the microphone out the window and the snowmobile drove by.

The song went Oh my snowmobile sal she's quite a gal when the snow has covered the ground...It's 30 below sal is raring to go hear the machine's winding sound.

Then there is the Dick Curless classic The Hainsville Woods which is a song about a road called the Airline which goes from Bangor to Calais (pronounce Calice as Calais is a city in France!) The Airline was a twisting road which was dangerous and has been upgraded in the past 30 years. The lyrics go Tell you bout a road in Maine that never ever ever makes you smile, if they buried all them truckers lost in them woods their would be a tombstone every mile

[Spartana]

Earlier in the 70's Al Hawkes of Hawkes Television the big walking service man sign on 302 near the Westbrook/Windham line. Al wrote the song Snowmobile Sal. To ge the sound of the snowmobile he hung the microphone out the window and the snowmobile drove by.

The song went Oh my snowmobile sal she's quite a gal when the snow has covered the ground...It's 30 below sal is raring to go hear the machine's winding sound.

Then there is the Dick Curless classic The Hainsville Woods which is a song about a road called the Airline which goes from Bangor to Calais (pronounce Calice as Calais is a city in France!) The Airline was a twisting road which was dangerous and has been upgraded in the past 30 years. The lyrics go Tell you bout a road in Maine that never ever ever makes you smile, if they buried all them truckers lost in them woods their would be a tombstone every mile

OMG San-o are you ever bringing back (often less than fond :-)!) memories. I remember alot of the WGB songs but will have to look online to see if can place the title and lyrics together. I remember the one about picking potatoes and one about Lewiston Beer - and a bunch more. Fun! Between teh WGB and Stephen King "Maine" stories ("Mrs. Todd's Short Cut" being one of my favorites about Maine country roads) I can get my Maine fix until I can actually get there... in the spring... after Mud Season (which I think was a WGB song title too)!