I spent the summer in Maine a few years ago. I had always wanted to go but it is so darn far. And when I finally went, I drove all the way up to the highest point in the state.,.,,.and also the
eastern most point in the U.S. I rented a "camp" in a 5,000 acre wildlife preserve. Camp is what they call cabins. It was remote and primitive, although it was right on a body of water and I could watch the lobster boats working the area every day.
The wildlife preserve had originally been owned by a bunch of Philadelphia millionaires...they had cottages throughout the area, plus a hotel and a little chapel. This was back in the early l900's.
They would come up by train and spend the summer there. Wisely the heirs to the cottages had
decided to donate most of the land to the government for a preserve and keep their cottages and a small tract of land. That way they didn't have to pay taxes on all the property.
My camp was a long log cabin with two bedrooms on each end of the house...two living rooms with fireplaces and a single small kitchen. It was June, and still cold up there. My granddaughter went with me. She had one end of the house and I had the other. We would load every quilt we could find on us at night and then stay in the same spot without moving.
I don't know where I was when they taught campfire building, but I could not get fires started in the big stone fireplaces. I had logs but I was using newspaper for "kindling". I had some friends coming to visit from Maryland...and the man was a longtime farmer. I knew he would know how to build a fire so I asked him to bring some kindling wood and to teach me to make a fire. He arrived with a trunk load of kindling.
Maine was as beautiful as I expected but you could hardly enjoy the outdoors because of the pesky Black Flies. They are big suckers too and they bite. You can't kill them with a fly swatter. You need a rifle to blow them out of the air. And the Maine Tourist Bureau never mentions the darn things. Why would they?
The people who live way up in Maine where we were are fairly...stupid. If you doubt me,
read the book, THE BEANS OF EGYPT, MAINE. Everybody in the book was nutty. There
was so much cross-breeding (and gross-breeding), not a single person had two eyes of the
same color. The cattle didn't either. They made our Southern Hillbillies seem like rocket
scientists. Fortunately there were not a lot of locals left. Anybody that was reasonably smart
had left years ago.
The county were I was staying was the biggest producing area for wild blueberries. They
were truly a sight to see. I had been accustomed to blueberries that grew on bushes. These
wild blueberries grew on very short ground cover. The hills literally turned blue when the blueberries came on. And then the migrant workers all the way from Florida showed up to
pick them. We had them growing in the wildlife preserve so I picked quite a few for us to eat.
But it was back-breaking work, more suited to midget laborers.
We had a little chapel in the preserve so anytime people would come visit we would take
a tour of the grounds and I would insist on taking a picture of them as bride and groom. There
were a lot of plastic flowers there for real weddings so I would outfit the couples accordingly.
I have some same-sex photos although I did not actually marry them. Just took pictures.
I sort of expected that lobsters would be cheaper in Maine. But they weren't. They were plentiful, but not cheap. Most of the cafes made lobster rolls...a delicious treat using pulled
boiled lobster from the shell and tossing it ever so slightly with mayo. Then they would put
it in a roll shape and serve it on a grilled hot dog bun. Even McDonald's had lobster rolls.
And they were $7 each even at McDonald's.
There were lobster pounds everywhere...places you could buy live lobsters to take home
and cook. So my granddaughter and I decided to buy a big lobster and take home. She sort of grew attached to it and was not too keen on cooking it. But I had paid too much to turn it into
a pet. You cook them while they are still alive, like you do with crabs. Problem was, we could
not find a pot that was as big as the lobster. But I found a tall one and heated some water. He
had to go part way and be cooked, then turned and be cooked on the other end.
I asked my granddaughter, "If you were going to be boiled, would you rather go in head first
or tail first?" She didn't want to be boiled at all, but thought we should put the lobster in head
first or we would hear him crying out for help if we put him in tail first. So we put him in head
first and actually managed to get him all the way in once he was relaxed. We used him to make
Lobster Thermidor. But it was easier to buy lobster rolls.
Since we were so remote, we didn't have a lot of traffic unless we tried to go to some place
interesting. Then every tourist in Maine was backed up on the roads into towns. Maine is a very artsy place so we found dozens of interesting galleries and artists. We also went sailing on a
Tall Ship...these are big wooden boats with high masts. Even on a sunny day, it was cold out on the water which of course they didn't mention until you were out on the water.
There was a ferry service from the nearest town over to Nova Scotia. We had to get up at
4 AM to get into town and get the car on the boat. I decided to book a stateroom so I could go
back to bed seeing as how it was still dark and there would be nothing to see.. I loved Nova
Scotia. They had no black flies. I went to the Bay of Fundy which is the scallop capital of the world. I love scallops more than I like lobsters, so was able to have them for breakfast, lunch
and dinner.
Once I was back in Maine, my wife came to visit from South Carolina and some friends came from Arkansas. My wife immediately declared that my camp was "a dump". I thought "primitive" was a better word. I mean, we had two indoor toilets and showers and, by then, I had learned to build fires in the fireplace. I think the mail problem was that my friends from Arkansas
took us to see a friend of theirs who "takes a house every summer" in a town not far away. It
was a 14 bedroom house, not exactly a "camp". My wife isn't what I would call "flexible". That's what she thought I should have rented but I explained that it wasn't available. I like contrasts...high life, low life...both interest me. And to prove it, I took them on a tour of a famous sardine factory. I called it famous because it is my brand of sardine and I as so happy to discover that they were packed near the camp. They had their logo ... a 20 foot
high statue of a seaman...out front. When we arrived they claimed they didn't allow tours, but
I sweet-talked them by telling them I had driven all the way from South Carolina (which I had) to see the sardines being packed (this wasn't exactly the truth...I had gone out of my way to see
the ice cream factory at Ben and Jerry's in Vermont). I had always wondered how they got those little fish in there so perfectly. You know, head-to-toe, toe-to-head so to speak although they don't have heads. I could not figure out how they could get them packed like that with a machine and they don't. They have women (see previous note regarding The Beans of Egypt Maine) who work by conveyor belts clipping off heads of sardines...and other ones grabbing the slimy little things and putting them in the cans, head-to-toe. They finally allowed us to go inside but told us not to take pictures. The women might have been sardine factory slaves is what I was thinking Can you imagine walking home from work after a long day in the sardine factory and having every cat in town on your trail? Life's not easy in Maine.
I'm never going back to Maine in this lifetime. But you can go. Everybody should go at least once.
