I love Maine because . . .

Some of the things I love best about Maine are everyday things, just little bits and pieces I've noticed. LIke some of these . . .

. . . Mainers are patriotic. Not just for the Fourth of July and for Memorial Day, but all year around. I see U.S. flags flying proudly in front of homes, on porches, on trailers, in front of stores, on fence posts, in wide open fields, and in places you might not normally expect to see flags. Mainers love their country and want everyone to know.

. . . Mainers are non-stop hard-working people. Vivian Libby is 80-years-old and is still cutting hay on her 1948 International Harvester, which she bought new back in 1948. She works her son's farm in Newcastle, just a few miles from my home. Women in Maine have a long tradition of working their farms, and most can't imagine "retiring". It's just their life style. Vivian didn't even stop cutting hay when the local newspaper photographer showed up to take her photo for the LIncoln County News, so all the photographer could get was a distant shot of her driving her tractor across a huge field of hay bales!

. . . Mainers are courageous. A local man was fixing his neighbor's roof, when friends came over to tell him that they'd noticed a family of four vacationers hadn't returned from a morning's sailing trip. The man, a former Navy Seal, realizing the approaching storm had brought rough seas, hopped into a boat and went searching for them. He found the husband and wife with their four-year-old twins clinging to their overturned sailboat. They'd not looked at the weather reports and had not anticipated serious weather before going out. They hadn't told anyone exactly where they'd be sailing. They had no communications, and after their sailboat overturned in strong winds and heavy seas, had been in the cold sea water for more than an hour. He brought them into his boat, brought them AND the sailboat back to shore. He saved their lives. They were strangers to him, but he cared. And then went back to work on the roof . . .

. . . Mainers have a sense of humor. Over the last few months I've photographed several different kinds of home made signs, some funny, some serious (see my blog of 8/18/2006 and the blog on the Beau Chemin farm). Mainers don't mind sharing their opinions through signs, and they don't care what others think of their signs.

. . . Mainers are polite and helpful. Often it can be difficult to get into Route 1 traffic in July and August, as there are long lines of vacationers. Route 1 is the main north-south route through the coastal communties, and there just isn't an alternative driving route. Locals hate the long waits in traffic, but also realize that without all those people coming into the area, they wouldn't be seeing the dollar amounts spent in restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, antiques shops, boutiques and other places which sustain Maine's tourism industry. So they grin and bear it, and they regularly stop on the highway, make a break in the traffic line, and wave others in from the side roads and business driveways. Always with a friendly wave and a smile . . .