A Real Mainer

Published
May 23, 2019

Jon Dubois, Sidney: Shocking lessons on the farm

I wanted to go to my Aunt Flavie’s dairy farm to work with my cousins. My cousins were there to meet us when we arrived. As my mother drove off, I instantly became homesick. My cousin told me that we had to go to bed early because we had to milk twice daily; we were […]
Published
May 23, 2019

Norman Abelson, Wells: A real Mainer, at last

At age 88, I feel I am finally and truly a Mainer. Behind me are an unfortunate accident of birth, which kept me a prisoner for my first 21 years in Massachusetts, and necessary career choices, which, for the next half-century, kept me trapped in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C. During those yearning decades, I […]
Published
May 23, 2019

C.J. Orser, Saco: Life in Maine is wicked good

Growing up in northern Maine – potato country – and living in Maine my whole life has given me appreciation for the simple pleasures and beauty surrounding our precious state. I remember our parents driving us around town admiring Christmas lights, decorations and cutting our tree. Making our own fun like winter skating, sliding, cross-country […]
Published
May 23, 2019

Steven Price, Kennebunkport: ‘Salty like the ocean … calm as a river’

By definition, a real Mainer is wicked funny. Arthur Gott qualifies. One day Arthur’s good friend Bill Matthews (then president of the Cape Arundel Golf Club) took Arthur and another friend, Eddie Spalding, for a picnic lunch outing on Bill’s boat up the Kennebunk River. On the way back, the boat ran out of gas. […]
Published
May 16, 2019

Michael Beaudoin, Portland: Frugal farmer knows his value

Going to “the camp” on the New Meadows River was always great fun for me as a kid, whether with my grandparents on most summer weekends as we made it through Cooks Corner without Pepere even slowing down his two-tone Studebaker, back when there was but a single stop sign at that intersection. Or with […]

Published
May 16, 2019

Elaine Parker, South Portland: A real Mainer eats baked beans every Sat’dee night

Yup, I’m a real Mainer. I have the birth certificate, stating I was born in Old Town, Maine. I have the accent, the one with no “R” in the alphabet, and I’m proud of it and refuse to lose it. Sure, people make fun of me when I say “cah” or “pahk” – but I […]
Published
May 16, 2019

Terry Smith Brobst, Freeport: Two for the trail

My real Mainer actually started out as two people, but after 60 years together they are certainly one real Mainer now. My mother said it was love at first sight – and those of you who know him agree that love must be blind. They married, raised four kids and worked hard all their lives. […]
Published
May 16, 2019

Cynthia Knight McGarry, Cape Elizabeth: Small audience for a big parade

So, it’s July Fourth, my husband and I are in Scarborough on Dunn Estates Drive. We have brought our L.L. Bean chairs and we are sitting on the side of the road waiting for the neighborhood parade to begin. We are the only ones watching the parade because everyone else from Dunn Estates is in the […]
Published
May 9, 2019

Mary Folsom, Kennebunk: Learning the language

If I were a Maine native, or if Maine and Massachusetts had not parted company almost 200 years ago, this commentary could not have seen the light of day. However, in the intervening years, Brad the Portland native and I, the Massachusetts native with a Bostonian father met and married across the ‘great divide.’ I […]
Published
May 9, 2019

Leslie Bowering, Concord Township: A real Mainer in every way but birth

On the face of it one might think and instantly proclaim that a “real Mainer” is a person born and raised in Maine – whether on one of the largest estates on the East Coast or in a humble weather-worn cabin in the woods. In fact, it is well-known here in central Maine that being […]

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