There is a shapeless buzz cut and a mousy grey brown hair color that says "Maine" to me. Terribly overweight children so fat their skin looks like it might split open at their cheeks and upper arms. A lot of rosy pale skin, red bumps from vitamin deficiencies, and teeth so awful my face goes tight just thinking about the sight. Shuffling feet in Wal-mart style stores (the memories are pre-Wal-mart, but the feel is the same). Slippers at the supermarket. Polyester sweatpants fitted too tight here and too loose there.
When I hear the Maine accent I splash around Songo Pond, swimming at the spot of an often unrented rental cabin. When I hear the Maine accent I think cars will pile up in front yards and I'll get real penny candy and find odd dusty treasures in "antique" stores. Driving through the mountain roads for views and garage sales ("tag sales" we started calling them after living in Connecticut for some time). The Barbie fashion head that I could put makeup on and cut her hair that my parents would never let me get until I saw one on that lawn and used my allowance to buy it.
That Maine accent sometimes so thick I still don't understand a word. So fast and muttered and slurred together, truly foreign. It's that "Ayah, y'can't get theyhah from heahah" sound but thicker and murkier and faster and slower.
Joe White used to cut off heads of salamanders with his jack knife. Rodney was closer to my brother's age and always, surely my memory is inaccurate, wore a grubby fraying white undershirt as his shirt. At times it seemed ten people lived in that house no bigger than three or four rooms including the 3 season porch. The father was a trucker and there were a lot of brothers and sisters. Joe had beautiful huge dark brown eyes with thick eyelashes. I may have had a crush on him. It scared me, though, when he beheaded the little amphibians and started talking about burning frogs and toads. After that I didn't spend much time in the plywood shack they had built out behind their house.
In town we stood out as vacationers, of course. The town itself hadn't gone tourist, yet, so it was full of real people who have lived there for generations. After reading The Beans of Egypt Maine I became sure, without a doubt, that I knew or at least saw people who could have come straight out of that story.
There is a looseness in the facial expressions, not quite sagging, but a slack or tired drain in the facial muscles of the real Mainers. They all know each other. They all know who married who, who lives in the old Libby place, and whose cousin got the job at the supermarket even though she is only 14. They are friendly to people like me, but there's a patience that feels absent. Not condescending, just far away. I blather on feeling too perky and too bright. I realized only a few years ago I shouldn't try to speak their language. Being myself is the only way I can or should be. Before understanding that, I would frequently walk away feeling judged and even disliked or hated. No. It's just a world or worlds I don't understand.
These days the town is gentrified and fancy and people travel from all around all four seasons to ski and leaf peep and hike in the White Mountains. I fit in better in several of the shops, but there is a sadness in that for me. When I buy my organic shade grown dark roast coffee at the vegetarian home grown home made whole foods cafe I certainly speak the language. When I pick up a prescription at the Rite Aid—so familiar because it is like every other Rite Aid anywhere else in the country—I am reminded of the little drugstore that was shoved out of the way to make room for the major chain. In that tiny pharmacy, with a door you might miss if you didn't know it was there, the aisles were cramped like a big city bodega. My brother and I would go in for candy when we were on one of our infrequent visits "to town," usually for milk. Town seemed so far away (it's about 12 miles, 15-20 minutes max). I want to talk to the older clerks and reminisce about how it used to be, but that memory lane would be too much like trying to be someone I'm not. I do sometimes talk about it when it's on my mind. Mostly, though, I find people generally happy with the changes. It makes sense. The economy of the town improved, people got jobs, things got busy. I've received more than a few puzzled looks when I talk about missing how it was.
There is no more Jimmy's Log Cabin. The old man with that standard fare Maine flavorless buzz cut and white tank top shirt sitting behind the counters filled with plastic tubs of candies would grunt at us. He was scary. He was making jokes, I'm pretty sure, but we couldn't understand what he was saying. The Mary Janes, the Double Bubble, and the cool chocolate mint Andes Candies all mostly really actually $.01 each (some $.03 or $.05 and the rare $.10). The floor was old and rickity. It was dark. Like so many of the shops back then it seemed as if it had been there forever. The shelves of these places were often coated in a greasy eternal dust but somehow never, ever seemed dirty. They smelled of wood stain and cigarette smoke and old bags of potato chips. The people muttered their fast words and my parents did the talking for us.
Today at the lake it seemed mostly full of locals. Modern versions of those same Beans sorts of folks from my childhood. A lot of very overweight people, a lot of yelling at each other (especially reprimanding children for what reason I couldn't sort out), a lot of smoking. This afternoon by the lake was an event of immobility for many of them. I felt like I had been transported back in time. As if nothing had changed. The women's hair was stringy and long and the men walked with a sort of macho strut trying to announce their manliness. It was almost comical to me, I realized, how neatly most everyone fit into these stereotypes I formed in my mind from my childhood experiences. As I usually do when I'm around people, I saw them all in stories. I saw late night fights in parking lots and televisions always on. A lot of mobile homes and pre-fab structures with quaint bright colored flags hanging at the doors with "Summer!" and flowers or kittens or bright suns.
There is a richness in that world, but I don't mean to romanticize poverty. It's the long history that I'm marveling at. How far back people go, how intertwined their lives are, and how it just feels like everyone is living each day as it comes (even if that's not at all how they're living it).
Today I didn't feel apologetic for being different or not being a part of their world. My daughters and I simply slid right in among the locals. I sat in the water holding Althea while Maya worked on remembering how to really go under the water (she did it! a lot!). It felt comfortable. I knew I didn't fit in but that made me feel like I fit in well. By now locals are very used to tourists, anyway. I didn't feel the need to say, hey, I've been coming here for 40 years... It doesn't matter that I've been coming to Maine for summers since I was a toddler. I'll never give a son a shapeless buzz cut, I'll never know that getting to the Scribner's is easier if I take a left where the old school bus used to be rusting out. I'll always be "from away," no matter how long I'm here or how familiar things get. In a way, I suppose that's a quality I like about the state. I'm not a big fan of letting roots get too deep. Around here, that's almost impossible so I can just hang out temporarily for as long as I want. I'll always miss that penny candy, though.
.
When I hear the Maine accent I splash around Songo Pond, swimming at the spot of an often unrented rental cabin. When I hear the Maine accent I think cars will pile up in front yards and I'll get real penny candy and find odd dusty treasures in "antique" stores. Driving through the mountain roads for views and garage sales ("tag sales" we started calling them after living in Connecticut for some time). The Barbie fashion head that I could put makeup on and cut her hair that my parents would never let me get until I saw one on that lawn and used my allowance to buy it.
That Maine accent sometimes so thick I still don't understand a word. So fast and muttered and slurred together, truly foreign. It's that "Ayah, y'can't get theyhah from heahah" sound but thicker and murkier and faster and slower.
Joe White used to cut off heads of salamanders with his jack knife. Rodney was closer to my brother's age and always, surely my memory is inaccurate, wore a grubby fraying white undershirt as his shirt. At times it seemed ten people lived in that house no bigger than three or four rooms including the 3 season porch. The father was a trucker and there were a lot of brothers and sisters. Joe had beautiful huge dark brown eyes with thick eyelashes. I may have had a crush on him. It scared me, though, when he beheaded the little amphibians and started talking about burning frogs and toads. After that I didn't spend much time in the plywood shack they had built out behind their house.
In town we stood out as vacationers, of course. The town itself hadn't gone tourist, yet, so it was full of real people who have lived there for generations. After reading The Beans of Egypt Maine I became sure, without a doubt, that I knew or at least saw people who could have come straight out of that story.
There is a looseness in the facial expressions, not quite sagging, but a slack or tired drain in the facial muscles of the real Mainers. They all know each other. They all know who married who, who lives in the old Libby place, and whose cousin got the job at the supermarket even though she is only 14. They are friendly to people like me, but there's a patience that feels absent. Not condescending, just far away. I blather on feeling too perky and too bright. I realized only a few years ago I shouldn't try to speak their language. Being myself is the only way I can or should be. Before understanding that, I would frequently walk away feeling judged and even disliked or hated. No. It's just a world or worlds I don't understand.
These days the town is gentrified and fancy and people travel from all around all four seasons to ski and leaf peep and hike in the White Mountains. I fit in better in several of the shops, but there is a sadness in that for me. When I buy my organic shade grown dark roast coffee at the vegetarian home grown home made whole foods cafe I certainly speak the language. When I pick up a prescription at the Rite Aid—so familiar because it is like every other Rite Aid anywhere else in the country—I am reminded of the little drugstore that was shoved out of the way to make room for the major chain. In that tiny pharmacy, with a door you might miss if you didn't know it was there, the aisles were cramped like a big city bodega. My brother and I would go in for candy when we were on one of our infrequent visits "to town," usually for milk. Town seemed so far away (it's about 12 miles, 15-20 minutes max). I want to talk to the older clerks and reminisce about how it used to be, but that memory lane would be too much like trying to be someone I'm not. I do sometimes talk about it when it's on my mind. Mostly, though, I find people generally happy with the changes. It makes sense. The economy of the town improved, people got jobs, things got busy. I've received more than a few puzzled looks when I talk about missing how it was.
There is no more Jimmy's Log Cabin. The old man with that standard fare Maine flavorless buzz cut and white tank top shirt sitting behind the counters filled with plastic tubs of candies would grunt at us. He was scary. He was making jokes, I'm pretty sure, but we couldn't understand what he was saying. The Mary Janes, the Double Bubble, and the cool chocolate mint Andes Candies all mostly really actually $.01 each (some $.03 or $.05 and the rare $.10). The floor was old and rickity. It was dark. Like so many of the shops back then it seemed as if it had been there forever. The shelves of these places were often coated in a greasy eternal dust but somehow never, ever seemed dirty. They smelled of wood stain and cigarette smoke and old bags of potato chips. The people muttered their fast words and my parents did the talking for us.
Today at the lake it seemed mostly full of locals. Modern versions of those same Beans sorts of folks from my childhood. A lot of very overweight people, a lot of yelling at each other (especially reprimanding children for what reason I couldn't sort out), a lot of smoking. This afternoon by the lake was an event of immobility for many of them. I felt like I had been transported back in time. As if nothing had changed. The women's hair was stringy and long and the men walked with a sort of macho strut trying to announce their manliness. It was almost comical to me, I realized, how neatly most everyone fit into these stereotypes I formed in my mind from my childhood experiences. As I usually do when I'm around people, I saw them all in stories. I saw late night fights in parking lots and televisions always on. A lot of mobile homes and pre-fab structures with quaint bright colored flags hanging at the doors with "Summer!" and flowers or kittens or bright suns.
There is a richness in that world, but I don't mean to romanticize poverty. It's the long history that I'm marveling at. How far back people go, how intertwined their lives are, and how it just feels like everyone is living each day as it comes (even if that's not at all how they're living it).
Today I didn't feel apologetic for being different or not being a part of their world. My daughters and I simply slid right in among the locals. I sat in the water holding Althea while Maya worked on remembering how to really go under the water (she did it! a lot!). It felt comfortable. I knew I didn't fit in but that made me feel like I fit in well. By now locals are very used to tourists, anyway. I didn't feel the need to say, hey, I've been coming here for 40 years... It doesn't matter that I've been coming to Maine for summers since I was a toddler. I'll never give a son a shapeless buzz cut, I'll never know that getting to the Scribner's is easier if I take a left where the old school bus used to be rusting out. I'll always be "from away," no matter how long I'm here or how familiar things get. In a way, I suppose that's a quality I like about the state. I'm not a big fan of letting roots get too deep. Around here, that's almost impossible so I can just hang out temporarily for as long as I want. I'll always miss that penny candy, though.
.
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