August 10, 2006 @ 1:01 pm
Mom is up in The County. The County is Mainespeak for Aroostook County. It’s called The County because it’s ginormous and about four people total live in the County. My mother goes up to visit a friend who used to work with her down here. The friend lives in TS16-R4 or some other alpha-numeric town. (Township 16, Range 4: these are large areas of Maine that aren’t populated enough to have formal town governments. They are mostly forest. Seriously.) (Side note: To create the link that had a Maine township, I googled “maine township” and it turns out there’s a town in Illinois called “Maine Township, Illinois” and one in Minnesota! Weird.)
She called on Tuesday.
“What have you done?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said.
This is what the County is good for. “Nothing” is actually: taking walks to the St John and coming back; swimming in a lake; reading a book; playing board games, like Scrabble, which my mother is psychotically good at.
“Actually, we went to Governors in Presque Isle,” she said.
“Oh I know that one. I’ve never been, though. I was outside of it.”
It reminded me of my one visit to the County when Jenny was dating Br ad, and B rad, M ilo, Jenny and I stayed at Bra d’s parents’ house. B rad’s family had a family reunion at Governor’s and me and M ilo weren’t welcome, which I still find weird. That would never happen here.
In the really rural parts of Maine, there’s a palpable (unwarranted?) suspicion of people that aren’t from there. It’s like they’re part of an ancient African tribe, so they put up a wall for outsiders that one must work decades to chip away at.
People in Boston aren’t very friendly to strangers, especially strangers in cars Side Story as Example - If one more mofo beeps at me when I don't turn on the red arrow red light, I'm going to get out of my car and beat them. This caravan beeped at me today for not going right on the red arrow red light. THE COMMUTER RAIL WAS DRIVING BY. I rolled down my window and pointed at the red arrow. Then, I pointed out the train going by. Then I gave her a nasty look when she passed me when the street went to two lanes. THEN I SAW THE "BABY ON BOARD" SIGN ON THE BACK OF HER CAR and lost my shiznit, gyrating and swearing into my dashboard. 'Baby on Board: must run red lights and get run over by speeding trains.' WTF WTF WTF I HATE BOSTON DRIVERS!!!!!!!!!)
However, in Boston, as soon as you're a friend of a friend, you’re a best friend. If it were the reverse and Jenny, Mi lo and B rad had come to Weymouth and my family were having a reunion, they would welcome my friends at the party and engage them right away.
Somewhere in the middle is every-day Maine: mostly rural, slightly urban, where -- generally speaking -- people are friendly to start off and really kind once you know them, AND KNOW HOW TO DRIVE. Hence the motto, Maine, The Way Life Should Be .
Let me guess, you were making the turn onto John Mahar Highway in Braintree.... I wish they'd station a cop there and nail all the people that run the red arrow only to wait at the next light for the commuter rail train to pass.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, after spending the day driving to PA, what is the deal with RI drivers and driving 10-15 miles slower than the speed limit- especially when the speed limit is only 45mph on the highway?