Times like these

Living in America is unique for many reasons beyond the obvious. Like many other countries, your geographical locale within your own country will provide for a distinction found nowhere else. The people from "The South" have accents and burnt necks, those from the West are snooty and fake, while those from Jersey are.... uhhhh...... super!

New England is a place like no other in the country. Where else do you get a collection of states with their own unique name? Now of course you have "Tri-State Area" but those can exist anywhere. New England is neatly tucked up in the corner of our country and wrapped by the warm embrace of Canada, and the Atlantic Ocean. New England is home to the inventor of Basketball, the first ever underground subway (in the western hemisphere), Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harvard, Yale, MIT, the paper on your dollar bill probably came from mills in New England, an Arctic Climate Zone at the top of Mt. Washington (winds measured up to 231mph!!), the first ever planted potato, first free public library, first ever alarm clock, and many others.

Now we come up to the boss of New England, the big protector from the North that has produced such greats as David Malloy, the Professor. Maine also produces 99% of all the blueberries in the United States. But beyond the cool facts and interesting history of the state, lies the core of what it means to be from Maine.

Maine doesn't get a lot of attention, they don't have any professional sports, they don't carry a lot of electoral votes and they are necessarily the hot bed of jobs in America. However, when you spend a few years growing up in Maine, you experience something that is so powerful and everlasting, that it's often hard to explain. Luckily, I have learned to get my thoughts on paper (or the screen) so I think I can start to illustrate this to you.

With no big cities and popular attractions, outside of tourism, Maine leaves you building on your imagination. You have so much room for adventure and play, all you need is the right mentality. Now everyone plays hide and go seek, and kick-the-can... but how many of you have played a game of Capture-the-flag that spanned over a square mile of old castles and military bunkers from the 19th century? Every weekend, you could go up to Cape Elizabeth and see the old military strongholds tucked quietly in between 100 foot trees on the edge of a rocky coast lined with cliffs. The land seemed to rise straight up out of the water like a plateau - yet it was so neatly hidden by thick forests and dense shrubbery.

Just down the street lived my grandparents at the time. While my father wasn't around during this time, his parents were. They kept us apprised of what he was doing and where he was so that we would never forget him. They taught me a lesson I'll never forget one day, while my grandfather (Bubba), Peter (brother), and I hunted dinosaurs in the forest of "Peter Pan." The three of us would walk in these majestic woods with the trees canopied over head. 40 feet up from the base of the tree you'd find your first branch. The ground beneath us was calmly painted with orange and brown pine needles. Not a single bush or plant could survive in this area because almost no sunlight or rain ever touched this ground.

We walked all throughout these woods with Bubba as he told us old stories about his days in the Air Force. As we got older he would tell us stories about our father and his childhood antics. He told us that while they may not approve of my father's action, they will always love him and they will never stop caring for him. This mindset, this thought process that led my grandparents to love something they did not like helped me quite a few years later when I came into a situation similar to my father's.

But lets not stray from the beauty that is Maine. I learned many lessons during my tenure as a boy in Maine - the above being the most prevalent, but not the most significant. When you live in Maine you sometimes feel secluded. Any time something new happens, it rocks your world as you thirst for change. The local Police station had "Cop Cards." These were like the basketball and baseball cards of our generation, but they featured the local police, police cars and police dogs. Every week they would come out with a new Cop Card and the kids would run to the police station to get the new one. You had to answer a question about safety every time you wanted a new card and they wouldn't budge, even if you did cry like a girl (it wasn't me!!).

Each time a card came out, my friend Danny and I would ride our bikes to the station and rush back to his house to look over our newly acquired jewel. We laid out all of our cards and stared at the glorious collection that sat beneath us. A few minutes later we would gather them back up and go back to our lives.

Danny was a friend who lived near me and I don't really know how or when we became friends, but I can think back now and speculate. I was a bit of an outcast in my school, I was tiny and fragile, but as smart as they came. Danny was the complete opposite. He was a big kid (not fat just big) and not very smart at all. He was babied by his parents for so long that he developed a "clingy-ness" to them. Kids at school picked on the two of us constantly. It was easy to get away from them because we would both go to the "Quest" class and sit in bean bag chairs and play chess. "Quest" class was like sex-ed, drug-ed, life-ed all rolled up. The teacher was a breast cancer patient who devoted her life to her disease. She taught up until the day she passed away and brought smile and joy to every student who stepped into her class. For Danny and I, this was our little haven, a safe place for us to be without people hurting us.

Thinking back on those times, it is easy to see how I became a half-introvert and half-extrovert. By the time I grew up, physically, I was such an introvert that most people didn't even know my real name, they called me Chip throughout most of high school (now we are in New York). It took me quite a bit of time to come into my own and to realize that all of those years I spent curled into a ball playing chess, I had spent thinking. I never stopped thinking because I rarely had someone to talk to. Nobody around me could challenge me intellectually, and the teachers were afraid to give me the extra attention I needed because they knew it would lead to more teasing and bullying. In 5th grade they actually thought about keeping me back because I was "too small" to go to middle school. They were afraid I'd get my ass kicked by the big kids for being so itty bitty!!

Anyways, all of those years I spent thinking about the world, books, games, sports, people, the sky and everything else... I had really developed a strong and powerful mind. I feel like I was working out in a gym for 20 years and I'm now rolling up the sleeves to see what all my hard work has accomplished. In this case, I've spent years rolling around ideas and having internal arguments and debates. Now that I've gone to college and worked a little outside in the real world, I get a chance to roll up my sleeves and see the work I've done.

I don't believe I would've been able to exercise my mind as extensively and thoroughly if I had lived in New York. New York has so much to offer, but there isn't much time left for inflection (which I believe is the most powerful tool we have). Every time I think back to my times in Maine, the images are wrapped in a soft tone and glowing smiles. The colors are vibrant and lively, jumping out at me and invoking another stream of soft toned memories. When I think back to my times in New York, I have the great memories, but they are strictly confined within their borders. The colors are bright and not so much vibrant (this isn't to take away from my times in New York, but the atmosphere is incomparable).


When I think back to Maine, I think about the weekend trips to LL Bean and the coziness of the warm sun shining on my face as I was wrapped in a soft sweater, kicking orange and yellow and red leaves. When I think back to Maine, I think about the frigid water creeping up to my toes as I stood on rocks covered in barnacles and sprinkled with muscles and crayfish. When I think back to Maine, I think about my bus stop, at the corner of the police station and a park - directly across the street from the ocean. The ocean breezes in Maine never seem to end. The sun shines bright and powerfully through to the clean trees and grass beneath.


When I think back to what it means to be from Maine, I think about how lucky I was to be in such a beautiful place, even if only for a moment. I thank my lucky stars every day that I have the mindset that allows me to thank my lucky stars every day. Thank God I can appreciate what I have, and still thirst for more. It is exactly what it means to be from Maine.