Old Maine | Monuments from the time when a beater car on the lawn meant something
There’s a stretch of road on the way to our camp that makes me feel nostalgic every time I drive it. I know when to expect the special stretch because there’s a steep dip in the road just before it begins. It’s a little more than half-mile of rough, soft-shouldered road that would be quite dangerous if driven at speeds of more than 20 mph. According to the signs, you’re supposed to reduce your speed down to 25 mph as you go by about two dozen houses. The houses are all different but they all — when taken together — remind me of the old Maine, the Maine most of us knew from childhood and the Maine that’s fast disappearing before our eyes.
Some of these houses look cared-for and neat, some look a little less that way and one or two of them look like they’ve been roughed up pretty bad over the years and the owners a long time ago gave up on making them presentable. Horse people might say the houses look like they’ve been ridden hard and put away wet. Housing consultants would probably say these particular structures are in dire need of a comprehensive and sustained maintenance program.
One of the rougher-looking houses in the group is very small and has no hint of a lawn because of the dogs and chickens and kids that run around it most of the time. There’s also an old car on cinder blocks where the dogs and chickens and kids play, by a front door that’s often left wide open. It has a tripod over its engine compartment and, although I’m no expert, I’m willing to bet that neither the car nor the tripod that props it up would receive two thumbs up from the folks at OSHA. But then, OSHA probably wouldn’t have approved a lot of things that went on in the old Maine I remember from years ago.
I’m sure the car’s owner is just waiting for the right part or the right time or the right place — or all three together — so he can get out there in the yard with the dogs and chickens and kids and finally get the car running and out of the way so the dogs and chickens and kids will have more room to run around and the wife can put in that flower garden she’s been planning ever since the car died back when Clinton was first elected president, which is more than a few years ago.
Other houses in the group have neatly covered snowmobiles or ATVs in the yard. From the looks of the houses and the lawns I can only assume that all these vehicles are well-maintained and immaculate and all their belts, hoses and fluid levels are monitored carefully.
But all the houses, the tended and untended, look like they belong together, like houses did in the old Maine.
On the road I lived on as a kid there were two identical Cape-style houses built side-by-side at the same time by two brothers. One brother was a plumber and the other a mechanic and even though they were related, the two brothers couldn’t have been more different, except they each decided to build the exact same kind of house and decided to build them side-by-side.
When the houses were done you couldn’t tell one from the other. You’d drive down their road, spot the two identical houses and think you were seeing double and maybe it was time to see an eye doctor. The houses were not only painted the same color but all the paint had the same lot number, which meant it was all made in the same vat at the same time at the paint factory.
You’d look at the lawns of the two houses and swear that all the grass seeds used in the lawn planting were close relatives because each blade of grass was exactly the all the others. Each brother must have had the exact same number of blades of grass on their lawns because you couldn’t tell one from the other. The shrubs and bushes around the houses were also alike in every way.
But as time went by, differences between the two dwellings appeared and, as even more time passed, the differences became quite striking. One house remained well maintained and neat, the other received no maintenance and became messy.
People from away who didn’t know the details would look at the two places and wonder how two houses so different could exist so comfortably side-by-side.
Folks in town knew the story. They knew that the two houses existed together peacefully because they came from the old Maine. I don’t think they’d fare as well in the new Maine that’s been emerging over the last 20 years.
It got me to thinking. Shouldn’t there be legal protection for unique structures from the old Maine, the Maine a lot of us knew growing up? Shouldn’t there be some kind of museum for such important places? Otherwise, who knows? These great old places may slowly disintegrate and we might forget that they ever existed.
I’ve begun creating my own piece of the old Maine by putting on hold all the maintenance chores my wife wants done.
John McDonald, an author, humorist and storyteller who performs throughout New England, can be reached at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com. Read more of John’s columns at www.mainebiz.biz.
Most Recent
Most Recent
Comments