This letter originally appeared as a blog comment to “Ward Peck’s Jersey Tawk: “Waiting for Maine to inhale,” printed Jan. 25.
Editor:
“Maine: The way life should be.”
Not a bad marketing tool when printed on a full page add in “The Globe” or “The Times” travel section. To the readers of those publications, it must conjure up images of rocky seacoasts shrouded in a just lifting morning fog, a bull moose standing majestically in boggy heath, or of a unbroken vista of towering conifers viewed from atop a granite overlook. It must make the denizens of the concrete and steel sigh and start checking the office vacation calendar. And it must be working too, because even with $3-plus gallon gas and one of the highest tax rates in the nation, “they are a commin’” by the hundreds, not only to visit, but to stay.
But at what cost?
What effect did that simple, but effective slogan have on a state as a whole? In many of your OP/Ed pieces, you express “frustration,” at how the state of Maine is resistant to change and I believe you used the term “xenophobic” in describing how “Yankees” felt about “people from away.” As a life long Mainer, who is well educated, well read, and well traveled, I’ll let you in on a couple of little secrets we  “generational Mainers” discuss when no “outsiders” are around. We are scared, and our pride is hurt. We are scared of losing our identity as state. Scared of losing our culture. Scared of losing the unwritten history and traditions that have been interwoven into the very fabric of who we are. We are scared of extinction as “Tradional Mainers.”
Our pride as tradional Mainers and as a state is hurt because the phrase “So goes Maine, so goes the nation” no longer is used in a positive manner. The phrase “Maine Leads” now is usually followed by the words taxation, obesity, smoking, or teen pregnancy. Our children scoff at the idea of staying here upon graduation and move away to greener pastures.
They start planning the new residential sub-division of the family farm or woodlands before we are even dead. Lands and buildings that may have been in families for generations are being lost every month. We have gone from a state whose lumber, granite, ships, textiles, and goods were world renown for quality and technological advancement to a begger state whose economy is driven, not from within, but upon whether or not the tourists come to buy “Made in China” trinkets.
And all of this has causation in “people from away” with their “outsider” ideas. As a “Mainer,” I’ll ask of you one thing. Educate yourself in the written and unwritten history of your adopted state. Meet and discuss Maine life with people who live north of Augusta whose families go back generations.
Immerse yourself in the Maine culture outside of any metro area. Then, use that knowledge and your mastery of the written word, to help move the state forward once again. Maybe start with new slogan? ”Maine: Respecting the past, Reaching for the future.”
Please feel free to comment or contact me directly for further discussions about OUR state that we both love.
Jeff Grinnell
Buxton