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["Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>]

Susan Jane; Maine is a very special place. If I ever leave here, that's 
where I'm heading. My sister lives on Mt. Desert Island, but owns land in 
Belfast, and plans to build her dream house there very soon. And she know 
Peter, the orchard ladder hippie guy :-)

Lynn Wigglesworth
Tioga Co. PA

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "sjc" <indexer AT fairpoint.net>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] A slang question


> rayzentz AT aim.com wrote:
>
> > Really? How did they do that? And when? Are you referring to a particular 
> > event?
>
> Late in the 50s and early in the 60s many people left this area for jobs
> elsewhere; the only real jobs left here for many years thereafter were
> 'factory' chicken operations, huge processing plants down on the
> Penobscot Bay (which had waste chutes 8' across where waste was shovel
> straight into the Bay), and a smattering of leftover lobstermen and
> fishers.  The fisherman were at the beginning of the overfishing and
> couldn't make a living, a lot of them turned to lobstering.  That still
> survives; they took it upon themselves to set limits after having
> watched what happened to the fisheries.  Just about everything else was
> chickens.  Most everybody else took off for 'greener pastures' (I guess
> that means where the snow in July in the gutter isn't actually white
> chicken feathers), largely Boston and beyond.  A lot of farmers, having
> bought the 'can't make any money farming anymore' walked off and left
> land, houses, whatever.
>
> People were happy to sell some large tracts to incoming
> back-to0-the-lander, hippie types.  There were hundreds at one time.
> So, they were pretty well-educated, willing to take a risk, supported
> through the initial stages, not afraid to be doing something new.  Now
> they're old hippies, but it turned out they were well educated (Daddy's
> money), and had enough of the same money (trust funds) to buy land and
> actually get it going.  MOFGA was in its infancy then but there were a
> couple of people there who helped them off to a decent organic start,
> information-wise, and a few of the old farmers left here helped them.
>
> Just about the time they got a toehold, the chicken business in Maine
> fell apart (disease) and more people left, leaving more ground, some of
> which was occupied by said folks, mostly by then in family groups.  They
> all had kids, which they homeschooled, county was too broke so they
> looked the other way.  Eventually Pop's money ran out, and everybody
> buckled down to work.  The kids were reared to be polite, to work with
> their hands and backs, to be respectful, curious, hardworking,
> goal-oriented, independent, contributing members of their community.
> They learned in many cases to take care of the old farmers and their
> wives who'd helped them when they first came.  Now those kids have grown
> up to be some real decent folks, with a good sense of who they are, who
> else is here, a good bit of wisdom for a group of young people.  They're
> teaching, some abroad, in the military, taking care of grandparents.....
>
> The adults who came here as kids are  now mayors/town managers in many
> of our small towns here, and enthusiastic still about the area, willing
> to work hard for it.  Most of the staff of Unity College got their start
> right here on Stovepipe Alley (one of the communes which is now a
> cohousing unit under I-forget-the-name).  Most of the staff of College
> of the Atlantic came from here, same circumstances.  Not a few are
> professors at UMO and UMA.  We have a reasonable tax base. They started
> and still own a newspaper.  They redeemed many old buildings and built
> many new ones which one can be pleased to see.  They have been at the
> forefront of alternative energy in Maine, and some of them, on a
> national basis.  There are no 6000sq foot boxes here, nor nasty
> mortgages to pull us into the fray to the south.  We have libraries now,
> parks and other public places, beach access in many places, and many
> small businesses which employ our residents.  they still don't poke into
> anybody else's business, and I've never heard of a one of them
> bellyaching about what services they don't have or can't get here (my
> personal gripe; if ya want it, stay where ya have it).
>
> We do have 2 stoplights here now, but that's due to the  old  yuppie
> (Crowley, MBNA) who thought he'd make a killing off the dumb  Mainers
> and  installed a huge call center where he soon found out that the dumb
> Mainers here don't like to lie to consumers, even on the phone, and so
> won't sell bad interest rates without telling people what they're
> getting into.  I think they were here 4 years.  Didn't take everybody
> long to decide they'd rather have the hippies......
>
> The sense of community is outstanding here; when my house burned in '01
> I told 6 people to please spread the word (on Wed, too late to get it in
> paper) that I planned to have a house-raising on Fri & Sat (Thanksgiving
> weekend) and to please come, and bring any tool you don't mind others
> using, and any materials you may have that you don't otherwise want.
> Fri there were well over 60 people (plus children who could actually be
> trusted to operate a tape, carry cheerfully, whatever) and on Saturday
> over 100 folks, plus a lot more who came by but would have had to park
> too far down the muddy road (over a mile).  Little kids restacked my
> half-burned firewood to a new spot, picked up trash, dragged magnets,
> corraled dogs (strict leash law here backed by 410s).  A rousing good
> time and much good food was had by all, and by Sat dark (about 4:00 that
> time of year) the shell was up except for the roofing, which hadn't come
> in yet.  About half the materials were donated.  Peter (old hippie,
> probably still count himself one, who makes apple ladders brought the
> rafters he'd cut in the woods that morning.   Donald, one of the few
> farmers who welcomed new people to the land even if they were hippies,
> was in the woods logging Fri and came Sat and cut those logs right in
> the driveway into the flooring, with the measuring and toting help of
> two hippies' grandchildren.  The next Saturday the roofing went on in
> four hours.  We like (treasure, actually) that sense of community and we
> all know and acknowledge that had Waldo County driven off the hippies,
> as did many surrounding places, we'd now not have what we do, in many
> ways.  Their children, after living all over the world, are now coming
> home to be teachers in our schools, administrator at our hospital,
> manager at the credit union....and so it marches on.
>
> The counties adjacent to us, with the exception of Knox County (Camden,
> old money and established tourism), were in similar shape to our county
> at the beginning of 1960.  They were just beginning to get their heads
> above water when things slowed down this time, and now who knows; they
> are already in trouble in 3 of the 4 counties....meanwhile we are in
> reasonably good shape here.
>
> So even though nobody really wanted them to come, or so I'm told, it's
> not been tooooo bad.  I doubt if you'd find anyone complaining here,
> now.  I can't think when I heard the last person grumble about 'them
> hippies', maybe about 1990?
>
> They did OK by us.
>
> SJ
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