First, at the general store and then the produce market, the dim light the interior required some readjustment for us. We expect electrical illumination, after all. Instead, this was truly natural, apart from a few white-gas lanterns.
What we’re used to is like the sun came indoors, even the first 30-watt bulb in a store.
Or so my brilliant travel companion observed.
~*~
Light brown Amish
sheds, barns, homes
the men with mustaches!
~*~
As we’re backing out of the parking
two Amish kids
stare at me through a window in a door
but don’t respond to my wave:
Did I look like I belonged to another Plain people?
At the top of Penobscot Bay, this is the principal welcome to Downeast and Acadia. Or for those of us going the other direction, to the rest of America.
You can even go to the top, the equivalent of 40 floors, for a spectacular panorama.
These shoulder elections, where nobody’s running for national office, are still important.
In small places like Eastport, getting someone to run even unopposed for local office can be a challenge. We had all the bases covered, although the surprise was when a write-in candidate won one of the two city council seats.
I can’t imagine that happening in a bigger setting, but who knows. A write-in for president? My!
Statewide, a radical proposal to take over the two widely hated electrical utilities failed. Big money is hard to comprehend, even if we’ll be paying it one way or the other. The frequent storm outages won’t be going away, nor will the continuing higher-than-national bills customers here receive. Somehow, I don’t think the issue will be going away, despite the lopsided tallies.
Just how much do those emergency home generators cost altogether, anyway, as insurance against the current setup? It’s not that many households before we’re talking billions.
Otherwise, the initiatives moved in a progressive direction, including the right-to-repair measure.
I am relieve to see opportunities for right and left to come together at a local level, however gingerly.
As you can see, Stephen Sanfilippo is more than a maritime historian. He can sing his research findings. Small concerts like this one upstairs at the Pembroke public library are one of the delights of living Way Downeast.
Cobscook Shore’s 15 well-maintained reserves around the bay offer the public prime opportunities for hiking, picnicking, fishing, and water access for kayaks and canoes. This is a personal favorite.
The Pine Tree State has a tradition, so I’m told, of placing complex issues on the statewide ballot because many of the elected state representatives and senators are afraid of negative reactions in a controversy.
Normally, public officials are expected to thoroughly investigate the issues and come to a reasoned decision. That’s why we elect them. Instead, shifting this responsibility to a general public that is rarely fully informed can be like rolling the dice.
This year, there are two issues of special note along those lines.
One is the so-call Right to Repair Act, which would prohibit manufacturers from keeping replacement parts and technology from independent repairmen. I’m still bummed by HP’s ink replacements policy – your machine shuts down if you try to use over-the-counter cartridges. Apple computer users have their own experiences. I know the list of big businesses’ proprietary efforts is growing.
The other issue is Pine Tree Power, which would have the state take over Maine’s two largest electrical utilities. Mainers have some of the highest electrical bills in the country accompanied by some of the longest and most frequent outages. Folks are still worked up over being cut off for weeks years ago after some storms before Central Maine Power got the lines working again. Despite the already high rates, CMP and Versant, the utility in our part of the state, both received permission this past summer to hike the bills another 20 percent. The utilities have lined up 15 times as much money for advertising than the grassroots effort has, no surprise there, and the campaign has a lot of emotional scare. What should be obvious is that somebody’s expecting to be repaid handsomely by staying in power (sorry for the pun). They’re not doing the customers any favors there, either.
So, when you’re checking the news reports tomorrow night or the following day, check the Maine results. They could be enlightening. Or, should we venture, shocking.
While Eastport has the deepest natural port in the continental U.S., that’s not often led to a lot of big-ship landings.
Cargo shipments, especially, have suffered over the past decade.
Last month, though, the city saw a record number of cruise ship visits, sometimes running one every other day over two weeks.
We’re getting what’s often termed mid-sized cruises, up to a thousand passengers, in contrast to the floating cities that might deliver five times that. Frankly, mid-size fits us fine.
One factor has been Bar Harbor’s reaction to being overwhelmed, down at the edge of Acadia National Park. And Portland, further down the coast, is a big city in contrast.
As a result, Eastport is being discovered as a place that offers a taste of a quintessential Maine fishing village without the hype.
As one younger woman said while walking past our home, “Today was AMAZING!” Imagine that, in a small town seemingly so far away from anything.
French liner Le Bellot, docked at Eastport’s Breakwater, visited town last week.
So far, these arrivals during the fall foliage season have extended our tourist season. The place typically shuts down by mid-September but these arrivals have extended that into early November. They’ve even given some, but not all, of our galleries and stores their best business days of the year. That’s a huge impact on a fragile, marginal downtown.
The landings also benefit the Breakwater and its workers, and let’s not sleight the purchases of junk food snacks at the IGA and Family Dollar by ships’ crews – sometimes up to another 600 people. They do load up.
We do enjoy seeing happy couples walking around our neighborhood with cameras in hand. Our conversations with them have been upbeat. Others have enjoyed bus tours to the Roosevelt compound on Campobello Island and the West Quoddy Light in Lubec or autumn foliage.
Economically, it’s an alternative to the Airbnb purchases that have been pulling housing away from working families, the very culture that’s a big part of the draw to our city. We do need more jobs that provide benefits, too, though that’s another big issue, one basically at the national level. I’ll save that for another time.
For now, let’s acknowledge what I’m seeing as a positive step, one that might even extend our spring shoulder season.
