I live in a typical rural Maine town. I have about 1,000 neighbors, give or take a few. We have a grocery store, a couple of gas stations, an offering of unique privately-owned eating establishments, art galleries, and a splattering of shopping opportunities.
There are no traffic lights to slow down the already unhurried lifestyle most of us strive for. It isn’t uncommon for a simple in-town errand to take double the time it should because you are bound to run into at least a half dozen people you need to catch up with.
All 43-square-miles of my hamlet are nestled in a river valley. I am surrounded by mountains, forests and water.
My home is an idyllic town nestled in the Carrabassett River valley. Dee Menear/Franklin Journal
This is home – and it has been for more than two decades. It’s the place I chose to raise my kids. Although I tried to leave a time or two, I have always been drawn back to this place. It’s a place where we take care of one another; a place where everyone really does know your name.
This is why I was not surprised when a friendly stranger rolled into town one day and, unsure of where I lived, was able to locate me with a stop at the local mom-and-pop.
I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Tricia in person before but we had a thing or two in common. We were part of a fishing group and we were heading to a gathering much further north.
We exchanged a few emails and decided we would carpool to our destination. She had directions to my house but, in the vast ruralness, she somehow missed my driveway.
For some reason or another, perhaps the infamous spotty cell coverage in the region, she was unable to contact me by phone. Undeterred, she circled back into town and stopped at the corner store. She went to the counter and asked if anyone knew where I lived.
Now typically this would cause a suspicious eyebrow to be raised, as it should. We look out for one another here, remember? But, as luck would have it, Tricia just so happened to make her inquiry to a clerk I knew well.
This individual just so happened to be the very person who would be keeping an eye on my house while I was fishing in the back country. She was one of a few who knew I was heading out of town, when I was leaving and how I was getting there.
She took the time to point Tricia in the right direction and gave her a detailed list of landmarks to be on the lookout for.
We spent the next hour or so driving to camp … getting to know one another and exchanging stories. She kept going back to how ecstatic she was that I lived in a small town and how she used it to her advantage to find me.
“What are the odds,” she asked?
I’d say the odds are pretty good – if you are lucky enough to live in a rural Maine town such as mine.
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