Make sure Maine is ‘the way life should be’

A few years ago we had a crippling ice storm in Maine. In the aftermath of that storm there was an outpouring of generosity and neighborliness that was a heartwarming example of the underlying goodness of Mainers. That was a shining example of what people do in the state that has as its motto “the way life should be.” People opened their homes and places of business, their hearts and their pocketbooks to meet needs posed by the prolonged power outage.

For days and weeks practically the whole state was one big community. Spontaneous acts of kindness and gifts of time and tangibles demonstrated the concern we have for one another when the chips are down. We rallied in the crisis of the ice storm.

A case can be made that the economic crisis faces by people and communities in our “Rim” counties is really much more grave than the ice storm was. It virtually shouts out for a similar level of concern on the part of Mainers in more fortunate circumstances. We need to be reminded that not so long ago in the context of the last forestry referendum, our Aroostook County legislators submitted a bill to permit the County to secede from the state. It did not pass. However, that bill was a wake-up call that needs answering. The issue really boils down to this: What is the responsibility or the state as a whole – its institutions, its government and its people – to come to the aid of people an communities who have been so hard hit by the decline of their traditional economic base?

In Saturday’s Bangor Daily News, Bruce Kyle in the op-ed piece stated it plainly: In the clear comparison between St. Stephen N.B. and Calais, Maine – sister communities – “New Brunswick gives a damn.”

The problem, unfortunately, is much larger than the plight of Calais and where a new road is going to be built. Virtually half of the geographic area of our state is in an economic crisis. Clearly, something must be done if we are to honor the covenant which is implicit in our state motto: “The Way Life Should Be.” At the very least it is time for the governor to appoint a broad-based commission to assess the situation and make recommendations.

Southern states have had remarkable success with economic revitalization, as has southern Maine. We are in this together and the time is long past when more aggressive measures need to be taken to reverse the decline that has long afflicted our “Rim” counties of Aroostook, Washington, Piscataquis and Franklin counties.

Reflection on the statistics of the 2000 Census are extremely sobering for those of us who live and work in the Rim counties. We inhabit a very different world than citizens in the southern counties, especially Cumberland and York, where job opportunity, rising real estate values and hope for a better future are all realistic life expectations. For those of us in the “Other Maine” such an optimistic outlook is becoming less and less realistic. It is no exaggeration to state it plainly: an economic and social crisis is brewing in the nether regions of the state. In particular, the implications of continued population loss, especially of our young people, are grave. The very viability of schools, hospitals and communities is at stake.

Citizens in the “Other Maine” love their communities and way of life. They are not leaving their homes from any great urge to emigrate south or out-of-state. No, they are being forced to leave because of the disintegration of the economic base, which has sustained rural and coastal Maine for generations. Unprecedented structural changes – in land ownership, global competition, and mechanization – and insufficient capital investment have dramatically shrunk jobs for woodsworkers, truckers and millworkers in the forest products industry. Where once a father/son team with no more capital than a skidder and chain saws could find ready work and make a decent living in the woods, stumpage permits today are obtainable only from the smallest landowners and most timber is cut by large contractors with mechanical harvesters.

The decline of our potato, dairy and fishing industries has paralleled that in the forest products industry. In the Sherman-Patten area of my youth 50 years ago, the health of our local economy was supported with scores of potato and dairy farmers, of which today there remain only a remnant. Is it the fate of “fringe” farming communities and mill towns to become ghost towns like Davidson, a thriving community between Stacyville and Medway that met its demise in the 1930’s when its lumber mill shut down? As employment in the two Great Northern mills has plunged by over half on its way to one-fourth of its peak, what is to be the fate of Millinocket, East Millinocket, Medway and all the other surrounding towns which relied so heavily on job opportunities at “the Northern”? Between 1990 and 2000 these communities lost nearly 25 percent of their population.

A specter of poverty hangs over people living at the fringe in our rim counties. Not even with two minimum-wage jobs can a family be self-supporting and meet the most basic necessities of adequate housing, clothing, nutrition and health insurance. People cannot live with dignity on part-time minimum-wage jobs any more than they can on welfare. Viable family units and communities cannot be sustained on minimum wages. Yet, more and more of the jobs in our economically depressed counties are becoming minimum-wage service jobs. Clearly, if we are to honor the promise made when a minimum wage was enacted, we have to be more faithful to adjust it for inflation and the cost of medical insurance.

From a sense of common decency and concern for our fellow citizens, we must address the downward spiral of economic disintegration and population decline that is sapping the spirit of our youth and underemployed in the poorer regions of our state. If we are to be true to “The Way Life Should Be” all of us in this state – north and south – need to become engaged in addressing the very real crisis that is engulfing our “rim” counties.

Come on, Mainers. Rally to this cause like you did to people in distress during the ice storm. The impact may not be as dramatic, but a slow death is just as sure as a sudden one and we are dying out here.

Michael Robinson is the associate pastor of the Forest Avenue Congregational Church in Bangor.