Lifestyle change has worked out nicely for Cressey family

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There are plenty of ways to get to the town of Grand Lake Stream, one of Maine’s storied fishing burgs.

You can head across Route 6 from Lincoln. You can hop down Route 1 from Houlton. You can ride the former roller-coaster known as ‘The Airline.’

Or, if you’re adventurous, you can head into the woods, hook onto the Stud Mill Road and bang your way across gravel tracks all the way to town.

No matter how you get there, one thing remains. Grand Lake Stream is a bit … rural.

Just don’t use the word remote. That word doesn’t really apply, Kurt Cressey says with a grin … admitting that since gravel roads provide the most direct path from Bangor to town, it’s not actually that much of a stretch.

Cressey and his wife, Kathy, know exactly how to get to Grand Lake Stream.

First, you toss two solid jobs in the dumpster … just like they did eight years ago. Then your daughter is born and you sell your house. And then you buy the only store in a town that could realistically be described as one of those roll-up-its-sidewalks types of places … if it had any sidewalks to roll up.

After that, you pack up the truck, hop on the highway, and kiss everything you used to know goodbye.

See you later, Bowdoinham and DeLorme mapping (which employed both Cresseys). Hello, Grand Lake Stream and the Pine Tree Store.

And eight years later, you shake your heads at the mere notion that you had any idea what you were in for.

And you smile.

“It’s like my mother said,” Kurt Cressey said the other day, leaning on a shelf midway between the beer cooler and the tote board that keeps track of some of Washington County’s biggest bucks.

“It takes more guts than brains some times,” he said.

And he smiled.

Grand Lake Stream (year-round population: about 125, according to Kathy Cressey, who ought to know) is named after the waterway that splits it in two.

Grand Lake Stream (the stream, not the town), along with neighboring West Grand Lake, Big Lake, and a watershed of other productive lakes and ponds, provides the lifeblood for the area.

All that water … and all those woods (take a look at the map and you’ll see how much of each there really is down in these parts) helps explain how people down here earn their livings. It helps explain why fishermen flock here.

It helps explain why people like the Cresseys come here after pulling up roots and buying a business in an industry they know virtually nothing about.

And why, after eight years, they still own the store. They still live in the roomy apartment upstairs. And they’re still smiling.

The Cresseys spent time in the area before leaping into the store business; friends own The Pines, a sporting camp on nearby Sysladobsis Lake.

And Kathy remembers returning to Sysladobsis after a trip “to town,” and telling her husband something that would eventually change their lives.

“You know,” she remembers saying. “That little store in Grand Lake’s for sale. Wouldn’t it be a hoot to buy a store?”

Several months later, Kurt recalls, he took another big step.

He visited the store for the first time.

“When I walked in, the owner was standing right there,” he said, pointing behind the counter. “He looked at me and automatically knew what I wanted.”

Kurt Cressey demonstrates, pointing toward the back of the store.

“I said, ‘What’s back there?’ And he said, ‘Beer,'”

Cressey told the man he didn’t want beer. He wanted to talk about buying the store … but he admits the owner may have been perceptive.

“I must have that look in my eyes most of the time,” he said.

In the beginning, their new business didn’t make much sense to the Cresseys … but boy, was The Pine Tree Store hopping.

“I didn’t even know how to get into [the cash register] if I wanted to,” Kurt Cressey said.

“It beeps when there’s an error,” Kathy added. “And it was always beeping that first year.”

One initial problem was that the previous owners had turned the store into a seasonal business, and the Cresseys had a hard time letting some important people know that they were open [year-round].

Like vendors.

Kurt headed to Princeton – about 10 miles away – and got to work.

“We had to get some soda in here. Who do you call?” Kurt said. “There was a Pepsi truck going into the Mainway, and I flagged him down. … the next thing you know, I see the chip man.”

Eventually, the Cresseys learned who to call. They learned about inventory, and what their customers would want to buy.

And they learned that they’d made a good decision.

Kathy’s a Maine girl. She grew up in Dixfield. Kurt? He grew up in Bath and Livermore Falls. And in Grand Lake Stream, they found something that had been missing in their lives.

“It’s the first time since I left my hometown that I’ve felt, that we both have felt, that we’re part of a community,” Kathy Cressey said … and she smiled.

The Cresseys’ business partnership works, both will tell you (repeatedly) because they enjoy working together.

Watch them in action and that’s obvious. Kurt starts a sentence. Kathy finishes it. Kathy starts a story. Kurt delivers the punchline. They both laugh.

And listen to them talk for a few minutes, and you’ll find out something not nearly as obvious, when you think of everything that needs to be done to make a store … even a small one … work.

This isn’t work to the Cresseys.

“If I had to work 100 hours a week for somebody else, there would be a tremendous stress factor there,” Kurt Cressey said. “Here, it’s just a part of life. This is what we do.”

And here’s what they don’t. At least not very much: Fish.

You’d think that it would be tough on a fly fisherman, living a double-haul away from a pristine waterway … and not being able to get away from work.

But that’s not entirely true, Kurt Cressey points out.

“If I were living in Bowdoinham right now, for me to get an hour of quality time when the hatch is coming off, I would have to plan three or four days off and then run up here and wait for that one hour of magic,” he said.

“Here, I know if there’s a hatch going on. And if it’s not noontime, I can tell Kathy, ‘I’m gonna slip my waders on and go down and fish for 45 minutes.”

Occasionally, he does that. And most of the time, when visitors walk into Grand Lake Stream’s lone store (and lone gas station), they see Kurt. And Kathy. And sometimes, their daughter.

After eight years of their new lives, the Cresseys are pleased with their decision.

“The idea is, you’ve gotta’ have fun doing it,” Kurt Cressey said. “You’ve gotta’ wake up in the morning and enjoy going downstairs to work.”

The couple says they do. … and they’re never late to work.

And after eight years, as they look back, things make sense. They’ve found a perfect place to raise a young daughter, and a friendly community has embraced them.

They’ve found careers they love.

And they’ve found a place they can call home.

“It just takes two people willing to work for half of nothing to establish this way of life,” Kurt Cressey said.

And he smiles.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.