Kindness of Mainers a real plus

Driving up the East Coast from Washington, D.C., to Bangor provides interesting insight into Maine’s economy.

By comparison, it seems we have an anemic level of activity. But once home in Maine, we realize we have other things that matter, perhaps more.

The trip starts with all those incredibly upscale homes around D.C. and Baltimore that thousands of government workers and consultants call home. It continues up I-95 with its four or five lanes that are always packed, day and night.

Then there’s New Jersey, with its industrial smells and commercial sprawl. New York City simply reeks of money. Connecticut is plush with corporate headquarters, Mercedes and mansions. Most of its jobs that pay less than $15 an hour are filled with foreign workers.

By the time one hits Boston, the friendly little city almost seems like a village compared with those to its south. But of course it, too, is very vital, with fancy working places lining busy highways and small ranch homes on postage stamp lots with $400,000 price tags.

New Hampshire hides behind that busy road with the toll that serves as a kind of ransom for traveling Mainers. The area from Portsmouth to Portland has become some sort of Boston annex.

A Bowdoin professor once told me he thought the Industrial Revolution had stopped at Bath’s shipyard, or BIW. He was probably right, although small pieces found their way to places like Old Town, Millinocket and Bangor.

But back to that drive from D.C. By the time one gets to Bangor, there’s always that great feeling of being home, and for those prone to think of such things, the realization that we’re lucky to have any economy at all here, being that economies are made of masses of people and we have so few.

But we do have an economy. Tell me that Bangor isn’t a great place to live and work and I’ll get fighting mad. OK, the pay isn’t always so great. The winters are long and tough. But we have every store any normal soul could need, a great symphony and other outlets to stir the imagination, medical care second to none, beautiful scenery and those with decent jobs can afford homes that would cost half a million dollars a couple of hundred miles south.

Politicians and pundits like to say Maine’s work ethic is what makes the state tick. And that’s probably true, at least partially. But there’s also a kindness and accessibility feature that makes Maine special.

But let’s go back to places like Philadelphia and New York a minute. When in those cities, I’ve always been amazed by the suspicion people cast on each other. I’ve asked simple questions and been ignored to the point that I wonder if they think I’m the Son of Sam.

That doesn’t happen in Maine.

Remember the Ice Storm of ’98? Neighbors helped neighbors, as well as strangers.

Recently we had two winter blizzards. During the second, one of the NEWS editors was commuting home to the coast when her car got mired in the lot of a convenience store.

Without fear, she approached the driver of an extended-cab, four-wheel-drive pickup as he was pumping gas.

“Could you help me?” she asked. Of course he could and she joined him, his wife and child on the ride to Ellsworth, where her husband met her in his own four-wheel drive.

During that same storm, the guy who plows my driveway simply didn’t show. I eventually learned he was out of state and someone was to fill in for him. It didn’t happen. On the second day of the storm, with a foot and a half of snow in my driveway, I got desperate.

I got my Jeep running, bulled my way through the snow and went to seek relief. The first snow plower I saw was cleaning out a driveway nearby.

“Could you help?” I asked. Ten minutes later my driveway was clean, my wife could get out, and all was well.

People can be kind in every state, but they’re especially so here. They make winters easier, workplaces more efficient and they are a decided economic resource.

They also have a can-do attitude, often built of necessity, which is said to be the mother of invention. Whatever the reason, can-do attitudes make for good neighbors and solid economies.

The holiday season is a nice excuse to celebrate that attitude. Best wishes.