No place like the old home turf

A recent spate of letters to the editor of this fine newspaper has touched on a subject dear to the hearts of we hard-core Mainers who are convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the two smartest things we ever did were 1) have the good common sense to get born here; and 2) stick around to see how things turn out.

Call it pride of place, if you will. Or perhaps a kind of state-level nationalism marked by a reflexive defense of the homeland when the barbarians at the gate suggest that Maine may be something less than the paradise committed tub-thumpers deem it to be.

Such heresy does not long go unchallenged by the True Believers, as we have seen in the letters columns of late. Following release of a national report showing Mainers to be among the more heavily taxed species in the nation, letter writer Mark Carney ? who apparently holds dual citizenship in East Newport, Maine, and Beverly Hills, Fla. ? wrote to extol the virtues of living in Florida in contrast to the alleged drawbacks of living in Maine.

The Maine Publicity Bureau touts the state as “The Way Life Should Be,” Carney noted. “But after living elsewhere the past few years, I’m not so sure this is an accurate depiction…”

Within a couple of days the first rebuttal of Carney’s thesis arrived. It was from Phil Locke of Bangor. “Sure, Florida has low taxes. It also has sub-standard schools, unresponsive state government, municipal corruption and a high crime rate,” Locke wrote. “I haven’t heard of many drive-by shootings in Maine…”

Carney had pointed out that Florida “has capitalized on its environment and boasts several attractions as a draw.” One could say that the Sunshine State has capitalized on its environment, Locke supposed, although the term “sold out” would be closer to the truth when one considers the upheaval that “coast-to-coast strip malls” and “uncontrolled urban sprawl” have caused.

Move to Florida? No thank you, Locke concluded. “I’m more than willing to pay Maine taxes for the privilege of living in a real place with real communities…” Ouch.

A few days later, Todd Libby of Newburgh wrote that as a Navy man he has lived “all around this great country,” including Florida, and has yet to find a place that can hold a candle to Maine when it comes to quality-of-life issues.

The aforementioned Maine Publicity Bureau slogan is right on the money, he ventured. “If a better way of life does cost a little more, that is the price some of us will gladly pay…”

A fourth letter came from Cookie Thelen of Hancock, a Miami, Fla., native who divides her time between both states. Taking the “can’t-we-all-just-get-along?” approach popularized by Rodney King after he led the Los Angeles cops on a merry chase a few years back and was severely roughed up for his efforts, Thelen’s message, in effect, was for the guys on both sides of the issue to chill out.

Comparing the two states “is like comparing apples to oranges,” she wrote, missing a great chance to substitute “Maine potatoes” for “apples.” While Maine and Florida are not comparable, “each has such glorious gifts to offer.”

Florida has “fabulous diversity” in its population. Maine has its “lovely small towns” populated with caring people. Florida has its swamps. Maine has the Allagash wilderness.

Alligators (theirs). Blackflies (ours). And so forth.

It would be healthier, Thelen suggested, “if people saw the beauty etched in each society and tried to learn from their strengths and weaknesses.” Living in Hancock and Miami, she has found a common thread to be “the presence of glorious folks all trying to solve problems and live a good, honest, healthy and happy life.”

The lady’s point is well-taken. Still, my jingoistic gut instinct as a card-carrying booster of all things Maine is to throw my lot in with Locke and Libby. Noble defenders of the native turf, they seem merely to be following the wise counsel of Sir Walter Scott, who long ago warned that he who has no passionate pride of homeland doesn’t have much at all:

“Breathes there a man with soul so dead/Who never to himself hath said/This is my own, my native land!/Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned/As home his footsteps he hath turned/From wandering on a foreign strand…”

If you encounter such a self-centered wretch, mark him well, the old bard cautioned. For regardless of his station in life, this miserable soul shall forfeit all respect that otherwise might have accrued before he returns “To the vile dust from which he sprung/ Unwept, unhonored and unsung.”

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net