Why I love northern Maine

In his book “Bowling Alone,” Robert Putnam argues that our social fabric has been unraveling since the mid-1960s. There has been declining attendance of civic meetings and clubs of all kinds, with less participation in blood drives, family events and the like. Recently, a group of sociologists has determined that the number of friends in whom we feel able and willing to confide has also diminished. Whether this is because our family and community have been replaced by our “Friends” on sit-com TV or because we now devote our energies to larger causes, I do not know.

There is little question that people are interacting in different ways than in years past. Much of the communication and dating scene that was once done face-to-face is now through internet or cell phone technologies.

However, I think this incredible modern ease of communication leads to relationships that are shallower, rather than deeper. The Internet ease of finding ideologically like-minded people also reduces our willingness to communicate across an intellectual diversity. In this sense, we have grown more isolated, and our communities more constricted.

When my wife and I arrived in northern Maine 18 years ago for a one-year academic position we found an area that had not suffered as other parts of the country have. We settled in, established a house and business, and nestled into the community of northern Maine. We love this place, and plan to remain here the rest of our lives.

One reason is that there is so much here to keep us busy, both physically and intellectually. This statement is a surprise to people coming “from away” who see little visibly happening. The stores and restaurants are not numerous or diverse. The nightlife is, well, by the standards of more urban areas, it isn’t. We admittedly enjoy the greater selection of cuisines and entertainments when we travel to more populated areas, but the traffic, fear of crime and the petty abuse people so readily pile on one another makes us yearn for home almost immediately.

The true joys of northern Maine are found in the many little things that make up the environment. What I love about northern Maine is that it still has what the sociologists and my personal experience say has been lost elsewhere in the United States: a strong sense of community.

For me, “community” is to humans what “ecology” is to the natural world: the complex interactions of individuals and groups. There is of course community in areas outside northern Maine, but the awareness of the value of those complex interactions is more highly and positively developed here than in other areas of my experience.

Part of this interaction comes from a well-developed infrastructure of clubs and organizations, whose level of activity would make larger cities envious. The Presque Isle Rotary Club, to which I belong, has more than 100 members, and the Caribou Rotary has almost 80, including many younger members. Other service organizations – Kiwanis, Lions, Elks – also thrive. Local garden clubs and historical societies meet regularly with an attendance that might rival equivalent organizations in Portland, or Boston.

When a local need is raised, as happens nearly every week at these meetings, people volunteer to help out. The need might be a transient family with car trouble, or a fence that needs painting at the Northern Maine Fairgrounds. Those who volunteer are often busy people, with jobs and family, yet the car gets repaired and the fence gets painted. This happens all the time.

People here relish the opportunity to personally solve problems in their immediate environment, rather than delegating that responsibility to some governmental or charity organization. Money is seldom the issue, perhaps because there is so little of it.

When money is needed for a youth football program or a fire engine, individuals and organizations make this project their own. The amount of money raised by people and

businesses in an environment that has little is truly astonishing.

The people working together are Republicans and Democrats, business owners and entry-level employees, churchgoers and not. It is hard to tell the one from the other, because they do not label themselves. When they get together, there is little in the way of complaints. Things are as they are. Conversations are about projects accomplished or to be tackled, businesses that have changed hands, or someone who is ill. Having had hundreds – perhaps thousands – of these conversations, I know very little of what local people think about Iraq, or Hillary. I have good friends of whom I could only guess how they vote, but know that they do so.

This sense of community is also reflected in other ways. If your eyes are directed to the opposite side of the street, the traffic stops for you to cross. If you are carrying too many things, strangers say “let me help you with that” – phrased as a statement, not a question. If the lawnmower or snowblower breaks, the neighbor pitches in, without being asked. Of course, it goes both ways: I have also mowed and blowed places that were not mine. It is an essential part of the connectedness within the community.

As our modern society grows ever more disconnected and isolated, despite or because of modern technologies, it is a true privilege to live in such a tightly knit community. In an area of fewer people rather than many, everyone takes on a greater importance. In northern Maine it doesn’t matter how much money you have, who you are related to, the extent of your education or what kind of car you drive.

If there is a problem to be dealt with, direct involvement is easy and there is an immediate effect. All it takes is the willingness to show up with hammer (or pen or paintbrush) in hand.

Kevin McCartney is a professor at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

His current community project is the Northern Maine Music Festival.