DON’T KNOCK OUR WINTERS

An amusing article about the L.L. Bean store in The New York Times by one of its cleverer reporters, Alex Kuczynski, included an offhand complaint that “there’s no place colder in the world, it seems, than Maine on a late-summer evening.” Fresh from steamy New York, she found it especially cold as she made her way from a relatively comfy hotel room in Freeport at 1 a.m. to see what the famous store looked like at night.

Visitors can be expected to carp about Maine’s weather, but there is no need for Mainers to join the chorus that Maine in summer can turn a bit chilly and that Maine winters are outright horrible.

True enough, a nip in the air will arrive with glorious sunny days as the official start of fall approaches. Nip and all, there will be plenty more of this lovely weather as the trees turn yellow, red and bronze and the vees of ducks and geese head south.

Then will come winter, hesitatingly at first but downright seriously by January and February. Some Mainers actually hate the winter cold and flee to Florida for a couple of months. But except for those snowbirds, most of us have learned to take winter as it comes and make the best of it. We prepare for it but getting out our heavy sweaters, wool stockings, high-top boots, double-layer gloves – the more daring go for caps with pull-down ear flaps. We lay in a good supply of seasoned firewood and change to snow tires. Some still bank their homes with brush and plastic sheeting to keep the cold from

coming up through the floor.

A management consultant said the other day that Maine needed a new “brand” to take the place of the common saying that Maine stands only for cold and the Patriots. He has a point, and part of the solution is for Mainers themselves to take pride and enjoyment in the whole annual cycle instead of spending the winter telling each other to “keep warm” and fretting about “climbing March Hill.”

We are here because we love it. And our own attitudes may help persuade more businesses to settle here and more college graduates in Maine to stay here and those from other states to settle here.

Winter in Maine is an asset, not a liability. And if that sometimes seems hard to accept, remember that starting on Dec. 21 the days will start getting longer and the nights shorter in a cycle that we can’t really do anything about.