I apparently had a free viewing available. They lived in the Boston area; his father had taken off. and his mother never followed up on having the cabin and playhouse delivered. tl;dr, they never developed or really used the land much, and when the author's father was facing cancer and they were scared of being wiped out with nursing home expenses, he signed it over to his daughters and they apparently sold it for a pleasant amount to cover both repairs to their parents' home and also expenses in their own lives.

Or, for that matter, the railroad police? The old Pan Am Boston & Maine police dept., all two people of it, has likely been replaced by a much more capable CSX team.

For that amount of land, maybe look in the towns near Lisbon: Durham, Pownal, New Gloucester. I can't speak to how fast the internet is out there.

I can tell you what's changed in Portland: the Village Cafe is gone. Lang's Express, the Wok Inn and Silly's are gone. Most everything else is now a weed store.

I listened all the way through once, and I believe at least one of those PACs was designed to support certain state legislative candidates in Florida. It might be an interesting project to actually track them down.

Or maybe she was originally; for a while she was married to that other guy who owned the Press Herald.

Not one mention of the federal government?

Is Chellie Pingree a beneficiary of the Pingree Heirs?

I think part of it too is that when that lady hiker (I'm afraid I don't recall her name but her trail handle was Inchworm) wandered off the Appalachian Trail and vanished, The Bollard wrote some sketchy stories that tried to insinuate that the school had something to do with her disappearance, and by the way did you know the military is bad?

Tragically, they found her remains some months later; she had gotten lost in the woods and died.

I've noticed the login not sticking well in various browsers recently; it's very annoying.

Beyond that, I either read the physical paper or use a regular browser. I rarely open the ePaper app on desktop or phone.

I remember the days when MDOT created its own official state highway map instead of outsourcing to DeLorme; the stark white background and the way the center fold landed presented a really stark difference between the northern and southern parts of the state.

If you think Washington County has the capacity to take over code enforcement you must never have been there. In reality land use regulation would fall to a state agency named LURC, and trust me, no one likes LURC. There would be no "code enforcement" because Maine lacks a statewide building code so without a municipal government there would be no code to enforce.

We're discussing a municipality that runs on the Town Meeting/ Selectmen form of government, which is essentially pure Athenian democracy (including public debate of ordinances and the town budget by the citizenry in open meeting) and they elect a handful of people to sign checks.

One other thing you may want to consider: the M/F ratio at Farmington is way off, about 2/3 - 3/4 female. I went to a college where the ratio was the opposite, and most of the guys found it to be a dating wasteland and the girls were overly pressured by the single guys.

Maine's counties don't have the administrative capacity to run things at that level; what happens in reality is that the state takes over. So far as municipal consolidation goes, even Paul LePage recognized that our many small towns are a key component of our high tax burden, but suggesting consolidations would be met with about the same reaction as putting a big sign in Kittery that read, "Eat Massachusetts Lobster! "

Hardcopies usually available at your town hall and anyplace that sells non-resident licenses.

I'm aware of this. :(

I know you're looking for local and better, but the BK at Exit 48 is open 24/7 and at least it's cheaper than the Turnpike versions.

When i was a kid, Cole Farms was open 5 Am to midnight, but that whole sentence is heartbreaking.

I think it's going to be apples and oranges unless someone arrives who has heat pumps. I heat with oil and the hot water comes out of the boiler, so any comparison on electric use is way off the mark. The most interesting comparison would be if someone still has the old school electric baseboards from the 70's.

Yeah, my grandfather fished for mackerel for years off the end of the State Pier, usually there at dawn. He ate them too, even though it was largely the pre-treatment plant era.

It's not going to be fixed.

It's not because climate change is a "hoax," either. It's because the changes required to fix it are incredibly inconvenient for pretty much the entire First World, and definitely too inconvenient for Americans, whose entire country was built on rejection of the prevailing social contract. It's because "just dump your shit and move on" is ingrained at the deepest levels of our brain; even chimps make garbage piles.

It's because the bulk of the effects are going to fall on the unborn generations, and what have they ever done for me, anyway? Consequences that fall on someone else aren't consequences.

So what do we do? The lyrics of an Eighties song come to mind: "Let's all get drunk and get laid! "

But it's been thus for years, going back to the 90s or earlier when Mass. was coping with the collapse of the minicomputer industry.

I think the low density really helped our Covid rates stay manageable.

Cons, if you're in IT there's a definite Maine penalty when it comes to salaries vs Mass.

Thanks!

I'm very sorry about your sister; I hope things go well for her.

I can't get the exact text back since I blocked them, but they said they were going to be here a month, so I gave them Maine for Dummies:

First, spend some time in Portland, try the restaurants if you're a foodie, visit the lighthouses and Old Orchard Beach and anything else that strikes your fancy.

Next, Acadia National Park.

From there, take your pick: either head further up Route 1 to the Bold Coast area in Washington County; beautiful and much less crowded than Acadia. Or, head inland to Moosehead Lake or the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument; the latter is mostly unimproved so best be driving a 4x4. If you're up for it, visit Baxter State Park and climb Katahdin.

(I didn't get to the Rangeley area and I honestly wouldn't know what to tell anyone to visit in Aroostook.)

I actually waited a week and then answered their questions (pretty damn nice itinerary I gave them tbh). I didn't give them any personal info of course. Never got to the bikini pics and just blocked them.

Salute to your old man! One thing I can think of at the old toll was that the surrounding ground was constantly sinking, so they had to smooth off the approaches to the booth; that was that awful little hill that used to be there. I have no idea what happened with the building of the new booth but I'm sorry it drove your dad out of his career.