A Place in Maine

By Bill Bruzy

When I arrived in Maine a light mist had shined the streets and gray clouds evened out the sunlight, cooling the temperatures to the low 60's. All the Mainers (people from Maine call themselves that) good naturedly apologized for the weather. I'd just come from Austin where the temperatures were tickling a hundred and the sun was hot enough to spot-weld my shoes to the pavement. I'd just give the Mainers a big honest grin and tell them they didn't have a thing to apologize for. It was heaven, with a light drizzle.

Not only was it delightfully cool but the air smelled like … well … air. Since I spend a lot of time downtown in Austin I guess I've grown used to the green smog of ozone and auto. I forget about real air when I've been away from it too long. I feel inspired, by my encounter with real air, to write something akin to a food or movie review, except an air review.

"My first impression of Maine air was of a rounded succulent fresh sea basting a substantive amount of oxygen. Similar in some ways to Cape Cod air but more lobstery and sharp, and without any hint of Boston in the afterbreath like the Cape air." … that kind of thing.

I arrived in the city of Portland, Maine's largest. An old city, by North American standards, it was founded in 1632, destroyed a couple of times by local tribes and bombarded by the British during the Revolutionary War. Portland survived to become an important harbor and being closest to Europe of any U.S. city it was the base of the U.S. Navy's North Atlantic Fleet in World War II.

The entire state of Maine has a population around one million two hundred thousand people, almost exactly what the Austin-San Marcos corridor registered in the last census. Maine is sparse in people but rich in tall trees, fresh air, wildlife and rock bound shores.

Portland was in the bloom of five o'clock traffic when I pulled out of the airport. Road construction narrowed the highway leading to the interstate and I expected the usual traffic psychosis that is our 'normal' in Austin. But people were polite, and although it moved slowly the block of a major traffic point in Portland seemed like a good day on an Austin road.

Tired from the flight and a long layover in Newark where the sad skyline of New York is clearly visible I grabbed dinner at the Jameson Tavern before landing in my room. The tavern, it is said, is where Maine was born when an agreement was made slicing off Maine from a much larger, at the time, Massachusetts.

After a good nights sleep I rushed outdoors to get a feel for the early morning in Maine. Beautiful clear light wove through tall pine and hulking ancient oaks in the forest behind The Freeport Inn. As my head cleared the leftover airport fogginess in the cool air I wandered down the hill and grabbed a quick breakfast at the quaint Freeport Café where locals ate early and tourists ate later. I was about in the middle.

It was time to come to grips with my destination. You see, I go places randomly. I like intuitive wandering, going somewhere I've never been and I have no idea of. I wound up wandering the back streets of Casablanca that way, and the streets of Detroit, little Lima, Ohio, Grants, New Mexico, San Francisco, a lot of places. Now I was in Freeport and I didn't know much about the place. Good.

It sounds strange I know, like I bumped my head and woke up in Maine with amnesia. It's not amnesia. It's a technique I employ to keep me awake in life, a way to see things fresh and new. Of course I'd like the idea of going to Maine. But the town itself, my destination, was another matter entirely. It was not a place I would pick to visit for one reason. The town of Freeport is the San Marcos of Maine. It is a shopping town, an outlet mall town.

I'm a guy. Shopping is punishment, or something I have to do, like going to the dentist. I shop like a guy, get in, grab it, pay, get out. Fifteen minutes of that and I'm exhausted. Clearly I'm not a power shopper.

Not that I'd be forced to shop against my will. There were plenty of good things to do without shopping but I had moment of regret because I didn't want to see acres of parking lot and mall ripping through the forest. I grumped.

But I got on with my trip and I went through town on my way to Casco Bay and wondered when I'd run across the outlet mall. I came back through town to change in my room and go off to lunch and wondered when I'd run across the outlet mall. I went to a lot of places and wondered where they'd hidden the outlet mall. A day later I had an epiphany. This was it. It looked like a town. It was a town.

This is not a literary device, this surprise of mine. It really happened. The development was sensitive, superbly integrated into the natural environment. Parking was unobtrusive, rather than assaultive, with many little lots tucked away at the outlying edge of things rather than the entrances. The stores didn't dominate the environment and no sign wars, aimed at imprinting branding on the population, cluttered the eye. Even the McDonalds was in a historic house with a teeny wooden sign planted in the McDonalds garden (real flowers).

Still, I don't shop, so I spent a lot of time visiting places out of town like Wolfe's Neck State Park right on Casco bay where I saw an osprey and the rocky shore Maine is so well known for. Hiking, bird watching at the Mast Landing Sanctuary, sitting by the bay listening to the lapping of water against the ancient rock was plenty.

In moments not traipsing around bird sanctuaries, or ocean, I spent a fair amount of time at The Haraseeket Inn, something of my in-town home base. The inn is a beautiful facility opened in 1984 but has building going back to 1798. I ate there a lot. Unfortunately, even though I am good at reviewing air I'm unable to convey the sublime quality of the food at the inn with a food review. Words fail. Suffice it to say the staff at the Haraseeket (many were trained at the Culinary Institute of America) were true artists.

But then, one day, circumstances foiled plans to go out to sea and so I did it. I strapped on my walking shoes, checked my wallet, grabbed my 20% off for 24 hours LL Bean discount card my hosts had so graciously given, and I spent a day looking at shops. Trust me, for me this is different.

I figured if I started to get crazed I could take my shoes off and grab a little mental health renewing nap under a readily available tree on a nice patch of grass (guaranteed no fire ants, Maine has a paucity of biting-stinging things).

Trucking up and down Main Street I saw the shops you'd expect. Yes, you had your GAP and Nine West and Patagonia and Polo but you also had a variety of unique shops more often tucked a block off Main. Those are the ones that interested me.

Down Mechanic Street a bit off Main I found Steve and Judy Brown. An elegant couple, they began making jewelry in college and in 1967 established Brown Goldsmiths in Freeport. Reflecting the elegance of the owners their design and craftsmanship is of the highest quality.

Jewelry making is one of the oldest arts in human culture. From shaping stone to wear around the neck and piercing the body to accommodate decorative or ritual objects this craft is as ancient as perhaps even language. In a way jewelry is a language.

The Browns let me go upstairs to the shop area where they employ a small number of skilled craftsmen to make their designs or develop custom designs for clients. In the shop a Russian born jeweler was hammering texture into the metal of a bracelet he held on his lap. I could imagine someone doing exactly that in a hut in Egypt many thousands of years ago. In contrast he sat behind the newest tool, the extremely sophisticated laser welder that can weld delicate antique jewelry without risking destruction of stones by the heat of traditional soldering.

I was energized by meeting the Browns and with a smidge of confidence in my ability to at least window-shop-on I wandered to the end of Main Street where Thomas Moser Cabinet Maker had a showroom of handcrafted cherry furniture. This is exquisite furniture. The clean design elements owe a debt to Shaker design but also carry a bit of sturdiness from perhaps a Mediterranean influence.

Around another bend I found Edgecomb Potters which had the most unique glazes I'd seen in a while, something like a metallic raku effect on porcelain. The colors, strong but not gross, would be enough to fill a room. This was okay, a little like wandering art galleries.

But then, like a drop in blood sugar, I faded. I found the ubiquitous Starbucks, got a coffee and landed under a tall pine and stretched out. Breathing the cool air I watched couples wander the little greenbelt. Husbands and boyfriends flagging in the afternoon warmth, dragging a foot or two behind their wives and mothers and girlfriends. Yes brothers, I know.

In spite of my disinterest in shopping I realized if I ever wanted to go shopping with a power-shopping friend this would absolutely be the place to go. Because I could leave while they shopped. You can't do that in most outlet malls because that is all there is, the mall. Here I had forests, Casco Bay, State Parks, all within easy distance.

I stood. Gathered my strength. I had one more place to go. For LL Bean fans Freeport is the Holy Grail, the flagship store, where they threw the key away years ago. It's open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Honest. And I couldn't see Freeport without paying my respects to the Bean family.

Established in 1912 by LL (if you must know it stands for Leon Leonwood and I think going by LL was a good idea) when he came back from a hunting trip with wet feet. He had the bright idea to sew leather uppers on rubber boots, which turned out to be a really good combination for the Maine woods. It grew from there.

Still a family-run business the shop carries a wide variety of clothing, outdoor gear, house wares and is also home to the LL Bean Outdoor Discovery Schools where they offer instruction in activities including fly fishing, paddling, guide training, photography and shooting. Laudably, the organization is also a promoter of conservation and stewardship of the outdoors. In the last five years they have contributed nearly two million dollars to organizations like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and Maine Island Trail Association. My guess is they also had a lot to do with keeping the green-space in Freeport.

And so, with a pocket full of money, lots of time, bargains galore and a 20% off card for the LL Bean Holy Grail Store what did I do? I bought one shirt. It's nice. I needed it because I was a shirt short on my packing. Oh, and a pin for a friend and a couple refrigerator magnets for my editor who won't let me go on trips if I forget to add a new magnet to his collection when I return. He has a lot of magnets on his double door fridge and now he has two more. I worry about airplanes getting confused by compass deviations while flying over his house.

I was shopped out. Back to the great outdoors for me. So for a quick diversion I wandered to something called The Desert of Maine. Coming from the edge of a desert in Texas and a desert aficionado in West Texas and New Mexico I wanted to see what Maine could scrape up for a desert.

The Desert of Maine is a sandy strip of land punctuated by birch and pine and impressive to people who haven't seen deserts. The Desert of Maine is cute, but not likely to eat a wagon train. What it is though is an ecology lesson. It is a story of a farming disaster of a single crop, potatoes, stripping the topsoil. The desert potatoes built was created by a combination of the ice age grinding rock into sand, which was eventually covered by topsoil, and then eroded away by years of potato farming without any crop rotation.

After that I wanted ocean, and joined up with Atlantic Seal Cruises run by Captain Tom Ring. Tom had just spent months ferrying debris from the World Trade Center. Now he was hauling a few people out into Casco Bay to look for seal and osprey. By the way, the air, at this point was perfectly chilled, had a crisp crust and an undercurrent of seafood dusted with seal with just a touch of diesel.

It was towards the end of afternoon on a cloudy day when we pulled out from the dock. The air was wonderfully cold and very quickly I put on every layer I'd brought with me. It's always a joy for me, being at sea. We watched seals bobbing their heads watching us, and cruised by the arctic explorer Admiral Peary's summer home on Eagle Island.

Admiral Peary, you might recall, was the only man, and the first, to reach the North Pole without the aid of mechanical or electrical devices. A sturdy individual he chose a romantic and rugged place to build. I could understand something of his affinity for strong natural forces be they cold and ice, or wild seas. It was one of the most dramatic places to live I have seen, not because of it's size or prominence, but because it sits on the very edge of wildness.

Too soon it was time to leave. My intuitive wandering proved yet again that I would come to value places I would never think of going. I learn, I meet people I would never otherwise have met and I see and experience new things that sit outside the edge of my ordinary choices in life.

I learned, for example, you don't have to develop a place to death. I learned potatoes can make deserts, and seals like watching us as much as we like watching them. I learned haddock can be cooked to perfection without being sauced to death and I saw a laser welder, osprey, the rocky shore of Maine and oh yes … I have this nice shirt now.

For information about Freeport visit www.freeportmaine.com. For shops, restaurants and facilities in Freeport see www.freeportusa.com and for LL Bean visit their website at www.llbean.com

Bill Bruzy is a writer and counselor in Austin, Texas. He can be reached at (512) 477-9595