Posted on 08/02/2010 2:15:37 PM PDT by patriotgal1787
We've got a way to go to bring along fellow Americans who just can't see the forest for the trees. In this case, Maine pine trees.
Early in my career as a television broadcaster, I worked at a TV station in Bangor, Maine. I was about eight months into the job when -- while doing a story about how President Reagan's firing of the Air Traffic Controllers was impacting small aviation businesses in Central Maine -- I met my husband.
Maine is a lot like Alaska -- wide open spaces, untamed, forested, mountainous, and sparsely populated. Folks get around using snowmobiles, skis, 4-wheel rugged terrain vehicles and airplanes (seaplanes are plentiful because of all the lakes in a state whose logo is "The Vacation State".)
My husband was/is a pilot. At that time he managed an FBO at Bangor International Airport. It also was a licensed Cessna Pilot training center where he taught would-be pilots like Tabitha King (wife of author and Bangor resident Stephen King) to fly.
When it was time for me to move on to a bigger TV market -- which is what one does in that business -- we left Maine together and relocated to Florida, escaping our northernmost New England state just ahead of a souring economy. Paper mills that had employed generations of hardy, muscular, self-sufficient woodsmen were shutting down. The economic effect was rippling through the region. Unable to find jobs, the rate of alcoholism and mental depression grew commensurate with unemployment. Welfare checks eventually replaced unemployment checks. Groceries were paid with food stamps, while homes and cars grew run down. Times were rough and getting rougher. Worries about heating bills during the long cold winters. Paying for auto insurance, mortgages, became insurmountable. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no money to spend even if you could. With the exception of Maine's wealthy coastal areas, the region froze in place. Economic growth was meager, most of it halted.
The once-thriving logging area where men were characterized by a giant Paul Bunyan Lumberjack statue that dominated Bangor's Main Street was struggling. New industry and business was desperately needed. Maine's two representatives in Congress brought in federal welfare -- not business start-up -- dollars. The Bangor city fathers did little better -- they brought in a casino. A gambling casino - giving the growing numbers of alcoholics and drug abusers yet another meeting to attend -- Gamblers Anonymous.
What's prompted me to tell you this is a piece I read this morning by a Mainer who so completely captures the attitude of our fellow Americans in the northeast corner of America. I've heard the words before, many times.
The piece is from a column titled The Universal Notebook: 'Fair-skinned and Unbalanced' by Edgar Allen Beem
Once you've read it you'll understand the mindset we're up against. Welcome to my world...
Excerpt:
For the next 10 minutes, as we continued to drift into deeper water, Mike lectured me about how Obama is out to destroy America. He knows this, he said, because he watches Fox News and I don’t.I just smiled with horrid fascination as an otherwise reasonable man insisted the Obama Department of Justice has a policy of not prosecuting black-on-white crime. He knows this because a former DOJ official named J. Christian Adams said so. The proof is that the DOJ failed to prosecute a pair of New Black Panther Party members in Philadelphia who, during the 2008 presidential election, allegedly intimidated voters outside a polling place while dressed in Black Panther paramilitary gear and carrying a nightstick.
***
In a stroke of coincidence...
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