Overheard at the crowded local general store: “I seeh they got here”.   “Ayah”

Downeast Maine is very seasonable – quite busy in the summer- pretty deserted  in the winter, and the local economy very much measures this – wintertime jobs are hard to find.

A good friend of ours (Much younger and very much local -his family have only lived here for the past 250 years!)  is quite happy that his winter job working on $13 M “Improvements”on a “summer cottage” out on the island has been guaranteed for another year.

This does not mean all summer visitors are welcomed with open arms – often their expectations and attitudes are dead wrong. Native downeasters speak with a pronounced accent which some regard as “quaint” and the speakers as unsophisticated and very provencial. The person I referred to above has been to Europe twice playing with his HS Soccer team – his wife spent her jr college year in France. Regarding them as “Hicks from the sticks” is absurd – but common among the “Summah complaint”