(This was originally posted October 2009 on the original “Letters From Away” blog on WordPress.com. – KM)
There is a subtle bite to the humor in New England and Maine especially. It comes from working hard and living in a fairly harsh climate.
And Mainers suffer no fools, as you might imagine. Why should they?
There are even times when the humor is served up with such skill that a person does not realize he has been made the center of a joke until he has walked away from the Mainer who administer the dig and replayed the experience from start to finish.
Being from away, I appreciate the products found on the Maine Exile Products website, including T-shirts, mugs and alike with the message: “Born in Maine. Living in exile.”
The website home page also has a tongue-in-cheek quote from New England writer Louise Dickinson Rich that pretty much sums up the feelings of a Mainer “from away”:
“Mainiacs away from Maine are truly displaced persons, only half alive, only half aware of their immediate surroundings. Their inner attention is always preoccupied and pre-empted by the tiny pinpoint on the face of the globe called Down East. They try to live not in such a manner that they will eventually be welcomed into Paradise, but only so that someday they can go home to Maine.” – Louise Dickinson Rich. (By the way, the term "Mainiacs" is a little something Mainers call themselves.)
More Maine fun to come.
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