Help: Waterville, Maine, area?

Subject: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Midchuck
Date: 21 Jan 00 - 07:36 AM

Making a road trip there (from Vermont) to play a coffehouse gig on the Colby College campus. Anyone from around there know how to find the Colby College campus?

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Charlie Baum
Date: 21 Jan 00 - 10:13 AM

Asking for driving directions in Maine brings to mind a lot of punch lines, everything from "You can't get theah from heah" to "Practice!"

My last trip to Maine included the directions: "Go to where the road turned right and a house burned down on the left. Turn left where the house used to be." (The frightening thing is that those directions worked!)

But if you need a serious answer, you might try asking for directions at www.mapquest.com

--Charlie Baum

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From:
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 07:58 PM

I got some instructions from a friend in Maine. Please e-mail me and I can pass it on to you, Midchuck.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Midchuck
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 08:11 PM

We made it. Played, got well paid and put up in the Holiday Inn, came home.

College kids liked our music! It seems to confuse the average 40-year-old. Maybe it is all a circle that always comes back to the starting point. Or something.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From:
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 09:45 PM

I am 46. One of the guys at work is 38, and he does NOT like my music. Funny thing, his daughter, who is in her early 20s, likes the 40s and 50s and 60s stuff I enjoy! Interesting. He prefers the modern rock stuff! Go figure.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: GUEST,_gargoyle
Date: 24 Jan 00 - 11:54 PM

I Am So sincerely SORRY that you found your way correctly through the wilderness....you deprived the local Maine residents of one of the few traditions, distractions and entertainments, that they have developed to perfection....... the process of giving "lost souls directions" for them it is a fine art. (The moose mate in the privacy of the woods and aside from "ice-out-contests-on-the-lake" there is damned little amusment afforded by the tree denisoned desolation....except for passing tourists.)

Greenville, ME is a small town on the southern tip of Moosehead Lake which is somewhat near the entrance of the legendary "North Maine Woods." The chief employment is logging, paper mill, tourists, guiding, unemployment.....There is not much "recreation" in Greenville; there are three tennis courts at the high school, a summer bible study, a monsterous sized lake with all the exceedingly excellent fishing stream/lake that a body could crave, and some pool tables at the "Long Branch Saloon." But for recreation, on a Friday night, for the local, home-bound, adolesents, there ain't much to it....and if you do.... "do-it" .....the entire community knows "it" by Monday evening.

The local adoescent past-time, on a sultry summer, mosquito/no-see-um infested Friday night, was to sit on the crumbling concret steps of the ancient "Indian Store" and give advice to misplaced tourists. The "Indian Store" sold rubber tomahawks to kids, and a few authentic baskets woven by local Indian tribes, and 'Moose-Bead-Necklaces' (brown wooded pulped oblongs) stitched by 12 year old girls from the winter turd-droppings. The store sat on the north-west intersection of the I-15 which ran north through town and suddenly vered 90 degrees to the left.

Guys, would sit on the steps, telling stories, smelling of "Old Woodsman" (Cutter's was not cool, but Jungle Juice 90% DiEthalMetaThoualimid was OK) swatting the bugs and occasionally commenting on the quality of a neighbor's gas, (particuallary, on Saturday nights when the local tradition was beans and florescent colored weiners....served in EVERY local household) Like spider's in there lair it was known, that around 6:00 pm the tourists from the "southern states" would begin pulling in, having left work and home at noon for an early start on their vacation.... They were on their way to the traditional vacation retreats held for generations and maintained by locals, or they were off to rentals..... (it dosn't get dark until near 10:00 pm in the summer)

The rentals, were the flies in the web.....the "summer people" (traditional joke - some are people, some are not) generally, knew where they were headed.

Inevitably, an automobile would pull up and ask, "Any of you boys know where highway 6 is?"

"Yep"

"Can you tell us?"

"Yep"

And then there would a be long pause....never, laughter because that was un-Mainiac.....just silence.....cold silence.

"Well.... how do we get to it?"

"Most drive, but I suppose you could walk."

The banter would continue in like manner until the amusment of the tourest was reaching its end.

And then the appointed "leader" for the job, it rotated depending upon the time, week, and members present....would begin to spin out the directions. "Ya, mi wan ta tak note on this...." And usually, the woman, if there was one in the car, and usually there was.... would pull out a pad and pen from her purse.....

"Ya, continue straight ahead toward Beava'Cov, but if ya get there ya gone too far, but on the way there ya will see a church on the left an afta tha ya turn right....tha be Scammon Road....ya continur down all the way until ya see the big white barn at Pygensky Farm...P.Y.G.E.N.S.K.Y.....nope, there ain't no sign just the barn, look for the mailbox...an ya make a right....continue down until the road comes to a "deadend T" and that be "East Road" make a right and that will take ya straight on down inter Pleasant road, naw check tha sign ta see that ya on Pleasant Road........the name changes and that be highway 6."

About 20 minutes later, the same car would pass by the group of boys seated on the steps of the Indian Store....and they would all wave as the car went past........ You see, highway 15, that made the right angle curve directly to the left , in front of the Indain Store was also highway 6, which was also, Pleasant Street which was also East Road....

Ahhhhh,,,,,none of you big city folk can truly appreciate the simple amusments of the small town life.

Occasionally, in the summer I will marinate steaks with liquid smoke, vinagar, maple-syrup, cloves, cinnamon, onion garlic and anchovies....and the memory of "Old Woodsman" and its cologne comes tumbling back through the tangled brush bundles of the mind.

HarpGirl,THANX
I'm being nice,
you have the music to calm the savage beast.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: GUEST,_gargoyle
Date: 25 Jan 00 - 11:41 PM

Upon reflection...their is powerful corrolary between the antics of the northern Maine boys and the Arkansas traveler.

Both were probably born out of long stretches of summer melancoly bordom.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Brendy
Date: 26 Jan 00 - 12:04 AM

Nice one GG.
Brings to mind one of my brother's favourite ones.
A 'tourist' would ask, for instance, the best way to get onto the Belfast main road.
"Do you know where Tandragee is?", (5 mile away) he would ask.
"Yes" would come the response to the auto-suggestion
"Well it's nowhere near there"

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Marymac90
Date: 26 Jan 00 - 01:28 AM

Gargoyle-nice story, well told.

George S.-are you related to Shari S, who is friends with Stewart T? I am a good friend of Stewart, et al, too.

Mary McCaffrey

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Marymac90
Date: 26 Jan 00 - 01:47 AM

Gargoyle-nice story, well told.

George S.-are you related to Shari S, who is friends with Stewart T? I am a good friend of Stewart, et al, too. Oh, I almost forgot what I wanted to say, George.

My theory of who usually likes what music is that people often DON'T like what their parents like, especially when they're in their teens or 20's. Young folks want to be part of some sub-culture that's different from their parents. Music helps them define who they are. There are different little sub-cultures in high schools for a variety of different musical genres.

As people get older, they may continue to enjoy the music of their youth for the rest of their lives, unless something turns them off it. They may also broaden their tastes to include things closer to their parents preferences. I myself turned away from rock music when concerts and dances got so loud my ears couldn't stand it. Folk music usually lined up nicely with my left-of-center politics. I began to enjoy swing when I was in my 30's, when it no longer bothered me to like something my dad had enjoyed.

Mary McCaffrey

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: GUEST,_gargoyle
Date: 26 Jan 00 - 09:14 PM

I am sure there is something in the human psyche....with early inprinted and adolescent rebellion.

A couple of years back I was walking with a colleage, of the same generation, across a large quad area. A young, live group, was performing on the outdoor stage. I briefly, missed a step in our pace. He paused, mid-conversation and asked, "What is it?"

I replied,"That music."

He said, "Yeah its awful"

My responce was, "Yes, but, originally that rhythem and bass were known as"In-A-Godda-Da-Vida"

Ever since, ...upon occasion, ....he will sometimes shake his head and comment, "In-A-Godda-Da-Vida"

I grew up with Burl Ives and the "Three Little Kittens" but danced, investigated plants, and romanced, to early "Acid" - Both are permanently etched within my brain.

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: Susan A-R
Date: 26 Jan 00 - 09:36 PM

Life that ain't ecclectic is a bit boring ain't it? Liked the stories Garg. We do similar stuff here in VT too. Hopefully Peter won't run into it, as he's from a comrad state (New Hampshire, Now that is another story.)

Susan A-R

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 00 - 07:29 PM

Not bad Gargoyle, but it's Music hath charm to soothe the savage BREAST not beast

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 27 Jan 00 - 08:00 PM

A-Hem Miz Susan, I can assure you that we in the foreign (to you, ma'am) land of New Hampster are equally adept at misguiding hapless tourists (New Hampshire motto: if it's tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em?)!!

Subject: RE: Help: Waterville, Maine, area?
From: GUEST,_gargoyle
Date: 27 Jan 00 - 09:57 PM

If I had a smooth breast to savage....

.....................I would probably not be a beast.