Traveling south from Fort Kent on my return from the Author’s Conference, I stopped in Caribou, Presque Isle, and Houlton, Maine.  On Routes 161 and then 1, expansive vistas open one after the other as though on a reel of film.  It had been years since I’d been back to this part of Maine, but instantly, the phenomenon of “farmed mountains” impressed me all over again.  The countryside is remarkably similar to farm country I’ve seen in Scotland, Ireland, France, and Nova Scotia.  Rolling hills of cultivated land, framed by forest.  In “The County” as Aroostook County is known, potato is king, followed by broccoli, canola, and various grains, and I was enthralled to see so many working draft horses.  There are also solid, industriousness enclaves of Almish communities in Aroostook, and several times, I was greeted by someone waving from a horse-drawn “gig” trotting along the road.

The larger towns of The County look anything but bereft or downcast.  They appear vibrant, well-kept, even prosperous.  All have bustling downtowns with businesses of almost every description–in Fort Kent, I found an Italian Bistro.  The land mass of Aroostook is greater than that of Connecticut and Rhode Island–combined!  That’s one county larger than two states.

I had lunch at the landmark Elm Street Diner in Houlton, then scouted the center of town.  It is an incredibly attractive hub of historic buildings and businesses where city planners have given admirable forethought to parking.  Always keen for bookstore sightings, I immediately noticed York Books.  There was easy, free parking within 50 yards of the store.

Along one wall and also on turnstile displays, I found titles like Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, and Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  York Books featured the classics!  Farther along the wall, I came to the Maine section and was very pleased to locate my own book among many others.  It was my chance to meet  Lynn York, owner of York Books for 44 years.  When I offered to sign the copies he had, our conversation opened almost as many vistas as I had seen on my way south.

As a sort of sideline hobby, Lynn York has been bringing celebrity entertainers to Houlton for many years.  He showed me a photo album that included performing shots of Kris Kristofferson, Billy Swan, Charlie Daniels, and many others.  Lynn also has designed and commissioned fair and festival rides which have been featured at the August events in which he has been so instrumental.   As if that weren’t enough to take up all his time, this Renaissance man collects calliopes, vintage organ grinding machines, and other esoteric music makers.  Watch him working his Original Raffin Oberlingen in this video.

York.

The event was staged by a teacher at Fort Kent Elementary/Valley River Middle School, a teacher who won the awe and adulation of all the authors present.  We had a romance novelist whose works are translated in 22 languages, a writer of young adult fiction, a humorist, an author of occupational therapy text books, and me–in other words, a wide diversity.  Kara Beal was somehow able to coax authors to travel great distances to be part of the conference, the purpose of which was to inspire young writers.

Authors were divided into separate classrooms where each held two sessions.  Students ranging in age from 12-18 were invited to sign up.  They were not required to be there.  When I walked into the first session, I’m sure my mouth fell open.  The huge classroom–more the size of a small amphitheater–was filled.  Row up row of students who didn’t have to be there, but wanted to be.

In Fort Kent, there is an extraordinary “academic row” close to the the heart of town.  It begins with Fort Kent Elementary/Valley River Middle School.   Next door, only a short walk away, is the high school.  Next to that is the University of Maine at Fort Kent.  Instead of separating schools and age groups as is so commonly done elsewhere, students of all ages are in close proximity to one other.  They are not only physically close, but some academic events, like the Author’s Conference, are shared events.

For younger students who constantly get to see those who have gone before them, students who are now at higher grade levels, it may have the effect of smoothing the transition when their time comes.  Fears are diffused.  High school is not some distant reality surrounded by mystique and apprehension.  And, in turn, neither is college.

There’s something going on in Fort Kent, Maine, and I know that all of the authors noticed it.  The throng of students who attended the conference were interested, inquisitive, alert and responsive.  There was a long and productive Q & A following the program, and then some kids lingered afterward for small talk.

Though it may exist invisibly, I saw none of the lethargy, none of the inertia, none of the slumped, bored, disconnectedness which is so often written about and discussed in other places.  I saw its opposite.  And next, is something America needs to pay attention to:  Some of the authors, at the close of the conference, remarked to each other that childhood obesity, that epidemic so rampant across the country, was virtually nonexistent in Fort Kent, Maine.  I, for one, saw none, and that was the first time in a very long time.

So…a town and a school system at the very top of New England captured the interest and attention of all the authors in attendance.   The teacher with the vision, energy, and determination to have made this idea a reality is Kara Beal, hero of the 1st Annual Fort Kent Author’s Conference.

It is what it is though, and Sal makes no apologies to anyone.  Yes, he has a past, and it had nothing to do with western Maine.  Yes, it was on the American “left coast,” and for a short time it included being side-swiped by fame as an upstart novelist.  It also included a wife who died of a drug overdose.  Like a stonefly in spring, Sal shed the outer shuck of those years and began listening to his inner fishermen, which ultimately led him to a cabin in western Maine and a new life as a fishing guide.

Bailey, Sal’s girlfriend who owns the local bookstore, accepts the package as is, game leg and all.  With his sport for the day and his Black Lab, Buck, the middle-aged Sal shuffles off with his clicking knee and sore hip to trout pools off the radar of fair weather fishermen.  Sal and Bailey convene, romantically, after hours at his beloved base of guiding operations on Otter Pond.

Robert J. Romano, Jr.’s West of Rangeley, the second novel in his Western Maine Series follows his well-received, North of Easie.  In West, a drama is about to unfold, but before it does, Romano takes a long time to give you the landscape.  You’ll look over Sal’s shoulder at his fly-tying vise as he wraps and finishes the head and hackle of a favorite trout fly.  You’ll watch the surface of Otter Pond dimpling with native squaretail.  Bailey drops by after work and you eavesdrop to learn how these two, rebounding from train wreck marriages, found each other.  Their once-tumultuous pasts are quieter now.

You have the feeling this tranquility can’t last, and you’re right.  There are architectural drawings already at the Town Hall awaiting rubber-stamp approval from the Planning Board.  A local entrepreneur, wealthy from the tourist trade, has found partners to help back a project that will transform Otter Pond into a puddle flanked by faux-rustic condos owned by “summer people” wearing golf shirts and visors.  Sal opens a letter to find a purchase offer for twice the value of his place, the last holdout property.

If that weren’t enough to ruin any day’s good fishing, Sal, while guiding one day, discovers a clandestine, midnight gold-dredging operation which threatens to destroy the integrity and stream bed of one of the best local native brook trout fisheries.  Just to thicken this suspensful soup, a dazed, wounded vet and local hero, recently returned from Afghanistan, goes missing, and what’s more, somebody’s firing automatic weapons at cardboard human targets just outside of town.  Sal’s friend, the district game warden, who also happens to be conducting a long distance relationship with Sal’s daughter gets involved, and so does a newcomer to town––a former Special Forces-turned free spirit who loves eastern philosophy as much as he loves Long Trail Ale.

Romano weaves a tangled web, and you’re about as convinced as his main character is that this has to end poorly.  Really poorly.  Surely the bad guys, who pass for good guys since they’re homegrown natives and he’s from away, will prevail.  And what about the prospector/fishery destroyers, and the missing hero, and the M16’s being fired in the middle of the night?

The thing is, Buck’s Black Lab nose sniffs out something illegal going on across Otter Pond, and this is when it pays to have Buddhist, beer-drinking, Green Beret friends.  All Sal wanted was a quiet life with Bailey and Buck, his tying vise, and as many more trips to the region’s storied trout waters as his aging legs would allow.  Was that too much to ask?

West of Rangeley uses a fictitious Maine town as the setting for Romano’s novel, but you end up thinking the author might’ve chosen any number of real ones with no loss of credibility.  He populates his tale with true-to-life characters of the kind you run across constantly in Maine––the sheriff whose belly protrudes so far over his belt, you think all his buttons must be reinforced, salt-of-the-earth, hard-working folks, interlopers who’ve found a place to be weird, left alone, and they like it that way.

No stranger to the region could’ve written West of Rangeley, and Romano isn’t. If Billy Joel coined and characterized a “New York State of Mind,” in music, Romano has depicted a Maine State of Mind with precision in West of Rangeley.   Apart from the intrigue of his new novel which is fun to follow, West of Rangeley is a mood-enhancing read which can, with discipline, be taken in small doses (short chapters) so as to make it last longer.

West of Rangeley by Robert J. Romano, Jr.; 224 pages, $22.00 Birch Brook Press (2012)

Whitefish and Lake Trout

These came up from the depths on Saturday morning to liven things up out on the ice.  It was a brilliant, high pressure, “bluebird day.”  The whitefish is 17 1/2 inches, the lake trout (togue) 20 inches.  Imagine them hours later in a skillet!   Outside, it was zero degrees and blowing as the woodstove danced a jig and a toddy brought a blush to our cheeks.

This trail was first brushed out by Sonny Sprague, the legendary Grand Lake Stream figure I wrote about in my book, “Where Cool Waters Flow.”  The trail was too “boney” for a snowmobile, because the skis would bash into rocks just beneath the snow.  Another half a foot to a foot of snow would be needed for good snowmobiling.  It was about 9 miles roundtrip to access the “bait pond” where we had previously put traps.

We traveled overland on 8-10 inches of snow to a remote pond teaming with baitfish.  This is one night’s haul, to be used on ice fishing outings in the coming weeks.  They’ll be stored in a holding box under the ice in 8 feet of water.

Out where I guide on the Canadian border waters, much of the work I ask of a truck is off-road.  Off-road in the Maine willywacks is not the off-road of most TV truck commercials.  “To hell and gone” in fact, is the exact map location of some of the best fishing.  You need a good truck, preferrably with 10-ply tires, good ground clearance, and of course, four wheel drive.

I decided after some soul searching that I had no heartfelt allegiance to any make or model.  Ford-lovers love to tell you that C-H-E-V-R-O-L-E-T stands for “can hear every valve rattle on long extended trips.”  GM-lovers retort that, “found on roadside dead,” is what F-O-R-D stands for.  I’ve owned both and neither were completely immune to issues.

So, in this spirit of impartiality, I looked at the dealership map of Maine, found online.  It’s very handy–you hold the mouse over the location and a window pops up with the contact info.  I called 7 dealerships in one morning.  My mission was to find out who had the best promotions going on, the best interest rates and so on.  I know what you’re thinking–in this depressed car and truck-buying economy, they probably couldn’t get into my wallet fast enough.

Well, you would think so.  Here are my findings from this incomplete, unscientific  survey of 7 Maine dealerships ranging from greater Portland to greater Bangor:

1. The first order of business is not to answer your questions, but to get you “into their system.”  This means phone number, email, and home address.

2. After finally taking down information on the vehicle I’m in the market to buy, all except one salespeson said they would do the research and call back.

3. Two of the seven dealerships actually called back.  Two out of Seven.

I know, this is beginning to sound like another, “Sorry, we’re open” story, and it probably is.  I mean, from the dealership’s point of view, here is a prospective buyer calling!

Two of the sales people I talked to–well, that’s already a misrepresentation–these two guys did all the talking, talking over me, talking around me, talking down to me, and generally giving me the lecture they’d  learned to recite in showroom training school.

One salesman, wanting my home address even before I got to say what I was after, was baffled when I asked why.  It turned out that he could then check to see if I was on GM’s “list” which could mean a lower price and a better deal.  “List?” I said.  “I’m sorry,” I continued, “but before we go on, you’re going to have to tell me how my address, that is, where I live, is a factor in determining the deal I get?”  This was too much for him.  He reacted as if I’d said something about a family member, saying, “No one has ever asked me questions like these before.”  Really?

I don’t know about you, but as soon as I find out I’m on a list, I want to know how I got there. Lists help someone to compartmentalize you, categorize you, classify you.  Will my neighborhood show up as one deserving of a lower interest rate because there are more people who still have their jobs where I live?  In short, “lists” can be not-so-subtle tools for discrimination.

I do understand wanting to classify buyers.  But keep it to yourself for heaven’s sake.  I’m just a working guy wanting a truck.  I didn’t call to be interrogated.  Instead of giving me a straightforward answer to my straightforward question, you’re trying to fit me into one of your buyer compartments so that you’ll know how best to deal with me.

So, kudos to the two of you who did actually call back on a prospective sale.  But to all of you who persist in forcing your willing buyer to do business with you on your terms, expressing little interest in what theirs might be, please see my, “Sorry, we’re open” blog.

Epilogue:  Buying a used truck from the guy down the road is beginning to look pretty good.

One of the high points of my ongoing book tour since the publication of “Where Cool Waters Flow” was to speak last night at the Somerset Club on Beacon Hill in Boston.  Bill Ames was the club host and he produced one of the most interesting, wonderful audiences I’ve ever had the privilege to speak to.  What’s more, all were seated at one table in a “great hall” style dining room afterward, where we shared toasts, stories, and laughter.  Thanks Bill, and thanks Somerset Club!

 42 Beacon St., Boston