It’s a Maine Thing - Hezzy’s Sidewalk Talk

Celebrate Maine….Realize the Spirit!!!

Chronicles of a Mainer 

It’s March. It’s April. It’s Maine. It’s mud season. It’s town meeting time. While many parts of our country experience a phenomenon called spring, here in Maine we experience an unofficially declared season called Mud Season. The endless days of gray sky prevents the muck and mire of the earth underfoot to evaporate and dry. The crusty snow has become such a mass of old concentrated ice crystals that the stuff can’t even melt. On a good day we get a brief glimpse of the lawn before yet another snowstorm passes through covering everything under a blanket of fresh snow that erases any hope of winter coming to an end soon. Here in Maine thoughts of spring flowers, May Day and warm sun still seems light years away. During Mud Season we entertain ourselves with discussion about important regional topics like pot holes, the depth of the remaining ice on the ponds, the high school basketball tourney results and town meeting.
Town meeting is that celebrated Yankee tradition where democracy is in full throttle, despite the mud that permeates our souls and dooryards. From Portage to Eliot, in small towns throughout the state, citizens gather in town halls, school gyms or former grange halls to engage in participatory democracy. Budgets are fought over, amendments are proposed to articles on the warrant and lively, sometimes heated, discussion takes place.  It’s all in the spirit of keeping the community in tact and everyone attending has a say, which is what small town democracy is all about. Not everyone agrees with the guy in the bright red wool shirt who does a hatchet job on the budget. And not too many citizens side with the newly minted yoga instructor who recently moved from some big city somewhere who wants to establish a fund for doggie daycare. And if you are in that room in support of spending some of the surplus money on new park benches someone isn’t going to agree with you either.

But it really doesn’t matter because at the end of the day all of Mainers are in this together. Whether we as a town agree to go green, purchase a new snowplow or increase the fund for the needy, we’ve all spent a Saturday afternoon drinking the same thick, cold coffee out of styrofoam cups, attempting to find comfort on the chairs provided. Collectively each of us are secretly in hopes that this annual ritual of democracy, which goes back to our colonial roots, will end soon. Eventually the meeting comes to an end with all of us heading into the dark night together.  A few light up a smoke. Some quietly walk away disappearing into the evening darkness. As we all review the highlights of the Annual Town Meeting each of us walk cautiously through the mire of Mud Season wrangling our way to the car in hopes of avoiding a fall. Or, hopefully, without throwing mud at one another. Afterall, we just had a hand at participatory democracy, dammit!

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