Maine

What did guys like Joe and me know about Maine? I could tell you that Stephen King lives there and set some of his scariest books in fictional Maine towns, that LL Bean has a flagship operation somewhere in the state, and that lobster is plentiful. Tiny Maine blueberries are a thing. Oh, and the whole Bush family compound in Kennebunkport.

We trekked to the Northeast last week to pursue all this and to visit our dear old friends Matt and Artur. I first met Matt when he was my next-door neighbor at Cleveland's Hat Factory apartments twenty-three years ago. I had knocked on his door to demand that he turn down his music, and as I barged in on him, I saw a Justin Timberlake calendar that was a dead giveaway that we had more in common than the wall on which it hung.

A tiny Cessna plane whisked us from Boston to Bar Harbor on a flight I white-knuckled while Joe dozed off. As it teetered and careened in the air, that plane reignited my long-dormant fear of flying; my initial Maine euphoria was attributable to the huge relief of landing once again on terra firma.

Matt met us at the airport wearing shorts and flip-flops. Joe and I had been tortured over what to wear in Maine; as usual, we overpacked and, for casual Maine, overdressed. We instantly sussed out that Bar Harbor was nothing like Bal Harbour, the tony Florida enclave whose shops are of the sort we tend to favor.

(L to R): Matt, Me, Joe, Artur

Matt had taunted Joe mercilessly in advance when Joe asked him what he should wear to catch lobsters: leave your Gucci shirts behind and go for a pair of orange rubber overalls sans any shirt, he counseled. Joe brought a Tom Ford hoodie for the occasion, but in the end, I talked him into purchasing a far more appropriate Maine sweatshirt. 

Matt and Artur’s captivating, lobster-forward neighbors, Ron and Rose, provided a three-hour lobstering education. For one thing, severed fish heads were used as the bait. For another, we learned that a commercial fisherman must harvest 150 or more labor-intensive traps to make a go of it. (Ron lobsters as a hobby.)

If it's good enough for Martha . . .

All of this lobster activity made us hungry for lobster rolls, which we consumed at Martha Stewart’s favorite roadside joint; she closes it down when she visits. (In candor, the lobster we enjoyed at Matt and Artur’s home the previous night was sweeter. In this sense, our hosts outdid even Martha Stewart.) 

For the Love of Lobster: Martha's fave (left) 
versus Artur's platter (right)

We also realized that almost every business establishment claims to be frequented by Martha—even a junky shop positioning itself as an “antique store.”

On Sunday, with time to kill before another harrowing Cessna flight back to Boston, Joe indulged me by taking me on the ultimate horror fan’s pilgrimage to Bangor to visit sights associated with Stephen King. These included his former home. (The blood-red Victorian is now the headquarters of King’s foundation, while he and his wife split their time between another Maine home and—talk about horrifying—one in Florida.) You can’t go inside, but hey—you can’t go inside Notre Dame de Paris these days, but it is still awe-inspiring. The fence of King’s home is adorned with bats and spiders. I will save the other details for a future Halloween post. 

We crammed a lot into four days in Maine. Matt and Artur’s hospitality was epic. Old friends truly are the best friends. We love them dearly, and—designer duds be damned—Maine has not seen the last of us.