Favorite Pastimes of Northern Maine
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1. Cruising.
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Apparently, this is done in a lot of small towns like
mine. Basically, you just drive around on Main Street, looking at the
people walking on the sidewalks or sitting on their front porches.
Often, it'll be someone you know. Every cruising territory has its own
particular "turn around" spots. In this town, they happen to be the
Tulsa gas station and the Tastee Freeze, which is right across the street
from my friend Sheri's front porch.
Sometimes when we went cruising we'd drive by this huge puddle
in front of Violette Brook Park where we tried to splash people who were
walking by. Another cruising trick we used to do was honk at people on
the sidewalk and then pretend to wave at someone on the opposite side of
the street. Once, we saw Sheri's brother Toby walking home from school,
so we drove up to him, asked him if those were Bugle Boy jeans he was
wearing, and drove off. Ha!
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2. Driving pickup trucks through potato fields. (this is not a joke!)
- Potato fields after harvest are very bumpy and
exciting places to drive around in. Not as good as Space Mountain, but
it beats cruising. Although I personally never did this, my friend Jason
Thivierge has.
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3. Parking your car in the high school parking lot or in front of my
dad's office on Main Street.
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I am not kidding. People do this at night and on the weekends.
Often, as you walk by on Main Street you can see five or six cars all
parked at the high school. This is not your traditional
high-school-kids-necking sort of parking, but more like
watch-people-walk-by-on-Main-Street parking.
Unfortunately, I've since learned that because of the antics of
some overly-rowdy kids a while back, people are no longer allowed to hang out in
the high school parking lot. In fact, the Van Buren police will actually
approach anyone parking there and ask them to leave. I am saddened that such an
age-old tradition enjoyed by so many has been ruined because of a few idiots with
poor judgement. However, my dad's office is still fair game for night-time
parkers.
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4. Running over moose on the highway.
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While this is never intentional, it happens to several people every
spring/summer. One summer I had to commute about 20 minutes to work in
the next town, and on the road were bits and pieces of a moose and lots of
blood on the road, just sitting there for several days. Gross! Moose can
be very dangerous, especially when you hit them with your car.
Every time I drive somewhere, my mom always says, "Watch out for moose!
Drive slowly!"
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5. Learning to drive stick-shift (or How I Blew Up My Friend's Car)
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Various people have promised to teach me this over the years, but the one
who finally delivered was my friend Sheri. We drove out to the old elementary
school parking lot one night in August.
I practiced starting, stopping, starting, changing to second, etc...
I was actually quite good at it. We had been letting
the car idle a bit and had just started again when suddenly there was a
loud noise and a burning smell
and all this smoke came billowing out of the hood of the car.
"Get out of the car!" yelled Sheri. Upon scrambling out, we saw a huge puddle
of some mysterious substance that had leaked out of the car onto the pavement. There
was a large busted pipe under the hood. Thus began the long walk home.
Unfortunately, that was my last driving lesson.
Coincidence?
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6. The Truck and Mini-Tractor Super Pull!
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Takes place every summer at the Northern Maine Fair grounds.
A fun-filled and exciting weekend of watching
trucks pulling big loads around a track.
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