A Country Girl Out of Maine

May 10, 1990

By Isabel Maresh Morse

This is my apology for not having a column for the last two weeks. I want to relate this country girl's experiences on my first real trip outside of New England. And for those Mainiacs who have an urge to travel, let me assure you, there is no place like home, and certainly no place in the world like Maine.

My sister Sylvia picked my mother and me up April 18 in a borrowed van from Bucksport. The first leg of the journey included three days spent in New Hampshire, during which time I asked myself numerous times, "What am I doing away from home?"

We left Concord, N.H., on Saturday, David Sylvia, Debbie, Mamma, and I, and spent the first night of our trip with David's sister Mary in Sterling, Va. mary and Ray were most gracious hosts, and mary gave us a guided tour of Washington D.C., at sunset and early evening. Debbie and I took many pictures, and peeked through the fence at the White House, picturing the Bush family eating supper. We saw the Washinton monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials, the crowds at the Vietnam memorial, the half-buried Greek statue, and the homeless sleeping on the lawn nearly across from the White House. We saw D.C. as we could never have seen it by ourselves.

From there we drove south. Billboards stand out in my memory, as I had thought that they had been banished. Miles and miles of billboards advertising the local attractions and the motel price wars. Another phenomenon to me was the miles of plowed fields, some with corn a foot high, with bright rusty red-colored soil, and in the midst of the fields, throughout several southern states, were small rusty steel buildings.

I realize that traveling on interstate highways only gives a glimpse of the country, but a large number of the houses with their many outbuildings were covered with this rusty steel roofing.

Being familiar with New England, it impressed me that I saw no stone walls or rocks, only the red soil. I can only describe the trip south as a time-travel trip into summer and back. When I was a small child, my grandmother made her first trip to Florida. There were no interstate highways then. I recall her telling me of the beautiful flowers and the groves of orange trees. I was looking forward to taking pictures of them. I recall my father's first trips and telling of the juicy, tasty oranges. I never saw the flowers nor the oranges.

We spent five days in Florida and the day were warm, and the nights cool. Debbie went to Disneyland for the day and the trip through Orlando at night was spectacular with the high-rise hotels, motels, and banks with flashing lights and billboards. I could only think of the amount of electricity and water that it must take to keep the city operating.

Let me tell you of my experience trying to find some of those juicy Florida oranges. On our first grocery shopping trip, we picked up pretty oranges, only to discover that they were from California. A few days later, we stopped at a produce stand where I got three oranges for $1. They were the worst fruit that I'd ever seen.

Friday, Debbie wanted to go to the beach, so David drove to Daytona Beach. There we saw miles and miles of white sand that looked like snow, with the water at 72 degrees, the air in the 80s, but a balmy breeze made the temperature just right. On the way back from Daytona, Debbie spotted a fruit stand. The operator sliced an orange and a grapefruit for us to sample, and they were delicious. Three of us purchased one-half bushel of fruit each to bring home. That man had spotted our Maine license plates. that had to be the worst fruit, and not even good for animal food.

We left Florida, which had not impressed me, on Saturday and drove 15 hours to visit Bertha, Harold, Russell, and Jim in Sugartree, Tenn. They made us most welcome, and we had a cookout on Sunday. Russell prompted his mother to make me a birthday cake, which was delicious.

There I met Bill, a native Tennessee truck driver with a southern accent so thick that we almost needed an interpreter. I really enjoyed the hour of conversation with Bill while we good-naturedly refought the Civil War, and I tried to convince him that the North had won. We also discussed the difference between our interpretations of Bible scriptures. Bill told us that it had been so cold that he turned up the controls on the electric blanket the night before. Not getting warm, he turned it up higher. Still being cold in the morning, he found that the controls were not plugged in, and his wife told him that she had taken it off the bed several days before. I hope you've found it by now, Bill.

We came home through the mountains in Virginia and Pennsylvania and finally saw flowers. I got back home to Maine two weeks after I'd left, and bob says I'm never going again. At this point, I agree. There's no place like home!

I'll get back to historical research next week. If anyone has old pictures or historical data to share, contact me.