What we do have is some of the highest per pupil costs in the country, despite teacher’s salaries being among the lowest (MEA). This is because we have more administrators per student than anyone else, due in part to small schools and school districts. If the original data is counting administrators as educators that would make sense.

The aquarium has been maligning the lobster industry for at least twenty years. When I was last there, there were cards on the cafe tables saying they don’t serve lobster because it’s being overfished. Was completely untrue and there was research to prove it. I think these are PETA people who know abundant crustaceans do not generate as much sympathy as endangered mammals.

I forgot mine for six months. They charged me half price because it would only be good for another six months. I didn’t argue, but I felt kind of guilty.

If it’s a real Bob Ross it has some value. Supposedly most of the pictures he did for the show are lost.

Funny, I can remember people making very similar comments 30 years ago and my father laughing at the time because he’d heard it all before. Actually, Bangor has been on the “decline” since about 1880. Since the lumber industry went bust, we have been a commercial center for people who just don’t have that much disposable income. I think things are better, but change is slow and erratic. But, do we want to turn into Portland? Insane housing prices, uncontrolled urban sprawl, a lot of pretentious nonsense and mobs of tourists. There is a lot I love about Portland but they’ve got their problems.

We were shopping heavily about two years ago and it was discouraging. We were most concerned about hereditary health issues after our Doberman dropped dead in front of us. We were looking at $5000, apply and maybe you’ll qualify and then you’ll only have to pay for it’s airline ticket from someplace else. My husband finally saw an ad in the paper, handed over $1000 and brought home a cute yellow. She’s pretty and she’s sweet but we’ll probably end up springing for knee surgery. Hope you have better luck.

You actually like turnip.

In Maine, most towns split between desperately poor and hard working lower middle class. A few towns have enclaves of extremely wealthy people. In the US as a whole, upper middle class tend to live in gated communities or neighborhoods of expensive houses and the rich in walled compounds. I think this is part of why our country is so divided.

Personally I don’t want to read book reviews by anyone who isn’t literate enough to use words.

When I first came here from California, people were always asking if I knew someone they knew who was living in California. I thought they’d lost their minds. Now I get it.

My father called cormorants “shags”.

They used to dry it on the clothesline! I used to love it as a kid. Can’t manage it now.

Indian pudding! Cornmeal, molasses can’t remember what else. My dad also showed us how to pull taffy outside in the winter so it wouldn’t stick to your hands. Hi from Old Town.

If you go to your local library they have access to libraries (and consequently old cookbooks) from all over the state. Churches used to collect family recipes, bind them and sell them as fund raisers. Baked beans are the quintessential Maine food. Every family does them a little differently, but always from dried beans, which are soaked all night and then cook all day in that wood stove that’s blazing all day anyway to heat the house. Potatoes boiled with the jackets on. Finnan Haddie and red flannel hash. Can’t say I’m a fan of these but the names are worth the price of admission. With beans my Dad always had “brown bread” which came in a can.

My family made this with corned beef. I think before refrigeration was common they used salt preserved beef. So no extra salt needed.

This is described in detail in Little House In the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Guess I blew that one. The penguins are always shown on dry rocky land. So I guess that mile of ice doesn’t cover the whole continent. And salt water ice is a thing.

They were already shipping both food and timber all over the world.

I’m thinking some enterprising Yankee had some room in the hold, or maybe something else he wanted to keep cold, in a ship already headed for Australia. We already had the infrastructure for domestic ice production and transport. He took a risk, the Aussies said okay we’ll take that and he made a pile of money until they figured out something better. It happened they figured out how to make their own quicker than someone else figured out how to get it from NZ at a profit.

Also the Antarctic is considered a desert. You have to have fresh water for most uses of ice.