Clowns and Harlots: Safe at Home

Today's Financial News - Posted July 31, 2008

The sky is falling. I don’t know whether the sky is falling but I also don’t know anyone who is not a bit alarmed about the state of the union. To pretend otherwise seems to me to be a bit foolish. Americans are said to be nervous now and they are staying close to home. So I am going home to Maine. And listen to my kinsmen and friends complain about tourists.

by Christopher Corbett

Baltimore — (TFN): For more than 20 years I’ve had a William Hamilton cartoon from The New Yorker on my bulletin board, showing, as his drawings generally do, a couple of soignée dames talking to a guy in a checked hunting jacket. One of the ladies is exclaiming - “Maine! What an authentic place to come from.” I’m from Maine and I’ve heard that line before.

When summer rolls around and Americans start thinking about vacation they start thinking “Vacationland,” Maine’s annoying moniker. No one in Maine is especially pleased with the idea of being a vacation destination – even if they make a living off tourists - but as my late father used to point out to us, the good thing about tourists is that they go home – eventually. Except the ones who stay – forever – and go native! But that’s another problem.

Maine and Mainers can blame themselves. The state has marketed itself a tourist destination since the 19th century. Henry David Thoreau was a tourist in Maine. He was looking for something. I suppose all tourists are. In my estimation, Maine asked for it. Even now Mainers don’t seem to be able to stop taunting the rest of the country. When you drive across the great bridge that spans the Piscatiquis River separating Maine from our right wing neighbor New Hampshire (“Live Free or Die”) there is a big sign that proclaims – “Maine, the Way Life Should Be.”

Since nearly all of the mills closed and most of the other industries long associated with the state – shoe making, tanneries, woolen and cotton mills, pulp and paper, have died or are now greatly reduced – marketing Maine is all Maine has left to market. Maine sells Maine. “The Way Life Should Be.” It’s an idea. A concept. A slogan. A fantasy. It’s also a bit of an overstatement but Maine does OK by this. The last time I checked tourism in Maine was said to be the state’s biggest money-maker. In 2006, tourists were said to have spent $6.7 billion. That supported more than 175,000 jobs and generated $3.8 billion in wages and produced more than $531 million in tax revenues.

All of my life, Mainers have been complaining about tourists. It’s what they do. But tourists have been good to Maine and tourism is a soft industry that is not incompatible with the life of Maine – in other words it harms the environment a hell of a lot less than maybe an asbestos plant might. You with me so far?

Rusticators, as the old people called them, remain a staple. As a native son who comes home regularly, I am amused and amazed at the professional Mainer syndrome – folks who’ve come to Maine and “gone native.” Naturally they complain the most about tourists. In my experience, it is the recent arrival from New Jersey who yowls loudest. And the most ferociously Maine types tend to be people with rather shallow roots Down East.

Maine has long made this pact with the devil. The state now fiercely markets itself as a four-season destination. There are said to be more than 70 million Americans and Canadians within a one-day drive of the State O’ Maine. Yikes! Even gasoline prices over $4 a gallon won’t keep them away.

Portland is Maine’s largest city – a mere 70,000 or so citizens. An estimated 3.6 million tourists visit annually. To put that in perspective – that’s more than 50 tourists per resident of Portland. That’s a lot of tourists. But as my late father reminded, they do go home eventually.

And so it is that I am going home this week for a short visit. It’s home after all. It’s familiar. I’ll have dinner with my eccentric brother one night. He lives on an island. Stay with some friends. I’ll stop at Fat Boys, an old 1950s-style drive-in and have a clam roll. I’ll walk down to Ram Island and back for some exercise. I’ll call around and see old friends. When you are not home often they are glad to see you. I’m a bit like the character in the old play, “The Man Who Came To Dinner.” I’m a bit of a mooch. Well, I’m honest about it.

But part of this mid-summer’s holiday on the cheap is that life is uncertain now. The house in Tuscany seems so far away this year. Ditto the friends in the Loire Valley. And the Wind River mountains in Wyoming. Big sky country and all that. Not this year, pardner.

All last week the newspapers blasted and blared away with one economic horror story after another. Unemployment, consumer credit nightmares, the collapse of the mortgage industry. The sky is falling. I don’t know whether the sky is falling but I also don’t know anyone who is not a bit alarmed about the state of the union. To pretend otherwise seems to me to be a bit foolish. Americans are said to be nervous now and they are staying close to home.

So I am going home to Maine. And listen to my kinsmen and friends complain about tourists. It’s familiar and safe and it’s inexpensive. There is something very comforting about that. The rich ladies in the New York cartoon were right.

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