(soft music) - Coming up next on the best of RFD Maine, we'll hear how life just wouldn't be the same without the Franklin trading post at the center of town and then we're off to the Corea post office which has made a permanent stamp on the hats of those who live there.

We'll see how both family and commercial farms are part of the familiar landscape of Maine.

And we'll get a peak at Lucerne maple products in East Holden where each year smoke from the sugar shack signals the turn of winter into spring.

So stay with us for a slice of life in rural Maine coming right up on the best of RFD Maine.

- [Narrator] Production of RFD Maine is made possible through a television demonstration grant from rural development.

Part of the US department of agriculture.

(soft music) - Maine is a state of geographic extremes from the wilderness of the great North Woods to dairy farms and orchards, from the coastal waters of the Atlantic to towns and villages nestled in Hills and valleys of lush terrain.

However different our landscapes, one thing rural communities in our state all have in common is the challenge of maintaining their rural way of life.

And some of the things that make our towns rural are hard to describe without seeing it firsthand.

Hi, I'm Sandy Fipen your host for the best of RFD Maine.

As you can see I'm standing in the facsimile of an old main country store.

I was just reading in Allan Lockyer wonderful book Clamdiggers and Downeast Country Stores, about how stores in Maine have changed.

For one thing there aren't as many as they used to be.

My town of Hancock once had 12 stores, one in every neighborhood but were now down to three.

But as you're going to see in the upcoming segment of the Franklin trading post, stores in Maine are still basically the same.

This one was started by Dave and Norma Albee now operated by their son Jeff and the characters that come hang out there in the morning for coffee and donuts.

Joe Cater, Bruce Cater people I grew up with incidentally still come there to see each other, pass the time of day while buying products and gas for their cars.

- I don't know this is a local gathering place.

- [Man] We all know each other.

- And anything we need to know we come up here and somebody will tell us whether it's right or wrong.

- Well it fits the definition of a mom and pop store to a T. My mom and pop own it.

- Well I come up five or six monitors a week, not every morning.

Sit down with the boys and have coffee find out what's new in Franklin.

- A lot of stories going out there.

And they want a time we know what the temperature is every 10 seconds, everyone's talking about that.

- [Woman] Your friends are here.

Friends meet and have coffee, talk.

- We thrash it out and we have it all solved when we leave here.

- When you get in your car to come over here you cheer yourself up.

- There's times when people just don't have any money around here.

Like right now is a good time cause its mud season.

No one's got any wood and they're not buying any clams and worms to speak of.

Everybody's kind of in between.

Were one of the places that this is all reflected you know when things aren't going the way they used to we see it firsthand.

Someone comes in here and they're a little down on luck or whatever.

They might need bottles (indistinct) look for a job or whatever they want to do.

You want a 7/11 I doubt they give you time of day you know what I mean.

We'll do that to people.

You care about people around you get to know them.

Know them by the first name and I know everybody in town by the first name practically.

- Well I like the store, always have.

I can remember back when we were probably four or five stores in this town all going at the same time.

Now this is the only store.

- [Woman] How come.

- You tell her Ray.

- Sure all the difficult questions you want me to do.

- No but you're a man of knowledge and I ain't.

(man laughing) No but why really.

- Well I suppose it's big business taking over.

I think it's the old adage of Walmart's moving in and they have a lunch counter, they're able to under price for a year or two, then I believe after that prices do creep back up.

But meanwhile their competitors have dropped by the wayside but Eastern Maine does have a few of these country stores left and I help they do succeed because we need them.

- There's nice to have a little community store where people can get together and talk and have a good time and socialize instead of having to go through the fast pace.

- Well there's a lot of people that my age or a little older they've taken over for the parents like I have and there's a lot of seasonal work around yeah.

The summer things get real good cause everybody's working everywhere.

Everyone's making money.

- The restaurant is doing very well for this time of the year.

It has been worse.

And I think we're doing pretty well.

You know we put out a pretty good product and people come back and like it.

It's a great little town you know great little store for people in the community because they have no place else to go besides out of town to pick up the little things that they do need.

- If we didn't have a store in town I think Shelly has expressed it quite clearly.

We'd have to drive in elsewhere.

- Well sure.

- That's 12 miles away.

- Get our gas, get our possessions you know bread and butter and its nice to know that if I only have to have a for loaf of bread I come down here.

- Post offices in rural towns in Maine used to be just like this with the post office boxes in the back of the grocery store or general store.

Usually in front of them too would be lyres benches where people would be sitting waiting for the mail to get sorted and where you'd have to walk between them to come get your mail and have everyone see what you got.

In the segment that's just coming up now, you're going to see the Corea post office in Corea, Maine a very small fishing village which is still the center of the town.

As one of the residents told me it's still the only place in town where people can come within walking distance and meet each other every day.

- Wave again please.

I need a footed pasture of the seaside fangs and the (indistinct) is sponsoring Corea post office day.

So on behalf of the (indistinct) it is my pleasure to welcome you here this morning to help us observe the 100th anniversary of the Corea post office.

- It is a very important place because this is where people come to meet their neighbors and to visit and to get caught up by news in Corea.

This is where they find out if there is somebody sick in the village or anything exciting going on.

- The most traffic I've ever seen in Corea.

- The post office is more or less a community center for the community and then people would have to travel I suppose to Prospect Harbor to get their mail.

It adds to the community a great deal.

- And incidentally the church is older than the post office.

(audience laughing) - Actually it's the only thing we have left.

We had stores and so forth before and now the stores have all been closed and the post office is the only thing for the people.

- [Narrator] On an afternoon like this the men may drift toward the general store.

This is their meeting place.

It plays to exchange the latest news and compare notes on the day's catch.

- They would come to pick up the mail and perhaps buy a few groceries, talk to their friends and so on.

- [Narrator] This kind of community feeling is the best insurance a man can have.

(upbeat music) - Complains because it gets too hot and then winter we complain it gets too cold.

And in-between sometimes we complain about the postal service.

(audience laughing) - The post office is sort of the heart of the community now.

And without it we would miss it.

We would miss most having a post office.

- You know the old Maine post offices were a lot like these crank phones which I do remember using when I was a kid.

You'd have to call up the operator and if she couldn't connect you with the party she would tell you where they were saying something like he can't talk to you now he's down at the lobster pound but she would leave a message and connect you later.

Family farm life in Maine was like that all over town, that's how things worked how things were linked together.

In this next segment of the little fields family farm in East Benton, Maine, you're going to see something of that atmosphere how everybody played a role, how they kept the farm going, how it was all linked together.

(upbeat music) - I don't think there's another family in Benton that has stayed in the same place as long as we have.

And it's always been a family farm.

It's not been a profitable farm that you can make a living off them but we've always had cows and made butter and the things that raised hands as I was growing up.

It's just a part of me.

Something you never could leave.

- It's peaceful, quiet.

People don't do too much, lay back.

That's about it, farm life.

- If I get up I'm busy.

(man laughs) You get more than busy.

Taking on this whole hay machine here this week get that ready then we'll be back in Hannigan.

- We all help hay.

Everyone the kids around cause when haying starts your life is settled right around farming.

We've had more people come and want to buy that con a lot because it's right across the church.

It's right on the main road and it's nice.

But I have no desire to sell it.

What would I gain?

I mean once you sell it's gone you never get it back.

And when I'm gone then my kids will take over.

I was telling you before that we had a tree that I grew up in and my children all grew up in and lightning struck it and it killed it right down to the roots.

And when it went down it was like there was such a total disaster because something you've had all your life was gone.

And I decided I was gonna have a funeral for my tree and I called all my kids and asked to come home.

And they thought I had absolutely flipped out.

- We had that great big tree there.

She flipped out.

She lost her tree.

She called every one of us to have a funeral.

And she got mad at one sister said she's gonna totally disowned her she didn't come home for the funeral.

And Martha came on we had hot dogs the whole thing.

And there was a lot of things happened in that tree and all, this fights and the swing.

I mean we had a tire swing that during fiddlers I think every kid in this area swung on that tree.

- It's a little different than most festivals.

It's a unique family gathering.

In 72, a young man by the name of Greg Boardman and I understand he sings in your theme song a place for your theme song.

He came home from outdoor Ohio he had gone to traveling across.

He came across this fiddlers contest and he come back and he said boy I'd like to do a fiddle contest in Maine.

He needs just have an open place to go and sit and play the fiddle and have a contest and have a banjo contest and I said well, that's a fine go ahead.

That how it started.

No more than just sitting at my dining room table and him saying he'd like to have a place to fiddle and somebody watching over us really.

Because every year we put the stage back on his foundation again start off and have another 40, 50 people up there playing music.

(upbeat music) - Oxen are pawn animals.

They're also working animals.

They haul them off the fairs and they compete in the fairs for prizes and ribbons and all that.

- It's been a lot of fun doing it.

There's no money in it if you're doing do it for money, you wouldn't be in it so just a hobby.

- I just think people have got to get to give more of themselves to others.

I just think they have to.

There's got to be more understanding and commitment and love amongst people.

And if you don't give then I mean you're the one that suffers because your all alone, you don't have anybody to help you.

And that's what Maine tradition is, it's people friendly you know.

You go by and see somebody broke down, you don't just drive by you stop and help them.

But go in the city you don't get that.

There isn't very many place you do get except rural Maine.

- It's easy for me to identify with the next segment not just because we're both maniacs named Sanford but because of what Mr. Kelly has to say about his family roots down East, they go back generations.

Mine does too.

And getting educated at the University of Maine and thus leaving Maine for a number of years before coming back.

What he also has to say too about the work ethic that we grew up with is true too.

- I tried to think back and know, you know, what these people were really like.

I know they were tough.

And I know they had a great deal of courage to come down here from Diamond Scotland and there was no one else there.

Bring your family, build a house.

I mean that takes courage.

Thomas Kelly senior bought two lots each for 100 acres and he paid five Spanish mini dollars and five shillings for those two lots.

He bought a lot from South which are a hundred acres and then he also bought a lot for his young son, Joseph who was 18 at the time.

And so that is the beginning of this lot and it's been seven generations now of Kelly's that had occupied in the (indistinct) district lot.

And I'm proud to be one of them.

Currently this is my house but it was a house that my mother and father lived in from about 1932 and right at that time my grandmother lived here and somewhere in the early days of this house it was the (indistinct).

As I understand from stories my father's told me that they used to have dances here on Saturday night with violins playing, the doors all open and they would dance through the house and the shed and then there was a barn at that time.

And I would think that had to be quite a nice time.

I went to the University of Maine and actually I got a degree in chemical engineering and I moved on and worked 26 years for United Technology working with aircraft engines after working there 26 years I said you know if I'm ever going back to Joe's point and do anything with all the things you know now's the time.

And immediately when I came to Joe's point I just got awarded a great deal of with pride.

Now becoming chairman of the Maine Blueberry Commission showing me that kind of confidence was very good.

The land as you work it I bet.

You take on a great deal of feeling fine and you love to see the role of it.

And you love to see the trees and you know there's just some beautiful thing about it.

But our younger generation have lost a little bit.

They go out now and they want to make a lot of money which is fine but they don't have the care for the blueberries that we used to have.

We didn't want to damage the blueberries.

We picked them carefully.

You know you whacked them off the bush you didn't a power rake and ring like that.

And if you did, if you left a blueberry when I was growing up and you were picking for somebody and your left the blueberry I mean the owner would make it go back and pick a blueberry.

One blueberry.

That kind of upbringing that we had in the blueberry industry and I mean you love blueberries.

There's a lot of labor.

And I think we have a lot of-- I'm not the only one in the blueberry industry that has (indistinct).

Most of our guys in the blueberry industry, they're all in their seventies, sixties, seventies, eighties, some nineties even.

And they still have this blueberries and it's demanding work.

I have a son, 26.

And I hope that he can do well with blueberries.

But he has a different approach to it than I do.

I think he prefers the mass production more than the tender loving care.

Maybe I can change him.

You go out in the morning and just as the sun is coming up in a field of blueberries that's got due on them.

And the blueberries are blue.

And you think you're looking in the field of diamonds.

I mean the sun reflects off the blue and you get the various colors like a rainbow.

It looks like a field of diamonds day, you never saw such a beautiful sight, you know and you gotta feel for that.

- You knew it was springtime in Maine when I was growing up anyway when the smelts were running you'd have to go out in the middle of the night and go smelting in cold water.

And my relatives and neighbors would be around tapping all the maple trees with buckets like this.

Some of this and using boiling down pans like this and ultimately a piece of crockery to put the maple syrup in.

Quite different, quite crude and primitive compared to what you're going to be seeing in the next segment with the Lucerne maple products where they're using high-tech pipelines to make today's maple syrup.

- When the spring comes the icicles begin to melt and they drop that tells me that maple season is right around the corner.

- I like boiling it down.

I love the smell of it when it's cooking.

- It kind of grabs hold of you and you just sort of lose your senses.

- She says she's a widow during maple syrup season.

- It's just about 10 o'clock.

The sun has been out long enough now after a good hide freeze last night in the twenties.

The trees are finally waking up.

Maple syrup is the first harvest of the year for Maine.

Second only to probably pass naps.

- The season runs anywhere from February to the middle of April.

It's very unpredictable.

A couple of years ago we had a real bad summer and there was real dry and you know syrup season was real short and that that kills you.

The weather is the biggest and the strangest things that control it.

- I think we've gone from soda bottles to milk bottles to buckets to five gallon pails, to where we are today, you know.

On a fairly high-tech system.

Well this is kind of a typical maple line in the woods on a pipeline system.

We've got two different main lines going in different directions.

We have some feeder lines or drop lines coming from the taps from the trees down to trees hooking in and this will all be carried by gravity down the Hill down to a tank.

Maple is not a dying industry but it's not a really growing industry.

There's just shifts and changes in the industry from small to large.

If it wasn't for my family, my boys and stuff I probably wouldn't be anywhere as near as large as I am right now.

But with their help we continue to grow each year.

And hopefully someday we'll actually make a profit.

- It's gonna be a keep going because like my son and my grandson I believe they'll keep on the tradition because they live on the same piece of land at where I live.

And I live on the same piece of land I was brought up on.

Lottie and maple syrup producers a family peel back three or four generations on the same piece of land.

It's in your blood.

It's just so nice and by being brought up with it from the time you're a little kid it grows on you.

It just grows and you can't get outta your system.

It's there and you have to do it.

- Once you get the maple bug you continue.

You always want to grow.

You always want one more tap, one more tree, one more gallon of syrup this year you know.

It's just so much fun to make so many new friends over something that is so sweet.

- From the sweet taste of Maine maple syrup, we go now to the tangy taste of Maine cranberries.

But before that I just have to mention these products here Hancock County Creamery.

It doesn't exist anymore but these are the products I grew up with.

I used to deliver them at age 11 around my town of Hancock.

In my book kitchen boy I also mention about how in all the small Maine communities people had to be very diversified, have many jobs, many skills, as many as possible to make a living.

In the upcoming segment we're going down East to Calais to the Mingo family a good example of family diversification where they not only raise Christmas trees and blueberries but they're into the new industry of Maine cranberries.

- My grandfather, my father grew up on a farm always worked a farm.

We grew up off the land, the work, the land it's our living.

We do a little bit of everything.

Blueberries, Christmas trees, a campground, a construction business.

We're diversified.

You've got to be diversified if you're gonna make it in Maine.

I like farming and this cranberry thing look real good.

And we started talking about it and I guess way back in 1990.

So we decided to try it and it's exciting.

I love it, I'm down here every day.

This year is going to be our first harvest and this is what we've been looking for.

And we're real excited about it being the first year it's all new and this bed only being planted in June of last year.

And it had berries here it's really exciting.

- The demand is out there for the berry for the fruit.

Every day there's a letter that comes from you know the bigger office out of Massachusetts or Wisconsin wanting all the Maine cranberries they're producing liked to buy them all.

What we need here in Washington County, we need more growers.

There's power in numbers and there's only a handful.

You could count them on one hand really the growers of Washington County right now and we need more but there's a lot of interest in it and we just keep that interest going but we can grow cranberries in Maine.

I mean this is living proof right here.

(upbeat music) - It's a great day even though it's raining it's a great day.

(group chattering) We came in Sunday and did what they call picking the berry.

We had a what do you call it, a water wheel it goes in and it turbulizes the water and it hits the top of the vines after we find them about a foot of water on it.

And it just hits the top of the vines and knocks some berries off and the berries float then we put a boom out.

- And corral them in.

Put them in pan like you're seeing right now and that's where we are at this point.

(upbeat music) It doesn't seem like there's a lot there right now but there are about six to eight inches deep in the water around the boom board.

Were just gonna pump the berries out of the boom board what's in the water because he don't take water.

And the berries are gonna be pump right into the truck which they'll be shipped to these (indistinct) going to Massachusetts.

We're excited about it.

It's the first time that we've harvested and its really at first crop and this was the only bit that we're doing this year and for the one year deals pretty good harvest.

I just hope we continue to doing the things we're doing right now and this following year.

- I'm Sandy Fipen and I hope you enjoy the program and that you'll be visiting us again next time on the best of RFD, Maine.

Be sure to visit the best of RFD Maine on Maine public television's homepage on the worldwide web.

The best of RFD Maine was taped on location at the Page Farm and Home Museum at the University of Maine.

- [Narrator] Production of RFD Maine is made possible through a television demonstration grant from rural development, part of the US department of agriculture.

(soft music) - I remember back when we were probably four or five stores in this town all going at the same time.

Now this is the only store.

- [Woman] How come.

- You tell her Ray.

- Sure all the difficult questions you want me to do.

- No but you're a man of knowledge and I ain't.

- Well.