Of course I had to see what Bradbury Mountain was all about so I “climbed” it this morning. The mountain is a forested granite dome about 500 feet high which gives a view out to the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding countryside. I’ve been amazed at the greenery of the New England states. I saw one pasture land from the summit but the rest was unbroken forest canopy except for by church steeples. In the Northwest when we work with our coniferous forests, we clear cut them and the open scars can be seen for many miles. Here when they harvest, (I’ve seen one rubber tired skidder, plus knuckle boom loaders and straight logging trucks) they do selective logging – a tree here; a tree there, which you have to do with hardwood forests. It’s sad that the clear cutting practice of the west coast is what the foresters have decided is the best way to get the product to market.
After the one hour hike up and down the dome, I had lunch inside Snee-Oosh and looked over the town map of Freeport, Maine.
As a child the only town you are aware of is the town where you live. The first town that I remember outside of my town was Freeport, Maine. It was the home of the catalogue that came to house every year starting in the 50’s. L.L. Bean was in Freeport, Maine. Mother’s favor paring knife had L.L. Bean branded into the handle and the blade had been sharpened so many times that half the original width was gone. L.L. Bean was my friend long before R.E.I. However I fell out of love when L.L. Bean went public with their support of the building of New England Nuclear Power Plant in Freeport in 1972.
The town map I looked at during a tuna fish lunch showed L.L. Bean’s store covering one and a half city blocks. It dominated the town. This I would have to see and since my campground was only eight miles from Freeport that was my afternoon destination.
Shock! My god!!! The tiny town was wall-to-wall tourist with tour buses here and there. I cruised main street searching for a parking spot and found a 500 car parking lot tucked in behind the historic main street with names like “Bass Parking Lot” and “White Buck Parking Lot”. In the lot I saw my first Nova Scotia license plate! I’ve played a game during this whole tour of spotting my first…whatever that represents where I’m going. In crossing toward eastern Texas after three days was “When will I see my first sea going boat on a trailer?”
Their main store had four floors and like R.E.I. stores their signature was on the front door. R.E.I. has ice picks for door handles; L.L. Bean has canoe paddles. They had an eighteen-foot scale model outside their main door of the famous Maine Bean Boot – rubber lower half and leather upper half to commemorate their 90th year. Of course L.L. Bean got its start as a hunting and fishing store that sold good outdoor clothing. From their sporting gear start they have branched out into designer farm food and home products of bedding and cookware. But the bulk of the store was devoted to clothing, some outdoors but most were casual wear made in El Salvador or Malaysia for you, the misses, the kids and the dog. However the big draw was the mammoth fish tank with a mountain stream setting of granite boulders and tree snags. One whole wall was water with dozens of every kind of trout that you could think of. People crowded along the wall to read about each species represented in the tank. As an added feature there was a large plastic bubble in the tank corner where you could squat down, go inside and then stand up inside the bubble dome and your head was surrounded by water on all sides. I spent an hour wandering and exploring then moved out into the masses then ducked into their second store Biking, Boating & Ski and watched the Tour de France on their giant TV screen.
The company does believe on giving back to the community by sponsoring free summer concerts. They have a large grassy area next to the store where they have set up a sound stage and bring in top name entertainers for the public. The next concert was tomorrow but the locals had already set up hundreds of lawn chairs to hold their spot. As I stood observing the empty stage my jaw dropped. They had three huge ceiling to floor cloth panels with photos on them. The first panel was that of an old railroad crossing and buildings, the second panel had two gigantic nuclear power cooling towers and the last was a shot of a long line of coal cars!?! Was this to celebrate the Saturday night singer Kathy Mattea from West Virginia or was this L.L. Bean??
Branching out from the store I started to walk the main street to see what made it tick and quickly realized what I was seeing. Freeport has a long history starting back in 1789 as a shipping port of boat masts and for shoe making. Main street is made up of numerous historic buildings but on closer examination they, they – have been converted into factory outlet stores. YES! The exteriors have been preserved but the insides are now The Gap, North Face, Patagonia, Sampson Luggage, Jockey Underwear, Ben and Jerry’s and all these tourist were, were ---- mall shoppers!!!
At the south end of town an area had been cleared and leveled. Along the street side was a beautiful newly constructed stonewall which curved around an oak tree then turn to parallel the side street. At the far end was a magnificent specimen of a black man laying rock. I went over to watch him do his work. Damn he had muscles. I was enjoying watching him do his trade when this wave came over me: Was I the white master watching his slave work? I had to break that imagine. I started talking to him and we had a great talk. How did he lay it out and build it? Was that truck load of rocks and dirt piled in the center of the cleared area where he was getting his rocks?
Was his craft a living one or were stone masons dying off?
Trucks bring loads of dirt, which have tons of flat rocks in them. He loads the rocks into the front loader and spreads them along his string line. He builds a base layer two big stones wide and then narrows it down by a half an inch by the time he lays the top row. He puts small rocks in his 5 gallon bucket and dumps them in the center along with medium size rocks. He has two other guys he works with. His boss is in his late 50’s and a younger guy that comes and goes when he needs work. I told him that his wall will be around for many generations to come and I thoroughly enjoyed watching work his craft. There are so many vocations where the person is a technician. A stone mason is a craftsman, an artist; a person whose work will last the centuries.
I had real mixed feelings about Freeport. It was a beautiful town but it had sold its soul to the devil.
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