Finding meaning over Idaho

Article from March 4, 2010 issue

Living in Maine can be hard. Maine essayist E.B. White once described his days working his saltwater farm on the Midcoast as mostly wandering around fixing stuff that got busted. Frozen pipes, rotted sills, leaky roofs, blown transmissions, peeling paint, cracked pavement, loose fillings, storms, floods, and winter: our harsh northern existence seems bent on wearing us out. Sometimes I think we should change our state motto from "Maine, the way life should be," to, "Entropy, the way life just is."

But two things make life easier: a good dentist and an honest mechanic. In Maine, neither is guaranteed, but I'm blessed with both, and that means that most mornings when I wake up my teeth don't hurt and my car starts.

I've known my mechanic for over 20 years. He lives just down the road and if I have to, I can leave my car in his dooryard with a note and walk home. He'll call later with the cheery estimate.

A patient and gentle man, his quiet nature belies the kind of sharp, dry wit that Maine is famous for. He showed me how to top off my coolant one day by goosing the engine a bit just when you think the radiator can't take anymore Ñ sure enough, it sucked down another half pint. "Funny how it does that," I remarked. Without missing a beat, my friend tossed back a classic one-liner. "Well, I've outgrown laughing about it, but I guess it's funny."

On another day, in the midst of disemboweling my old Chevy, I made an exasperated remark about being one of his best customers, and again, as if he knew I was going to say this someday and he was just waiting for it, quick came the retort from under the hood: "You'd be a better customer if you had interesting things for me to fix, like antique tractors. Hand me that wrench."

One characteristic of small-town life is the shared struggle. We're few of us, you and I, and we're not insulated by the urban anonymity of the seething masses Ñ we can't conceal our problems or ignore our neighbor's problems because there's just no place to hide. When the nor'easter comes slamming in and takes the lights out, we're all in the dark together; and when the swarms of June roll around, the same black flies chew on us, one and all. We have to look out for each other.

One day I came home to find that someone had snatched my broken snow blower from the garage. The next day it was back, in perfect running order, with a subtle note from my mechanic duct-taped to the chute advising me that trying to fish bits of jammed wire out with salad tongs was "not recommended." I never did get a bill.

He was over the other day, visiting with his family, and I asked him how work was going. Things were kind of slow, he said. I felt bad for him and threw out an idea: "Hey, I'll see if I can get one of my cars to break down." My friend laughed quietly. "That would be just fine," he said.

Well, three days later I started up my car and the motor rattled and clanked like it was burning gravel instead of high-test. "When did you get a diesel?" my wife asked. And so my Mazda sits, up on blocks in my friend's garage, gasping away on life support with its guts split open for all to see. It will be ready by Wednesday.

A good dentist and an honest mechanic: two things that make Maine life a little more bearable. And they're not so different, really. They're both highly skilled, both arrange their fancy tools neatly, both talk about stuff I don't understand, and they both peer in under my hood and say, wryly, "Hmm, this could be expensive."

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