I'd like to present this week's CFA to Gregory Gowan, but most unfortunately, he's a Hampton, New Hampshire local.
As grumpy as I can be with the summah complaints, what we get in our little village is nuthin' compared to what Amy sees down her way. Hampton Beach can get 100,000 visitors on a hot summer day. Makes our 65,000 seem more manageable, no?
It's another pea soup kind of day here in Maine--one of many this July. The only positive or redeeming thing to be said about our weather is that the coast of Maine is stunning on a sunny day. It's beautiful on a rainy day and it's wonderful on a foggy day, just so long as one didn't have one's heart set on a sun tan.
Yesterday was a gorgeous summer day on the seacoast--blue skies, breezes full of summer flowers and salt water and temperatures perfectly suited to an afternoon kayaking or sunning on the beach or swinging in a hammock, until the wind turned, late in the day.
The fog rolled in around 6 pm last night, and when it comes, it always comes the same way. It slides silently from the beach, through the pines toward the house, with one quick, cool breeze to warn us that it's coming. It starts as a gradual change of the sky from blue, to lighter blue to white. Then the fog settles into the tops of the trees and moves closer to the house, muting sounds and removing color from the day.
This week's CFA Award goes to the visitor to York Beach who was involved in a beach chair rage incident down to Short Sands last week. Throwing a tantrum and then a beach chair is never necessary after a day at the beach. It's the Way Life Should Be, even if you have to wait for a bit to get into your car.
In the article, the policeman stated that we call folks who come up from Massachusetts and behave poorly "tourists." Don't kid yourself. He was being polite and politic. We call them massholes or goat ropers. But only the ones who behave poorly. We like the rest of you. And should someone from New Hampshire behave poorly, we believe that it's because he or she recently relocated from Massachusetts to NH and hasn't had time to decompress. When someone from New York behaves poorly, we call them Yankees fans.
This week's CFA Award goes to President George W. Bush. He will arrive in Kennebunkport today. Air Force One will land at Pease Air Force Base at 3:30 this afternoon and the President will go directly to Walker's Point. (We might go over to the spur road and see if we can catch the motorcade heading north on the turnpike--although we might also hear Marine One fly overhead.)
He doesn't win the award for the inconvenience and delays he's causing for the residents of town on a holiday weekend. Rather, he wins for sticking the town of Kennebunkport with the tab for the extra police protection.
Each time the President visits Walker's Point, it costs the village about $9,000 for the extra security (this in addition to what the Secret Service and Coast Guard provide). Previously, the town has used a $27,000 Homeland Security grant to cover the costs, but that money ran out earlier this year. Kennebunkport is asking police forces from York and Kittery to send extra officers to help out for this visit and there's hope that the other villages will cover the cost of those officers.
There is a protest planned for Sunday afternoon with an estimated 2,000 protesters clogging the village. If you'd like to protest, please park at Kennebunk High School. Shuttle buses will take you to the village green.
Update: Foster's Daily Democrat has additional information on the planned protests:
At Walker's Point, featured speakers will be heard and drums will pound. In addition, a 7-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty will be placed in a coffin to mock the loss of liberties under President Bush.
It's very early in the season to call it (kind of like calling the Yankees out of it in early June. Heh), but I'm going to go out on a limb and award this year's Comes From Away Award* to Vladimir Putin who will be visiting Kennebunkport in July.
It's hard to not award this to W. or 41, but since Putin's a first time visitor and W. and 41 are annual summer complaints**, he gets the nod.
*The Comes From Away Award is given annually, weekly, daily or hourly (at the sole discretion and whim of its founder) to the visitors from out of state who cause the most disruption to "the way life should be" quality of Maine. Fellow Mainiacs are welcome to submit nominations for the award via the comments section.
**the local term for the summer folks
