ONE TOWN IN MAINE

       I'm still thinking about Belfast, Maine, the colorful coastal town I visited last week. Getting there took longer than expected because a moose was blocking the bridge leading to it.

      They pack a lot into this little place. If I had been there last Sunday I could have seen the 1927 silent film, "Metropolis", accompanied by a live, five-piece band. It was playing at the Colonial which has been showing movies since 1909.
 

     Perhaps I could have sat with Batman. I ran into him and his buddy, "Bad Spiderman"

last Tuesday afternoon. The three of us could have followed up with dinner at Chase's Daily with fresh food so spectacular you forget its vegetarian. 

   A week ago I attended an "Empty Bowl" charity event.  Local potters donated beautiful bowls. For fifteen bucks you could pick out a keeper, filled it with soup, and enjoy dinner while a local band played.

    The next day the Waldo County hospital invited everyone to tour a "giant inflatable colon".  The announcement read, "learn more about the world of colo-rectal cancer and polyps" and I knew I had to be there. 
    I'm a sucker for anything "giant".  Oregon's 50-foot taking Paul Bunyan was probably the best.
   Sadly, by the time I arrived (late) it had taken on a new form, "Not-so-big deflated colon". It was in the process of being rolled up.


    Like many small towns, Belfast still has its opera house. I took the tour and while it hasn't put on a show in sixty years, it is still an amazing space waiting to be renovated. 


 For now, you could let the audience relax in bean bag chairs. 



 
  I visited possibly our country's only bean bag chair emporium in Belfast. You pick the fabric, they sew and fill it with beans (which, I learned, aren't really beans). 
     
   

 Lots of artists, craftsmen, and boat builders live there. I went with friends to visit a wood turner one morning. He loves The Pine State and the fifty-years-in-the-past feel of his woodsy neighborhood.

 


      My buddy Paul bought a truck garage last month with a bay view.  We decided it would make a fine yacht club. I made a sign and we put it up that afternoon. Within 24 hours twenty-five people had paid the $2 charter membership fee.


      
  A few days later I was waiting for an airport bus to take me home. I met this young lady in red, "Lily", who got me in a Miami state-of-mind. 
  She sells plumbing fixtures in a big city. I asked the obvious question, "What's your most expensive toilet?"  Without any hesitation she said, "The $10,000 one. You don't have to do anything but sit". I pressed her for details and after hearing them I was ready to return to the land of Lamborghinis.