Literally just down the block from Big Bertha the Butt Tree, is the giant old salt fisherman, Captain Brown. He stands in the parking lot of Brown’s Wharf Motel and Restaurant. At 15 feet tall, you can’t miss him. Brown’s must be pretty proud of him as he is heavily featured on their website.
I’m a little obsessed with his high gloss boots. Weird, I know – there’s something about their rubbery shininess that I love. But, between you and me – there was a time in my life that I considered taking a bite out of one of those cone-shaped, jelly air fresheners because I thought it looked delicious. So perhaps I’m just a little off kilter.
Don’t they look delici… I mean awesome! Don’t they look awesome!
Roadside Americana: Greetings from Woolwich – Mainer C. Lobster
Mainer C. Lobster sits outside of Taste of Maine restaurant in Woolwich, Maine on Route 1. Isn’t he glorious?
Having a lobster this excited about well, everything would probably bring a lot of sunshine to your life.
I’m a little bummed to discover that I could’ve gone inside and bought a magnet with his mug on it in the restaurant gift shop. First of all… restaurant gift shop? Tres Cracker Barrel. But, I did get to see Mainer with the addition of two new teeth, based on the photos posted on Roadside America. Lose out on a magnet, gain a tooth or two. Seems alright, I guess.
Taste of Maine
161 Main St,
Woolwich, ME 04579
Boothbay Harbor: Gimbel and Sons Country Store Post Office Call Boxes
While in Boothbay Harbor, Maine last week, I was drawn to a lovely olde tyme gas pump standing outside Gimbel & Son’s Country Store.
I’m not much of a shopper. If I venture in at all, I usually breeze in and out of store fairly quickly. With vacation-centric places it usually same useless crap, different store. But, to my surprise, the inside of this store featured something far more interesting than the usual touristy junk.
Just think of all the love letters, postcards and well wishes that passed through those boxes. Memories and life’s little (and big!) moments have seeped into the wood grain.
Reads:
Greetings
This section of the Naples, Maine post office with its call boxes as well as a few lock boxes served its patrons for many years. Coming in as a brand new piece of equipment shortly after the Civil War, it was a talk-about with its carved oak leaf trimming. Few offices sported such a fine front. It served in two old country stores, was set up in the building that is now Naples public library, then moved up to a new home where it phased out about 1960. Once in the change of Postmasters, it was moved out in the night from its Republican environment. It’s rather small letter drop brought some big moments into the lives of little people when Eleanor Roosevelt’s secretary mailed letters for the First Lady. Ethel Barrymore, playing “school for Scandal” at a nearby summer theater slid in some scintillating nodes, (probably good reading but the law forbid). By Harry!Edward Everett Horton danced a jig when he mailed his letters. If you can tune in on the proper wavelength, you might hear a juicy tidbit about some local would-be or has-been. It absorbed plenty.
Big Bertha of Boothbay Harbor, Maine wasn’t even a whisper of a thought in my mind before meeting her. No, on a gorgeous summer day, we were enjoying our time in the quaint harbor town when she came into our lives unannounced.
Oh, what a lovely little house. So New Englandy, isn’t it? A charming seaside cottag… what the?
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, what is that in the front yard?!
Oh. Right.
It’s a butt tree.
No big whoop.
ARE YOU KIDDING?! IT’S A BUTT TREE! A butt tree. A. BUTT. TREE!
