This August, my wife and I will mark the 30th anniversary of moving the Maine.

Moving to Maine has been a huge part of our lives and our identity. We’ve had two children here, and they’ve grown to adulthood and remain here. We’ve built our home in Belfast. We’ve never regretted those decisions. 

Coincidentally, this summer also marks the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Island Institute, the non-profit organization that publishes The Working Waterfront, the Island Journal, WorkingWaterfront.com and other publications. That beginning had nothing to do with me.

But here I am, the new editor of The Working Waterfront, excited to arrive as the Island Institute grows and adapts to new challenges, and humbled to be at the helm of an institution of such stature as this newspaper.

Though I had nothing to do with the beginnings, there is a story from my life 30 years ago that has me imagining — cue the dissolve here — passing Island Institute founders Philip Conkling and Peter Ralston on the streets of Rockland all those years ago.

We moved to Maine from New York because I had landed a teaching job at Kents Hill School, just west of Augusta. After settling in to our dormitory apartment and getting a start on lesson plans that August, I was eager to see the iconic coast of Maine, for which I had strong mental images, probably from watching “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” TV show of the 1960s.

Looking at the map, it seemed the best way to get to the coast was to stay on Route 17, which passed right by the school, and head straight for Rockland. Driving our ’68 Chevelle into town, we wandered around the North End, making left and right turns, desperately trying to get to the shore. Finally, I parked and stood on the hood of the car (those old Chevys were rugged) and was able glimpse the harbor beyond smokestacks and warehouses.

Not what I pictured, at all.

Disappointed, we decided to drive north on Route 1 to see if the coast changed. Turning off the highway in Rockport, we found our way to Marine Park, where we watched Harry Goodridge feed his seal, Andre. We were delighted, the town and harbor exceeding what we had hoped to see.

Having seen that day both the genteel splendor of Rockport, which charmed us to the point of vowing to live there one day, and the gritty, industrial working waterfront of Rockland, I felt I had chosen sides — pretty over gritty.

But I had no idea, as a wide-eyed 24-year-old, what gravitational forces each of these neighboring harbors represented. Those forces continued to work on Maine for the next 30 years, and they most likely will continue into the forseeable future.

What I’ve learned from watching — for 25 years as a journalist and 30 years as a resident — is that the cultural values and economic assets represented by Rockland and Rockport are not at war with each other.

Maine wins when retirees choose to plant their nest eggs in our coastal towns. It wins when the village character and natural marine environment are preserved, because families will put down roots in such places and tourists will relish their visits there, year after year.

But I now know that the Tillson Avenue area of Rockland, where I walk at lunch, also has its charm and beauty: the clink of stainless steel hardware on aluminum masts when the wind blows through the sailboats stored at Journey’s End; the weathered boards of a lobster shack; the bustle of human activity at the marine canvas shop, the Coast Guard station and the fish pier.

Maine wins when working waterfronts — on the coast or the islands — remain vital. They are as essential to the Maine coast, both as an idea and a reality, as a kitchen is to a restaurant. Restaurant kitchens and working waterfronts may not be as tidy and pretty as some would like, but without them, it’s all show.

So on that August day in 1983, Messrs. Conkling and Ralston may have spied a young man standing on the hood of a beat-up old Chevy, looking over the weed-choked earthen bank on Rockland’s Front Street, trying to see a mythical Maine coast. In fact, what he was seeing was his future.

My hope, as I gaze out my third-floor office window this March afternoon, seeing boatyards, warehouses, Rockland Harbor and the breakwater lighthouse, is that writing and thinking about this and other working waterfronts can help sustain them. Maybe I see more clearly now than I did then.

Tom Groening is editor of The Working Waterfront and WorkingWaterfront.com. He can be contacted at tgroening@islandinstitute.org.