Over the past four years I’ve divided my time living between two towns—Long Island and Farmington. Now, it’s pretty easy to see the differences between the towns (there are a lot of them), but when I really think about it, they’re all surface differences.
Farmington is definitely bigger. The University of Maine at Farmington alone had ten times more undergrads than the island has year round residents. Farmington also has things: a downtown area with an array of shops, grocery stores, restaurants, a movie theater, even a Walmart.
It even seems necessary to mention the fact that there are numerous gas stations! Compared to the one gas pump on Long (open for two hours Wednesday and Sunday), this feels like one of the bigger differences.
On the other hand, Long Island’s mainland outlet is Portland, so, in a surprising amount of ways, it’s easier to live out on a three-mile-long rock in the ocean, with a single convenience store and not much else except the people and grains of sand on the beaches, than in Farmington.
Yes, if I want to go out to eat or go bowling or rent a movie, I need to take a boat into Portland, but after that I’m pretty much able to access whatever. In Farmington, however, this often isn’t the case. If you needed something more than even Walmart could provide, you had to drive 45 minutes to either Augusta or Auburn.
This aspect of Long, being a really small town right next to the largest city in Maine, has always been this sort of weird thing. On one hand, we’re so isolated—separated by water—but there’s such a difference between having to drive 45 minutes from Farmington to Augusta than having to take a 45 minute boat ride when the next stop (after Great Diamond) is Portland.
Now, I’ve been thinking about all this—Long Island in relation to other towns—because as I write this blog, I try really hard not to push this idea that Long Island is so different and separate from any other town.
Obviously there are things that are different. For instance, I wave (well, not just me, most everyone down here) at every person I pass on the island—most of the time because I know them, but when I don’t (usually during the summer) I still do it. The only reasonable explanation for waving to people I don’t know is that it’s just what we do on the island.
See, I know this isn’t something that is applicable to every town. I didn’t wave to strangers in Farmington (except the occasional slip of the wrist after being on the island too long). However, I bet in some other places there’s the same wave-at-everyone-you-come-in-contact-with town-quirk.
Even with all these differences between Long Island and Farmington, I still feel like they’re similar. I might not wave to everyone I pass in Farmington, but I’ve definitely chatted with people I didn’t know. Though the dynamics are different, both of these towns I’ve lived in have a sense of community that holds them together, and this similarity is what connects, at least in my mind, all these very different towns.
Melanie Floyd is a recent UMaine Farmington graduate who lives on Long Island in Casco Bay.