The Maine Roadshow: A Roadside Tour of the State’s History, Culture, Food, Funk, and Oddities
By Tim O’Brien
Nashville: Casa Flamingo Literary Arts, 2023, 2023
Softcover, 120 pages, $29.99
Reviewed by Joel Floyd
This new book should inspire anyone to make a first-time road trip to the beautifully attractive state of Maine or depart on a revisit to seek out a wealth of previously missed roadside attractions. The book divides the state into eight geographical regions, making navigation easy to find over 400 intriguing roadside places, each with a creative photograph and description, along with addresses, websites, and phone numbers.
Author Tim O’Brien, who is also an SCA board member, is a photojournalist who has written several books documenting the nation’s amusement parks, carnivals, and roadside interests. He divides his time between residences in Nashville, TN, and Belgrade, ME. With his wife Kathleen, a Maine native, as his traveling companion and navigator, they have covered several thousand miles in the state, deploying their keen eyes for the quirky and often overlooked points of interest. The book’s foreword was written by Maine humorist Tim Sample, who shares the author’s enthusiasm for all things roadside.
Besides lobster and clam shacks, incredible forest and coastal landscapes, my memorable experiences of driving through Maine include a small town with an old-time drugstore that was almost a time capsule, with original display shelves and a functioning soda fountain. The pharmacy sold modern products but otherwise appeared frozen in time. And being a Westerner visiting Maine before I moved east, I had little experience with historic diners until stopping at Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro on Route 1, and I still vividly recall that experience. I am partial to Route 1, which starts or ends in Maine, depending on your perspective, and runs the entire length of its east coast, with many points of interest along that route included in this book.
When driving in Maine, look for moose; the state has more of these hulking mammals per square mile than any of the other lower 48 states. This statistic also means a lot of moose warning signs and statues, with 12 included in the book, including one with wings. If it’s billboards like Wall Drug, The Thing?, or Burma Shave you are anticipating, keep driving, because Maine is one of four states prohibiting them. Maine is also second in the number of lighthouses per state, many documented in this book.
With The Maine Roadshow as your guide, you’ll have no trouble finding and learning the backstory for all manner of interesting historical buildings, small museums, churches, covered bridges, diners, ice-cream stands, theaters, drive-ins, and old gas stations. Included are giant roadside icons like lobsters, the world’s biggest blueberry that doubles as a store, a giant Number #2 pencil, an enormous fiberglass loon, a large hand-crank telephone sculpture, and the tallest Native American statue made from scrap wood and found objects. O’Brien’s photography includes his collection of unusual mailboxes, giant chairs, and multidirectional signposts.
Culinary delights other than seafood include the whoopie pie, the state’s official treat, invented at Labadie’s Bakery in Lewiston in 1925. The dessert consists of two chocolate cake rounds surrounding a white cream filling. Rockport has a monument to seafarer Hansen Gregory, who invented the doughnut hole to make the dough deep fry more evenly in 1847. The state’s official soft drink is Moxie, which reportedly has a somewhat bitter root beer-like flavor. Moxie is purported to be the first carbonated beverage made in America, going back to 1876. There is even a three-day Moxie festival and parade held every summer in Lisbon Falls.
If you like small niche museums, Maine has many, including one dedicated to sardines commemorating a vital industry. Another is focused on mustard in a mill that stone grounds the spice for use in the sardine industry. There are museums for shells, lumbermen, and, most unusual of all, umbrella covers. Actual umbrellas are not the subject, but if you ever wonder what happened to your lost umbrella cover, it might be here among 2,000 covers in the Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island.
While other volumes cover the state’s weird, quirky, curious, and notable roadside attractions, The Main Roadshow is current, wide-ranging, easy to navigate, and nicely illustrated. The text and photos go beyond the quirky and include interesting historical information. O’Brien also often conveys his personal experiences with these places. His knowledge of the state and powers of observation shared in this book make it a must-have for your next Maine road trip.
Joel Floyd is a retired USDA entomologist and freelance scientific illustrator who also paints, photographs roadside landscapes, and creates mosaics in University Park, MD.
This book review originally appeared in the SCA Journal, Fall 2023, Vol. 41, No. 2. The SCA Journal is a semi-annual publication and a member benefit of the Society for Commercial Archeology.
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