Nows and Forevers

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what’s going on in and around my former town of Caribou, Maine last night and this morning.

There are blizzard and extreme cold warnings from Friday into Saturday, with blowing snow and wind gusts up to 45 mph piled atop temperatures that won’t get above 0 and wind chills that for the top half of Maine are between -43 and -81 below zero.

Aroostook County, that far northern top of Maine bordered by New Brunswick and Quebec, are used to brutally cold winters. It’s not unusual for it to snow from September through May, and temperatures to fall well below zero for days on end. Nor are double-digit wind chills unheard of. Aroostook County winters have driven their share of people away, never to return.

It wasn’t the only reason, but I’ll say that by the time I was thinking about leaving, I had grown tired of the winters.

Northern Maine is not for the faint of heart. It’s part of New England, but just barely. It doesn’t get as cold as that in my part of New England, Connecticut and Maine, and rarely gets that snowy. If you love winter, then you will love Aroostook County. It breeds a pretty hearty person, and I’ve always admired the Aroostook County people. I still do. And today, even more so.

And on the flip side, the summers are wonderful. Even in the depth of winter, the sun shines bright across the rolling hills and the sky is wider than anything I’ve seen outside of some parts of the West. And as I’ve written about before, the Northern Lights and other wonders of the sky make Aroostook County a great place to look up.

But wow, today. I hope everyone gets through this OK.