Small Town News

I’ve written before about how incredibly provencial Maine is — even here in Portland, the state’s largest city.  Front page articles about the noise from ice cream trucks are an example.

Today, the front page of the Portland Press Herald deals with how Mainers are upset because Nabisco Crown Pilot crackers -- “the large, flat, plain biscuits beloved by Mainers and other New Englanders for crumbling in chowder” -- are being discontinued. 

The article goes on:

Those rattled by the news include Donna Damon of Chebeague Island. She urged the cracker lovers on Thursday to contact Nabisco to voice their objections.

Excuse me?  Rattled by the new that a certain type of cracker is no longer being made?  Did I read that right?

You might assume that with all the problems in the world today — the war in Iraq, high gas and food prices, the recession, massive real estate foreclosures — crackers wouldn’t be something that rattled most folks.

But it gets worse.  

The Forecaster is a small local paper that reports on various towns in Maine.  Last night as part of my stand up comedy routine at the Portland Comedy Connection, I featured some of the outlandish complaints by folks listed in the police beat of The Forecaster.

For example, in the May 22, Northern Forecaster, this listing stood out (yes, this is printed word for word from the paper):

Terrifying animal sighting

5/15 at 11:53 a.m. \ Police were contacted by a resident on Portland Street to report that a baby squirrel had trespassed on a lawn.  The animal control officer came to the residence and removed the offender.

Or how about this one that I used last night from the police beat in Falmouth:

Morning delivery

3/31 at 4:14 a.m. \ An Edgewater Road resident reported that a Ford pickup truck was traveling suspiciously slowly and stopping at every driveway.  Police responded and reported that the truck was driven by a newspaper delivery person.