You must be kidding me.
The Sunday paper reported that not only has Rockland become “where all the cool kids are” but it now “boasts more art museums and serious art galleries than Portland.”
And this was the Portland paper.
Certainly, all of us in the midcoast area have watched with delight the proliferation of art galleries surrounding the august Farnsworth Art Museum. But few of us had guessed that we left Portland behind.
I can remember that the only bragging in these parts was when Rockland actually passed Portland in fish landings. When I came to Rockland in 1970, it was a fishing town, plain and simple. The O’Hara fleet dominated the waterfront and the sardine plants employed half the people in the city.
The remains from the sardine plants went to Seapro, a fish rendering plant located next to the ferry terminal. The process manufactured an odor as a byproduct that was likened to “baked vomit.” When the out-of-staters arrived and tried to close Seapro, locals said that was “the smell of jobs.”
Residents living close to Seapro claimed you could actually see the smell shimmering up the street toward Route 1. I often wondered what the people on those tour buses thought when they got off at McDonald’s and were hit by that smell. I toured the plant one day. When I returned to the office I was advised to go home, bury my clothes and write the story the next day.
Now look.
At last count, Rockland has more windjammers than Camden, where the sailing-tourist industry was practically invented. We used to think that the Chuck Wagon — If you want to eat good like the wranglers do, Chuck Wagon is the place for you — was the top of the line.
Rockland now has Primo, a restaurant which is honored in the national press every other week; Cafe Miranda, which is my personal favorite; Suzuki Sushi Bar, a Japanese restaurant; and even a wine bar on Main Street. A wine bar. Take a few steps to Rustica Cuccina, an Italian restaurant, and a host of others too numerous to keep up with. We even had a Himalayan restaurant (whatever that is) until recently when they closed their doors.
When I came to the Lime City, it was a reporter’s delight. Main Street windows featured more plywood than glass. The NSKK motorcycle gang routinely terrorized the city. A reporter opened district court documents like greeting cards, finding a delightful story every day. One of the very first ones I read involved an assault on a woman in a bar named something like the Log Cabin. The assailant was another woman.
If you couldn’t find a good story in Rockland’s District or Superior Court, you were in the wrong business.
You kept your scanner close by. Every afternoon at about 4 p.m., there was a “code eight” at the Dory Lounge, located under the Chuck Wagon. That was where the fishermen came after getting paid. A “code eight” was a brawl, and they had a few.
The Oasis, right across the street was another legendary spot. I remember a murder trial involving the Oasis. The assailant was found innocent because no one in the bar saw a damned thing. One witness said her job was “to put the warm beers in the back of the cooler and move the cold ones to the front.” Could she describe the fight that ended in the death of a customer? She could not. “I place the warm ones in the back of the cooler and the cold ones up front,” she repeated for the court.
The police visited the Oasis routinely. After one fracas, the men in blue were ready to leave when the bartender found a policeman’s hat on the floor. The officers all had their hats on and wondered where the extra chapeau came from. That’s when they found a cop beaten unconscious on the barroom floor.
A reporter from the Boston Globe came to Rockland one day trying to find out about an affair between one Teddy Kennedy and a New York Socialite. Kennedy’s boat visited Rockland often. The reporter went into a waterfront bar to ask fishermen if they had seen anything. When he showed his press pass, they took it away and threw him out of the bar.
The Golden Spike was a biker’s bar hard by the railroad tracks. I heard tales about bikers riding through the front door on their Harleys. But I never saw it. I was too afraid to go in. I had grown up in the Combat Zone in Boston and hung out at the Intermission Lounge where many gangland murders were plotted. I am no shrinking violet. But the Spike was too much for me.
Now look.
Rockland has a new “boutique hotel” — 250 Main Hotel — where rooms top out at $529 a night. Naturally, the walls will feature a changing exhibit of local artists.
They even tore down the old pool hall and built a snazzy new home for the Center for Maine Contemporary Art on Winter Street. It will open on June 26, adding to the proliferation of serious art in the Lime City. There is no end in sight.
Art center? I still miss the NSKK.
Emmet Meara lives in Camden in blissful retirement after working as a reporter for the Bangor Daily News in Rockland for 30 years.