A field station is a simplified laboratory for natural science study. In the case of 'up the College' ( the local downeasters' way to reference the field station) the Friedman Field Station was a central chow hall/lecture hall/dry laboratory and a 'wet' laboratory (with running sea water and tanks available, piped in), plus about 20 cabins with electricity but no running water or appliances. Bathrooms and showers were about a 1/4mi from my cabin, as was the chow hall. This was all located in an isolated town way, way up in downeast maine, about 7 hours north of Boston, and about 30 minutes from Canada.
I loved it. Oh, there was the usual college-era growing pains to be dealt with, but I instantly fell in love with the region. I'd move there in a heartbeat, but it'd kill my wife. She's not a country girl, and the winter there is LONG and damn cold.
I saved my money as I could, and in the off season, while in college, sometimes in the winter and spring I'd take a bus to Bangor, and the little coastal passenger van that ran to the region, about a 3 hour ride from Bangor, was cheap enough, and I'd spend the weekend in Eastport.
If you're not familiar, Eastport is a sleepy little downeast 'city' of 5,000 people located on a couple of islands connected by causeways to the mainland. I fit in better there than I did in my own hometown, to be truthful, and made some friends during my college years.
After I gave up on being a scientist by trade and went back to fishing and started working on ships, and it being a small world, the chief mate on the New River, the ship I spent 8 years on, was from Eastport. We knew some of the same people, and have been good friends since. I spent 2-3 weeks a year at his house up until I moved to Florida.
Well, even though poor Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife would be a popsicle if I moved her up there, I still dream about it. I've never seen a more beautiful part of the world, and, as lovely and enjoyable as my home in Florida is, it's lovely in an exotic way, not in a 'this is perfect for me' way.
I still look at real estate up in that area a couple of times a year, just killing time online.
My alma mater closed the field station 2-3 years ago. Demographics change, and science is just expensive as hell to teach, so the real money is in transgender Southeast Asian Studies and other grievance mongering bullshittery. You don't have to pay the useless motherfuckers who teach that fake social science shit squat since they are as useless as tits on a tree and only suitable for use as firewood and coffeefetching, and there's no shortage of WASP girls from middle-class broken homes to fill up the roster at $40,000 a year.
I knew the field station was closed. I didn't know it was for sale, ridiculously cheap for what it is, but slightly out of my range, considering it's not winterized.
I need for either my 2nd career as the world's first middle-aged plus-sized male underwear model to take off, or to play the lottery more. I'll always have the memories, but visiting the field station was always something I enjoyed as an alum.
2 comments:
Buy the field station and run it as a resort. 20 cabins at $100 per night. Advertise it as serving healthy air and traditional living and you'll have city slickers lining up to stay.
Exile1981
What exile said. Pipe in WiFi and tell hipsters they're roughing it.
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