10 Reasons Mainers Are Tougher Than Everyone Else

Living in Maine requires snow removal. Shoveling and cleaning off your car are just two ways you learn how to work hard in Maine.

When it's 20 miles to the closest grocery store from home, you learn to love the road. Not only love it, but know it. If you're like the Mainers I know, you know every twist and turn, hill and bump on the way to town, and you have your commute route down to a science.

You probably know by now Maine is often portrayed as the middle of nowhere or is being joked about on TV shows like SNL. We get it, people from away think we talk funny, have never used a working toilet, and our governor is crazy. But so what, we don't care! Maine just keeps doing our own thing!

I mean we allow the king of horror to reside in our state. Locations and landmarks here have been featured in some of the most hair-raising horror novels by Stephen King and who is to say they are not inspired by some truths? We're not allowed to say.

For years, hundreds of Mainers have turned a blind eye (nose) to smells like cow farms, paper mills, and mud season. But you better believe we can still smell suppah!

Lobstermen, loggers, lumberjacks, farmers, plow truck drivers. The list of tough occupations prevalent in Maine goes on forever. Without these people working these tough jobs, Maine wouldn't be half as tough as it is.

From freezing to frozen to rain showers and heat waves Maine sees it all...in a week. As a Mainer, you never can really put away your seasonal clothes because Maine doesn't play by seasonal rules. Dealing with the cold winters makes us the toughest, though. I'd like to see a flatlander shoveling in shorts and a T-shirt without complaining!

We can drink things like Moxie and coffee brandy without flinching, and some of our favorite delicacies like needums, poutine, and clam chowder are indigestible to people from away.

Sometimes you're snowed in alone. Sometimes you're home alone for hours with no neighbors in sight. We sit for hours alone in an ice shack, hike alone, and spend time alone in the woods. We like company sometimes. Just don't stay too long.

We survived the ice storm of '98 with many of us living in darkness for weeks. We have no fear of walking to our vehicles in the dark even if we live in the deep woods. We get up before dawn to feed livestock, start work, and more! Winters in Maine seem to be dark 20 out of the 24 hours a day, so we deal!