Letter From The Editor

MONTHLY

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LEAPER MADNESS

!I"Ci . ,

~ .- I. ...

'M A LEAFER I admit it. I mean, being a birder was nice (I enjoyed the strong twill pants from L.t. Bean with the leather pockets ... the cocktail-party sturdiness of it all), but finally, I determined that being a birder was ultimately, well, too meaty, and so I've turned over a new, look, don't these binoculars mean anything to you? And now that I feel so very strongly about leaves, I feel I have to tell you something. Come a little closer. We leafers talk very softly, like Walt Disney and Thoreau combined. Now, that's soft. No, I mean Disney or Thoreau. Ah, I see you smile at my little correction, but that's OK, because after all, there's very little. deceit to being a leafer.

You don't sneak up on a leaf. You don't even get into the dishonesty of the bait process. No! You let a good, strong leaf come to you, reeling in the sensuousness of the whole deciduous experience while you ride on a gently constructed 10-speed bike, also from Beans, the folks who sell the outdoors. You let the exuberant, rolling colors of a really excellent, primo leaf surprise you gently, like the halcyon site of a truck full of Molson 's Golden just cresting the roseate blush of a sunlit hill, not a New Hampshire hill or a Vermont hill but a real Maine Hill, by gorry, followed by the 80 million tourists we dreamed of indoctrinating this fall in what's waggishly been called "Foliage-gate" -- that's right,

Maine spent $150,000 in state adver- . tising dollars this year to convince the . Boston and New York crowd to come up here (while three-quarters of the state complained about those nasty tourists) and do some leafing. All for naught. We were snubbed by the 1987 Guide To American·

Foliage in the Sunday New York

Times Magazine. ..

I settle back, looking up at the sky, always astonished at what's coming down.

MAINE'S ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL/MULTICULTURAL FESTIVAL

Saturday, October 24, 1987 10AM·5PM Portland Exposition Building 239 Park Ave.

ENTERTAINMENT. FOOD. DANCING. CRAFfS • DEMOS FUN. FUN. FUN THIS PROGRAM IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY THE MAINE ARTS COMMISSION