We’re accustomed to thinking there are two Maines. I’ve logged hundreds of thousands of miles around Maine in the past 38 years, to almost every nook and cranny. I’ve come to believe that two is an undercount.

What most folks probably imagine when they think of “two Maines” is that there is Portland along with some nearby places and then there is everywhere else. A wag might say there is Portland and there is Maine. Or, another wag might say that for Portlanders, Maine stretches from shore to shore, from the Presumpscot to the Fore.

But there are really many Maines, the lines separating them less geographic than they are quotidian. That is, how people live their daily lives. Portland isn’t always an outlier.

For example, the 1,500 or so Portlanders who live on islands in Casco Bay have in common one dominant daily presence with folks on North Haven, Vinalhaven, Islesboro, Frenchboro and other islands. Their days are timed to the ferry schedule. My son in Portland visits in-laws on Peaks Island. He knows the Peaks ferry schedule by heart. That schedule is part of daily life for islanders.

And, Jackman, 16 miles south of Canada, has some commonalities with Portland, 162 miles farther south. Portland has no franchised fast food joints on the peninsula, with a few exceptions, perhaps being those who threatened to sue. So, in-town Portlanders who want a Big Mac must get to the outer reaches, nearly to Westbrook. Jackman doesn’t have a McDonald’s, either. Eat at a locally owned restaurant or eat at home.

Portland also has snow removal in common with many of Maine’s tiniest towns. They don’t do it. Ever try to walk around Portland a week after a major storm? Don’t. I won’t try it without my grip-on spikes. I can understand if Gilead doesn’t plow the sidewalks. It has few, if any. Portland? That’s another matter.

As you might expect, though, daily life in Portland and other large cities and towns differs from daily life out here in the boonies. One quick example. We began seeing smoke rise in late February from sap houses. For six or so weeks, a common question to ask anyone you ran into was, “How’s the sap running?” Not a likely conversation starter in Portland, or, for that matter, in Lewiston.

Portland and New Sharon, where I live, are about as different as can be. Portland and Jackman are about as different as they can be. You already knew that. But I am finding that in many other ways, New Sharon and Jackman are more than just 88 miles apart. They, too, can be quite different.

As are, say, Lewiston (renaissance, college city) and Calais (renaissance pending), Rumford (mill town) and Bangor (reestablishing itself), Turner (farming, commuting) and Oakfield (railroad, lumber), Brunswick (college town) and New Sweden (farming).

In September, I drove up to Moose River, across the river from Jackman, to attend church. Not my usual Sunday jaunt, but I knew the story of the rebirth of that little Congregational church, and I wanted to worship there and see it at firsthand. Talking with the church folk, I came to learn how different Jackman is from New Sharon.

We had had a couple of looks at Jackman in the past. Once, we caught the train there to Montreal. It was January. On a Friday night, there was plenty of traffic, though ours was one of the few cars moving in town. Scores of snowmobiles zoomed about. Sleds abound in New Sharon, too, but they are not the primary way to get around. We drive cars and pickups in January, take snow machines out for recreation.

Another time, I spent a couple of days at a seminar at the Sky Lodge. When we went into town, we noticed that the grocery’s liquor aisle was unusually large for a town of 920 (1,153 if you add Moose River). A couple in our party went native and picked up bottles to take back to their rooms. Maybe the well-stocked liquor aisle caters to Quebeckers who can whisk a bottle or two back to Quebec at a bargain price. If they don’t get caught.

New Sharon farmers cut hay two or three times a year. In Jackman, once. They were just baling it when I visited in September, months after my neighbors cut their first crop.

When folks ask me how many people live in New Sharon, I say 1,400 people sleep here but only about 200 live here. Those sleepers pursue their lives in Farmington, Waterville, Augusta, Lewiston. They come to New Sharon only to sleep. They live away. That, to me, defines the suburbs, and I’m afraid that New Sharon like many other Maine towns, has become mostly a suburb. Places where people sleep but don’t necessarily live. While many of my neighbors drive every day to their lives away, not many in Jackman drive to Waterville or Bangor for work. It’s pretty well work in town or move.

Rural and urban folks tend to live and work in more or less the same spot. Through the years, each city neighborhood was a small town, but these towns were jammed together, no farm fields or forests between, When I lived in Harlem, 54 years ago, I couldn’t walk to work — I ran a store at 122nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue — without seeing folks I knew. And I likely knew more than three-quarters of my customers by name.

But the suburbs brought something different as they lapped up the farmland that had provided sustenance for the rural towns. In the suburbs, we may not know the folks across the street. We lived in suburban Montreal, and didn’t know two of the other four homeowners in our row house. We lived at the edge of Oxford, Ohio, and met only the folks across the road. Everyone in the subdivision behind us was a stranger.

My son in Portland knows his neighbors. At least right around here, I know my neighbors in New Sharon. It may not always be thus.

Bob Neal will have lived 38 years (come Wednesday) in New Sharon. It’s one of many Maines he has come to love.

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