Everyone knows the old punchline, “If your cat had kittens in the oven, you wouldn’t call ‘em biscuits.”

It’s a retort to whether a person born beyond the Kittery bridge can be a Mainer.

Opinions vary, but I would say the preponderance comes down on “NO.”

A Kentuckian got me here. I’d been scratching the farmer itch for a few years when I read “The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture” by Wendell Berry, a farmer, writer and professor of writing in Port Royal, Kentucky. A year later, a used-up dairy farm in New Sharon was home.

Right away, I started to learn how to live like a (rural) Mainer. Lessons by the score, each perhaps tiny but together lifelong lessons in how this place differs from all those other places.

I can’t always sum up neatly how it’s different here. But, it’s different here, usually better.

Before Maine, when I bought apples at a store, they were sold as the variety “apple.” In Maine, I’m offered McIntosh or Cortland or Northern Spy or some new-fangled thing called a Honey Crisp. Even a pretty but tasteless Red Delicious.

Didn’t take long to settle on the Mac as best. It makes October, already the best month (if you don’t think about what follows), a bit better.

Before Maine, the stuff that fell to the ground in winter was snow. In Maine, I learned there is powder, which skiers love; there is wet snow, which surprised me because I had always thought snow was a form of water and therefore already wet; there was spring snow, like what fell on Dec. 17(!) or Wednesday and Thursday this week, which my plowman just called, “this crap.”

Before Maine, sweet corn was yellow. In Maine, I learned that sweet corn comes speckled with white kernels supposedly even sweeter and variously called “sugar and gold” or “butter and sugar” or some other name to suggest extra sweetness. I haven’t bought into this one, still prefer old-fashioned all-yellow corns such as Ashworth, which actually came from New York, and Golden Bantam, which actually came from the Burpee seed company in 1902.

Before Maine, I might have commuted 30 minutes to work, by car in Kansas City or by walking and the train in Montreal. In Maine it became 90 minutes each way from New Sharon to Orono. My neighbor, the late Harold Kearney, drove to Orono for decades from New Sharon. I even met a guy who lived in Weld and worked in Liberty. His only dual-lane stretch was the Cony Rotary in Augusta. Later, as a farmer, I walked three minutes to work every day. Best commute ever.

Before Maine, winter ran from December into March. We had lived five winters in Montreal, so a long winter was no surprise. In Maine, I learned more about winter than I had ever imagined. I learned to prepare by working up the firewood a year ahead; by banking the windward side of the house with hay bales in the fall; by pushing the snow as far as I could, knowing that it would still be there come April and I’d still be looking for places to put more.

Before Maine, we’d stoke the woodstove at bedtime, then bask in its fading warmth when our feet hit the floor in the morning. In Maine, we learned we had to stoke the stoves during the night. An old-timer taught me a trick. Drink a large glass of water just before bed. Your bladder will tell you when the stove needs wood. I faithfully put more wood on the fire between 2 and 3 a.m. seven months a year, until I got a heat pump. This year.

Before Maine, eggs were white. In Maine, I learned that hens here like to lay brown eggs, and since most hens in the lower 47 don’t lay brown eggs, we can be certain that the brown eggs are from closer to home and therefor fresher. That’s changing, as even giant New England producers now offer white “eggs.” No rational reason to disdain a white egg; I just do.

Before Maine, chop suey was a faux-Chinese dish. When my parents drove us east from Missouri, we always stopped on Market Square in Indianapolis for chop suey that contained bean sprouts and water chestnuts and other Chinese veggies. In Maine, I learned that chop suey is as American as can be and is macaroni, tomato sauce and hamburg. Not hamburger.

Before Maine, dynamite was something Alfred Nobel had invented to blow up stuff. In Maine, I learned that Dynamite is a dish of hamburg and tomatoey sauce on a bun. And it’s a Skowhegan specialty. Or it’s a Skowhegan ruse. I’ve tried dynamites. Sure taste like a Sloppy Joe to me. My girlfriend, native to Farmington, finds nothing unique in the Dynamite. Others have told me the same. But in Skowhegan, I’ll order a dynamite, not a Sloppy Joe.

Before Maine, I pulled head first into parking spaces. In Maine, I learned to back in. It annoyed the bejesus out of my late wife, Marilyn, even after we figured out that at a place where everyone is going to leave at the same time, like a game or church, Maine people are wont to back in. The exit is smoother, faster and safer when we’re all headed in the same direction at the same time. And with these new backup cameras, it’s a lot easier.

Before Maine, deer was a critter and dear was your spouse’s other name. In Maine, I learned that deer is something to get. “Gotcher deer yet?” is the standard greeting in November. And dear is what you call just about anybody you meet in public. John Gould (born in Massachusetts, but, shhh!) wrote in the book “Maine Lingo,” which I have read three times, that “dear” usually is used between sexes, but Downeast is also used man-to-man. Haven’t tested that one yet.

In 43 years, I’ve learned a lot about how to live here. I’ve even been told twice by old-timers to call myself a Mainer.

Closest I’ll come, though, is to say that my grandparents and mother are buried in Kennebunk, and that’s almost Maine.

But to many Mainers, I’ll always be a Flatlander.

Bob Neal’s cats will never have kittens in the oven. Both are neutered shelter males. Then, they don’t have to have kittens in the oven, they’re Mainers born and bred. Neal can be reached at bobneal@myfairpoint.net.

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