One Morning in Maine — a Glimpse at the Real Storybook Setting
I grabbed our copy of One Morning in Maine just before we left New Jersey for a 9-hour drive up into the Pine Tree State a few summers back. The paperback, a gift from my mother-in-law, a Mainer, is inscribed in blue pen: Happy 6th, Annie — Love, Grandma.
I reread the 1952 classic by Robert McCloskey on the car ride up, familiarizing myself again with Sal, her mother, father and little sister, Jane. By then, the girl in the back seat of our Honda CR-V was 17, no longer the jolly preschooler who loved every detail of the book.
When I saw my brother-in-law John a day later at Eileen and Mike’s fishing camp, he said, You know that town in the book — the one they go to on the boat? Bucks Harbor? It still looks like it did in the book. The one store, the garage where they go to get the boat motor fixed. Brothers-in-law Pat and Mike concurred. (These are all Hurley brothers. Counting Dave, there are four of them up in Belfast, Maine.)
I was instantly hooked, and drove there to see for myself one July afternoon in Maine. My husband, Dan Hurley, was walking with Mike, and our daughter (Annie, nickname Figgy) had walked into town, so I went alone. It was about 44 miles to get there, and took over an hour due to road construction stops.
