Greetings and salutations to all the faithful listeners of Rose and Trout,

My name is Debra Jean Pinkham, and I am writin’ today to set the record straight and introduce myself. I am not FROM away. I just live there.

As many of you may know, I am a cousin to Lurlene B. Trout. My mother, Gladys Tibbets, was married to Lurlene’s father’s half-brother, Arnold Pinkham. They lived over on Turkey Hill in the old Bagley place on the east side of Bernard for years.

I was born at the hospital over to Kiev and am one of them late in life babies. Mama was 49 years old when I was born, and Daddy was 60. I went to grammar school and high school with Lurlene’s brothers, Lloyd and Everett. Well, by the time I graduated high school, Lurlene had already gotten married and popped out a couple of babies, and Mama and Daddy were on Social Security. I promised to stay in Bernard and look after them until they passed – God rest their souls.

So I did.Well by then, I was forty years old and had met every eligible man in the county – and let me tell you, that’s some slim pickins - and my future wasn't lookin' all that bright. I had been workin’ over at Kitty’s Tarts from time to time waitin’ on customers, and I kept books at the cannin’ factory until it shut down.

But since I did get that Associates degree over to the community college in Bangor, after Mama and Daddy died, I thought it was high time I got a real job, since gettin’ married was about as likely as a seein’ a snowstorm in July. So I did. I got a job with one of them credit card companies over to Belfast, trackin’ down deadbeats over the phone. Turns out that I am damn good at trackin’ down deadbeats and convincin’ them to pay up because the next thing you know, the company was askin’ me to move outta state and help them set up a new skip tracin’ department down South.

So I did. That is how I came to be livin’ away. I been down here in Maryland goin’ on ten years now, and let me tell you it is some different than livin’ in Bernard. There’s more cars than there are people, and no one knows how to drive. Boys walk around town with their undershorts showin’, and some folks have so many tattoos they look like the Sunday comics. And, Jesus H. Christ on a busted crutch, who ever heard tell of putting tomatoes and corn in a clam chowder?

These people are some different. But I am gettin’ used to it. So used to it that my own people say I am from away. Just breaks my heart.

Like I told Lurlene, you can take the gal outta Maine, but you can’t take Maine outta the gal. Anyway, Rose and Lurlene asked me if I would be their foreign correspondent and send news from away up to Bernard for them to post on their website. I said I would, as long as Lurlene promises to bake me a pot of beans next time I come home and ceases and desists from tellin’ folks that I am from away.

Each week, unless I am workin’ a lot of overtime – and you know with the economy tankin’ the way it is the deadbeat count is risin’as regular as the tide so I am expectin’ to be workin’ my ass off – I will be sendin’ reports about what it’s like to be a Mainer livin’ away. I guess that’s it for now.

Until next time I remain, your devoted foreign correspondent,

Debra Jean Pinkham