photo/Xander Boss; photo illustration/Nathan Galvez

Make Rockland Great Again

Having just read through Judith Lawson’s piece, “The Long Con of Rocklandia,” I would like to say that she nearly lost me completely at paragraph five with her injection of Donald Trump. That statement put the slant of the piece into perspective before I had really entered into the meat of the article. I’m sure others gave up at this point, but I pressed on.

After reading the story and agreeing with much of it, I still lean back to her introduction into our area of the midcoast. She is “not from here” and came here with considerable money in her pocket to have a boat built where she could sail around the world. I can’t name any particular “native” of this area, having grown up here, who would even desire or even think of that. Many locals still believe that if you’re not from here, why do you come here and try to change our way of life? What she has written about is what she, on another level, is also guilty of.

I was born on an island off the coast of Maine, grew up on another and, after serving my country, lived in Rockland for over 22 years. I moved to Thomaston to get away from the bickering and politics of Rockland, as well as the high tax rate. Rockland has done itself a disservice by not developing Camden Street, where many businesses (Wal-Mart, Wendy’s, Tim Horton’s, Van Baalen, etc.) have pulled their stores and either moved to another town or left completely.

In the future, if Ms. Lawson writes a political story, it would probably be appreciated by all if she kept her own politics out of it.

Rick Winslow
Thomaston