Sam Smith - Today, Maine humor has largely moved from casual interchange to books and videotapes. It's been many years since the day I drove into a gas station, stepped out of my car into a puddle and heard someone say "How's the watah?"
But it still crops up. John at R&D Automotive told me some years back that my brother had been in with his car. "He said he kept smelling gas . . . so I told him to stop it."
Or the exchange at Leighton's department store:
"How ya doin?"
"You want the long story or the short one?"
"Oh hell, give me the long one."
"Pretty good, I guess."
Or the time Bob Guillamette, the plumber, came to fix something. I asked him to also look at the tub he had recently installed because the water was slow to drain. He returned a couple of minutes later saying, "Jesus Christ, Sam, you're one of the lucky ones. Most of them won't hold water."