So's the new Biddeford one, from what I've been hearing. Apparently it's a bigger store than the one in Sanford, which...yeah, I can buy. I have to wonder just how small it actually was, though.

Social spaces included the church, and most towns had at least one church. You knew you'd see everyone then, and could socialize a bit before going home. There would be Saturday night dances held in the <insert men's club here> Hall. The Grange was especially important, in those agrarian times.

In the summer, a Chautauqua might come to town. You could attend lectures, see clean vaudeville acts, listen to music.

Or, a traveling circus could set up.

Commuting pre-railroad meant walking, or horses, over rough roads. Towns that bordered lakes and rivers would have steam boats. Coastal towns would have sailing ships.

But there were no social spaces as you envision them today in small towns. Men would hang out at the general store, perhaps.

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I love the Watervile store

Sad that this is the only comment so far pointing this out.

My dad quit in the early 70s when the price topped .01 per cigarette.

Bangor is a shit hole. Along with most of the business in it

We pay about $75/mo for coffee for two people. Granted, we don't go to Dunkin or Starbucks or anything like that. We order beans in 5 lb increments from places like Tandem, Speckled Ax and Onyx. We store them in the freezer in mason jars to keep them fresh.

We pay $13.73/mo for electricity.

I guess coffee wins.

Many lakes and rivers were used to transport lumber, which they did until the early 1970s. That meant that many lakes that now have million dollar lakefront homes didn't have any because the logging made swimming and boating filthy and dangerous in all but the wide areas.

Many lakes had a dam and a mill at one end to process the lumber. Just imagine all those logs you see on huge trucks being floated down lakes and rivers.

Most roads were gravel or dirt, which is why early cars had such a high clearance so that they good still get through during mud season.

I’ve noticed the same. Even with relatively popular bands, they have no copies of anything or maybe one CD at most. I’ve had some credit with them for a while and haven’t really had anything to buy.

I go to Waterville, Lewiston, and Windham primarily. None of them are really worth visiting anymore unfortunately and it’s sad as I’ve loved going there for so many years.

Keep in mind they do have a pretty decent sized online presence now so I take it that’s where a lot of their inventory is going.

Dang, that’s over 7k a year. What’s your house hold annual income range? Are you a home owner? That is more than our mortgage, property taxes, and home owners insurance last year… we bought a 4 bed 2 bath in Oakland on 5+ acres to convert into a homestead almost 2 years ago(with a sizable down payment) with your Dunkin’ budget.

Bought a Sublime record from the Bangor location last year while staying in the area for a weekend. Got home and realized the two disc set was somehow two copies of disc B instead of one A one B. Ruined my week

We’re at like $20 a day for Starbucks. :(

Waterville is amazing. I've only ever walked out of there without what I wanted once, and that's because someone beat me to the one copy they had gotten in.

Mill Creek is awesome too, definitely my favorite location

It's too far north. Im a college student from Connecticut currently at Umaine and I would never consider staying up here. Yeah, its a reasonably nice place, but theres no community outside of school or church. Its really difficult to meet people because a lot of mainers arent super social. At the very least they are very disinterested in having a relationship with someone whos relatively liberal and from Connecticut. And thats not to mention the pretty limited choices in employement. I don't think I know one person from out of state who wants to stay in the area after school. So yeah, nothing really against Bangor, but I want to live someplace a little more diverse.

Most months my electric bill is less than $7 (Versant minimum), so I definitely spend more than that at Dunkin, but to be fair I’d need to factor in the cost of the solar panels over their expected life span to get my true monthly electricity cost

I think I'm going to go check it out! Thanks for the heads up!

Finally got my wife out of the dunk's habit....

We are about 35$ with my beans for my espresso and her's for the drip.

Electric bill is massive for reasons, our average daily usage is significantly down, but the price is almost double.

Yeah it has gotten baaaaaad over the last 4ish years.

I'm thinking that's a catalogue number for the postcard or something, but I could be wrong

Yeah, I might have my price wrong. It was just a pack. Could have been $1.05 but that seems so low.

Good point

>they really took a hit from the lockdown or that the whole thing with employee control was an absolute disaster

I mean, they fired the whole staff of one store for wanting customers to wear masks. That tells me a fair amount about company management.