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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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1990-09-17
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AMERICAN SCENE, Page 14Kennebunkport, Me. - A Small Town Goes Prime-TimeBush's election brings headaches to his summer homeBy Sam Allis
The only way Bob Brigham used to know that George Bush was in
town was when his daughter would return from Bradbury Brothers
Market and announce, "The Filipinos are here." This meant that the
Vice President's household staff was preparing for his arrival.
Things change. "Now it looks like a damned convention for the
hearing impaired," observes Brigham, a local real estate agent,
about the swarm of Secret Service men sporting earphones when Bush
is in Kennebunkport.
For the record, it was on Wednesday, Nov. 23, that
Kennebunkport met its first metal detector. Bush was to address his
friends and neighbors -- folks like Booth Chick and Carl Bartlett
-- on the town green, and his security men set one up on Ocean
Avenue to screen the audience. He had survived more than 60 summers
in this lovely coastal Maine town without a single metal detector,
but then he never was President-elect. Trouble was, there were too
many people for the lone detector. The police finally said the hell
with it, just before Bush began, and let everyone in to hear the
speech. "We're going to need more of them," sighs Roland Drew,
chairman of the board of selectmen.
It is going to get tricky. "I can't imagine anyone here calling
him Mr. President," predicts Bartlett, owner of Port Hardware. "It
has always been `Hi, George, how are you?' Hell, I've never heard
anyone call him Mr. Bush."
Two days later, Bill Ward over at Port Video had a scare. He
was having breakfast next door at Karens Restaurant when Bush
arrived to rent a couple of videos, leading a 15-car motorcade of
security and media people. "For a moment I thought my place was on
fire," Ward recalls. "It reminded me of the Monty Python movie
where the kid opens the bedroom window and sees a lawn full of
people. It's ridiculous for the press to follow Bush around to see
what he buys. Renting Broadcast News is not a national policy
decision."
Brace yourself, Bill, you are in summer White House country
now. Weird things happen. Remember Plains, Ga.? "If anyone spent
a dime there, that was an improvement over the year before," sniffs
Ward. True enough. Plains shot into the limelight with Jimmy Carter
and sunk back into the kudzu like Brigadoon. Then there was
Hyannis, Mass., which metamorphosed from a decent summer community
into the world capital of turquoise John F. Kennedy ashtrays. The
place has never recovered from the combination of Kennedy mystique,
weak zoning and bad taste.
None of this is lost on Kennebunkport's 4,500 natives. Many
ponder their future at Alisson's Restaurant, where fresh rumors
mingle daily with the clam chowder. Someone murmurs that the Secret
Service will close Ocean Avenue, the road that runs past the Bush
compound on Walker's Point, for security reasons. "If they do that,
the cars will back up all the way to Wells," moans Rick Griffin,
owner of the Kennebunkport Inn, envisioning a traffic jam
stretching to a town seven miles away.
The truth is that the town is already a tourist hive in season,
and George Bush has nothing to do with it. The population swells
to around 30,000 in the summer, and 19,000 cars cross the narrow
two-lane bridge into Dock Square each day in peak season. Gridlock
comes with the Coppertone. "Ocean Avenue is already a zoo,"
concedes selectman Drew. Adds Tom Bradbury, whose family has been
in town for generations: "The Bush factor changes the name on the
souvenir, but the souvenirs were already here."
Kennebunkport was not always a summer mob scene. When Bush's
maternal grandfather George Herbert Walker built his house in 1903,
the town was a quiet refuge for well-heeled gentry from New York
and Boston. They built sprawling "cottages" along Ocean Avenue and
played tennis at the River Club, while the natives fished and built
ships on the Kennebunk River. Life remained peaceful until a decade
or so ago, when the southern coast of Maine was discovered by
tourists and developers. Dock Square used to have a gas station,
a hardware store, a market, a movie theater. They are all gone now,
replaced by shops with names like Frangipani.
Some focus heroically on the bright side. "It's exciting," says
Monroe Scharff, a Bush neighbor. "How often do you find a beautiful
place that is also the summer residence of the President of the
United States?" And selectman Joe Finn trumpets, "We've been in the
London Times and the Hong Kong Daily News!"
Others are less sanguine. "I can see this town is going to hell
fast," says Mike Day, a lobster fisherman. Adds Rick Griffin:
"We're already maxed out. We may be in for what Hyannis
experienced. I don't see any way to stop it. I'm amazed at the
number of people who are excited about this."
Far worse will be the media, who will be as thick as black
flies whenever Bush is in town. The Washington press corps already
left its mark on Kennebunkport over Thanksgiving. Roland Drew was
talking to a photographer before Bush arrived at the South
Congregational Church for Sunday services when a reporter snapped,
"Get out of my way!" Says Drew, more in wonder than anger: "No one
talks like that around here." Day defended some firewood that two
reporters planned to liberate to warm themselves while camped out
near the Bush compound. "How do you `borrow' firewood?" Day asks.
"It's going to be like Boston soon. You'll have to put fences
around everything that's worth anything."
On the other hand, there will be more business for the cluster
of gift shops in Dock Square that sell things like scented candles
and T shirts. Diane Frazier, owner of Mountain Tops, which offers
BUSH COUNTRY sweat shirts for $16.99, says, "He's great for
business. But I don't want to do anything tacky. He's the
President."
"Real estate prices will go up, no question about that," adds
Bob Dennis, the town Republican Party chairman. This is bad news
for many residents whose modest incomes do not match the town's
tony image. Says Mike Marceau, a lobster wholesaler: "George Bush
does nothing for commercial fishermen. Workingmen can't afford to
buy a house here. I don't make enough money to buy property in this
town, and I was born here."
Still, most folks are proud of their local boy who made good.
They are convinced Kennebunkport will survive this latest act of
God. "This too shall pass," intones Barbara Rencurrel with abundant
Yankee stoicism. In the meantime, says Carl Bartlett, "it's like
being in the stands at the circus."