It’s all kind of a blur, really. Snapshots flash by in double-time, leaving me as dizzy as I was during the actual event. Hurry up, taste, wait, smell, resume… I’ll try to process this orgy of sensory overload in real-time, but I don’t guarantee anything. Welcome to the 156th annual Fryeburg Fair.

(I hate cutesy titles, but it was inevitable.)

I have never been to the Yarmouth Clam Festival. Why not? Who knows. I'm not much of a festival guy, for one thing. Too many people, too many tourists, too many opportunities to spend waaayyyy too much money on bad food. Oh, and there was the time when I was eight or nine that I heaved a good gorging of HoJo clam strips all over the rug of an Orlando Holiday Inn. Put it all together, and I just never made it to this Maine institution.

I am aware that Colleen Stone already wrote about red hot dogs. However, she went out for hers, and I grew up eating mine at home. This column is, to a large extent, about (re)visiting Maine institutions with tourist eyes. And it’s about going home.

You can’t go home again. Okay, you can…sorta. But be careful what you wish for. I’m just sayin’.

Many spring and summer Saturdays during my high school days found me at The Big Dipper on Rt. 196 in Lisbon Falls. There one could get an insanely large cone of homemade ice cream for $1.50 in Bush 41 money. Back in the day, I could actually finish off a large M&M and think nothing of it. But I’m neigh-on seventeen years removed from high school now. Could I still make it?

Ah, the Whoopie Pie. As much a staple of the Maine culinary map as the lobster roll, Jordan’s red dogs and Moxie, these gobs of goodness are requisite for anybody seeking a true Maine experience. There is some debate as to whether the whoopie was born in Bangor or in Pennsylvania Dutch country in the 1920’s, and it appears that Amish kids, heard to yell “whoopie!” when seeing the pies in their lunch bags, might have a legit claim to the name. But the use of marshmallow Fluff, invented in Somerville, MA, tips the scales towards New England. Besides, Pennsylvanians have their own pastry to claim. Let them eat Tastykake, I say.

Tuscany. Bordeaux. Beaujolais. Napa Valley. Portland, Maine.

Huh?

Yes, Portland, Maine is now a winemaking kinda town. The world is a global village, and items and services that were once available only through great expense and travel are now at our front doors. Thanks to advances in home recording technology, you no longer need to go to Los Angeles or Nashville to make a record. Thanks to camcorders and YouTube, you no longer need to go to Hollywood to make a movie. And thanks to Maine Vintners at 1037 Forest Avenue in Portland, you no longer need a passport to make a great wine.