My Favorite Room

It doesn’t matter if you are a world-famous musician or a stay-at-home mom, there is a room in your home where you go to relax and rejuvenate. Maybe it’s your bathroom, where you can close the door and have a peaceful bubble bath. Or maybe it’s the family room where everyone gathers at the end of the day to watch TV. We asked three Mainers to give us a peek inside their favorite rooms and tell us what made their space special. You might be surprised at what we found.

Musician
Don Mclean

Just outside of Camden center, up a winding private driveway, past a sign that reads “If you weren’t invited turn around NOW!” sits Lakeview—a huge white farmhouse with bright pink doors. This is the home of
Mr. “American Pie,” Don McLean.

McLean, his wife Patrisha, and their two children have lived in this house for almost two decades. The large rooms are decorated with polished antique furniture, and colorful oriental rugs cover the hardwood floors.

McLean’s favorite room is at the top of the main staircase. It’s a small office with a view of Lake Megunticook. His desk is stuffed full of papers and the peach-colored couch is soft and worn. A singing Jackson Brown figurine and a stuffed Ernie doll look odd among the dozens of gold and platinum records that line the walls.

“I’ve never had an unhappy day in this house,” McLean says. He moved to Camden from Garrison, New York—about an hour and a half outside of New York City and his hometown of New Rochelle. McLean spent the better part of the ’70s and ’80s in a modest house in the woods of Garrison, but wasn’t thrilled about raising his daughter in an area where drug use was prevalent.

“I was ready to move on,” he says. “My mother had died as well as some of my friends and I was ready for a new start.”

He hasn’t regretted it. “There’s something special about Maine and the people who live here,” says McLean. “In Maine if your car breaks down on the side of the road, you know someone will stop and help you out.” Patrisha, a photographer, just published a book called Maine Street: Faces and Stories from a Small Town with photos of Camden locals. She says that Camden made her never want to live in a big city again.

An under-the-radar kind of famous person, McLean exploded onto the music scene in 1972 with his hit song “American Pie” from his second album. It was a chart topper in Great Britain for 54 weeks from 1972 to 1974. Time, Life, and Newsweek all ran major stories on McLean.

“Success exploded in my face,” McLean says. And that success is hanging on every wall in his office.

Interviews, photo shoots, and work on album and book projects are all done in this office. The memorabilia on display is only 10% of what McLean has received in his lifetime. There are gold and platinum albums from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand as well as albums and plaques from other artists who have rerecorded McLean’s songs.

Most of the accolades are for “American Pie,” a song he never tires of performing. “‘American Pie’ is a tool. It’s one of the most famous songs ever—you don’t get many of those,” McLean says.

His favorite award hangs eye level and is from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). McLean was presented this award when he was living in a house that “leaked like a sieve” in Cold Spring, New York. The award is for the gross from copies of the American Pie album, which had grossed more than $1 million. The award also came with a check that, with inflation, would be about $3 million by today’s standards.

“American Pie” has received loads of honors and accolades and broke the barrier for long-playing songs. It’s the longest-running number-one Billboard Hot 100 song at eight-and-a-half minutes in length. It’s also listed as number five on the Songs of the Century list, created by the RIAA, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc.

Most recently, “American Pie” was sung center stage by Garth Brooks at the January inauguration concert for President Barack Obama.

Another one of McLean’s favorite awards is an honorary doctorate from Iona College, the school in upstate New York where he earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1968.

An avid horseman since his Garrison days, McLean keeps a saddle in his office. He has three horses on his property that he cares for himself and he has plenty of area to ride on his 200-acre estate.

The obvious thing missing from his office is a computer. McLean isn’t a fan of the Internet. He does appreciate that YouTube can bring his music to people around the world, but he isn’t interested in the music business as it stands today.

“Technology is killing everything I love,” McLean says. “The music business is dying right in front of us. People are giving away everything.”

McLean buys about four newspapers a day and uses the Internet mostly for making hotel and flight reservations. “If I want to find something on the Internet I ask my son.”

“Performers get paid the big bucks not to lip-synch! Lip-synching is an abomination,” he says. “I’m going to continue performing for a while and then just stop. There’s nothing more I can accomplish.”

Weatherman
Steve McKay

With two jobs, homework, and a growing family, time in the romper room to wrestle or relax is the perfect way for Steve McKay to unwind.

The full-time weatherman for WLBZ Channel 2 and grandfather to four rambunctious young grandchildren is also a part-time pastor and graduate student at the Bangor Theological Seminary. “I’ve never needed a lot of sleep,” McKay says. It’s a good thing because he doesn’t get much.

McKay is usually up at 6 a.m. working on his Sunday sermons for the Milbridge United Methodist Church and the Faith United Methodist Church in Columbia. He also uses his mornings to study and do pastoral work in the local hospitals. He heads to Channel 2 around 2 p.m. and after a dinner break heads back to his Orono home around midnight.

“People ask me how I do it all,” McKay says. “I do it because I love it.”

It was a few years ago at the Stillwater Federated Church where McKay got his first taste of what it would be like to be a pastor. While serving on the deacon’s board, McKay would sometimes fill in for the pastor on Sundays. McKay found speaking in front of the congregation a natural fit. He felt the call to pastor and enrolled in the seminary.

“When the churches first asked me to come pastor, it was probably out of curiosity: What would a weatherman have to say about God?” he says.

Plenty.

“The perception is that in order to be a Christian you have to kiss your brains good-bye,” McKay says. “It’s not true.”
He finds similarities between his job at WLBZ and his pastoral duties. As a weatherman he’s a scientist while as a pastor he’s a researcher. He uses graphic design skills to create the weather maps he uses nightly on the news and as a pastor he uses his communication skills to paint a picture of what life was like back in biblical times. And although the subject matter is different, he considers himself a storyteller for both jobs.

“We can’t explain God scientifically. There comes a time when you just need to take a leap of faith,” McKay says.

He says his familiarity in the local community helps him with his church community. And while Steve McKay is a familiar face on the news, it’s Steve Smith who leads church services on Sunday.

At his first radio job in Rhode Island, McKay’s manager thought his given last name, Smith, was too boring. Steve Smith had no pizzazz, no spice. When McKay suggested using his grandmother’s maiden name his manager started a campaign with the slogan, “Start your day with Steve McKay,” and it stuck.

McKay will graduate with a master’s degree from the seminary in May and continue to be a part-time pastor. “I feel like I’m fulfilling a need in ministry,” he says and adds that bi-vocational pastors are a growing trend for small churches in rural areas. His seminary diploma will be another thing to hang on the walls in his basement.

McKay and his wife, Judy, built their house in 2005 next to Steve’s parents. The basement is where all the action is. Today Steve and Judy are watching their four grandchildren: Bailey, 11; Aidan, 5; Owen, 3; and Lily, 14 months. The boys take turns building towers out of colorful cardboard blocks and triumphantly knocking them over. “It’s a good room for roughhousing,” McKay says.

Two rocking chairs sit on either side of the gas stove that adds heat and hominess to the room. A flat screen television sits in one corner and an air hockey table is set up against the wall on the other side of the room. A comfy couch provides a soft place for Bailey to snuggle with Memere, as Judy is called, while the boys and the baby pile on top of Bampy on the floor.

McKay refinished the basement himself. Old license plates from Illinois, where McKay was born, and Maine line the walls. A collection of framed photos that Judy took of old cars take up most of one wall. “We don’t have antique cars, but we still love them,” McKay says. His car of choice? A 1964 Ford Mustang convertible. “I like it because it’s from the era when I was growing up,” he says. A retro clock and old tin signs advertising John Deere and Chevrolet add to the nostalgia.

When the kids aren’t here, Steve and Judy retreat to the basement to watch movies or the Red Sox game. The rocking chairs provide a nice place to read a book, McKay says. They’ll also have Steve’s parents over for card games. “We like being the hang-out house,” McKay says.

U.S. Senator
Susan Collins

Susan Collins is everywhere. She’s in Washington, D.C., during the week; she’s in Bangor on the weekend. She visits family in the County and she’s in The New York Times. She has meetings in the Oval Office and around her kitchen table. Though she’s usually wearing perfectly tailored suits, this Mainer has no qualms about pairing them with knee-high snow boots when the forecast calls for them. Collins is the perfect combination of powerful politician and potato farmer.

“I always remember who sent me to Washington,” Collins says. “My first obligation is to them. Remembering that helps me during the hard times.” And Collins has seen her fair share of hard times so far this year.

Her recent vote supporting President Obama’s economic stimulus package catapulted her into the national spotlight. She crossed party lines to vote on a bill that she believed in. And people in the state aren’t afraid to tell her how they feel.

“I don’t want to live in a cocoon,” she says. “I want to know what people think.” And what do people think? By and large they have responded positively, she says. Many have thanked her for having the courage to do what was right, even though it wasn’t popular.

The hardworking Maine senator spent February vacation touring the state, talking to Mainers about why she broke with the Republican Party to vote in favor of the economic stimulus plan. Even when she’s on vacation she’s working.

Coming home to Bangor every weekend isn’t easy for Collins, but she doesn’t seem to care. With no direct flights between Washington, D.C., and Bangor International Airport, she usually flies into Portland and makes the two-hour drive north on Friday nights, heading in the opposite direction on Sunday.

“Senators who stay in Washington and never go home risk becoming out of touch with their constituents,” Collins says. Losing touch with her neighbors is not an option for Collins.

“I love Bangor,” she says. “Growing up in the County, a trip to Bangor was a trip to the big city!” In the fall after the potato harvest, Collins would head to Bangor and buy clothes with her “potato picking money.” She also looked forward to attending the basketball tournaments each year. “Bangor is so close to UMaine, so there’s always something cultural or athletic going on.”

She’s lived in her brick house in Bangor’s Little City neighborhood for four years. She moved from a smaller house around the corner because she wanted more room for her parents who visit regularly. Her favorite room in the house, the kitchen, is retro with white metal cabinets, boomerang-patterned countertops, tile, and diner-inspired kitchen chairs.

“I love to cook and bake,” she says as she stirs a pot of Maine shrimp and potato chowder on the stove. She fishes a bag of Aroostook County potatoes out from a cupboard and displays them proudly. One of her favorite recipes is Melt in Your Mouth Blueberry Cake, which is part of a cookbook her mother published 10 years ago. “You have to use Maine blueberries in this recipe,” Collins says. “If you use the mammoth blueberries ‘from away’ that you find in the grocery store they’ll sink right to the bottom of the cake.”

The kitchen is where she finds her peace at the end of a long week. “For me cooking is relaxing,” Collins says. “Some people think it’s a pain but I love it. I mostly cook in Maine—in Washington I don’t have the time and I eat out a lot.”

On her free evenings—usually Saturdays—Collins can usually be found in her kitchen making dinner for friends. Her refrigerator is plastered with photos of smiling kids, handwritten thank you notes, and homemade cards. “I have so many good friends in the Bangor area. We talk shop and they give me their advice with the best of intentions.”

It’s not only her friends who offer up constructive criticism. Collins has to allot extra time when she heads out to Hannaford’s to pick up some groceries. “I measure my success by the reactions I get at church and the grocery store,” she says. She likes that people don’t hesitate to approach her.

“I think Mainers like independents. They don’t want anyone on either side of the aisle blindly following their party,” Collins says. “They know I’m looking at the issues and voting on their merits.”

Now that the economic stimulus bill has been signed, getting that money into the economy quickly, responsibly, and
with transparency is Collins’ main concern.

“The bill was a necessary step but it’s not sufficient,” she says. “Maine homeowners are in a better position than other states nationwide because we tend to be more careful and responsible when taking on debt.” But Collins is still worried about the loss of jobs and Maine’s dependence on foreign oil.

“There’s no single magic solution,” she says. But it doesn’t stop her from working to find one.