To the editor:
How many readers remember a store chain called Lechter’s Housewares? I remember the chain well, because one of my best friends managed the Lechter’s Housewares store at the Aroostook Centre Mall in Presque Isle. That is, before the company went belly up nationwide! Lechter’s was a good company that made and sold many fine products, but there was one nasty flaw in its business practices.
Namely, the company didn’t believe in the concept of regional buying! The corporate office seriously believed that if a product didn’t sell well in areas like California, then we should not carry that product in northern Maine. To give just one example, the store carried tortilla presses, (appropriate in California and the Southwest!), but no canning jars. (People can a lot all over Maine. Go figure!)
The concept of respecting regional cultures is also ignored by many restaurants and on television. There seems to be this undercurrent of snobbery that suggests that our local speech patterns are “too unsophisticated”, and advertisers seem to think they can make us sound more “sophisticated” and more “respectable” by forcing terminology down our throats that sounds more appropriate in Hartford Connecticut, New York City, Chicago, or Los Angeles. Rural Maine is totally different. The culture is different, and folks speak differently. It’s that simple.
I get a kick (but only a very slight kick!) out of these restaurants that advertise on Maine television to listeners from Maine, inviting us for “breakfast, lunch, and dinner!” This is Maine, and those terms aren’t generally used here. It’s “breakfast, dinner, and supper” here and if you’re going to advertise to us, the least you can do is get it right! I’m not suggesting that we should overdo the local accent and turn ourselves into folkloric caricatures, but certain things make us who we are and we should not give those things up! I’m college educated, but I still haven’t forgotten my roots and do not wish to do so. I don’t think I’m alone.
Paul Gutman
Caribou
