August 4, 2021 • 21 mins
Kalie returns to her hometown of Portland, Maine and talks about the complicated emotions of going back to where you came from.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, I'm Kaylie Shore and this is too much
to say, question it out you, Okay, So this week
I am back in my hometown, which UM is always
(00:23):
an interesting experience. So I grew up in Portland, Maine,
and spent the first eighteen years of my life here,
and I also spent the first eighteen years of my
life constantly dreaming of a way out. And I think
this probably happens to everybody. But like as you get
older and get like move away or whatever, your your
hometown starts to get its charm back. And when you
(00:46):
go back and visit, it's there's this nostalgia attached to it,
but it's also a complex emotion. And I have this
song with Will J that I wrote UM and he released.
It's called Homesick, and the choruses I'm homes in my
hometown because everything feels so different now. It all changed.
I don't know why, but then again, so did I.
And I really really love that song. You guys should
(01:10):
go check it out. He's an incredible singer and it's
a very special song. But hometowns are complicated, Like I
don't know if I've ever had a more love hey
relationship with anything in my life. And I was so
excited to come back this week because it's my brother's wedding.
Super fucking pump for that. But I haven't been home
in like a year and a half because of COVID.
(01:31):
And it might not seem like it because they're both
on the east side of the country, but Maine is
really far. It's hard to get to. There's no NonStop flights.
I usually fly into Boston and then I have to drive,
and then my dad's in northern Maine, so that's like
five hours from Boston. It's this whole thing, and so
when I go, I can't just go for a weekend.
(01:51):
I have to go for like a long pater time.
So I'm here for a week, actually over a week,
and I'm really really excited about it. Sam's first time,
uh not meeting not meeting my family, but meeting my
whole family, and it's his first time here as well.
Also getting to show him around this town. It's really cool.
I Mean, you hear a lot like high school is
the best days of your life, and like there's it's
super not but it is probably some of the most
(02:14):
important years of your life because the things that you
discover like that you love, whether it's you know, sports
or music or a band or like you know, skiing snowboarding.
I don't know, anything that you fall in love within
high school is probably going to be something that you
carry with you into adulthood. Especially music, Like whatever you
were listening to in high school is going to be
(02:36):
forever like immortalized and take you back to this like
super crazy nostalgic time and you're probably always gonna love it.
Maybe not the time, but definitely the songs. I mean,
I hear songs that I used to bawl my eyes
out to you that are so depressing, and I'm like,
oh my god, I remember that, oh my god depression.
But it's like, weirdly like this more sweet than bitter memory,
(02:59):
and like those time super sucked. So it's just weird
how nostalgia can just put this foggy haze over everything
and make it look really pretty and you're like when
you were in it, I mean, I swear to god,
I feel like the world was ending at all times,
and now I'm just like, oh my god, what a
romantic time. It was just so such a depressed artist,
and yeah, what the fun? Why does that happen, Like,
(03:22):
why is it the like further away we get from something,
the better looks relationships anything. I mean, if I'm walking
towards you and like I don't have makeup on, it
probably look better from far away than I do up clothes.
And that's exactly what nostalgia does as well. Although my
skin has been doing pretty well because I've been doing
my skin caroutines, so I've been wearing less makeup. Also sidebar,
(03:45):
I am so excited that it is trendy to wear
less makeup now, Like that's the trend is to just
do less and oh my god, my skin is thinking
like the universe for it. And also I just I'm
like not buying as much makeup, so I love that
total total sidebar there it So high school wasn't the
best years of my life, but it really really mattered,
(04:06):
and that's when I started really taking music seriously. That's
when I met all my first industry connections. That's how
I went to Nashville for the first time and just
discovered so much about myself even when I didn't realize
that I was. And I think that's when I got
my work ethic because in high school I had a
(04:27):
really non traditional high school experience, um A, because I
was doing music all the time, and like sometimes i'd
like play a show and then I have to go
to school the next morning at like six thirty am,
and I would have been out until, like, you know,
really late, playing a show, and that's just like not
a normal thing. But also my senior year of high school, UM,
(04:49):
I turned eighteen rape before it, and moved out the
week I turned eighteen, like out of my mom's house.
And I was just really independent and I didn't I
didn't like the house I grew up in. It wasn't
in a great neighborhood, and um, I just didn't want
to be there. And I tried so hard to get
(05:12):
my mom to move and she just wouldn't. And I
am very much so the kind of version where I'm like, well,
I can't tell you what to do, but I can't
control what I'm going to do. So I was like,
I don't want to be here anymore. I don't like
this place, so I'm just going to leave. And I did,
and um, in retrospect, a little fucking aggressive on my part,
but I don't think i'd change anything. I'm really glad
(05:34):
that my first time living on my own wasn't in
Nashville because that would be a little freaky because it's
just such a big city. Like I lived half a
mile down the street from my mom, So that was
a nice little like sort of dipping my toe into
full on adulthood before I had to do it. But
it was weird because I remember moving into the my
(05:56):
like new place, and then, um, I went to summer
camp because I went to summer camp kindergarten through um
senior year, and so I had to go back after
having like, you know, these three weeks of being a
total adult and doing my own thing, and then having
like all these rules at summer camp, and I just
felt so weird. I was like, what, You're taking my cellphone?
Like I what? And and it was just a really
(06:19):
bizarre experience. And so school was. I mean, I barely
went to school my senior year of high school because
I graduated early, but I finished. Um I only needed
like two credits for these two separate classes. Um, so
I did. I would go to school from seven am
to ten fifty am every day, catch the bus at
(06:41):
ten like literally run out of class, and then go
to work from eleven to four at one place and
then go like four thirty, take another bus and do
four thirty two nine at another place. And that was
like most of my my days of the week, and
it was crazy, and like my week ends, like I'd
always be working, so I didn't get to go to
(07:03):
a lot of football games or do stuff like I
always had to request off. And like my senior year
was just like me working, wanting to move to Nashville
and trying to make it happen. Um. I did get
to go to prom and walk down you know walk
for my graduation, but prom was weird because I hadn't
been in school with anybody for months because I finished
in January, but like didn't officially graduate until June, and
(07:26):
it was just really bizarre. It was really it was
a weird thing to be like, I mean, because you
already feel in between when you were a senior or
when you're eighteen and like you're getting ready to start
college or whatever. But I felt so in between because I,
you know, I was totally on my own, paying my
own bills and all of that, but then would have
to like go to high school or then like go
(07:49):
hang out with my high school friends at their parents house,
and it just was like it was really weird. It
was a weird time. And I've grown apart from a
(08:09):
lot of my high school friends. Um, I think there's this.
I think there's really a lot of value and old friends.
But I also think that sometimes people stay friends with
someone who's really toxic just because of how long they've
been in their lives. And a big lesson I've learned
recently is that I can be friends with somebody and
not have to be best friends with them. I don't
(08:30):
have to give somebody access to every part of my
heart or every part of my life or even you know,
have like I don't have to take down my boundaries
like that. That person might not get to tell me
their opinion on things, and I'm just like, you know,
because I don't care, and I don't let myself care,
or I might not, um, you know, want to hang
(08:51):
out with them all the time because sometimes they're like
not nice. Like, but if it's somebody I still care
about and want to have a relationship with, like, it's
possible to do that. And um, I think that's what
a lot of adult relationships end up evolving into, because
you know, being friends with someone based on proximity is
different than being friends with someone by choice, and sometimes
(09:15):
like you know, those two things happen and and like
you would be friends with them even like without the proximity.
But like for the majority of your high school relationships,
I guarantee you've grown apart from them. And people change
so much between eighteen and twenty five. I mean, the
second you get a pre frontal cortex, you look back
(09:36):
and you're like, holy ship, what the fuck and you
just reevaluate everything. But I keep in touch with a
lot of my high school friends, and I'm on good
terms with most people. I mean, high school drama just
doesn't fucking matter now. But um, I got to see
some friends from high school this week, which was really
(09:57):
fun and always super special, and one of them just
kind of gay, and like, I'm at this point. I
had three of my closest friends get engaged in the
past two weeks, so it's like I'm officially entering that time.
Like I literally turned twenty seven and immediately everybody started
getting engaged. And I feel like that's the year that
millennials start doing it, and then they wait and are
(10:19):
engaged for like three years before they get married, but
like it just happened so fast, so that'll be fun.
I'll get to go home for some weddings and like
that will be great. Now I look for any excuse
I can to go home, because it really is this beautiful,
charming city. But there's still some really bad memories there.
(10:40):
I mean, hello, childhood trauma all happened there. There's reminders
on every street corner of like bad things that happened.
And like high school is tough on everybody. Even the
most popular girl in school has dealt with some dark shit,
even like the person bullying everybody, like they have some
dark ship that they had to get through. It's just
a weird time where you get all this life experience
(11:01):
in a four year period and nobody knows what to
do with it. Nobody knows what they're doing. I mean
we're like children running around like chickens with our heads
cut off, trying to figure out how to like function. Um,
so yeah, some some bad ship's going to come with that.
And you know, there's there's streets I prefer not to
drive down in my hometown. Um, there's places I will
(11:24):
absolutely take a long way to avoid. And there's also
it's a really pretty city. So as much as I
kind of have to like dodge old ghosts, whether it's
people or places, I don't feel like there's any people
I avoid. I mean, there's probably some people that I
just like kind of like not be stoked to be
stuck in a conversation with, But like, I don't think
(11:45):
I dislike anybody. I'm trying to think I'm too tired
to dislike people from that long ago. Does that make sense.
I'm just like, oh, I just can't be bothered with
like one more person to be pissed at, because I
have enough on my plate, Like I don't need somebody
else to be holding crunch against. Like I'll do that
for people in the last three years, not the like
last ten which is crazy because I'm like coming up
(12:07):
on my tenure high school tenure high school reunion, which
will be that just feels so grown up and like weird.
I can't believe that I was seventeen ten years ago.
Blows my mind. Anyways, Guys, going back to Portland, it's like,
just so I appreciate it in a completely different way now,
(12:28):
and I appreciate it in such a different way now,
And it's probably because you know, the traumas kind of
melted down a little bit. But also it is such
a cool city and it's such a cool place to
be from, and so I'm like so excited that I
got to bring Sam back to see it and visit
and you know, show him this really cool place, and
it's somewhere that I'm proud to be from. It's a
(12:49):
really interesting city. There's a lot of art. I realized
after I moved away, Like obviously Nashville as a town
of art, but for a small city, Portland has so
much music and so much like art and and so
many different things going on. And the worst part is
the bars close at like midnight, So that blows. But
that's really the only thing I really hate about it
(13:11):
right now. Um it has the um third highest vaccination
right in the U. S. So go Maine for doing
the right thing, guys. Um. Yeah, it's like probably the
safest place you can be during COVID because it's not
on the way to anywhere. Like nobody drives through Maine.
I mean to get to Canada, but we couldn't go
to Canada, so there was literally like it's not on
(13:32):
the way to anywhere. Is the easternmost part of the
US or northeastern I think no, I think it's the
easternmost because it's like a slope anyways, it's I mean,
it's way fucking up there. People think it's Canada all
the time. When I moved here, people will literally be like, oh,
is that in Canada. I'm like, what do they teach
you in the South, Like, Oh my god, what are
(13:53):
they teaching you? That mains in Canada? And that the
Civil War is called the War of Northern Aggression? Neither
of which are sucking true. Guys. My aunt was actually
an elementary school teacher or middle school teacher and UM
in the South, and she would like tell me the
stuff that was in their history books, and I was like,
holy fuck, that's just like so subjectively not what happened. Um.
(14:17):
But that's another thing I love about me. And it's like,
I really loved my high school because they had a
huge emphasis on the arts, and there were you know,
I couldn't afford a piano, and there were times like
I couldn't afford like guitars and amps and stuff like that,
but they had them at school that we could use
and have access to, and it gave me the opportunity
to fall in love with music when I might not
(14:38):
have been able to have access to a lot of
those things. And we had like little recording rooms that
I would use and that was just really really cool.
And it was all down in the basement, so I
would always hide there, like during lunch and stuff. And
they had a guitar elective, so I literally got to
go play guitar for an hour and a half every
day at school, which was just awesome and probably has
(15:00):
a lot to do with like how I got good
at guitar, you know, because it just didn't cut into
my time doing anything else. And I'm just really thankful
to come from a place that cares about things like that.
(15:23):
And if you go there, oh my god. The food
is also amazing. Obviously you have lobster and like you
can go get lobster that was caught that morning and
eat some eat that like the day that it was caught,
and it absolutely does taste different. Um. It also has
the most restaurants per capita, so even though the population
(15:43):
is really small, there's so many fucking restaurants and they're
so good. And Maine in the summer is beautiful. It's
becoming even more of a tourist destination. A lot of
people are moving there because a lot more people are
telecommuting to work, and um, a lot of people from
New York City and Boston are moving to Portland because
it's slightly cheaper and like they can do the back
(16:05):
and forth because it's like under two hours away from Boston,
which is also really cool because Boston is a great city. Um.
But another cool thing about me and it is like
it's it's a difference between like like nothing in Nashville
is really older than the eighteen hundreds, but the first
house I lived in on my own was built in
seventeen sixty, so it's older than the United States. It
(16:28):
is literally older than our country. It is pre Declaration
of Independence, and it's a It was such a beautiful
house and had all these really cool details. Definitely super
fucking haunted. But to have like you have civil war
stuff in Tennessee always sounds like this very dark energy,
but um, in Maine you have Revolutionary war stuff, which
(16:50):
is just super fucking cool. And there's all these like
old forts and just like stuff is just ancient, Like
I didn't really appreciate like how old things were until
I moved to nash will And also Nashville had like
a really massive fire in the late eighteen hundreds and
so a lot of the older you know structures like
burned down. So that's why most things are like post
(17:12):
late eighteen hundreds here. So if you're a history nerd,
Maine is the place for you. UM. I grew up
volunteering at this place called the Neil Dowhouse, and my
mom would volunteer there, and it was a like almost
perfectly preserved um house of a Civil War general who
was um started the abolitionist movement actually, so you can
(17:35):
thank him for um, alcohol not being a thing for
a while there. Um. But he was a very cool dude,
like very anti slavery and um was just awesome. I
think he ran for president or something like that. But
they have all this cool ship in the house literally
looks exactly the same, like it has like the couches
that were there in the eighteen hundreds. It had like
(17:57):
his books, and and then there's this thing called a
death map that they used to do for people. Maybe
in some weird places they still do that, UM, but
it's like a plaster cast of your face after you die.
If you ever want to be horrified, google celebrity or
like famous people death masks like they're George Washington's is
very weird and it's also interesting because it shows you
(18:19):
that he looks exactly like the paintings and stuff. So
they did like a you can see what his face
actually looked like. But so um, Mr General Neil Dow
had one and I got to like see it and
it's crazy. And also there is um it was a
part of the underground Railroad, which is really cool, and
there's like they literally discovered like while me and my
(18:40):
mom were volunteering there because I was there all the
time and I was homeschool so I just like go
there and like do stuff, and um, it was really
like kind of a well kept secret to like super
not on purpose, it was just kind of like a
little hidden gem um in this cool neighborhood. And I
feel like a lot of people didn't know about the
history behind it. But so while we were volunteering there,
(19:03):
they discovered like an underground thing under a man hole
cover that was like where they hit slaves. So it
was like because the underground railroad obviously was not completely underground, um,
but this part was it was so fucking cool and
like I got to like nobody else could fit down there,
so I had to. Like I think it was like
nine or ten or something like that, and like I
like went in and like showing a flashlight around and
(19:25):
like they took pictures and it was like a really
big deal. It's very cool. So I don't know how
many other people can say that they've been like in
the underground railroad, but something very very cool about Portland
and there's a lot of awesome history there and I
just I'm so happy to be back. And there's just
so many random things I missed. There's a bar called
Rosies that I love. They have free popcorn and they
(19:47):
always have like a one dollar beer and like two
dollar shot special. I think. I mean, obviously I stopped,
I stopped counting after I've had, you know, a drink.
I'm like, money isn't real. I'm just gonna buy of things.
But then you look at your bar tub and it
was like so cheap. But um, there's a picture of
me and my brother and I'm drinking beer out of
a picture And I've never had a worse hangover than
(20:10):
that morning after Rosie's but that's a great place. Um
My brother had his reception at this place called Demillows,
which is a floating restaurant. So it's literally just a
boat that's permanently docked on the Portland coastline and it's
like right downtown and it's just it's floating and it's
always there and it's been open forever and it's really great.
(20:31):
It's such a fun experience because you're literally on a boat.
You can like pretend you're on the Titanic. Oh my god,
I should do an episode about the Titanic. I don't
know if you guys know that about me, but I
am obsessed with the Titanic. I've gone to the museum
in Vegas three times. I think, yeah, an excessive amount.
So thank you for listening to me be a history nerd.
(20:53):
I feel like that's something that people might not know
about me. But um, if you ever get the chance
to go to Portland, it's amazing. Anyone's relationship with their
hometown is complex, but when Portlands comes up, I definitely
light up in a way I didn't um, and I
definitely have started to appreciate it more. The older I've gotten,
the further way I've moved and it just feels so
good because there really is no blazed like home. So
(21:16):
thank you guys so much for listening. I'm Kailie Shore
and this is too much to say. Asking questions ut
it out of you.
Hey, guys, I'm Kaylie Shore and this is too much
to say, question it out you, Okay, So this week
I am back in my hometown, which UM is always
(00:23):
an interesting experience. So I grew up in Portland, Maine,
and spent the first eighteen years of my life here,
and I also spent the first eighteen years of my
life constantly dreaming of a way out. And I think
this probably happens to everybody. But like as you get
older and get like move away or whatever, your your
hometown starts to get its charm back. And when you
(00:46):
go back and visit, it's there's this nostalgia attached to it,
but it's also a complex emotion. And I have this
song with Will J that I wrote UM and he released.
It's called Homesick, and the choruses I'm homes in my
hometown because everything feels so different now. It all changed.
I don't know why, but then again, so did I.
And I really really love that song. You guys should
(01:10):
go check it out. He's an incredible singer and it's
a very special song. But hometowns are complicated, Like I
don't know if I've ever had a more love hey
relationship with anything in my life. And I was so
excited to come back this week because it's my brother's wedding.
Super fucking pump for that. But I haven't been home
in like a year and a half because of COVID.
(01:31):
And it might not seem like it because they're both
on the east side of the country, but Maine is
really far. It's hard to get to. There's no NonStop flights.
I usually fly into Boston and then I have to drive,
and then my dad's in northern Maine, so that's like
five hours from Boston. It's this whole thing, and so
when I go, I can't just go for a weekend.
(01:51):
I have to go for like a long pater time.
So I'm here for a week, actually over a week,
and I'm really really excited about it. Sam's first time,
uh not meeting not meeting my family, but meeting my
whole family, and it's his first time here as well.
Also getting to show him around this town. It's really cool.
I Mean, you hear a lot like high school is
the best days of your life, and like there's it's
super not but it is probably some of the most
(02:14):
important years of your life because the things that you
discover like that you love, whether it's you know, sports
or music or a band or like you know, skiing snowboarding.
I don't know, anything that you fall in love within
high school is probably going to be something that you
carry with you into adulthood. Especially music, Like whatever you
were listening to in high school is going to be
(02:36):
forever like immortalized and take you back to this like
super crazy nostalgic time and you're probably always gonna love it.
Maybe not the time, but definitely the songs. I mean,
I hear songs that I used to bawl my eyes
out to you that are so depressing, and I'm like,
oh my god, I remember that, oh my god depression.
But it's like, weirdly like this more sweet than bitter memory,
(02:59):
and like those time super sucked. So it's just weird
how nostalgia can just put this foggy haze over everything
and make it look really pretty and you're like when
you were in it, I mean, I swear to god,
I feel like the world was ending at all times,
and now I'm just like, oh my god, what a
romantic time. It was just so such a depressed artist,
and yeah, what the fun? Why does that happen, Like,
(03:22):
why is it the like further away we get from something,
the better looks relationships anything. I mean, if I'm walking
towards you and like I don't have makeup on, it
probably look better from far away than I do up clothes.
And that's exactly what nostalgia does as well. Although my
skin has been doing pretty well because I've been doing
my skin caroutines, so I've been wearing less makeup. Also sidebar,
(03:45):
I am so excited that it is trendy to wear
less makeup now, Like that's the trend is to just
do less and oh my god, my skin is thinking
like the universe for it. And also I just I'm
like not buying as much makeup, so I love that
total total sidebar there it So high school wasn't the
best years of my life, but it really really mattered,
(04:06):
and that's when I started really taking music seriously. That's
when I met all my first industry connections. That's how
I went to Nashville for the first time and just
discovered so much about myself even when I didn't realize
that I was. And I think that's when I got
my work ethic because in high school I had a
(04:27):
really non traditional high school experience, um A, because I
was doing music all the time, and like sometimes i'd
like play a show and then I have to go
to school the next morning at like six thirty am,
and I would have been out until, like, you know,
really late, playing a show, and that's just like not
a normal thing. But also my senior year of high school, UM,
(04:49):
I turned eighteen rape before it, and moved out the
week I turned eighteen, like out of my mom's house.
And I was just really independent and I didn't I
didn't like the house I grew up in. It wasn't
in a great neighborhood, and um, I just didn't want
to be there. And I tried so hard to get
(05:12):
my mom to move and she just wouldn't. And I
am very much so the kind of version where I'm like, well,
I can't tell you what to do, but I can't
control what I'm going to do. So I was like,
I don't want to be here anymore. I don't like
this place, so I'm just going to leave. And I did,
and um, in retrospect, a little fucking aggressive on my part,
but I don't think i'd change anything. I'm really glad
(05:34):
that my first time living on my own wasn't in
Nashville because that would be a little freaky because it's
just such a big city. Like I lived half a
mile down the street from my mom, So that was
a nice little like sort of dipping my toe into
full on adulthood before I had to do it. But
it was weird because I remember moving into the my
(05:56):
like new place, and then, um, I went to summer
camp because I went to summer camp kindergarten through um
senior year, and so I had to go back after
having like, you know, these three weeks of being a
total adult and doing my own thing, and then having
like all these rules at summer camp, and I just
felt so weird. I was like, what, You're taking my cellphone?
Like I what? And and it was just a really
(06:19):
bizarre experience. And so school was. I mean, I barely
went to school my senior year of high school because
I graduated early, but I finished. Um I only needed
like two credits for these two separate classes. Um, so
I did. I would go to school from seven am
to ten fifty am every day, catch the bus at
(06:41):
ten like literally run out of class, and then go
to work from eleven to four at one place and
then go like four thirty, take another bus and do
four thirty two nine at another place. And that was
like most of my my days of the week, and
it was crazy, and like my week ends, like I'd
always be working, so I didn't get to go to
(07:03):
a lot of football games or do stuff like I
always had to request off. And like my senior year
was just like me working, wanting to move to Nashville
and trying to make it happen. Um. I did get
to go to prom and walk down you know walk
for my graduation, but prom was weird because I hadn't
been in school with anybody for months because I finished
in January, but like didn't officially graduate until June, and
(07:26):
it was just really bizarre. It was really it was
a weird thing to be like, I mean, because you
already feel in between when you were a senior or
when you're eighteen and like you're getting ready to start
college or whatever. But I felt so in between because I,
you know, I was totally on my own, paying my
own bills and all of that, but then would have
to like go to high school or then like go
(07:49):
hang out with my high school friends at their parents house,
and it just was like it was really weird. It
was a weird time. And I've grown apart from a
(08:09):
lot of my high school friends. Um, I think there's this.
I think there's really a lot of value and old friends.
But I also think that sometimes people stay friends with
someone who's really toxic just because of how long they've
been in their lives. And a big lesson I've learned
recently is that I can be friends with somebody and
not have to be best friends with them. I don't
(08:30):
have to give somebody access to every part of my
heart or every part of my life or even you know,
have like I don't have to take down my boundaries
like that. That person might not get to tell me
their opinion on things, and I'm just like, you know,
because I don't care, and I don't let myself care,
or I might not, um, you know, want to hang
(08:51):
out with them all the time because sometimes they're like
not nice. Like, but if it's somebody I still care
about and want to have a relationship with, like, it's
possible to do that. And um, I think that's what
a lot of adult relationships end up evolving into, because
you know, being friends with someone based on proximity is
different than being friends with someone by choice, and sometimes
(09:15):
like you know, those two things happen and and like
you would be friends with them even like without the proximity.
But like for the majority of your high school relationships,
I guarantee you've grown apart from them. And people change
so much between eighteen and twenty five. I mean, the
second you get a pre frontal cortex, you look back
(09:36):
and you're like, holy ship, what the fuck and you
just reevaluate everything. But I keep in touch with a
lot of my high school friends, and I'm on good
terms with most people. I mean, high school drama just
doesn't fucking matter now. But um, I got to see
some friends from high school this week, which was really
(09:57):
fun and always super special, and one of them just
kind of gay, and like, I'm at this point. I
had three of my closest friends get engaged in the
past two weeks, so it's like I'm officially entering that time.
Like I literally turned twenty seven and immediately everybody started
getting engaged. And I feel like that's the year that
millennials start doing it, and then they wait and are
(10:19):
engaged for like three years before they get married, but
like it just happened so fast, so that'll be fun.
I'll get to go home for some weddings and like
that will be great. Now I look for any excuse
I can to go home, because it really is this beautiful,
charming city. But there's still some really bad memories there.
(10:40):
I mean, hello, childhood trauma all happened there. There's reminders
on every street corner of like bad things that happened.
And like high school is tough on everybody. Even the
most popular girl in school has dealt with some dark shit,
even like the person bullying everybody, like they have some
dark ship that they had to get through. It's just
a weird time where you get all this life experience
(11:01):
in a four year period and nobody knows what to
do with it. Nobody knows what they're doing. I mean
we're like children running around like chickens with our heads
cut off, trying to figure out how to like function. Um,
so yeah, some some bad ship's going to come with that.
And you know, there's there's streets I prefer not to
drive down in my hometown. Um, there's places I will
(11:24):
absolutely take a long way to avoid. And there's also
it's a really pretty city. So as much as I
kind of have to like dodge old ghosts, whether it's
people or places, I don't feel like there's any people
I avoid. I mean, there's probably some people that I
just like kind of like not be stoked to be
stuck in a conversation with, But like, I don't think
(11:45):
I dislike anybody. I'm trying to think I'm too tired
to dislike people from that long ago. Does that make sense.
I'm just like, oh, I just can't be bothered with
like one more person to be pissed at, because I
have enough on my plate, Like I don't need somebody
else to be holding crunch against. Like I'll do that
for people in the last three years, not the like
last ten which is crazy because I'm like coming up
(12:07):
on my tenure high school tenure high school reunion, which
will be that just feels so grown up and like weird.
I can't believe that I was seventeen ten years ago.
Blows my mind. Anyways, Guys, going back to Portland, it's like,
just so I appreciate it in a completely different way now,
(12:28):
and I appreciate it in such a different way now,
And it's probably because you know, the traumas kind of
melted down a little bit. But also it is such
a cool city and it's such a cool place to
be from, and so I'm like so excited that I
got to bring Sam back to see it and visit
and you know, show him this really cool place, and
it's somewhere that I'm proud to be from. It's a
(12:49):
really interesting city. There's a lot of art. I realized
after I moved away, Like obviously Nashville as a town
of art, but for a small city, Portland has so
much music and so much like art and and so
many different things going on. And the worst part is
the bars close at like midnight, So that blows. But
that's really the only thing I really hate about it
(13:11):
right now. Um it has the um third highest vaccination
right in the U. S. So go Maine for doing
the right thing, guys. Um. Yeah, it's like probably the
safest place you can be during COVID because it's not
on the way to anywhere. Like nobody drives through Maine.
I mean to get to Canada, but we couldn't go
to Canada, so there was literally like it's not on
(13:32):
the way to anywhere. Is the easternmost part of the
US or northeastern I think no, I think it's the
easternmost because it's like a slope anyways, it's I mean,
it's way fucking up there. People think it's Canada all
the time. When I moved here, people will literally be like, oh,
is that in Canada. I'm like, what do they teach
you in the South, Like, Oh my god, what are
(13:53):
they teaching you? That mains in Canada? And that the
Civil War is called the War of Northern Aggression? Neither
of which are sucking true. Guys. My aunt was actually
an elementary school teacher or middle school teacher and UM
in the South, and she would like tell me the
stuff that was in their history books, and I was like,
holy fuck, that's just like so subjectively not what happened. Um.
(14:17):
But that's another thing I love about me. And it's like,
I really loved my high school because they had a
huge emphasis on the arts, and there were you know,
I couldn't afford a piano, and there were times like
I couldn't afford like guitars and amps and stuff like that,
but they had them at school that we could use
and have access to, and it gave me the opportunity
to fall in love with music when I might not
(14:38):
have been able to have access to a lot of
those things. And we had like little recording rooms that
I would use and that was just really really cool.
And it was all down in the basement, so I
would always hide there, like during lunch and stuff. And
they had a guitar elective, so I literally got to
go play guitar for an hour and a half every
day at school, which was just awesome and probably has
(15:00):
a lot to do with like how I got good
at guitar, you know, because it just didn't cut into
my time doing anything else. And I'm just really thankful
to come from a place that cares about things like that.
(15:23):
And if you go there, oh my god. The food
is also amazing. Obviously you have lobster and like you
can go get lobster that was caught that morning and
eat some eat that like the day that it was caught,
and it absolutely does taste different. Um. It also has
the most restaurants per capita, so even though the population
(15:43):
is really small, there's so many fucking restaurants and they're
so good. And Maine in the summer is beautiful. It's
becoming even more of a tourist destination. A lot of
people are moving there because a lot more people are
telecommuting to work, and um, a lot of people from
New York City and Boston are moving to Portland because
it's slightly cheaper and like they can do the back
(16:05):
and forth because it's like under two hours away from Boston,
which is also really cool because Boston is a great city. Um.
But another cool thing about me and it is like
it's it's a difference between like like nothing in Nashville
is really older than the eighteen hundreds, but the first
house I lived in on my own was built in
seventeen sixty, so it's older than the United States. It
(16:28):
is literally older than our country. It is pre Declaration
of Independence, and it's a It was such a beautiful
house and had all these really cool details. Definitely super
fucking haunted. But to have like you have civil war
stuff in Tennessee always sounds like this very dark energy,
but um, in Maine you have Revolutionary war stuff, which
(16:50):
is just super fucking cool. And there's all these like
old forts and just like stuff is just ancient, Like
I didn't really appreciate like how old things were until
I moved to nash will And also Nashville had like
a really massive fire in the late eighteen hundreds and
so a lot of the older you know structures like
burned down. So that's why most things are like post
(17:12):
late eighteen hundreds here. So if you're a history nerd,
Maine is the place for you. UM. I grew up
volunteering at this place called the Neil Dowhouse, and my
mom would volunteer there, and it was a like almost
perfectly preserved um house of a Civil War general who
was um started the abolitionist movement actually, so you can
(17:35):
thank him for um, alcohol not being a thing for
a while there. Um. But he was a very cool dude,
like very anti slavery and um was just awesome. I
think he ran for president or something like that. But
they have all this cool ship in the house literally
looks exactly the same, like it has like the couches
that were there in the eighteen hundreds. It had like
(17:57):
his books, and and then there's this thing called a
death map that they used to do for people. Maybe
in some weird places they still do that, UM, but
it's like a plaster cast of your face after you die.
If you ever want to be horrified, google celebrity or
like famous people death masks like they're George Washington's is
very weird and it's also interesting because it shows you
(18:19):
that he looks exactly like the paintings and stuff. So
they did like a you can see what his face
actually looked like. But so um, Mr General Neil Dow
had one and I got to like see it and
it's crazy. And also there is um it was a
part of the underground Railroad, which is really cool, and
there's like they literally discovered like while me and my
(18:40):
mom were volunteering there because I was there all the
time and I was homeschool so I just like go
there and like do stuff, and um, it was really
like kind of a well kept secret to like super
not on purpose, it was just kind of like a
little hidden gem um in this cool neighborhood. And I
feel like a lot of people didn't know about the
history behind it. But so while we were volunteering there,
(19:03):
they discovered like an underground thing under a man hole
cover that was like where they hit slaves. So it
was like because the underground railroad obviously was not completely underground, um,
but this part was it was so fucking cool and
like I got to like nobody else could fit down there,
so I had to. Like I think it was like
nine or ten or something like that, and like I
like went in and like showing a flashlight around and
(19:25):
like they took pictures and it was like a really
big deal. It's very cool. So I don't know how
many other people can say that they've been like in
the underground railroad, but something very very cool about Portland
and there's a lot of awesome history there and I
just I'm so happy to be back. And there's just
so many random things I missed. There's a bar called
Rosies that I love. They have free popcorn and they
(19:47):
always have like a one dollar beer and like two
dollar shot special. I think. I mean, obviously I stopped,
I stopped counting after I've had, you know, a drink.
I'm like, money isn't real. I'm just gonna buy of things.
But then you look at your bar tub and it
was like so cheap. But um, there's a picture of
me and my brother and I'm drinking beer out of
a picture And I've never had a worse hangover than
(20:10):
that morning after Rosie's but that's a great place. Um
My brother had his reception at this place called Demillows,
which is a floating restaurant. So it's literally just a
boat that's permanently docked on the Portland coastline and it's
like right downtown and it's just it's floating and it's
always there and it's been open forever and it's really great.
(20:31):
It's such a fun experience because you're literally on a boat.
You can like pretend you're on the Titanic. Oh my god,
I should do an episode about the Titanic. I don't
know if you guys know that about me, but I
am obsessed with the Titanic. I've gone to the museum
in Vegas three times. I think, yeah, an excessive amount.
So thank you for listening to me be a history nerd.
(20:53):
I feel like that's something that people might not know
about me. But um, if you ever get the chance
to go to Portland, it's amazing. Anyone's relationship with their
hometown is complex, but when Portlands comes up, I definitely
light up in a way I didn't um, and I
definitely have started to appreciate it more. The older I've gotten,
the further way I've moved and it just feels so
good because there really is no blazed like home. So
(21:16):
thank you guys so much for listening. I'm Kailie Shore
and this is too much to say. Asking questions ut
it out of you.
Host
Kalie Shorr
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