WALDOBORO, Maine — Clam diggers go to Elaine and Ralph Johnston’s ironmongery store within the coastal city of Waldoboro for shellfish rakes and waders. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, they've additionally been in a position to decide up a extra uncommon merchandise: the Ukrainian flag, offered for $15.99.
Throughout Maine, the yellow and blue banner — yellow symbolizing the plentiful wheat fields of Ukraine, blue, the sky overhead — flutters from flagpoles. It decorates lobster buoys and barn doorways, clapboard homes sprayed with sea salt and cabins nestled in pine forests.
In contrast to in cities like New York and Chicago, the place symbols of Ukrainian delight partially mirror a big diaspora neighborhood, there are few individuals of Ukrainian heritage in Maine. However the flag’s widespread presence exhibits one other sort of solidarity. Mainers prefer to say theirs is a flinty spirit, born of tolerating harsh winters and an equally harsh economic system.
“Individuals over there are doing a superb job preventing for his or her land and their survival, and we in Maine, we like that,” Elaine Johnston stated.
In Skowhegan, a city in Maine’s rural inside, Tom McCarthy, a contractor who additionally runs a Christmas wreath enterprise, known as up a flag maker whose workshop is down the street.
“I stated, ‘Make me the largest Ukrainian flag you'll be able to,’” McCarthy stated.
“Nearly all of individuals in Maine know what wrestle is, from the pulp woods to the potato fields, to blueberry patches to lobster waters — we all know that at some point you've one thing and one other day you don’t,” McCarthy stated. “The individuals of Ukraine, they’re survivors, too, and placing up their flag, nicely, that’s a small token. But it surely’s one thing I might do.”
Invoice Swain, the flag maker, stated since making his first Ukrainian flag in April, he has offered greater than 2,000 of them, a quicker tempo of gross sales than for his American and Maine flags. Orders are available in from throughout the nation, and he donates 1 / 4 of the proceeds to a charity working in Ukraine.
Maine is politically divided between its southern coast and an unlimited inside, and it's one in all two states the place districts solid their electoral faculty votes individually.
The affinity for Ukraine, although, is bipartisan.
“Ukraine shouldn't be a purple or blue problem, it’s a blue and yellow problem,” McCarthy stated.
This text initially appeared in The New York Instances.