A little slice of Mayberry part 1

I just saw a story on Yahoo news about the ten best places to grow up in this country. They listed ten towns and cities across the land which were picked based on safety and low crime and activities for kids to be involved in as they grow. They picked Boston as one of the ten because of its history but I don't know if it would have made my list because it isn't the safest place to live as an adult let alone raise children in. Any city that had an area known as 'the combat zone' doesn't sound all that kid friendly to me.

This list of good places to raise kids made me think of one more place that I would like to see added to it, and that is Maine. Not just a city in Maine or a town, but the whole state. Maine is one of those places where innocence still thrives and people can be who they want to be. I can't think of many places any safer to raise kids with the same abundance of activities. The difference is in the activities themselves. We don't have as many urban activity centers as other states do but is that such a bad thing?

Crime in Maine is at one of the lowest rates per capita in the nation with violent crime being equally low and that is a huge plus as far as raising kids goes.

http://www.mainespace.com/html/fun___facts.html

In Maine kids are more likely to be hurt riding on snowmobiles, dirt bikes, ATVs, or working around the farm or log yard than they are by some criminal activity. You never want to hear about any kid getting hurt but you surely don't want to hear about them getting killed because of illicit activities.

The problem with Maine as most people see it is that there aren't any jobs and parents are too busy to try and make their kids find things to do to occupy themselves. Kids are plugged in today and if they can't have their cell phones, Internet, and video games they just aren't interested in anything going on around them. Maine is a hard state to live in at times because of the job situation and the weather we get and the fact that so many of the good places to live are rural in nature and that keeps a lot of people away. Is that a problem? I don't think so. I think that if someone moves to Maine and can put up with the bullshit in order to reap the rewards this state has to offer than that means that person is serious about being here.