There was a time when one of the best ways to spend a Sunday afternoon in Portland was to take the streetcar out to the cemetery.

Not because someone had died. You were excited to spend the day there, and most of your friends probably were too.

Evergreen Cemetery opened in the 1850s, when Portland looked very different. Deering Oaks didn't exist yet, and neither did most of the public parks we have around the city today. If you wanted to get out of town, walk around somewhere beautiful and spend a few hours outside, your options were pretty limited.

So people went to the cemetery.

And this wasn't some weird thing a handful of people did. On Sundays, thousands of Portlanders would make their way out to Evergreen, with streetcars bringing people from town to spend the afternoon there.

And Evergreen was worth the trip.

The cemetery is huge, 239 acres today, with paths that wind around ponds, disappear into the trees and lead to mausoleums you would never know were there. You can walk around for an hour and still feel like you've barely seen it.

Back then, it was even more elaborate. White swans and geese lived on the ponds, with bridges over the water and gazebos around the grounds. By the 1880s, Evergreen had 17 flower gardens, three greenhouses and a staff of 50 people keeping the place looking beautiful.

Families got in on it too. These weren't always just graves with a headstone. Family plots could be landscaped with flowers and shrubs, surrounded by iron fencing and marked with increasingly elaborate monuments. Families would come spend time at their plots and even picnic there.

Walking around now, you start seeing familiar names everywhere. Baxter, Preble, Deering, Stevens. Families and people who shaped Portland are buried all over the place, and names you've seen a thousand times on street signs and buildings suddenly belong to actual people again.

Hidden among the trees is something that makes absolutely no sense in Portland: an Egyptian tomb.

Built in the Egyptian Revival style around 1860, the tomb originally sat on a private estate outside the cemetery. Years later, they moved the entire thing to Evergreen.

The people buried inside came with it.

And apparently an Egyptian tomb wasn't enough.

There is also a miniature Roman temple hidden in Evergreen. Built in 1913, the Chisholm Tomb was modeled after the Maison Carrée, a nearly 2,000-year-old Roman temple in southern France. It looks completely absurd sitting in the middle of a cemetery in Maine.

Keep wandering and you'll find Gothic mausoleums tucked into the grounds, strange blue-gray gravestones made out of zinc and more than 30 above-ground tombs and crypts.

The swans are gone. So are the greenhouses and the old trolley shelters. But the ponds are still there, the paths still wind through the trees, and the mausoleums are still hiding in them.

Which means most of what made Evergreen worth spending an afternoon in the first place is still there.

Forget what every horror movie has taught us about cemeteries being spooky. Evergreen is beautiful. Go for a walk, sit by the pond, get lost on the paths and spend an afternoon there for absolutely no reason at all.

Portlanders were doing exactly that more than 150 years ago.

Maybe it’s time we started doing it again.

I grew up in Florida, where going to the fair usually meant walking around a giant parking lot filled with questionable carnival rides, fried Oreos and games designed to separate you from $20.

Then I moved to Maine and found Common Ground.

This is what I wish a fair was all my life.

The Common Ground Country Fair is happening this Friday through Sunday in Unity, and this year is its 50th.

Instead of carnival rides, there are farmers, gardeners, craftspeople, sheep, goats, music, gardens and people showing you how to do things you suddenly become convinced you should know how to do.

You can learn how to keep bees, watch someone spin wool, buy handmade tools, wander through two farmers markets and eat food made largely from things grown right here in Maine.

There is even a manure-throwing competition.

I mostly come to shop. This is where I buy basically all of my wool and alpaca socks, and it is easily the best place I've found to buy seeds if you're planning on growing anything yourself. You're buying from people who actually grow this stuff, know what works in Maine and can tell you what to plant.

And honestly, the difference in what you end up growing is kind of mind-blowing.

And there is a lot of it.

More than 600 vendors and exhibitors are coming this year, so trying to see everything would probably ruin the point.

Go wander.

Talk to people. Buy something weird. Pet something. Learn how to do something you will probably never do again.

If you want my pick, go Sunday. It's usually the quieter day, the traffic is better, and the Oshima Brothers are playing from 3:30 to 5 to close out the fair.

Wear good shoes and bring a tote bag.

You will use it.

🐶 Alexa – 3 yrs
Shy at first, but once Alexa loves you, she’s your shadow. She just needs a quiet home and someone to call her person.

🐶 Bolt – 7 yrs
Bolt hasn’t had the easiest start and deserves a really good next chapter. He’s gentle, sweet, and ready to learn just how good being loved can be.

🐱 Goldfinch – 2 yrs
Confident, friendly, and ready to move in. Goldfinch loves people, settles in quickly, and would very much like to be spoiled rotten.


If the link doesn’t open anymore, it means they’ve already been adopted!

An Evening with Mt. Joy @ Thompson's Point | 7 pm | 🎟️ $76

Liz Phair @ State Theatre | 8 pm | 🎟️ $60

El Ten Eleven @ Oxbow Blending & Bottling | 7 pm | 🎟️ $25

Punctuate the Moment @ Mayo Street Arts | 6 pm | 🎟️ $25

Ali McGuirk @ Live at Madrid's | 7 pm | 🎟️ $15

2nd Annual Lobster Roll Remix @ Maine Lobster Week | 🎟️ $90

Pat Metheny @ State Theatre | 8 pm | 🎟️ $35

David Wilcox @ One Longfellow Square | 8 pm | 🎟️ $30

Mix & Mingle with Four Independent Publishers @ Lambs, South Portland | 4 pm | Free

Puppets in Portland presents Sofie Krog Teater's "The House" @ Mayo Street Arts | 7 pm | 🎟️ $25

Improvement Movement: Your Perfect Real Live @ Portland House of Music | 8 pm | 🎟️ $20

JoynaTable Dinner @ Definitive Brewing | 🎟️

Hearts of Pine x Full Plates Full Potential @ Salud, 265 Marginal Way | 5 – 7 pm | 🎟️ $35 adults / $15 kids

Sasha Velour's TRAVESTY @ State Theatre | 8 pm | 🎟️ $35

Talib Kweli w/ Graphic Melee @ Portland House of Music | 6 pm | 🎟️ $50

Puppets in Portland presents Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust's "About Ram" @ John Ford Auditorium at PHS | 7 pm | 🎟️ $25

Ordinary Elephant w/ Remi Goode @ One Longfellow Square | 8 pm | 🎟️ $30

An Evening with Sasha Velour @ Equality Community Center | 4 pm | Free

50th Annual Common Ground Fair @ Unity | Fri-Sun | 🎟️ $20

2nd Annual Portland Hotdog Safari @ Portland | 🎟️ $10

An Evening with John Green @ State Theatre | 4 pm | 🎟️ $50

Resurgam @ Merrill Auditorium | 2:30 pm | 🎟️ $29

Silent Movie Sunday: The Last Laugh (1924) @ Congress Square Park | 7 pm | Free

Madison Cunningham w/ Julia Cumming @ Live at Madrid's | 7 pm | 🎟️ $30

Puppets in Portland presents Happy Accident, Vol. 1 @ Mayo Street Arts | 7 pm | 🎟️ $21

Walk & Roll! @ Congress Square Park | 1 pm | Free

Okonski w/ Erev @ Portland House of Music | 8 pm | 🎟️ $20

Until next week,
— Jake Newman