June 2017

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I’ve never set foot inside Big Al’s on Route 1 in Wiscasset, at least not that I can remember. Still, I was enthusiastic about pursuing a profile of this wacky character who looms large in my childhood memories. I figured if I was curious about this iconic Mainer based only on television ads, surely some of you are as well.

Big Al is only one of the TV personalities who’ve defined Maine pop culture. There’s also the lawyerly looking actor Robert Vaughn, advising people who’ve been injured in an accident to “tell them you mean business” by calling actual lawyer Joe Bornstein. As a teenager, I thought Vaughn, with his hauntingly angular face, acerbic tone, and forceful delivery, was Bornstein himself, and so Bornstein became an almost ominous figure in my imagination. (True story: law firms around the country used the very same Vaughn commercials, dubbing their names in the crucial sentence.) I still feel his presence whenever I’m on I-295 in Portland and “Call Joe” pops up on the Time and Temperature Building’s rooftop sign.

Then there was the aptly nicknamed “Jolly John” Pulsifer, whose corny, high-energy car commercials always ended with the line “I’m not jolly unless you’re happy!” I remember Jolly John, who passed away in 2011, as a buoyantly happy bobblehead floating in mid-air. Few living in southern Maine in the 1980s escaped his reach.

Back to Big Al: “Big Al’s Is Huge!!!”, written by Ron Currie and photographed by Michael D. Wilson, not only captures the character I remember, but also offers a glimpse of the admirable guy behind that made-for-TV personality. “Queen of the Kennebec”, meanwhile, is senior editor Virginia M. Wright and photographer Tony Luong’s look at the fascinating life of rafting guide Suzie Hockmeyer and the industry she pioneered in Maine. These features illustrate why the profile is my favorite magazine genre: in all of 20 minutes of reading, you gain an intimate understanding of a person who has helped shape Maine’s unique culture. And that, in turn, deepens your own connection to the state.

Kathleen Fleury

kathleen@downeast.com