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Every year in an Outside Magazine readers' poll, Rockland, Maine ranks among top 100 best small towns to live in. This is town where then controversial 1957 Lana Turner soap opera flick, Peyton Place, was filmed — back when most dangerous thing in a small town was . . . gossip! The producers wanted to give small, hometown America a risqué shock that today is a comical celluloid version of homespun Americana, a mild comparison to what is on Internet today.

Maine joins only one other state in lower 48, only state to do so. It is only state with a single syllable. Life in Maine is a simple life, not many complexities. Rockland has not changed much since '50s. I guess that is why PP producers chose it for their mighty cult genre.

I was sitting in a local café one fine summer day, gazing upon black and white photos on wall of a bygone era of historic Main Street. There used to be an electric trolley line down main drag, and gossip is they are bringing it back. I can see Peyton Place in frozen-in-time snapshots. Rockland is still a great place to live. Main Street is now on National Register of Historic Places, with most of old brick buildings housing ice cream shops, bookstores, cafés and bars, museums and art galleries. Rockland is a wonderful place to visit in summer — just for all those farm fresh flavors of ice cream!

But beneath surface, community has a lot going for it. MBNA moved into town and is main employer, largest privately owned credit card issuer is U.S., with their corporate restored stark white Greek Revivalist-style headquarters near water, giving it a campus-like feel. It is fun to walk around Rockland, to view old mansions and buildings; duck into a canoe and dory building shop to see dense, white Maine cedar turned into a recreational work of art.

One place not to be missed is Farnsworth Art Museum, rather museums. Farnsworth is a respected name in Rockland, and you will find a three-story art gallery museum in old bank building on Main Street, and then a few blocks to back is magnificent Pirate Museum (entrance $7).

The Pirate Museum is a vast collection of dramatic seafaring oil paintings, mostly create by notable Wyeths (The museum is known as Wyeth Center.), a three generational collection of their canvases that portrays days of yore and lore on high seas. Rockland still maintains its links to windjammers and packet boats. Many summertime windjammers load up a cargo of tourists for cruises through Penobscot Bay islands. Later in day I watched ferry boats load trucks and cars for largest island, Vinalhaven, where in past much of famous Maine granite was quarried.

The regional airport is located just outside Rockland at Knox County Airport; terminal is a throw back to simpler times. I think they still shoo cows off runway, but security problems of world have hit home — four TSA agents checked my bags on flight out — I was only passenger on plane, so they had plenty of time to unzip everything. On my flight to Maine I met returning residents bound for some of coastal islands. The main Maine airline into terminal is Colgan, a rubber-band express service of USAir, with connecting flights primarily to Boston. The local bus terminal is located at Ferry terminal, which is probably really main hub of town because a marina is located close by.

The Rockland ferry terminal is across Main Street from best place to stay in town — historic Old Granite Inn, a Colonial Federalist architectural sculpture hewn from tons of St. George, Maine artisan-dressed granite.

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