I’m disheartened with the state of affairs in Maine. Things were so different when my family moved here in 1977. My mother was born and raised in Maine, and she used to tell me how neighbors watched out for each other.

In an example of the sort of neighborly spirit that a reader says her mother used to describe, Elizabeth McGrady, right, and her husband, Jim Ohannes, center, host a potluck-style dinner for community members in the driveway outside their Portland home, as they do every Wednesday evening between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

I’ve seen men in big pickups trying to run others off the road. If a driver sees a different political sticker on a car that’s different than theirs, they chase, tailgate and stalk them.

I’ve overheard heated arguments in stores and on the roads. No one is getting along.

There’s no intelligent debate anymore. There’s no “let’s agree to disagree.” The anger and hate keep spreading and if they don’t stop soon, people will die. It never used to be this way in Maine. Sometimes bad things would happen, but nothing like these days. I just don’t understand why people have become so violent over politics, religion, abortion, sexual orientation and skin color. We all live here, and we need to learn to get along.

My mother’s motto was “Live and let live.” She meant that we should live our lives the way we want, and let others live their lives the way they want, and not fight over the differences but find things in common. The way things are going now, we’ll cause our own extinction. I’m completely saddened by what I see every day.

Dianne Cronkite
Hermon