Haffas Farm. Family name? Think again. “Half-assed, of course,” chuckles Claire Wallace. “My husband and I both had full-time jobs and no spare time, and then we bought a couple of asses without really knowing what we were doing. Pretty half-assed, don’tcha think?”
Claire is small and lively, hurling loaves of bread through the air to feed her herd. She used to have horses—wild mustangs—until she visited her daughter in Virginia. There, at a farm show, she saw donkeys and walked out saying, “I’ve got to have me a mule.” And so she acquired Jack. She bought him thinking he was eight or nine, and she laughs as she recalls dealers saying, “You bought old Jack?” He was probably closer to thirty, she admits, but “he gave me lots of babies.”
“I didn’t want to go home to Maine without a donkey, and that’s how I got Jack. But I didn’t know how much donkeys holler, either. I opened the door once after we were on the road, and he hollered so bad I slammed it shut and wouldn’t open it again till I got home. I told my husband, ‘Come out here and listen to this.’ I opened the door, but Jack was silent. It took three days before he began to holler again.”
She points out Gladys Done, named because it took her so long to be born. “I birthed her right here, but she just didn’t want to come out. When she finally did, I just took her in my arms and said, ‘Ain’t you glad it’s done?’” Claire grins, delighted at her joke. “And that’s Elvis,” she says, pointing to a shaggy donkey, “cuz of the long hair. This here is Molasses, see it’s got asses in it! And Clementine, one of Jack’s babies. She is a darling, for sure.”
Not every one appreciates asses, though. She was chastised by her boss for having people talk to her about Jack while she was at work. “People used to come in and ask how my ass was, heck, we thought that was pretty funny. But the manager didn’t. Said tourists wouldn’t understand. So I had to tell them to stop.” The state wouldn’t let her have Halfass on her license plate, either.
“I told them, ‘Read the bible, you’ll find asses there, so why can’t I use it?’”
“I was born right by that telephone pole,” she points to it with her ready laugh. “This was my grandparents’ place, called Verandah Flats. They rented cabins. There was a two-hole outhouse and a pump in the kitchen. ‘Running water’ they advertised. Yeah, if you put it in a bucket and ran with it.” Claire bends over chuckling. “But I don’t know how they did it, grandfather on crutches, a forty-year-old horse on the back pasture to feed. It’s a lot of work having animals.”
She has no regrets, no wishes she had explored the world a bit more. “Why?” she asks. “I see folks I went to high school with coming back now. They went away, got rich, and now they want to come home. But they spent thirty years in some noisy city. Can you believe it? All that time working to save money so they could come back here. Heck, they shoulda done like me, just never left. I have it all right here.” She gives one of the donkeys, Clementine, a big hug. Half-assed Farm? Think again.
Excerpt from Maine Vanities, a collection of essays about the people and stories behind vanity license plates.
These short portraits capture Maine individuality. There is quirkiness, compassion, and humor. While passions range from skiing to solving Mensa puzzles, and ages from 14 to 91, enthusiasm, curiosity, and delight in sharing the story behind their plate and their bit of Maine is the common thread.