Monday, October 23, 2006

What is the median household income of Kennebec County, Maine?

Who's asking: A market-research firm I choose not to identify, one of my clients

The most recent Census data (2003) gives the median household income in Kennebec County as $38,458, with an average household size of 2.38 people. This is a good bit less than the US median household income of $43,318, but the average US household is slightly bigger (2.59 people). Any way you count it, however, Kennebec County is poorer than average, even for Maine.

That's yet another reason I can't object to deer hunting season, which opened yesterday. People hunt for food here, and the hunters who have too much venison donate the excess to local food banks. Venison makes good stew and even better chili. And there's no denying that the deer are overpopulated; a large doe crossed the road just in front of me on Friday night, and you can't drive I-95 this time of year without seeing carcasses along the highway.

A friend said the other day that what he objects to about deer hunting is not the killing, but the suffering: the idea that a deer might only be wounded instead of killed outright. That troubles me, too, but that suffering can't be worse than starving to death, or bleeding out in a ditch.

Sorry to be so morbid this morning, but the weather's dreadful, and my lingering cold has turned into a rattling cough. Tis the season to be morbid.

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