"Were you born in Maine?" the judge asked.
"Yes."
"Have you lived in Maine all your life?"
"Not yet."
That old joke, about laconic New England humor, has another meaning these days for Maine and other rural states: When it comes time to get a job, young people move out.
A display I saw a few years ago at a Maine Bankers Association convention illustrated the point. A big cutout of a farmer had been rigged up with a banner that read, "DON'T LET MAINE LOSE ITS MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCE."
In the Great Depression, when America lost half its banks, it was basically because the people who had used them left town.
What can banks do about the current exodus?
In September this newspaper reported one good idea. American Trust and Savings Bank of Dubuque, Iowa, supports six students in the three local colleges with tuition assistance for their senior years if they agree to stay in town and work for any local business for at least one year. The town benefits, the business they pick benefits, and so do Dubuque's banks, if the program strengthens the town.
Many years ago First National Bank of Louisville, which Nat City bought in the early 1990s, had an unusual program that other banks might like to copy.
Instead of sending recruiters to colleges and graduate schools across the country, First of Louisville held a big meeting at a local hotel during the Christmas vacation and invited every local resident who was planning to graduate from any college that school year. There the bank made its pitch: Come and work for us.
"We used to draw students from top schools all over the country and pay them good salaries to come to Louisville," the personnel officer told me. "But after a couple of years many tired of the community and left. This was expensive.
"Now we concentrate on hiring local people who know Louisville and appreciate its strengths, so we have a much better chance of keeping them for their entire careers."
To keep good people from leaving town, some banks help them finance their homes and get involved in the schools, service clubs, and other community activities that are important to people with young families. Some even provide membership in a local country club for young employees; this not only provides an opportunity to network and generate business but also, as one banker pointed out, "is something that is hard to give up for a job that pays a little more money in a different city."
Another lesson that bankers who are involved in recruiting have learned is that graduate degrees often cost more than they are worth to a bank.
Old-time bankers remember when most people could join a bank right out of high school, since there were few opportunities to go to college. As college opportunities increased, banks decided that those who did not take them were probably not the self-starters they wanted, so many banks hired only college grads or people working their way through.
Some banks went the next step - concentrating on people with graduate degrees. But except in specialized areas such as finance and accounting, it turned out that an MBA often added little to an employee's usefulness to the bank.
That's another reason to concentrate on local people who know the community.
