What Would Maine Be Like Without the Bean Family?

AROUND & ABOUT with Larry Hansen

Publication: Greater Portland Magazine

By Larry Hansen

What would Maine be like without the Bean family?

We wouldn’t have such made-in-Maine mail order products as the Lust Buster bottle, for owners of wandering pets on the make, and Incontinent Kleen, the spray that “neutralizes” odors wafting from bodily excretions.

Worst of all, John would be out of a job if the Beans didn’t do what they do. John is the Beans’ only full-time employee, you know.

Hey, just a minute here. One employee at Bean’s? Lust Buster in Freeport?

No, no, no. The Lust Buster is in Brunswick. It’s made by a different Bean family, the G.G. Beans.

The G.G.s say they are distant, distant cousins to the L.L.s. However, there are a few similarities between G.G. Bean, Inc. and L.L. Bean, Inc. For one, George Goodwin Bean’s goods are seen all over the world in four-color, mail-order catalogues.

Another is that their products don’t stink. I mean, L.L. is known for quality, right? And G.G. …well … George’s products just don’t smell at all. And that makes this seventy-ish Bean beam with pride.

You see, George makes his living stomping out ghastly, raunchy, I-think-I’m-going-to-throw-up odors. A savior in a stinky society, this activist tries to solve global smells with his own secret formulas that don’t smell.

“Ya can’t cover up an odor with another odor,” he grins, looking down his long angular nose. “If you do, you have just created another odor.”

If you want to wage a war against a smell, call up the G.G. group. With George as inventor, wife Grace as bookkeeper, daughter Alice as sales manager, and John as full-time employee, G.G. Bean may just have the product for you – such as Smoke Odor Kleen or Fish Odor Kleen. Or perhaps you’d prefer Urine Kleen? Eeek.

Young mothers, how about a bottle of Nursery Odor Kleen? Hey bachelors, try a splash of Refrigerator Odor Kleen. Trash Odor Kleen? Please.

How about Waterbed Kleen? Yes, that’s right. When was the last time you took a good honest whiff of your waterbed? Or Ferret Kleen? When was the last time you took a good honest whiff of your ferret? And don’t forget the Hunter Odor Kleen, which, according to a brochure, “neutralizes human odor caused by physical or mental stress.” In other words, don’t embarrass yourself in the woods. Then there’s the hot-selling Skunk Kleen. Rest assured, you’re not going to alter the local skunk’s lifestyle with this. It may, however, make you more sympathetic to Fido after his next all-star wrestling match with Mr. Skunk.

G.G. Bean, Inc. began twenty years ago. Then in his fifties, George gave up his career of owning diners, jukeboxes and cigarette machines in Brunswick because he was fed up dealing with employees. “I don’t want to listen to their stories anymore,” he said.

George’s mission of working at home as an inventor seemed natural. A graduate of Bowdoin College, class of 1937, with a chemistry degree, he has had a lifelong love for chemistry. And he has a bold flair for inventing; in the early 1960s he invented a method for detecting bad checks, involving fingerprint impressions on the paper, though it failed to catch on.

Sometimes, he invents products for himself first, then sells them to others.

For instance, the Lust Buster was invented to stop George’s Great Danes from chasing a neighborhood female dog in heat. Subsequently, the product became more popular than George ever imagined.

“Just spray it on the female dog. When you eliminate that female odor, the male dog stops gnawing a hole through the door trying to get at her,” George said. “Oh, did we have a lot of fun thinking up a name for that one.”

All of Bean’s products are manufactured and packaged, with John’s help, in two buildings on the family’s nine-acre, shoreline property. George says that all his products work, or “otherwise we wouldn’t be selling them.” But he won’t say what makes them work. Those are his trade secrets.

George likes to talk about his business – how to do it and how not to do it – and inventing. His blue eyes also twinkle when talking about clients, and large mail-order companies that cater to pet shops and hardware stores. With almost a reverence for clients, he’s fond of pithy, how-to-get-ahead-in-business sayings such as “You’ve got to scratch the other guy’s back sometimes.”

Perhaps George’s happiest times are when he walks into a trade show of pet shop owners and sees someone with one of his products.

“There are two kinds of people in this world – the wishers and the wanters,” he said. “The wishers sit around all day and wish. But the wanters are the ones who go out and get what they want.”

Please George, keep at it. There’s still much work on this planet for you to do.