I decided to sign up for a National Park Service senior pass – can’t believe I’m old enough for a senior pass – before the price goes up 800 percent on Aug. 28 so I could take my grandson in Philadelphia to Independence Hall.

I found that the administrative tax on the $10 pass was 100 percent if purchased online, so I set out to find a place to buy one in person where the charge was not added. I went to the National Park Service office in Brunswick, but it wouldn’t sell one. I found that the only place in Maine to buy one was at Acadia National Park, far away from most Mainers.

Turns out, Maine and Rhode Island are the only states in the union with just a single sales point. Colorado, where the program is administered, has two pages of site listings. Utah sells them from a downtown Salt Lake City Bureau of Land Management administrative office.

I paid the $10 fee to get a senior pass online, but not all seniors have computers – or credit cards. And the 100 percent online fee to use them is excessive.

Why don’t we have the same access to tax-free, in-person purchases of park service passes that other states do? The park service guy who runs the program in D.C. hung up on me when I suggested he add more places to buy passes in Maine.

Maybe the next time the park service or the Department of Interior wants our congress members’ votes for something, they’ll be a little out of reach too.

Gary Remal

Freeport