New Hampshire Haiku V

Low, dark clouds mean snow
TV tells us to stock up
on beer and snow-blowers

New Hampshire at Christmas

New Hampshire is definitely the place to be for Christmas, unless of course you have an allergy to snow and quaintness. This state was just made for Christmas, with its rural New England architecture, idyllic snow-covered evergreen trees, covered bridges that span the "over-the-river-and-through-the-woods" scenery, and a local obsession with antiques and folksy arts and crafts. Indeed, some local entrepreneurs have embraced this dyed-in-the-wool Christmas wonderland by making year-round businesses based on the holiday, like the Christmas Farm Inn, the entire indoor Christmas village at the Christmas Loft (in North Conway, NH), a year-round outdoor Christmas theme park at Santa's Village, and Jingles Christmas Shop. The point is that the American ideal of Christmas looks a lot like New Hampshire.

I think one of the things contributing to this Christmasy atmosphere here in NH is a lingering old English imprint on the local culture, which I've poked fun at before -- the fact that there are still lots of Smiths, Joneses and people with colors for names like Browns, Greens and Whites running around this state. Indeed, while nationally the U.S. is estimated in 2009 to have been 74.5% "white" (self-declared), in New Hampshire that number is 95.3%. Let's face it; there are reasons that neither Rap or Mambo music started in New Hampshire. However, the reality of course in late 2010 is that New Hampshire is a modern state, not some Norman Rockwell painting, and as such it is an increasingly complex and diverse population of people. My Norman Rockwell reference was apt; despite his famous paintings of sugary idyllic scenes for the Saturday Evening Post, he was a strong proponent of racial equality and included racial diversity in his paintings whenever he could get away with it in early 20th century America. I mention all this because we are reminded of the reality that even here in rustic, rural New England, a scene today can take place which reminds us that we are all indeed in this together. A mosque, a synagogue and a Hindu temple in Manchester,NH came together to man Christian soup kitchens today for the poor and homeless so that the Christian workers at these facilities could spend this most important Christian holiday with their families. If that isn't the true meaning of Christmas I don't know what is, and I wish Norman Rockwell were here to paint it.

The picture above was from here.

Why New Hampshirites Don't Use the Turn Signal II

I've got a theory. It appears that New Hampshire has become, in recent years, a more feminine state. I don't mean effeminate, I mean feminine. Simply put, there are increasingly more female New Hampshirites than male. Just look at the map above (from this source here.) Now, I can tell you that from a male perspective, the first thing most guys will say in reaction to this information is, "Cool!" It's just the way men think. Upon hearing this information in fact, most men will immediately begin fantasizing about hordes of desperate young, attractive women pursuing them. We can't help it. But one problem for New Hampshire men in particular is that after being subjected to this knowledge -- and the attendant testosterone-driven fantasies -- for extended periods of time, well, they lose the ability to commit. Why commit? What if there's a hottie just waiting around the corner? Would you commit?

One unfortunate side effect of this behavioral quirk is that this inability to commit eventually extends into other areas of their lives, which explains why New Hampshire men won't use their turn signals: they're afraid to commit. They know they have to turn left, but what if another opportunity suddenly presents itself? Why take the chance? This, I suspect, is why New Hampshire men will drive straight and narrow but then suddenly swerve and turn to one side with no warning, and certainly no turn signal. These poor drivers are a victim of their own abused libido.

New Hampshire Haiku IV

Snowing to the west
Snow to the east and south
When will it snow here?

Scenic New Hampshire

When you're northbound on Route 93 in Massachusetts, having come directly from downtown Boston, within about 40 minutes you'll have noticed the buildings have thinned out a bit, and there are more trees. Civilization seems to recede, and the country takes over. Shortly, you come to the Merrimack River which flows eastwards towards Salem and the sea. However, on 93 as you continue northward, you find that you are on the Merrimack River bend, that it has not come from the west but from the north and made a sharp eastward turn. You cross the Merrimack River as you continue northward, and within minutes you encounter the friendly 'Welcome to New Hampshire' sign. Route 93 immediately collapses into 2 lanes, a virtual country road at this point, and gently swerves northward into the Granite State. On both sides of the road you see trees and large outcroppings of granite. The road will rise and fall, providing you as you continue northward with glimpses of the hills and valleys to come. This entrance into New Hampshire is pleasant, rustic and scenic.

However, your initial perception of New Hampshire depends on where you enter. If, for some adventurous reason, you decide to get off on exits 42-48 -- the last exist for 93 in northern Massachusetts -- in Andover or Methuen, and decide instead to catch the smaller Route 28 northward into New Hampshire, into Salem (NH), your first sensation will be.... trees? moose? quaint granite outcroppings? No, tattoo shops. Tattoos are apparently illegal in Massachusetts, and so some -- quite a few, in fact -- New Hampshire entrepreneurs have cashed in and offer their skin-dying (and piercing) services just across the New Hampshire border, giving one the effect of having entered a biker zone. Left and right on the first few miles of Route 28 in New Hampshire, tattoo shops have sprung up like mushrooms after a storm to service drunk sailors and love-struck teenagers...from Massachusetts. So the next time you're in Boston and feel the sudden need to immortalize Mom on your shoulder, head for Route 28 in New Hampshire, and take your pick.

New Hampshire Architecture

If you find yourself northbound on Route 28 in Salem, New Hampshire some day, you'll eventually end up passing a huge, massive, bodacious Walmart. I suppose that's hardly new or unusual, but just past this Walmart, on the same side of the road, you'll see a rusting old historical plaque beside the road near an apartment complex declaring the existence of 'America's Stonehenge'. Now, after seeing this sign, you'll likely look around and puzzle whether the apartment complex is hiding this apparent historic wonder, or maybe it's behind one of the nearby tattoo shops. (<<< More on those tattoo shops another time.) The sign doesn't mention that the actual site of the alleged 'America's Stonehenge' is actually several miles away.

Now, once you manage to find the place and pay for your ticket -- it's a privately-owned tourist site nowadays -- you can trudge up the hill (with complimentary snow shoes in the winter!) to a true mystery. First of all, if you're expecting a bunch of massive stones arranged in some mystic circle, well, I'm afraid your little inner Druid is in for a cold splash of reality. 'Mystery Hill' as it's also (and more aptly) known is really a jumbled collection of stone shelters and pathways built into the side and top of a mountain. The question is, who built them? Now, Americans (with their European roots) have a long history of rummaging in the historical dustbin of their European ancestors out of sheer habit whenever confronted by some mystery, and indeed Mystery Hill has inspired all sorts of theories about ancient Celts, Phoenicians, Greeks, Egyptians and Hebrews somehow traversing the Atlantic Ocean and setting up shop in Salem, New Hampshire. For the longest time it was assumed that the Native Indians were too inept or under-developed to build this sort of thing, but early 20th century arrogance aside, the truth is local Indians didn't build with stone. Why bother, when wood -- a much easier material to use -- is plentiful? Archaeological digs have proven that Indians probably occupied the site for generations, but it seems unlikely they built it. Carbon dating has produced results ranging from 4,000 years ago to just 75 years old. There's also been some evidence unearthed that the local 18th and 19th century farmers are messing with us, that they built the stone works as a temporary shelter for certain seasonal activities. Decades of archaeologists and shucksters have studied the place and failed to come up with a plausible explanation. (Space aliens, anybody?)

Regardless, it's a fun hike on a nice and scenic mountain, so come take a look at a true mystery for yourself. Oh -- and the current owners also keep an alpaca farm, some bring the kids.

New Hampshire Haiku

Cold November rain
Will turn to December snow
but what about Spain?

(Picture from here.)

Winter in New Hampshire

Technically it's still autumn, but if I told you I live in New Hampshire, and you know it's the very last week of November, you will probably make some assumptions about the weather I am currently experiencing. Indeed, an acquaintance told me about the soft, fluffy snow in her yard, the first blanketing snow of the season. She lives in New Mexico, however. In New Hampshire this season, we're expecting a big storm on December 1st -- a rain storm, with temperatures in the 60s. Now, to be fair, some of the higher elevations in the western regions like the Monadnocks have had an inch of snow on the ground earlier this month, and the White Mountains way up north are indeed probably very white right now -- look, check for yourself -- but in the central and southern part of the state where most New Hampshirites live, we got nada. And keep in mind that when I say "southern part of the state", I don't mean the part that borders Alabama. Southern New Hampshire is north of places like Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago in terms of latitude. Of course, the wee bit of Rockingham County that touches the ocean will likely be a bit warmer than the inland areas and stay snow-free for a while longer, but still... I think I'm developing a case of snow-envy.

Picture from here.

Meditations on Why New Hampshirites Don't Use the Turn Signal

I have a theory. New Hampshire has traditionally been a Republican state. Heck, it voted for Nixon...twice. But New Hampshire Republicans have tended to be old-line Republicans, who believed strongly in fiscal conservatism. As far as social issues were concerned, they applied the old Yankee beliefs about a man and his castle, which meant essentially that if something didn't happen in a blatantly public place (i.e., the town square, post office, etc.) then it was nobody's damned business. However, in recent years New Hampshire's political landscape has undergone some radical shifts with many Massachusetts lower middle class folks (read: "Democrats") flooding the southern part of the state, while other political groups like the supposedly Libertarian Free Staters (who behave more like anarchists) moving from all over the U.S. to Keene, New Hampshire to try to hijack the state and transform it into their version of an ideological paradise. This, compounded by the country-at-large's recent slide into ugly partisan mudslinging, has left many New Hampshirites feeling somewhat uneasy and imbalanced. Now, every four years when a presidential election is underway, New Hampshire gets overrun by baby-kissing, hand-shaking, perpetually-smiling liars who never wander more than twenty feet from a camera, and we're used to that. It's kind of like the cold you get every winter; you put in a few miserable days, but it eventually goes away and you just shake it off. However, this new political imbalance in New Hampshire is here to stay and they all want to change the state, re-shaping it into their own respective ideological image.

This is why, I suspect, New Hampshirites don't use turn signals while driving. I think it's because they are so politically shell-shocked that they are terrified that any directional indication towards the left or right will be mistaken for a political preference, and they'll immediately be pounced upon with placards, slogans and petitions.

Ok, it may need some work, but it's a theory. Work in progress.

They're Everywhere!

Once when our office manager wanted to warn everyone of a threat in our parking lot (in the form of a low-hanging but large hive, dangling precarious from a tree), she sent around to the whole office an e-mail telling us to beware the wasps. In my typical mischievous way, I immediately responded to my boss that OMG she's right! We're surrounded by White Anglo-Saxon Protestants!

I originally hail from an old industrial region, one well-packed with immigrants from colorful places -- the kinds of people that proper society uses the term 'ethnic' to describe -- and indeed, I am descended from just such peoples. (Have you noted my funny, decidedly non-English name yet?) In fact, it was only after moving to New England that I actually met someone named 'Smith'. Of course I'd heard the name a billion times from history and on television, but while I'd known 'Schmidts', I'd never known a 'Smith' before. When I met my first Smith here - by now, I know several of them; this is New Hampshire, after all) -- I joked with him, asking if when he and his wife registered at a hotel as 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith', if they got dirty looks from the staff. American television is filled with lots of characters with bland, English names, but I can probably count on one hand all the Smiths, Joneses, Coopers, Greens, and Millers I knew growing up. DeMarzios, Przybilaks and McInerneys were dime-a-dozen where I come from, but English names were actually fairly unusual, something I didn't realize until I moved to still remarkably WASPy New England. Now, to be fair, New England's industrial centers have also attracted their share of immigrants so that Portuguese is as likely to be heard in Boston or Providence as English, but once you get away from the urban centers -- and in New Hampshire, that's easy to do -- you enter WASPland. Sort of reminds me of the ever-duplicating Agent Smith from the Matrix movies....

New Hampshire Haiku III

Winter Coming to New Hampshire

November's night frost
See your breath, the clear night sky
Scraping your windshield

Borrow Free or Die!

In 1833, a Unitarian minister, one Dr. Abiel Abbot, got the idea that the town should have shared access to books to give citizens the chance to improve themselves -- remember that in 1833, books were like computers today, full of information and often difficult for rural people to get access to -- and so the town, Peterborough New Hampshire, took up a collection of books and thus established the first free town library. The town website reports that at first, the collection -- about 100 books - was kept in the general store, then eventually town hall, and finally, in 1893, a building was built exclusively for the library, where it still resides today. (However, the website also makes note that a movement is afoot to replace the 1893 library building with one larger and more modern. So much for history.) Dr. Abbot's idea really caught on, not just in Peterborough but soon all across New Hampshire, and then, eventually, across the U.S. 19th and early 20th century America build town libraries to help citizens educate themselves, to make information more accessible for the citizens of a democratic society.

Sadly, in our modern age, in part because of the internet but also in part due to social trends that no longer value education and self-improvement, many states, counties and towns are closing their libraries for budgetary reasons. Indeed, as I discovered when I tried to join the Peterborough Free Public Library, it is only free to the town's citizens -- of which I am not one -- and that for us non-tax-paying foreigners, the 'Free' library in Peterborough costs $50 a year. Ouch. In investigating further afield since, I have found that for many town libraries in New Hampshire -- most of which are still largely local town-funded -- not being a resident will cost you $50 a year to join. Hmm.

Is That Thing Moving...?

Where I come from, there is a town that was famous -- maybe infamous is the right word -- for its flamingos. The town was a suburban setting full of very modest, small two-bedroom middle class homes, and as such attracted a lot of newly-married couples getting started in life but as well many recently-arrived immigrants who had worked hard and were also just getting started on their own personal American Dreams. Somehow, this seemingly-innocent social mixture produced a toxic aesthetic environment in which a lot of these townsfolk came to the conclusion that it was a good idea to stick lots of those pink, plastic flamingos on their lawns -- on purpose! I remember even as a child being astonished by this.

Fast-forward many years later in my life when I'm living in New Hampshire, and we decide we're going to rent a stall in the local flea market to clear out some of the junk in the basement. When you do this sort of thing, it's not a good idea to mention it out loud because soon all your neighbors and friends are "volunteering" some of their own junk to be included in your flea market haul. One friend of my wife's who owned a store dumped a large cache of amazingly crass lawn ornaments on us, and despite my vigorous protests, they were included in our flea market display. There were colorful spinning wind wheels, pointless flags, streamers, faux wind socks, all sorts of stuff that, if placed on my lawn, would very quickly be subjected to unfortunate lawn mower accidents. Now, granted, they were all still wrapped in their original packaging and looked all colorful and shiny and new, but still... Just because I might laugh at a circus clown doesn't mean I want to bring them home. In any event, my wife had the last laugh and I was forced to somewhat re-assess New Hampshirites when, against all my dire predictions, all of that stuff sold out. In fact, there was a bidding war over the last spinning wheel.

Now, I have never been accused of having any taste or decorative sense, but I can't help but cast a wary eye at my neighbors now, just wondering if, given half a chance, they would stick a plastic pink flamingo on their lawn......

Veterans Day

When I first moved to New England, I spent a year or so in Massachusetts before moving to the paradise that is New Hampshire. You can imagine my surprise one day while living in Massachusetts when I was given off work on April 19. Dumb enough to look a gift horse in the mouth, I inquired why we were being given the day off, and was told it was Patriot's Day.

Now, I come from a region that also has a football team but one which is more prone historically to losing -- quite unused to winning, in fact -- so I felt a tingle of bitterness that a region like New England with its more successful football franchise could be so arrogant as to actually have a public holiday for its football team. Fine, I declared, I'll take your day off work, but don't expect me to hang any Tom Brady posters around my home, I gruffed. After some embarrassed glances -- you know the kind, when you realize there's a hopeless fool in your midst but you don't want to humiliate them in front of a crowd -- I was taken aside by some coworkers and informed that while they did indeed feel the New England Patriots deserved a public holiday, that no, Patriot's Day was in commemoration of the 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord.

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were, of course, the opening battles of the American Revolution, as the British forces occupying Boston launched an early morning raid inland to arrest a few dissident leaders and the gunpowder rumored to be stockpiling in towns surrounding Boston. Of course, as everyone knows, the raid went disastrously awry when the raiding party stirred the local militias, brushing them aside at Lexington but being surprisingly rebuffed at Concord and harassed all the way back to Boston, losing more than 200 soldiers on that long road back to sniping American farmers hiding in nearby woods and homes. Worse, the raid resulted in outright war.

Patriots Day is not celebrated in New Hampshire, only in Massachusetts, but those two battles set the stage for the next battle, the American siege of British-occupied Boston and the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Battle of Bunker Hill -- Breed's Hill, as purists will quickly point out -- was the ultimately successful British attempt to drive American forces from the one of the highest heights around the city, but the battle took such a toll on British forces and in any event didn't end the American siege so that the British abandoned Boston altogether. This was a major American victory, though it is overshadowed by the fact the British forces that evacuated Boston then sailed south and seized New York, humiliating newly-appointed General Washington so much with his rudimentary attempt to defend Manhattan that Congress almost fired him. Oops: win some, lose some. Anyway, those American "forces" that laid siege to Boston in 1775 were in fact a motley collection of New England farmers and untrained militia, not a real army in any sense. New Hampshire militia and their later famous commander, General John Stark, played a crucial role in the battle, helping to prolong the British agony in seizing the hill.

What does all this mean? It ultimately means that today, on November 11, 2010, I can write these words as a free man. Veterans' Day is actually based on the end of World War I, whose armistice ended the fighting at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month (in 1918), but we've set it aside as a day to remember all veterans. I salute all veterans, past and present.

Some New Hampshire Haiku II

The season's first snow
Studded tires howl on the road
Look out for frost heaves

The Juice in New Hampshire

So let's say you're looking at a squirrel. Now, you're probably thinking, "OK, there's a squirrel. Happy little squirrel. Kinda cute. Hope he doesn't have rabies." Well, there may be a lot you don't know about that squirrel. What if, for instance, his girlfriend just dumped him? Or his mother-in-law moved in? Or he's living next to an old folks' home that plays Johnny Matthis music all day long? The fact is that you may actually be looking at a clinically depressed squirrel. How can you tell if your squirrel may be having emotional problems? Well, I don't know to be honest. What I do know is that at least a few squirrels have decided they could no longer take it and, after chittering the squirrel equivalent of "Goodbye, cruel world!", committed 切腹 (heri keri). This often involves throwing themselves into traffic, but a few take another route -- frying themselves in the electric transformers dangling overhead on phone poles. Now, this would be just another personal tragedy for some squirrel family, were it not for the fact that squirrels crisping themselves in electric equipment have a tendency to short out the transformer, causing electrical power outages for the rest of us -- ironically transforming their personal problems into larger community issues. When said toasted squirrel is a resident of New Hampshire, there is yet a further dimension to this tragedy because with so few roads -- think about it -- New Hampshire also has fewer electric lines, making us particularly susceptible to kamikaze squirrels. One such emotionally-crushed squirrel once knocked out half the grid in southern New Hampshire. No kidding.

Now, before I take my blame-the-squirrels theme too far, it should be noted that we may be seriously misinformed about suicidal squirrels. A friend whose father worked for a utility once told me that when some technical issue came up that was too complex to explain to the general public, they would sometimes attribute power outages to squirrels getting into transformers. Not kidding on that one, either.

So there you have it. A thinly-populated state's power infrastructure is very vulnerable and easily disrupted, and this same state is filled with emotionally-disturbed squirrels. It's sort of like the thorns on a rose analogy, no?

Didja hear about the ice storm in December of 08
I went without power for eleven straight days!

-- Super Secret Project, "Granite State of Mind"

More New Hampshire Halloween Haiku

Kids swarm my front door
Demographic problem
Fewer homes to hit.

Things That Go Bump in the Night in NH, Part IV

My wife called me frantically. It was the middle of the day, and I was at work, which is to say I was a wee bit busy, but her call was urgent. "Tell me what happened at Bretton Woods!"

I always joke that some day, I'll be in a crowded theater and the lights will suddenly be flicked on, and someone from management will come out on the stage, wringing his/her hands, and ask aloud in an urgent tone: "Is there a historian in the house?" OK, I'm only an amateur historian, but still, ya gotta dream. Anyway, for all the wisecracks I get from my wife about "hysterians", as she calls them, I still do get the occasional frantic phone call with a historical question from her. In this case, the urgency was prompted by the fact she had her visiting father with her and they were approaching the Bretton Woods exit at about 70 mph, and needed to make a decision, quick. I informed her of Bretton Woods' grand past as a resort hotel for the rich, and of the famous post-World War II economic conference that took place there which established a global financial system that lasted until the early 1970s. Though the first part probably was the deal-maker, they decided to go for it. Afterward, she related the following to me, which she swears is true. It's actually not that big of a deal, really, but it impressed her, and it's late on Halloween night and I'm short of material otherwise, so here goes:

They took the tour of Bretton Woods, an din the midst of that tour, they discussed some of the hotel's paranormal attributes; like any good self-respecting hotel nowadays, Bretton Woods is apparently haunted. There was a time when being haunted was a bad thing for business, but nowadays, that's just part of the charm of staying in an early-20th century luxury resort. So in any event, the tour guide mentioned while they were transitting from one room to the next some of the hotel's ghost lore, when the group entered a stately conference room. One of the tour group asked the guide a question about one of the ghosts, some lady who met an untimely demise, and just as she finished her question the large, elegant chandelier over the table in the room began to sway several inches back and forth, seemingly without rhyme or reason. The entire group saw it and gasped in unison. I probably would have soiled myself had I been there. The guide apparently sputtered nervously that she had no idea what could be making the chandelier swing.

So there you have it, my wife's NH ghost story. Not very dramatic, but authentic, nonetheless. Have a good Halloween, and try not to load up too much on all the Halloween leftover candy your coworkers will be bringing into work tomorrow.

New Hampshire Halloween Haiku

Staring at North Star
Sniffing hot cocoa, autumn
The pumpkin's on fire.

Driving in New Hampshire, Part IV

I have a theory. New Hampshirites worship Dunkin Donuts -- that much we've established. However, I think this obsession went from quaint, benign trait to life-threatening behavior the moment Dunkin Donuts -- or possibly, some other entrepreneurial soul -- invented cup holders. Now again, this is just a theory, but stay with me here.

This invention, the cup holder, forced New Hampshirites to make a decision, often while doing 85 mph in the midst of traffic. Indeed, traffic may be the important variable here because as the state's population has grown so quickly over the past couple decades, New Hampshirites have suddenly had to start dealing with other cars on the road rather than just the occasional skittish moose. That cup holder was the clencher, though -- it forced New Hampshirite drivers to divide their attention for a split second, a crucial split second. In the midst of traffic on a one-lane highway, with a large one-ton Chevy flatbed with several old engine blocks loosely chained on the back coming right at them in the on-coming lane, and a moose standing pensively off to the side on the shoulder, surrounded maybe by a flock of kamikaze turkeys loitering threateningly at the moose's feet, the New Hampshire driver has a decision to make: the cup holder for a fresh hit of java to help get them through this, or the turn signal.

Folks, I am here to tell you that the cup holder wins every time. Consequently, when driving in New Hampshire, you cannot and should not expect the drivers around you to signal their intention. As far as they're concerned, the fact that they are turning should be heads-up enough for you to discern that they intended to turn anyway, and they make that contention with full clarity, having just sipped some of the bitter black stuff.

Message in a Bottle

New England for many outside the region is analogous (=) with antiques, and New England -- New Hampshire included -- does its best to help foster that image by putting an antique shop every 50 yards, nestled in between Dunkin Donuts and Walmart. If you're in some of the trendier tourist-focused parts of New Hampshire like the Lakes region or Portsmouth and the coast, you'd be hard-pressed to be able to throw a stone in any direction without hitting an antiques shop. Now, that's part of the New Hampshire charm, so I'm not complaining and indeed, it's fun to walk Portsmouth's winding 17th century streets and explore the many little shops and boutiques and art studios, but still, I am issuing a word to the wise.

A couple years back, a fad of collecting colonial-style antique New England-ish colored glass bottles swept New Hampshire, and many shops loaded up on these things, some with a very rustic, rough-hewn twine tied around the bottle neck for convenient hanging in a window. Now, there are professional collectors out there, but these colored bottles suddenly popped up all over Portsmouth. These things just oozed old New England and seeing them hanging and reflecting the sun in wooden-grilled windows immediately invokes sentimental images of the rural New England childhood you never had. One can only wonder if the Chinese workers who manufactured those bottles felt any tinge of New England nostalgia either.....

Things That Go Bump in the Night in NH, Part III

Actually, it was midday, and a nice one, too, this afternoon in fact. The sun was high, the leaves are just past peak in color, and the temperature was cool enough to require a thin sweater but warm enough that you felt comfortable outside all day long. We had been in errand mode this morning, running all over the place, and we were almost on the last leg of our journey when we decided to try to find the local "sugar shack", the common New Hampshire term for maple syrup maker/vendor. We usually buy ours from a guy whose place is along my route home from work, but we'd heard of a place very close to home, and wanted to try it. We knew it was somewhere close by as we wandered down a typical New Hampshire slim, twisting and turning rural road, and after a few around-the-bends we finally came upon a sign announcing the place. The sign was fairly new and in good condition, and seemed professional -- in other words, wasn't written with a heavy black marker on cardboard.

So we pulled in next to a large, late-19th century New Hampshire farmhouse with the barn attached out back, and the dilapidated sugar shack on the other side of the driveway. There was no obvious entrance, however. My wife went up to one of 3 doors facing us on the side of the house, one of which had an old sign asking delivery people to use the other door -- though there were 2 other doors. She knocked, with no response. She then tried the door that had the sign on it, again with no response. We both sauntered down the driveway a bit towards the barn and the sugar shack, and while we saw maple syrup products in the window, the shack was empty of people and the floor was strewn with chopped wood and mechanical equipment parts. I looked into the barn from the open door closest to the house but saw no one, only stacks of hay -- which brought back lots of memories from my youth, when I used to work as a farmhand -- but I could also see there were no animals, though the hay was fresh. I wandered towards the other open barn door and saw that this part of the barn was completely strewn with electrical tools and mechanical parts. I cracked a joke to my wife about how they needed some space management skills and began to turn my attention back towards the sugar shack when I heard a male voice fairly close by, just a word or two which I didn't catch but which told me someone was nearby. I looked in the barn again and couldn't find anyone, and looked around out back but again, no one.

Puzzled, we both walked up towards the house again and we both took a door and knocked, but to no avail. However, as we each both stood in front of a door, we both heard a door open wide, with a very typical sound of a noisy weather-exposed hinge. We both looked at one another because to each of us, it sounded as if the other had opened their door. Neither of us had. We looked around again -- maybe the wind had blown one of the barn doors? -- but they were on sliders and seemingly hadn't moved. I walked around to the front of the house to read the sign again to see if it mentioned any instructions I had missed earlier like "Knock hard" or "Ring the bell on the barn", or something along those lines, but it just plain announced the sugar shack, with the business name. It was a well-made sign and seemed in good condition.

At this point I thought out loud that maybe they'd just taken off to grab some lunch, but my wife interrupted me to say that she wanted to go. This was kind of unusual; my wife is not the "touchy-feely" type who indulges in fantasy. She told me as we were driving away that she had the distinct impression that we were being watched, and she had a mounting sense of alarm, a feeling that someone didn't want us there. I admitted, strangely enough, that I also felt we were being watched, but to me it felt more like whoever it was feared us, and I chalked it up to maybe a child or elderly person being home, someone who doesn't deal with the business and was afraid to deal with strangers.

So there you have it. Might be nothing but a pile of circumstances and coincidences.

Of Warm, Comfy Homes and Explosions

When you see other parts of the country you begin to appreciate just how different life can be, as we've adapted to the reality of life in places like Tuscon, Arizona or St. Augustine, Florida. They each have their peculiarities. I am originally from the northeast so I didn't expect a lot of difference when I moved to New Hampshire, and indeed, most of what I grew up with and saw as "normal" in my home state is transferable to New Hampshire: Snow shovel? Check. Hot chocolate? Check. Farm houses? Check. Wood-burning stoves? Check. Heavy, woolen socks? Check. You get the idea -- moving here didn't inspire much in the way of culture shock, certainly nothing compared to that very miserable summer I once spent in South Carolina. (<<< The two operative terms in that last sentence are "summer", and "South Carolina".) There are some differences, however, and I learned one of them when I was house-hunting here. Where I come from, there is plenty of top soil, often going down 40 feet or more. Bedrock is something you have to do lots of digging to see. New Hampshire, however, is the Granite State, which is one way of saying, "We don't need no stinkin' top soil."

Now, New Hampshire is a beautiful state and I'm not going to criticize its unpolished granite surface for even a moment. Still, one of the advantages of having, you know, some dirt and clay between you and bedrock is that you can bury stuff. Without having to use dynamite. One of the convenient ways this manifests back home is the ability to bury gas lines. There, most folks use natural gas to heat homes for their clothes dryers, stoves and hot water tanks. Here in New England, propane is prevalent -- fair enough. Supply and demand, and all that. However, as I discovered for the first time when house-hunting in NH, since it is very expensive to deliver propane by buried lines in the Granite State, they store the stuff in large tanks -- some 5 feet high -- which often just lean against your house. When I turned the corner at the first house we were visiting and saw this, my first reaction was along the lines of "OH MY GOD, THERE'S A BOMB LEANING AGAINST THE HOUSE!!" It turns out I was overreacting a bit, but it's something that still, many years later, makes me nervous. New Hampshirites who grew up with this are used to it and ignore it as just another fact of life, like so much of the technology we all depend on. Still, I'd swear sometimes I hear those things ticking......

The Road Well-Trampled: Writers in New Hampshire

What is it about this state that makes a guy (or gal) whip out a pen and start writing? Mind you, as I've always maintained, New Hampshire is one of the most beautiful states in the Union, so the New Hampshire-as-Muse is at least partially understandable, but still -- this place is absolutely crawling with writers (which in some circumstances can be understood to mean, "competition"). It's probably sufficient for publishers when they receive a manuscript to see that it's post-marked New Hampshire; "This one's a shoe-in. Publish it!" Do northern Yankee farmers have some hidden well of angst somewhere beneath their granite, beating hearts that compels them to grab paper and quill and start pumping out prescient prose and poetry -- or, in the case of native New Hampshirites Adam Sandler and Sarah Silverman, fart jokes? in England, farmers go mad and start faking alien crop circles in their fields, but in New Hampshire, they start writing haiku about stone walls. I, myself, am a victim of the New Hampshire muse, having already penned a book and planning for more, but I'm just a pedestrian writer -- New Hampshire has driven otherwise productive and happy citizens such as J.D. Salinger, Jodi Picoult and Robert Frost to forsake practical employment for the pen. The ultimate litmus test for this writing compulsion is whether the greatest American writer ever visited New Hampshire, and indeed, Mark Twain had a series of pictures taken in 1906 while visiting in Dublin, New Hampshire, in the state's southwestern Monadnock region close to both the Vermont and Massachusetts borders. I guess the question is, who left a greater stamp on whom, Mark Twain or New Hampshire...?

Things That Go Bump in the Night in NH, Part II

So there I was, turning in to my driveway from the main road. Now, this was late in the evening, well after dark. There are some lights along the road I live on, but as this is New Hampshire, the woods come right up to the road and the road twists and turns, minimizing the effect of artificial lighting. Essentially, except for a few oases of light here and there, driving on this road at night means driving in the pitch-black darkness. My driveway is a very long and lonely road, about a quarter mile long, in fact, and runs straight through a swamp, giving one the effect of entering some deserted Louisiana plantation. My home is out of sight from the driveway, being up and off to the left from the driveway. There is one house on the other side of the road, and another down the road a bit, but neither are within shouting distance. You could scream bloody murder all you wanted on my driveway, and the only ones who would hear you are the peep frogs in the swamp.

So there I was, as I mentioned, turning into my own driveway. The headlights panned slowly across the thick swamp vegetation as I made the turn, and I started up the long drive to the warmth and safety of home. I think you'll understand why I laid on the gas pedal perhaps a bit more than I should have, this being a cool October evening. I swear, I just wanted to get home; I don't usually indulge in flights of fancy. I certainly never expected what came -- but there it suddenly was, and I grabbed the wheel with both hands and slammed on the brakes.

Despite the shock of the moment, I can remember what I said -- no, shouted -- at the time: "Who the !)&*^%$#@! put that (*&%%$#!@@! speed bump there?!?" I own a condo, and if you don't, then you may not be familiar with condo associations. Condo associations are like small South American banana republics with a dictator of the week, with each person in "power" wanting to leave their mark to prove their leadership prowess. Thus was born the idea that a bunch of condos located in a backwoods New Hampshire swamp would need a speed bump, resulting in my achieving air-born status for a few seconds that night. Live free or fly.

Things That Go Bump in the Night in NH

In keeping with the general Halloween theme of October, we'll explore one of the country's most famous ghostie stories, Ocean-Born Mary. In the mid-18th century, as Mary's mother was crossing the Atlantic from Scotland to the New World -- a fitting subject for Columbus Day, as I suddenly realized -- her ship was overtaken by pirates. The pirates gave the ship a pirate makeover; pillaging, stealing and looting until the pirate captain, one Don Pedro, discovered one of the passengers -- Mary's mother -- had just given birth to a baby girl. His salty pirate heart thus moved, Don Pedro halted the looting and pillaging and ordered one of his men to fetch a bolt of fabric they'd swiped from someone else. He gave this bolt to Mary's mother and spared the ship, on the condition that Mary's mother name the newborn after Don Pedro's mother -- you guessed it, Mary. Hence, Ocean-born Mary.

Mary's family settled in first Boston, then moved to New Hampshire in the 1750s, where Mary grew up and eventually married and had kids of her own. Her husband soon died, however, but to the rescue came Don Pedro who had apparently kept tabs on Mary, and he built a big house in Henniker, New Hampshire to which he and Mary retired to. One evening, however, some of Don Pedro's old mates showed up for a visit, and in the midst of an apparent financial disagreement, Don Pedro was run through with a cutlass. In his last dying gasps, he told Mary where he had buried the proverbial pirate treasure on the property. (Why pirates didn't just use bank deposit boxes or Swiss bank accounts beats me. Seems much less work than digging deep holes all over the place.) Anyway, Mary had Don Pedro buried beneath the fire place, and the days turned to weeks, then years, and in the early 19th century Mary finally died herself in the house, and as all ghostie stories go, she apparently has never left. There have been stories ever since the 19th century stretching right up into the 21st century of people claiming to have seen Mary, who apparently was distinctively tall -- 6 feet high -- and severely red-headed. (Having distinctive features helps with identification of ghosts, so if you plan on haunting after your time has come, be sure to look as unusual as you can beforehand.)

The legend is jam-packed with different accounts of the ghost, although fact-checking deflates some of the story. Ocean-Born Mary did indeed exist as Mary Wallace (nee Wilson), and the whole bit about the pirate is claimed to be true in a few sources. There is a bolt of fabric in the Manchester History Association's Millyard Museum which is claimed to be the one Don Pedro gave to Mary's mother on the ship. Mary also did end up in Henniker -- her grave is still there, along with an 'Ocean Born Mary' marker -- but there are discrepancies about which house - the one we believe she lived in, and one owned by her son, Robert -- Mary's ghostie allegedly haunts. The 20th century saw a lot of famous psychics and ghost hunters like Hans Holzer and Ed and Lorraine Warren weigh in on the story, with as usual only muddier results. Ah, well, it's still a fun story, and Henniker is a beautiful town to visit with its bridge (pictured above).

She's a witch!

Halloween is coming, so I guess I'll pick up a festive holiday theme. Salem, Massachusetts is only 15 miles from the New Hampshire state border, and indeed there's a Salem, New Hampshire just across the state border off Route 93, a major north-south artery in the region. The mass hysteria that gripped Salem -- the Massachusetts Salem -- in 1692 is infamous, and even managed to spill across state borders as Margo Burns reveals on her well-researched website dedicate to the Salem witch trials:

To Jno Partredg ffield Marshal


You are Required in their Majsts names to aprehend the body of mr George Buroughs at present preacher at Wells in the provence of Maine, & Convay him with all Speed to Salem before the Magestrates there, to be Examened, he being Suspected for a Confederacy with the Devil in opresing of Sundry about Salem as they related. I haveing Receved perticuler Order from the Governr & Council of their Majsts Colony of Masathusets, for the Same, you may not faile here in. Dated in portsmouth in the provenc of Hamshire, Aprel . 30th . 1692 .

*Elisha Hutchinson* Majr

By Virtue of this warrant I Apprehended sd George Burroughs and haue Brought him to Salem and Deliuered him to the Authority there this fourth day of May 1692

*John Partidge* field
marshall of the Prouins
of new hansher and maine.

Margo's research has uncovered several New Hampshirites who were accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, but while these accusations likely made life fairly miserable for these folks, at least there is no equivalent to the Salem trials in the Granite State; no New Hampshire witch has ever been executed.

Some New Hampshire Haiku

Fall leaves turn colors
Animals turn to mating
Beware where you step

Deadly New Hampshire, Part II: Turkeys

Legend has it that Ben Franklin, Founding Father and all around scientific genius -- while also being an active womanizer on the side in his spare time -- lamented that the bald eagle had been made our national bird, instead wishing the turkey had been chosen:

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

Clearly, Ben had never driven in New Hampshire. New Hampshire's roads are narrow canyons, with the tall tree line coming right up to the shoulders, limiting your vision up to the next twist in the road - and as one fellow non-native friend observed, there seems to have been a law in New Hampshire that no road could be straight for more than 2 miles. Now, this makes for some very scenic driving, but in the autumn -- when this place is about as scenic as scenic gets -- it also provokes kamikaze turkeys. It is extremely common to see these fat fowl beside the road, munching on fallen acorns, bunched together in smaller or larger flocks. The problem is that in the autumn for some reason -- irritable from hormones? -- they stand and stare at you while your car is approaching, only to panic at the very last possible moment and attempt to fly across the road, right in front of your car.

Now, if you've ever sat and looked at a turkey for any length of time -- and this includes the one you see in your Dutch oven each year at the end of November -- you can't help but notice that turkeys are not the most aerodynamic birds. In a pinch they can indeed fly, but only for short spurts, and with great struggles to achieve any altitude. This all adds up to a suicidal butterball alongside the single-lane road deciding to launch itself across the road just as you're driving by on a trajectory that places it at about grill (i.e., radiator) or at best, windshield height. If you drive in this beautiful state, particularly in the autumn, you will notice deep and dark skid marks all along the roads. Take heed; beware the ballistic butterballs. We've never had that kind of problem with bald eagles; something to consider, Ben.

Pahk the Cah

There was a mild earthquake late last night centered just north of the state capital, Concord, registering a 3.1 on the Richter scale. Most people think of California or South America when you mention earthquakes, but the reality is that the northeast is also riddled with fault lines, which occasionally stretch and groan. There's a reason the country's largest earthquake research center is at the largest SUNY University in Buffalo, N.Y., not in San Diego. Now, often when you see Midwesterners describe what the tornado sounded like before it hit their trailer park, they reference the loudest noise they know, a train, and compare the tornado to that. This being New Hampshire, however, one woman in the local WMUR news interview compared the earthquake to "a herd of moose stampeding through her front yard." She went outside the next morning and fully expected to see a pathway of moose tracks across her lawn. The local news told her otherwise.

When Americans visit New England, they fully expect to be treated to the 'New England accent,' in which a loud but flat-mouthed local says something like, "I didn't know wheh to pahk the cah." In truth, this is really a Bostonian accent. Other parts of New England have their own peculiar accents, like New Hampshire and Maine, which are fairly distinctive. (Mainers all talk like Milton Berle.) Worse, though, in part because of a large influx of dirty, rotten stinkin' foreigners (like me) and modern mass communications (TV, radio, internet, etc.), the truth is that few native New Englanders, including New Hampshirites, have any accent at all, instead speaking the common, bland middle-American English you hear on the nightly news. Still, while a dying breed, you still hear flickers of the New Hampshire accent in everyday life, especially as you get further from the coast and southern New Hampshire. One local celebrity, one Fritz Wetherbee, has taken up the crusade to save the New Hampshirite accent and has put out a CD of lessons, though this was done tongue-in-cheek. Some Bostonisms have permeated the whole region, however, such as "wicked" (e.g., "That was wicked good!") or "spitting" (e.g., "It's spitting rain out."), evolving into general New England expressions. Unfortunately, however, MacDonalds and Star Bucks will likely win, and we'll all end up sounding like Katie Couric. Until then, however, I'll be outside in the cah.

Driving in New Hampshire, Part III

New Hampshire is chock full of small towns which have a long history as small farming communities, and if they're in the southern third or so of the state, they are likely growing in population. This has become a problem because, well, farmers weren't meticulous about their naming conventions, and over time, a lot of strange road names came into being. This in itself was not really a problem as all the locals knew what was where, but over the past few decades as New Hampshire has experienced a surge in population growth in the form of immigration from other states, navigating the back roads has become particularly challenging for the newcomers.

Case in point, as reported by local news WMUR: Barrington, NH -- about 30 miles east of state capital Concord, along the Maine border -- undertook this past week a comprehensive overhaul of its road names to end years of historical confusion. The changes were not just because of fussy newcomers tired of getting lost on the way to the local food store; police and fire services have experienced numerous problems with confused calls into the 911 emergency phone service, leaving rescuers to try to figure out whether the emergency is on Canaan Road, Canaan Back Road, or Old Canaan Road, for instance. It took Barrington 5 years to plan and implement this huge re-naming of many town streets -- keeping in mind that thousands of people and businesses in Barrington, NH got a new address last week, though they hadn't moved anywhere -- and all indications so far are that things have rolled out smoothly. While the state 911 service has applauded Barrington's efforts, they also threw out the heavy hint that this sort of thing has to be done in many other New Hampshire towns as well. So if you're driving in some small New Hampshire town -- and odds are, if you're driving in New Hampshire, you're in a small town -- and some local tells you that what you're looking for is on some Canaan Road, beware........

Film in New Hampshire, Part II

Like just about everywhere else in the U.S., New Hampshire was swept in the very early 20th century by a wave of theater-building, in part to accommodate the growing parade of Vaudeville stars but also, as importantly, to show the hottest, latest invention: movies. Unlike most other places in the U.S., however, with the exception of a few of the larger towns in southern New Hampshire, most New Hampshire movie venues have not been updated for, well, a century or so, so that the movie experience for an average New Hampshirite takes place in a beautifully ornate, neo-baroque theater building with poor quality sound (the speakers usually turned up far beyond their capacity) but luxurious, plush seats as compensation. That's just a thought about how films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Convoy were framed for most New Hampshirites, food for thought.

Anyway, as I discovered one day while turning onto Grove Street in tiny, little Peterborough, NH, this state has succeeded in attracting more than its share of Hollywood attention. Expecting to see the post office and maybe the odd pigeon, I instead was confronted with six tractor trailers filled with huge amounts of electrical equipment -- cameras, lights, and wires everywhere -- spilled all over Grove Street. Turns out they were filming the Aaron J. Wiederspahn film Sensation of Light in Peterborough. This kind of experience has been repeated surprisingly often, as picturesque New Hampshire apparently lends itself well as background. On Golden Pond with Paul Newman and Robin William's Jumanji were both filmed here, as well as some local productions like the unimaginatively-named Live Free or Die. The state of course actively promotes this kind of stuff -- see the video above for reference -- but New Hampshire's reputation as "New England scenic personified" seems to be working.....

A Good Town to Li... Wait! Cut!

When driving westbound on Route 101 in southwestern New Hampshire, after winding your way over Temple Mountain and being greeted as you descend into the Monadnock Valley by the majestic Mount Monadnock herself -- himself? itself? -- you will shortly, as you finally begin to relax your white-knuckle deathgrip on the steering wheel, be surprised to see the quaint sign above. It will remind you, perhaps relaxing you further, that you are indeed in scenic New England, and if you survive this mountain, then you're in for a treat. This sign was erected by the Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, and kind of like the mythical Hitchiker's Guide to the Universe -- oh Douglas Adams, we hardly knew ye -- with its big, friendly letters inscribed on the front ("Don't Panic"), this very traditional "Welcome to Peterborough" sign informs you that Peterborough is apparently "A good town to live in".

Now, I spend a lot of time in Peterborough and I can attest to the fact that Peterborough is actually a very nice place to live, if a wee bit pricey. (Susie's breakfast sandwich specials at Nonie's make the price totally worth it, though. Really.) Anyway, putting a statement like that on a town sign, a statement that is kind of subjective and presumptive, seems disingenuous. They're not being smug there in Peterborough, however. This line, "A good town to live in", is taken from a Thornton Wilder play, "Our Town", written in 1938 about a fictional New Hampshire town, "Grover's Corners". Well, Grover's Corners = Peterborough; Peterborough's main street is named "Grove Street", and Wilder had taught at the MacDowell Art Colony in Peterborough in 1926. In 1940, a film was made from Thornton's play starring William Holden, which was was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

For such a small town in the middle of nowhere, Peterborough seemingly has attracted a lot of attention, from fictional gangsters to German spies -- all of which will be explored in good time. For a final thought, I'll mention that the tallest building in Peterborough, the 5-floor brick building referred to by locals as the 'Peterborough Skyscraper' -- was built for cows, though the Monadnock Valley is definitely not cow country. The builders eventually figured that out and moved to Ohio, but, well, enjoy the rest of your evening.

Shakin' and Quakin' in Canterbury, New Hampshire

There is a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in Canterbury, NH. And seemingly, always has been. If you drive around this scenic rural New Hampshire village -- imagine that, a rural village in New Hampshire! -- you'll be struck first by the fact that you're in rugged farm country. Actually, you'll likely be struck first by some tractor-trailer on Route 106 if you're not careful, but the point is that it will become rapidly apparent that not only are you not in the city anymore, but you're also not in some quaint, cozy ski resort mountain village either. The folks in Canterbury take the rural lifestyle the same way others take their coffee: black, bitter and with no questions asked. Now, that said, Canterbury has an active artist community, more in the way of craftsmen than moose poop refrigerator magnet makers. (Though that reminds me; Christmas is coming soon. I'll have to find that moose poop lady again.) Canterbury each year hosts a craftsmen show with wood carvers, black smiths, glass blowers, basket weavers and other lost arts of the rough-hewn 19th century. New Hampshire in general is home to more than its fair share of such artists, but this artist community is a bit different; many of these local artists learned from the masters.

By the masters, I mean of course the Shakers. The Shakers were a religious community who came from England in the mid-18th century and settled initially in New York state, but eventually also set up a community in Canterbury, NH in the 1790s, one of many such Shaker communities established across the U.S. over the next century. Canterbury was one of the biggest settlements, however, and thrived for almost 200 years until the last resident Shaker died in 1990. The Shakers were called 'Shakers' by Americans simply because it was close to 'Quakers', and from the American revolutionaries' perspective, both the Quakers and Shakers had an annoying trait that really irritated the Patriots: both the Shakers and Quakers were pacifists, meaning they didn't take up arms to fight for the Revolution in 1775-1783. Still, eventually the Patriots got over it, and the Shakers established commune-style communities where everything was shared: the living quarters (segregated by male and female, of course), the work, meals, etc. This communal living actually proved quite successful for much of Canterbury village's two centuries, and the Shakers attracted many who were destitute or down on their luck in the nearby communities, and Shaker schools were renowned so that local farmers often paid to have their non-Shaker children educated by the Canterbury Shaker community. It was only the rise of modern life in the 20th century that finally undermined the attractiveness of Shaker life.

The one hitch that scared many away from Shaker life was, well, the celibacy thing. There's a long story behind this but essentially the Shakers rejected any and all forms of sex, even for pro-creation. They survived for 200 years by attracting converts. Men and women lived in strict seclusion in the Shaker commune. That's enough to make the most down-on-his-luck homeless vagrant hesitate before signing on the dotted line. Nonetheless, personal lifestyle choices aside, the Shakers survived by becoming very adept at making excellent quality goods (such as the famous Shaker furniture) and craftwares, which became very popular among Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the mid-20th century as it became apparent that the Canterbury Shaker community was fading, many of the local Shakers took on apprentices from outside the community from the surrounding towns and taught them the Shaker craft arts, so that today these still survive in the local Canterbury artist community. The Canterbury Shaker Village survives as a museum today, one very well worth your visit, both to see an excellently-preserved Shaker commune but as well to enjoy the beautiful rolling hills of Canterbury, NH.

Now, when I first visited the Canterbury Shaker Village Museum a few summers ago, to my astonishment, there was a whole lot of shakin' and quakin' goin' on, and it wasn't the ghosts of Shakers long past recreating the elaborate dance rituals in the Shaker Meeting House. We were standing in the herbal gardens on the downward slope of the hill not far from the living quarters, when suddenly the ground started rumbling and shaking. The hills around us joined suit, and soon the whole world felt like one of those cheap motel shaking beds. As it turned out, just a few miles away in nearby Loudon, NH there happened to be the New Hampshire Motor Speedway which hosts twice each year NASCAR races. We just happened to be visiting on one of those days. My first thought was that it was a good thing the Shakers were long gone, because they no doubt would have been horrified by NASCAR races, but then I remembered that the Shakers were not Amish; the Shakers embraced technology, and owned TVs and radios in the 20th century. They might very well have piled into a bus and headed over to Loudon to join in the fun.....

Recreation and Dining in New Hampshire

A restaurant is a restaurant, the basic concept being to go out and pay someone to make some chow for you and -- just as crucially -- do the dishes afterward as well. Still, many states and regions have managed to develop their own styles of restaurants over the years. New Jersey has its diners, Chicago has its pizzerias, Texas its barbecue ranches. What culinary legacy has New Hampshire bequeathed to the nation? Well, the state was primarily settled by English people, and we all know how attractive English cuisine is -- so that's one strike against the ol' 603.

Despite this handicap, New Hampshire has decidedly gone in two directions, the high road and the low road. I'm not sure which developed first, but as we've explored before, New Hampshire became in the late 19th and early 20th centuries a prime destination for lots of rich people trying to get away from the hustle and bustle of The Big City -- the latter can be understood to mean Boston, New York, Philadelphia, etc. For anyone who wanted to avoid either hustle or bustle, New Hampshire was (and to a large degree, still is) a great place to escape to as it is indeed lacking in exactly those two qualities -- to the utter horror of many youth native to this state -- but while (getting back to our point) it may be scenic, quiet and "rustic", it is also rural, and that became problematic for many of the rich city folk.

The difference between rustic and rural is like the difference between nude and naked: "Rustic" is nature and rural life as framed by a painting or window, often with sepia tones and soft, nostalgic music playing in the background, kind of like the opening credits to The Andy Griffith Show. Rural, however, means dirt roads, difficult access, unreliable electricity, and severely limited options in the dining, entertainment and shopping categories -- with restroom facilities often also thrown into that mix. The rich city folk wanted rustic vacations, not rural, and some enterprising New Hampshirites (or, just as often, other rich city folk from out of state) saw the need and met it: huge, glamorous, luxurious (and über-modern) hotels sprang up all over northern New Hampshire, catering to the need for rich city folk to "get away from it all" without really getting away from it all. The Bretton Woods Hotel, for instance, the Manor at Golden Pond, the Balsams, or the Castle in the Clouds all served the whims of wealthy out-of-staters. Some of these started out as private homes, while others were exclusive clubs, but most now are 4 or 5 star luxury hotels willing to take anyone with lots of $$$.

Now, cost-conscious New Hampshirites have not neglected the other end of the scale, either. In the summer, small seasonal seafood stands like Clam Haven in Londonderry open all over Rockingham County, the New Hampshire county that hugs the coast. A typical New Hampshire experience -- although we'll admit that this one, being on an island in the middle of the Piscataqua River, very much walking distance from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, is technically in York, Maine -- is that of Morrison's Lobsters. You park your car in Portsmouth, walk across the bridge to Badgers Island, and when seated outside a small shack, and asked by the owner/waitress what you want -- no need for a menu since they only offer lobster, clams, potato salad and hot dogs; everything else is BYO -- your order is brought out, and the gruff waitress disappears. Forever. You eat, leave the appropriate amount on your table, and leave. I've also seen maple syrup stands in New Hampshire that work on the same honor system.

Now, increasingly New Hampshire has all the usual chain restaurants that any American is familiar with, and as we've explored before, New Hampshirites are utterly addicted to Dunkin Donuts, but when it comes to eating out, NHers tend to either go full-out five-star grand scale, or a local clam bake joint.

Ayup.

You need to be clear about something here, and that's that New Hampshirites will sometimes seem kind of vague in their communications. It's not that they're confused or impolite -- quite the opposite, in fact. They have a strong sense of propriety, and they are careful to mind their own business. It's no mistake that Robert Frost wrote that famous line, "Good fences make good neighbors," here in New Hampshire. This sense of private space can become problematic for you, the out-of-stater, when you need information from a New Hampshirite because while they are usually all too happy to oblige, they are very reluctant to tell someone else that they have just made a big mistake. They see it as none of their business that you've missed a crucial exit and have already driven 30 miles out of your way or that your child just poured their entire milkshake over the dog in the back seat; they don't want to embarrass you by pointing out such facts. Nobody needs that kind of public humiliation.

So here's some advice: If you find yourself happily chatting away with some New Hampshirite and then they suddenly go quiet on you -- perhaps filling in the awkward silence with the typical slow New England "A-yup, yup, yup" -- stop in your tracks. This means your new New Hampshire friend has noticed you've made some critical error, and doesn't want to embarrass you. You may have just stepped in doggy poo, you may have just bought an over-priced doughnut from the wrong shop, or your fly may be open. Whatever it is, your New Hampshirite friend is trying to give you a chance at a graceful recovery or exit, so immediately size up your environment and figure out what went wrong. Then....... A-yup, yup, yup, yup, yup yup yup.

The Sticky Stuff

It's only early September but soon New Hampshire will be overrun by tourists gawking at the changing tree leaves while dodging Canadian goose poop on the grass in our state parks. An important part of this yearly ritual is the hunt for 'authentic' maple syrup, and the thousands of by-products made from maple syrup, like maple sugar candy, maple sugar mustard (really! not kidding!), maple sugar butter, maple sugar party favors, and etc. Now, the truth is that maple syrup is commonly harvested and made in just about all the states of the Northeastern U.S. (including New Jersey) and Canada, but it's strongly associated with New England, particularly northern New England (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine), so to visit New Hampshire and leave without a maple sugar candy-shaped moose would be like going to Miami and not buying a toy stuffed dolphin. In fact, New Hampshirites are very proud of all their home-made foods and crafts, as we'll be exploring more later. Indeed, I have filled out some of my Christmas gifts to friends and family outside New Hampshire with locally-made crafts and items like maple syrup products. I was once busted at an airport, in fact, for trying to bring a quart of New Hampshire maple syrup to some relatives I was visiting back when the strict rules about bringing liquids on planes were still in force. Apparently the terrorists have found a way to hijack a plane with maple syrup, and so I posed a threat to my fellow passengers.

These maple syrup associations take their craft very seriously, though, having official grades judged by color and other attributes, and no serious maple syrup producer would ever consider not belonging to the official state association. The video above was made by one of my favorite producers, Ben's Sugar Shack along Route 101 in southern New Hampshire. As one maple syrup producer explained to me, real maple syrup is made up of only about 16% sugar, while the artificial stuff you buy in super markets can often be 80-90% sugar, via corn syrup. Yikes. So even if your friends call you a snob for insisting on the real stuff, do yourself (and your kids) a favor and go out of your way for authentic maple syrup. By the way, did I mention we make that stuff here in New Hampshire.....?

Spudly Protestants

What a funny-name, the "Scotch-Irish". It sounds like "Vodka-Poles" or "Bourbon-French". Mind you, there are worse names, but still.... In any event, the Scotch-Irish are indeed a people with their own peculiar history, and they have certainly had a huge impact on American history, giving this country 12 of its 44 presidents to date. To some, they are called "Ulster Scots", because they were primarily Scotsmen (and women) who migrated to Ulster County in English-occupied Ireland in the early 17th century for land. Unfortunately, the 17th century wasn't a good century for Ireland (or England, for that matter), and the Ulster (Protestant) Scots found themselves caught in the Catholic-Protestant struggle for the English throne which finally ended in 1688 with the Glorious Revolution that overthrew King James II and replaced him with the (Protestant) Dutch Willem (William) and Mary of Orange County in the Netherlands. In the midst of James' last attempt to hold on to his royal inheritance, Catholic Ireland rose up in rebellion against the new Protestant king in London, which led to bloody fighting in primarily-Protestant Ulster County ending in defeat for Catholic forces at the Battle of the Boyne (River) in 1690 -- but not before Scotch-Irish strongholds like Derry had to endure horrific sieges. Catholic Ireland was brutally re-subjugated, but not all Protestants are (were) created equal, and the Protestant victory notwithstanding, the Scotch-Irish had little to celebrate. They were hated by their Catholic Irish neighbors as usurpers but also considered second-class citizens by the English aristocrats ruling Ireland. The last straw came in 1703 when England decreed that only those belonging to the Church of England (and its sister church in Ireland) could enjoy full legal rights in Ireland, which left the primarily Presbyterian and Lutheran Scotch-Irish out in the cold. They began leaving in droves, heading for the harsh frontier (but free) real estate to the west.

You would think that, having endured the starvation and gruesome conditions of the sieges of 1689-90, the last thing the Scotch-Irish would do is name their new settlements after the miserable places they'd just left in Ulster County, but, well, that's exactly what they did and New Hampshire colony gained hordes of Scotch-Irish immigrants in the early 18th century who eventually dotted the New Hampshire landscape with towns with names like Londonderry, Derry and Antrim.

All of this is a very long-winded way of saying the obvious, which is, well, what would you expect a boatload of people from Ireland -- religion notwithstanding -- to bring to America? Besides alcohol. Lots of alcohol. I am referring of course to the spud. The granite-pocked fields of Londonderry, New Hampshire are apparently the first place in North America where potatoes were grown, soon to spread throughout the country to give us Tator Tots and French...er, "Liberty Fries". Ironically, potatoes actually come originally from Peru and were brought to Europe by some incredulous Spaniards, but they eventually caught on and it was the Scotch-Irish who brought them to English-speaking America, via New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Weather

We like to think of our weather as being local and self-contained, which is another way of saying we often forget we live on a big ball and that our weather almost always originates somewhere else. An odd but seemingly often-forgotten thing about New Hampshire's weather is that it is heavily influenced by two factors: the first being the Appalachian Mountains which ripple through the state, and secondly, the Atlantic Ocean which forms an important part of New Hampshire's nubby little ocean-front shoreline. These two factors make themselves most apparent in New Hampshire's weather in the winter when storms blow up the coast but are held just offshore by pressure systems unable to cross the inland mountains, and rotate counter-clockwise so that the prevailing winds come from the northeast rather than the more usual southwest -- hence, a Nor'easter storm -- which can dump lots of rain or snow on New England. However, the ocean in particular becomes important, as we're about to learn again this weekend, apparently, when one takes the macro view and realizes that New Hampshire isn't really all that far, in global terms, from the Caribbean. This fact is important to New Hampshirites this week because Hurricane Earl, a category 4 hurricane with 130 mph+ winds, may be coming for a visit. A hurricane in New England? Aren't hurricanes only in the tropics? For the most part, yes, but most hurricanes form in the Caribbean and get jostled around a lot by both internal and external forces which put them on a meandering course like a drunken monkey, but on occasion, one manages to wander straight up the U.S. coast, and a tiny few have even made a beeline for New England.

In September, 1938 exactly that happened as a category 5 hurricane (they didn't name them in those days) followed the U.S. coast northward, crossing Long Island causing lots of flooding and damage before making landfall in New Haven, CT and continuing northward (by now as a category 3 storm) up the Connecticut River valley, which forms most of the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. It continued into Quebec, where it finally petered out. This hurricane managed to kill 600 New Englanders and damage some 25,000 homes. The Monadnock region of New Hampshire was utterly devastated by flooding and post-storm fires about which fire departments could often do little. To give you an example of that flooding, I was shocked once while picking vegetables at an outdoor fresh vegetable market located on the side of Temple Mountain near Peterborough, NH when I turned around and saw an official historical sign indicating that during the Great Hurricane of 1938 (as it's now called), this sign stands at what was the high-water mark for the flooding. Let me repeat; I was standing on the side of a mountain reading this, with a beautiful vista view of the valley below.

For now, it appears Earl is likely to stay a hundred miles or so off New Hampshire's coast, giving us some rain and higher winds but nothing quite like the experience of 1938. Still, the reality is that it is a short, straight line from the Caribbean to New England, and that sooner or later, another powerful storm will indeed someday waddle up the coast and dump heavily on New England.