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.