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.

When Not to Visit New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a beautiful state and one well worth your time as a tourist, but we must confess that there is, every few years, an infestation which makes this otherwise exceedingly tourist-friendly land a dangerous place for man and beast. We've tried everything, from pesticides to special hunting seasons, but these ornery critters just seem to breed like bunnies and have an immune system that would impress a cockroach. Our every attempt to eliminate them has come to naught, and every leap year they swarm over the scenic New Hampshire countryside like locusts. For some reason, probably owing to its severely picturesque nature, they are particularly attracted to the main east-west artery in southern New Hampshire, Route 101, which goes from Route 1 on the coast to the southern Vermont border. Route 101 is lined with postcard-perfect town after town, each one filled with friendly, folksy everyman "Joe and Jane Sixpack" New Hampshirites, genuine hard-working Yankees, each one a gullible victim-in-waiting for these predatory vermin. It's a sad spectacle to have to watch, with the victims shown months later on the local news reliving their ordeal very much like Midwesterners describing on their local news stations what the tornado sounded like. These beasts seem to show up in 4-year cycles, although some of their lower-level cousins -- the bottom-feeders -- function in 2-year cycles.

I feel like I'm letting some deep, dark secrets out of the family closet, but it's best you knew: New Hampshire is attacked and overrun every four years or so by...politicians. One day, you're just walking down the street, maybe contemplating some shopping, and the next thing you know you're confronted by a baby-kissing, hand-shaking, absurd promise-making politician, desperate to slobber over your baby and grip your hand in their clammy, germ-infested paws for a photo op before shoving you out of the way to make room for their next victim. Worse, maybe you've got steak on the mind and so you round the corner towards the local butcher shop or market, only to be confronted by several big guys in black suits wearing dark sunglasses with wires sprouting from their ears blocking your way, informing you, American citizen, that your market is now off limits as a politician has his/her picture taken inside with real, hard-working Yankees and a lobster. (This is New England, after all. All photo ops must include either a lobster, maple syrup or a moose, preferably with all the local Yankees wearing Irish wool sweaters and knit fishing caps.) These insidious creatures snarl traffic everywhere they go ("security concerns"), and set up cruel ambushes in local diners for innocent but gullible Yankees. Some of the more ruthless of these buggers like to play with their prey, feigning sympathy in front of cameras for common people's problems and then promising to solve them all in far-off Washington. Like I said, it's a sad thing to watch later after the elections when their victims describe on local news stations in disbelief how they were blind-sided by the outlandish promises.

Crafty New Hampshirites have found something of a solution for this problem, though. It's not pretty and it's only temporary, but hey, it works, at least for the short-term. They fib back to these flag-waving, speech-spouting locusts, promising them that we'll vote for them, at which point they pack up and swarm off to Iowa. Like I said, it may not be the most ethical thing to do, but you can't argue with success. We're really sorry, Iowa, but it was either you or us, so... And anyway, as we understand, you folks do the same thing to South Carolina. Passing the buck is the American way.