The simple fact is that, except for the farthest northern parts of Maine and possibly Massachusetts west of the Berkshires (which looks towards Albany, NY), just about all of New England is one, big suburb of Boston. Everything revolves around Boston. A northern New Hampshire farmer or a fisherman off Narragansett Bay will just as likely pummel you to death for suggesting the Red Sox are not the greatest team of any sport ever anywhere just as surely as a bunch of drunk Boston College students waiting outside Fenway Park before a game. You'll get an extra kick in the nether regions if you dare even mention the Yankees in that same sentence.
Southern New Hampshire, especially as you get closer to the ocean, has over the past thirty years become utterly overrun by Massachusetts' lower Middle Class fleeing skyrocketing home prices and local taxes. It is quite normal for people to own homes in southern New Hampshire but work in Massachusetts, often driving the 45+ minutes to the '128 Ring' (Route 128) which circumvents Boston. Within that ring are packed like sardines an amazingly dense cluster of towns and businesses. Driving anywhere within that ring is technically considered a suicide attempt, as each Boston driver seems to be operating under the distinct impression that they are the only ones on the road. Cars in Massachusetts are specially customized so that they can only go two speeds, either 5 mph or 75 mph. Add in for fun that at certain times of the day -- which can be understood to mean "whenever they damned well please" in practical terms -- it is legal in Massachusetts to use the shoulders as separate lanes.
Anyway, the region along the ocean coast for points north of Boston are collectively referred to by Bostonians as the North Shore, or, in local parlance, the Nuth Shuh. This used to be a fairly impoverished region of stark, stolid little New England fishing villages -- think Gloucester, the setting for the story/film A Perfect Storm, as well as Salem, Massachusetts, famous for its sense of humor -- but recently tourism and small retail outlets have transformed this region into one of the pricier places to live in New England. A few stern-faced fisherman still persevere, but increasingly, this region is becoming New England's Hamptons.
Speaking of the Hamptons, New England actually has some of its own. North of the Nuth Shuh is a place many Massachusetts folks consider terra incognito, like deepest, darkest Africa, filled with exotic peoples and strange monsters; it is none other than my beloved New Hampshire. Indeed, there is little love lost between Massachusetts and New Hampshire; Massachusetts sees New Hampshire essentially as a living embodiment of the 1972 John Boorman film Deliverance. For Massachusetts folks, when crossing their northern border into New Hampshire, they hear cartoon-ish jungle sounds and wooden percussion instruments. Meanwhile, New Hampshirites refer to folks from Massachusetts as....well, I can't really print it here in full: "M***holes." Can you feel the love?
Anyway, despite all this animosity, New Hampshirites flood Massachusetts all year long for jobs, while Massachusetts people flood to New Hampshire in the summer and fall for vacations. One of their prime targets in the summer are the Hamptons -- the New Hampshire Hamptons, that is, where the beaches are. The greedy state leaders in both Concord and Boston, seeing all this cross-border traffic, often get the dumb idea that they want to put tolls up on their side of the border, forgetting that charging people to cross the state border would hurt their own citizens as much as the other state's, so there's usually an uproar when some budding politician suggests this idea, and it quietly goes away.
That's today's lesson. Next time, we'll talk about why whenever you mention a town in New England, you need to specify the state.
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