Living with Nor'easters

This is not South Carolina. You might be momentarily fooled in the summertime if you visit the Hampton beaches chock full of tanned, scantily-clad young folks, on a blazing hot summer day with the temperatures hovering around 100 degrees and the humidity at 80%+, but I'm here to tell you, this is not South Carolina. Now, there are those who prefer South Carolina and there are those who prefer New Hampshire; I've made my choice clear enough by voting with my feet. For one thing, though I live in a swamp -- We'll explore 'Swamp Yankees' later -- the bugs here are pretty small, and any encounters in the garden with local snakes does not have the potential to end with a fatality. ("Man mauled to death in garden by 8 inch garter snake!") Up here the quaintly-named palmetto bug is more bluntly called a cockroach.

Another indication that you are not in South Carolina around here is those very cyclical winter storms known as Nor'easters, massive swirling storms that park off the coast and, sucking up moisture from the ocean, dump it as snow in the form of furious blizzards that can rage for days. Unfortunately, like everywhere else in the country, the local news (which is not local in ownership) has slid into increasing fits of sensationalism so that every snow storm is the storm of the century, the weather forecasts are preceded with dramatic graphics implying certain imminent doom, and the meteorologists speak like they were delivering the declaration of war against Japan in 1941. Nor'easters have been a regular feature of New Hampshire life since long before there was a New Hampshire, however, and folks take them in stride. I remember one news broadcast which featured a very excited reporter standing on a street corner during a snow storm, his arms flailing as he described scenes of utter chaos caused by the storm -- all the while, in the background behind him locals calmly passed by and went about their business. The moral of this story is that if you live in South Carolina, you're probably used to your 3 inch-long palmetto bugs and maybe even give them names, and you are careful to wear snake guards when walking in tall grass or in the woods. Well, in New Hampshire, you learn to take the fire-and-brimstone weatherman with a grain of salt, and be sure to be stocked up on plenty of beer and bread for the storm.