Why I live in New Hampshire
Why DO I live in New Hampshire? Why do I stay here?
I'm convinced that for most it's simply an accidental byproduct of Massachusetts tax law. If you look at a globe, the angle of slope at 45° latitude is- well, 45°, and that kind of slope shouldn't be tried. Better to stay further south and admit the effort isn't worth it. I mean, what do people say is fun in New Hampshire?
•Ice fishing. Sitting in a room you dragged onto the lake with your $30,000 Dodge Ram and hope to get back with your friend's $500 pickup because the ice is melting, fighting the carbon monoxide and smell of wool socks in the hopes that your line will jiggle and $10 worth of food will rise through the ice. (If you mention that the same effect can be achieved by dangling the cord of your robe onto the floor from the end of the bed, you will get stares.)
•The foliage. "The trees are dying again; where's the damn rake?"
•Swimming. From July until early August you can swim and still find your testicles.
•Skiing. We have some of the finest EMT's in the country.
•Boating. There's a state liquor store right where all those Jetskis are parked.
•Snowmobiling. I wonder why the hardware store sells so much chain to landowners in December.
•The Old Man in the Mountain. well, not any more; but the state legislature is maybe gonna put it back if they can figure out how to do it for free.
It might be for the ocean fun, if you can fit onto what John Hodgman called our "fifteen miles of novelty coastline."
When I moved to NH the Governor was Meldrim Thomson, who attempted to convince Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to secede from the People's Republic of Massachusetts and join with the Granite State by placing a bottle of liquor on the podium and comparing prices (seriously), and whose idea of domestic tranquility was equipping the National Guard with nuclear weapons in case of insurrection. Seriously. When the Bay State sent troopers to packies (liquor stores to the rest of you) to catch people (customers/smugglers) loading their cars with what Mass. called contraband but we regard as a positive balance of payments, Thomson had them arrested for loitering. When Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman spoke at UNH he called out the National Guard and had the kid who invited them arrested. When a gay students organization surfaced he threatened to close the University. When speeders passed his official car he had his trooper driver pull them over so he could personally ticket them.
Seriously. Served three terms. A good majority of the voters loved him.
We had our own little William Randolph Hearst for a time- William Loeb, who was called a lot of things but probably never Bill to his face. Terrorized any candidate who wanted to be president and had the temerity to challenge his beliefs, which were not unlike Thomson's, but extreme. And when he died his third wife Nacky- seriously- kept the fire ablaze.
Our state finances are managed by a kid who knows Quicken. No sales or income tax, but to hear natives talk the state pisses money, mostly paid by property taxes. And meals taxes. And hotel taxes. And gas taxes. And low cigarette taxes. And state-run liquor stores (but we aren't socialist!). By the way, if you think about it, they are all targeted at our favorite migratory animal- out-of-staters, who come for the skiing, and ice-fishing, and snowmobiling, and foliage, and...
The race track near my house burned down a while back, and the state balanced its budget by keeping the liquor stores open 24 hours a day. But no drive-thru- we have standards.
And I'm not worried about any deficits. Check the map- we hold Maine hostage. We have the most expensive 20 miles of toll road in the country, and if you want to get out of Maine you'll smile and pay.
So why do I live in NH?
I just told you.
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As a Granite Stater, well a transplant via MA and NYC first, so by local standards maybe my children's children will be considered natives. All I can say is thanks for the laugh :)
June 10, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Our history teacher taught us that New Hampshire was originally the staging ground for all wagon-trains headed West, and those who turned back eventually became "citizens." Thus, the above-average proportions of people who are easily frightened, afflicted by irritable bowel syndrome, near-sighted, have one leg a lot longer than the other, have the other leg a lot longer than the first one, and who like to watch grass grow and leaves turn.
'Course, my teacher was from Vermont.
June 10, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, well, Vermont used to be part of New Hampshire (unless you were from New York and thought Vermont was part of New York), but didn't like the capital on the coast and having to travel down Rte. 89 from White RIver Junction or 102 from Keene. So obviously the Green Mountain Boys were wusses. Hell, we didn't even have any tolls for east-west travel.
So Vermont developed its own character. For a long time Vermont was rightist rural, but then Ben & Jerry came up with flavors of ice cream that appealed to the left, and the whole state changed.
The best way to tell if you are in Vermont or New Hampshire is to find a barn on the road. If you are in Vermont, that sign says "Antiques." If you are in New Hampshire, the sign says "Welding."
(By the way, my Vermont history may be a little off.)
June 10, 2009 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom -
You reminded of this article from Mike Barnicle on the differences between VT and NH.
One of the funny lines which goes back to your remark about our toll booths and our state liquor stores.
June 10, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
hahhahahaah where in god's name do you come up with sh...t like this????
June 11, 2009 1:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Does he use the line about welding and barns? I know I lifted that. Of course if it were from Barnicle there would be something Karmic about it.
June 10, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it was from Barnicle he probably stole it from someone else who originally wrote it about IA and WI.
June 10, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Migratory animal...tourists.
Hahahahahahahahaha.
Here in Michigan, tourism/hunting/fishing is big business.
We have a saying: So, if it's tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em?
Which is probably not the greatest advertisement policy, all things considered. :o)
June 10, 2009 1:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
We don't cull them, but we do try to pluck them.
June 10, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ha. I lived in Manchester for a few years, and Keene very briefly. I loved running on pine needles, but don't miss the skeeters, black flies or no-see-ums.
June 10, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
New Hampshire,Vermont,New York, Maine, you guys are talking about the more expensive squares on the Monopoly board right? All I ever get is Baltic Ave or Pacific railroad.
June 10, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I live in New Hampshire and love it. It's beautiful here. Live free or die!
June 10, 2009 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lived in the Granite State just after Mel Thompson left the scene but it was still right wing heaven then. Of all the idiotic things he did, I think my favorite was lowering the flag to half mast on Easter! What a marooon that guy was!
Things have changed considerably since those days though and I was back in NH last summer. If anything it is more beautiful than ever. What a glorious countryside and geography! I have always loved the natural beauty of the place. Yet it was clear that the poverty remains and the lack of tax support for basic education and infrastructure continues as a result of the foolish, shortsighted tax policies at the state level.
The thing about NH is that if you don't have enough money to leave now and then it can become an oppressive sort of almost backwater kind of place. Other places are like that in many ways so NH isn't alone in this, but one can easily feel very isolated there. When I lived there and didn't have lots of money that trapped feeling was present far too often.
June 10, 2009 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan Kay said it first, but if there were a prize for the best state slogan and/or license plate, it would surely go to New Hampshire for its boldfaced yet appealing " "Live free or die." I smile every time I see it.
There are great flags that also deserve to be state slogans: Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" banner for Virginia during the Revolutionary War that incorporated the coiled snake from my all-time favorite...
Christopher Gadsden's Revolutionary War's coiled rattlesnake with slogan "Don't tread on me":
http://www.interesting.com/stories/gadsden/index.html#gadsden
that he developed from Benjamin Franklin's snake, which was first truncated but then joined as a symbol of unity.
But I do run on. Live free, New Hampshire.
June 10, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too like the state slogan, but often it is re-interpreted to mean "Live for free; then die." Many seem to think it means any taxes are evil taxes, and any commitment to social institutions infringes on freedom.
June 10, 2009 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah. There is that less appealing aspect of rural living that is true, everywhere.
June 10, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure tomgnh knows the story. But "Live Free or Die" was penned by General John Stark, hero of the Battle of Bennington.
From the Wikipedia entry:
In 1809, a group of Bennington veterans gathered to commemorate the battle. General Stark, then aged 81, was not well enough to travel, but he sent a letter to his comrades, which closed "Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils."
June 10, 2009 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for this; great images -- I plan to write about why I stay in Virginia. You inspired me!
But why would you stay in a place that is so effing COLD? I can see it in the old days, when you could ice-skate for miles down a river, but now? With all the melting? Of course if this global warming gets seriouser and seriouser, there may BE no Virginia, except for the islands that once were called the Blue Ridge Mountains!
June 11, 2009 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was searching for a snappy comeback to your scurrilous reference to NH as cold, but after realizing I had just decided to wait on taking down the storm door and to self-clean the oven and to bake some beans and put on a sweater- never mind.
June 11, 2009 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice stuff... but I can't help thinking about these numbers... Seems like you guys live in a nice little bubble sometimes...
But other than that, the place sounds absolutely wonderful...
2005 resident population est.: 1,309,940
2000 resident census population (rank): 1,235,786 (41).
Male: 607,687 (49.2%)
Female: 628,099 (50.8%)
White: 1,186,851 (96.0%)
Black: 9,035 (0.7%)
American Indian: 2,964 (0.2%)
Asian: 15,931 (1.3%)
Other race: 7,420 (0.6%)
Two or more races: 13,214 (1.1%)
Hispanic/Latino: 20,489 (1.7%)
2000 percent population 18 and over: 75.0
65 and over: 12.0
median age: 37.1.
June 11, 2009 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
96% white? You have a problem with that? It's only half as close to 100% as it was ten years before that.
NH has traditionally been- well, traditional American. Evidence?
• The high school I taught at got its first African-American faculty member- EVER- ten years ago. Small school, though, right? Nope- 160+ faculty. That lasted six years. We're- sorry, they're- back to pure. (But the student body has changed quite a bit.)
• There's a college guide published that lists "minorities" on campus. UNH's listed minority was "non-skiers." (I don't know if this is still true.)
But it could be worse. We had a guy work with us for a while from North Dakota. A colleague mentioned that he grew up in Maine and was 16 before he saw his first black person. The Dakotan replied "I was 14 before I saw someone with brown *eyes*."
I look at it this way- we're not Vermont. (The numbers will change quite a bit by the next census.)
June 11, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink