28 September 2017
882
R. Linda:
I thought things were backwards in Ireland, but nah, living in New England be a similar experience. In Ireland, you wait for things to be done. Oh for sure you can tell the electrician you need something done and six months later he'll show up like you called yesterday. And so it goes with everything else. Here, in the sticks of New Hampshire, the pace of life is laid-back and slower than say Boston. How do I know this? Well, having lived in Boston for a few years I got used to the faster pace, and the convenience of being able to order or buy what I needed instantly, and so I was a wee bit spoiled I was. Then I moved to New Hampshire where it all went pear-shaped. Yes, I could order fuel and be told it would be arriving in a few days, not the same day. Why not today? No, no can't do that the truck is filled with just enough for the day's deliveries, and to add one more, well then the driver would have to go back to the filling station and refill and best to wait. An electrician, same as Ireland only instead of six months wait, maybe three.
I think I told you the first time Jersey girl Tonya went to the Mall of New Hampshire she had got dressed to the nines like she did in New Jersey going to say the Willowbrook Mall or Livingston Mall. Yes, there she was hair done, nice outfit, jewellery, the whole nine yards and everyone at the mall? Old jeans and flannel shirts. Makeup? What's that? And jewellery? None of that. She couldn't wait to get out of there. And since then she's never done that again.
I think I told you weddings up here are rather different, to put it mildly. At our first wedding, I was in a suit, and Ton in a gown (the invite had said formal) and everyone else? The men wore khaki pants with blue shirts and the women, capri pants and tank tops. We were mistaken for being part of the wedding party too many times to count. Every wedding we have attended up here has been this way. And I refuse to get the man's wedding uniform of khaki pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt!
One last dress code. Tonya and I met the kiddo's teachers after enrolling them in school. We met Guido's teacher who stands out the most to us. There she was dressed in a sparkly Harley Davidson tee with cut-offs and open-toed sandals. Me wife said to me on the side, "If she was teaching in New Jersey she'd be fired for that mode of dress." That aside, I will say the woman's young charges love her and she is one of the most popular teachers. Guido has done well under her guidance so I can't complain, and I be not really, just saying how different it is up here.
I should have known something was up when I first moved in and the Realtor leaned over to me at the closing and said, "At least you are on the town line, the town next to you has Internet, so you should be able to tap into that." That took a good few minutes to sink in. "What do you mean tap in? Don't we have Internet in this town?" The answer was NO. No cable, no Internet. Notta. That we have flush toilets instead of outhouses, I guess we can count ourselves lucky.
The story goes the horsey people of our little village refused FREE cable because they didn't want it messing up life as they knew it. REALLY? I only found this out a few months AFTER I moved in. I've been here almost four years and I found out only three weeks ago, if you want to know, what is going on with this village, you have to sign onto Facebook and hope your satellite connection keeps you on long enough to get to the site and then stay on the site long enough for one to peruse the news.
No buried cable, but satellite dishes. Yup, I ask you which is more unsightly? So much for preserving the integrity of the village. One bad rain, snow or wind and ice storm and there is no telly, no so-called Internet, there is nothing but one can go to the local library for a book! But that is an experience in itself.
I got tired of cloudy or foggy nights interrupting me telly service so the next day I went to our local one-room library to get a card so I could take books out. I get down there and right away I walk into a bake sale in the small hallway. Right next to the door is a basket full of money. I was thinking if this was Boston, that basket would have been out the door and long gone. I felt like I should stand there and guard the money so that didn't happen. I got the attention of the lady arranging goodies on a small table and said as much and was told it was just fine where it was. I felt like I needed to buy something so I selected a cookie, but then found I needed change. The nice lady told me to make my change from the basket. I was flabbergasted and really didn't want to do that. So I dropped a fiver in and left it without change. I know I could have had a free cookie and a few twenty-dollar bills but that's not me. So putting the cookie in my pocket I went inside to the library desk. Right away, the bake table lady comes in behind the desk. I thought double duty, desk and bake sale. Ok.
She asked what she could help me with and I told her I wanted to get a library card. She asked to see my license so she could take my info off that. So I am standing there watching her when it dawns on me, she is using a TYPEWRITER to type my info on a piece of paper. Carbon paper and all. I looked around and there was no computer. Well, why would there be? Duh, no Internet! So I asked her how she knew what books were outstanding and she pointed to a long wooden file box and said everything was there. That's all the outstanding books. I asked her how she looked overdue books up, and she said she had to go through the NUMBERS one by one in the file box. OMG. The numbers are all the Dewey Decimal System. I didn't know anyone used the DD System anymore so I was really taken aback at that. But like I say, no computers so figures.
Once outside and hoping I was in the real world again, I noticed a small sign over a hut. It said Police. There was a jeep parked there so I decided to drop in to meet our local constabulary. Well, that too was an eye-opener. There is one man, he is the police chief and he is the only policeman. He has no police car, a little village like ours doesn't need one he said. He told me if I needed any assistance day or night I was to call 911 and the folks two towns over would respond. He'd get to me once they PAGED him. I was like OK.
I am finding that America isn't all it's hyped up to be. Oh sure, there's a lot of stuff and opportunities, but not all of it is like that. Where I live the tourists think they are back in time and find it all quaint. Quaint to them is inconvenient to me. Did I tell you we are somehow being absorbed into the backwoods lifestyle? Yup, we got some chickens. Not for eating for eggs only. We didn't intend to raise chickens, but the woman next door thought we should have some. I think I told you about THAT. Anyway, we have what they call free rangers who are all over the place. I keep thinking some wild animal will spirit them off and we have lost one. But they seem to know how to hide their eggs and then we have more chickens. We started off with nine and are up to seventeen dirty birds. I whisper in me Mam's ear we should have a few for dinner but she thinks the kiddos would find out our dirty deeds and we'd be persona non grata. When we get up to thirty chickens I will be mailing you a dozen to start your own egg farm in Denver.
Gabe
Copyright © 2017 All rights reserved
882
R. Linda:
I thought things were backwards in Ireland, but nah, living in New England be a similar experience. In Ireland, you wait for things to be done. Oh for sure you can tell the electrician you need something done and six months later he'll show up like you called yesterday. And so it goes with everything else. Here, in the sticks of New Hampshire, the pace of life is laid-back and slower than say Boston. How do I know this? Well, having lived in Boston for a few years I got used to the faster pace, and the convenience of being able to order or buy what I needed instantly, and so I was a wee bit spoiled I was. Then I moved to New Hampshire where it all went pear-shaped. Yes, I could order fuel and be told it would be arriving in a few days, not the same day. Why not today? No, no can't do that the truck is filled with just enough for the day's deliveries, and to add one more, well then the driver would have to go back to the filling station and refill and best to wait. An electrician, same as Ireland only instead of six months wait, maybe three.
I think I told you the first time Jersey girl Tonya went to the Mall of New Hampshire she had got dressed to the nines like she did in New Jersey going to say the Willowbrook Mall or Livingston Mall. Yes, there she was hair done, nice outfit, jewellery, the whole nine yards and everyone at the mall? Old jeans and flannel shirts. Makeup? What's that? And jewellery? None of that. She couldn't wait to get out of there. And since then she's never done that again.
I think I told you weddings up here are rather different, to put it mildly. At our first wedding, I was in a suit, and Ton in a gown (the invite had said formal) and everyone else? The men wore khaki pants with blue shirts and the women, capri pants and tank tops. We were mistaken for being part of the wedding party too many times to count. Every wedding we have attended up here has been this way. And I refuse to get the man's wedding uniform of khaki pants and a long-sleeved blue shirt!
One last dress code. Tonya and I met the kiddo's teachers after enrolling them in school. We met Guido's teacher who stands out the most to us. There she was dressed in a sparkly Harley Davidson tee with cut-offs and open-toed sandals. Me wife said to me on the side, "If she was teaching in New Jersey she'd be fired for that mode of dress." That aside, I will say the woman's young charges love her and she is one of the most popular teachers. Guido has done well under her guidance so I can't complain, and I be not really, just saying how different it is up here.
I should have known something was up when I first moved in and the Realtor leaned over to me at the closing and said, "At least you are on the town line, the town next to you has Internet, so you should be able to tap into that." That took a good few minutes to sink in. "What do you mean tap in? Don't we have Internet in this town?" The answer was NO. No cable, no Internet. Notta. That we have flush toilets instead of outhouses, I guess we can count ourselves lucky.
The story goes the horsey people of our little village refused FREE cable because they didn't want it messing up life as they knew it. REALLY? I only found this out a few months AFTER I moved in. I've been here almost four years and I found out only three weeks ago, if you want to know, what is going on with this village, you have to sign onto Facebook and hope your satellite connection keeps you on long enough to get to the site and then stay on the site long enough for one to peruse the news.
No buried cable, but satellite dishes. Yup, I ask you which is more unsightly? So much for preserving the integrity of the village. One bad rain, snow or wind and ice storm and there is no telly, no so-called Internet, there is nothing but one can go to the local library for a book! But that is an experience in itself.
I got tired of cloudy or foggy nights interrupting me telly service so the next day I went to our local one-room library to get a card so I could take books out. I get down there and right away I walk into a bake sale in the small hallway. Right next to the door is a basket full of money. I was thinking if this was Boston, that basket would have been out the door and long gone. I felt like I should stand there and guard the money so that didn't happen. I got the attention of the lady arranging goodies on a small table and said as much and was told it was just fine where it was. I felt like I needed to buy something so I selected a cookie, but then found I needed change. The nice lady told me to make my change from the basket. I was flabbergasted and really didn't want to do that. So I dropped a fiver in and left it without change. I know I could have had a free cookie and a few twenty-dollar bills but that's not me. So putting the cookie in my pocket I went inside to the library desk. Right away, the bake table lady comes in behind the desk. I thought double duty, desk and bake sale. Ok.
She asked what she could help me with and I told her I wanted to get a library card. She asked to see my license so she could take my info off that. So I am standing there watching her when it dawns on me, she is using a TYPEWRITER to type my info on a piece of paper. Carbon paper and all. I looked around and there was no computer. Well, why would there be? Duh, no Internet! So I asked her how she knew what books were outstanding and she pointed to a long wooden file box and said everything was there. That's all the outstanding books. I asked her how she looked overdue books up, and she said she had to go through the NUMBERS one by one in the file box. OMG. The numbers are all the Dewey Decimal System. I didn't know anyone used the DD System anymore so I was really taken aback at that. But like I say, no computers so figures.
Once outside and hoping I was in the real world again, I noticed a small sign over a hut. It said Police. There was a jeep parked there so I decided to drop in to meet our local constabulary. Well, that too was an eye-opener. There is one man, he is the police chief and he is the only policeman. He has no police car, a little village like ours doesn't need one he said. He told me if I needed any assistance day or night I was to call 911 and the folks two towns over would respond. He'd get to me once they PAGED him. I was like OK.
I am finding that America isn't all it's hyped up to be. Oh sure, there's a lot of stuff and opportunities, but not all of it is like that. Where I live the tourists think they are back in time and find it all quaint. Quaint to them is inconvenient to me. Did I tell you we are somehow being absorbed into the backwoods lifestyle? Yup, we got some chickens. Not for eating for eggs only. We didn't intend to raise chickens, but the woman next door thought we should have some. I think I told you about THAT. Anyway, we have what they call free rangers who are all over the place. I keep thinking some wild animal will spirit them off and we have lost one. But they seem to know how to hide their eggs and then we have more chickens. We started off with nine and are up to seventeen dirty birds. I whisper in me Mam's ear we should have a few for dinner but she thinks the kiddos would find out our dirty deeds and we'd be persona non grata. When we get up to thirty chickens I will be mailing you a dozen to start your own egg farm in Denver.
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| A few of our chickens -- BUCKAHHHK!!! |
Copyright © 2017 All rights reserved
