At the risk of repeating what's already been said of the cultural wetwilly that is migrating to Hanover, N.H., allow me to add one more perspective -- that of the New Yorker. Being from New York makes the transition to the verdant Upper Valley Region a double whammy with cheese. After all, what is a major metropolis without its delicate blend of cultural sophistication, overcrowdedness, moral depravity (Madonna lives near Central Park) and crime? New England is not known for these things. Indeed, for the average New Yorker who hasn't traveled much beyond the limits of New Jersey, strange new worlds await. (Unless of course you have been to New Jersey, in which case your drive for further discovery is tragically diminished).
New Hampshire is a wonderful place for the thoughtful and considerate. Unfortunately, New Yorkers are neither. Imagine a place where people kill babies and throw them in garbage cans but refuse to do the same with Al Sharpton. Rudeness is paramount to any packed-in-like-sardines population. Tourists learn this lesson very quickly in the Big Apple. An Irish relative of mine (Ireland being as expansive and polite a place as you can find) used to walk up to people on the streets of Manhattan and ask directions. "Do you know where such-and-such is?" he'd inquire, "or should I just piss off now?" There's plenty of room in Hanover, so everyone is friendly. Ask a person for directions, and he'll offer you a ride. Cough, and he's bound to hand you a spare lung -- which, if you're from New York and have tried breathing there, is especially convenient.
Dostoevksy said you can judge a society based on the worst of its prisoners. I say you can do so based on the worst of its motorists. They don't run you over in Hanover, or at least they don't give themselves a chance to. In crossing a street you'll find that cars actually stop and allow the pedestrian the right of way. To me this is frightening. Just the other day, I was proceeding from the Green to the Hop (the naming of areas in New Hampshire suggests an outnumbering of people by rabbits, which is not entirely unimaginable) when I noticed a blue Volvo station wagon approaching.
Basic urban survival instinct dictates that I not continue walking, as the automobile will surely zoom by with reckless abandon, missing me by mere inches. But the car stopped. The driver waved me on genially, with a seasoned postcolonial smile. I stood there bemused and slightly spooked for a moment. Human decency is never this explicit, I thought. Where I'm from, evil is everywhere, so you needn't worry about something bad happening to you -- it will. Here, diabolism must lurk deep within denizen hearts. A car stops in the middle of the road to allow on-foot passage: I've read Stephen King novels that begin this way.
Some find may find it funny -- my reaction to the local wheels in motion, or, as it were, hamsters on treadmills. My roommate, for example, is from Vermont. Let's call him Gordie. His closest neighbor, he's told me, lives about a quarter of a mile away. In his spare time Gordie goes rock-climbing and hiking. His high school, all of 40 people, used to let out at 12 o'clock three times a week so that students could go skiing. (My high school had a similar program but it was so we could all meet with our parole officers). In addition, Gordie makes his own maple syrup back home. For him, Hanover is very cosmopolitan. "Six traffic lights!" And I'm sure he perplexes over my asking him nightly, "Did you remember to turn the alarm on?" He thinks I mean the clock, and more importantly, that it should go off at 5 a.m.
In determining the merits of moving to New Hampshire, I've tried taking comfort in the quality of education I will most assuredly receive here at Dartmouth. Anyway, isn't city life sooner or later eschewed for greener pastures? Taking up a rural residence may be considered a subconscious attempt to become closer to nature and, by extension, God. The average urban professional, working on a senior partnership and a third marriage, will find his way up to the country. Notwithstanding his everyday commute back to reality, there must lie a serene mysticism in living somewhere where bookstores have not mated with coffeehouses.
And I suppose that's true. Real American values, a strong sense of community and lovely scenery make up the granite of New Hampshire -- so goes the brochure. Maybe I'm going about this all wrong. Maybe there is a happy medium, a diversified field of some sort, to bridge the gap between the brusque metropolitan and the quaint northeasterly townsfolk. A place where you can have your cappuccino non-fat latte and drink it, too ... Oh, wait. They tried that already. It's called Boston. And that's an area home to a horror far worse than any cultural transition a New Yorker could experience: Kennedys.