The real news in a story often hides in the subtext of what we read in the morning papers. Being an eager beaver schoolboy, I was on campus this past Monday in order to be the first one to check in and while waiting, I read the Valley News. The usual international crisis, Congressional blustering and falling stock market stories competed for my attention, but what I read was a front-page article about Hanover being "targeted" for a "tony" new housing development by Hartford, Vermont's Simpson Development Co.
The developer plans to build 20 homes along Greensboro Road and sell them for between 350,000 and 400,000 dollars. In order to "enhance" the value of these single family dwellings you won't be able to park a boat or work on your lawnmower in the driveway, hang your clothes out to dry or have more than two pets--I'm guessing that doesn't include fish.
On page three I learned that Simpson will probably be granted an exception to current zoning laws mandating one house per three acres. The company needs this exception because they plan to cluster the houses in trios around cul de sacs, leaving the remaining land as a commons for the new neighborhood. Ho hum, business life in Hanover. I turned the page.
The obits and weather filled the columns on page four, the obits being particularly appropriate companions for Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Cosmetic Surgery Center's advertisement for its BOTOX Clinic. BOTOX is the hip name given to Botulinum Toxin Type A. That's right, botulism, a killer bacteria normally found in inadequately preserved food. For those who don't keep up with cosmetic surgery techniques, BOTOX is used to rid oneself of those horribly disfiguring "fine lines of aging." Yikes! Aging! Here in River City?
The clinic is accepting appointments now. Get in line, because you can't just open a bad can of beans, chow down and have the same results. An injection of the toxin defeats the facial muscles attempt to pull the skin into those unsightly lines caused by frowning, concentrating, smiling, laughing and, gasp, aging. You must repeat the injections every four to six months.
The message here is that what the Upper Valley needs is more big dollar houses and unwrinkled faces peering from the windows of those houses. This community obviously doesn't need the guy who plows its snowy drives working on the plow in front of his house while his three dogs gambol around the flapping clothes hung over the aluminum skiff parked alongside his tool and toy stuffed garage. Those people who do the work that makes themselves dirty while making our lives clean can't be living across the street from us. Better they stay over the mountain in Enfield, or along the river in Lebanon and White River Junction.
So, what's the real news? A 1995 proposal to build decent, affordable multi-family housing was defeated by the zoning board that will soon offer an exception for the Simpson Company's development in the same parcel of land. A deadly toxin is used in the local hospital to block normal muscle activity so that a face won't show the signs of aging, draining resources from genuine medical problems. The real news is that community is only a buzzword here.
Hanover is not a community. There is no commonality of interests. Many of the people who make Hanover work are effectively excluded from living in its environs. People who have an interest in Hanover, and in whom Hanover should have an interest, are barred from its housing because they can't pay 400,000 dollars or are driven out because of exorbitant property taxes on their family homes. They cannot afford its clothes, food, or hardware. The strip mall squalor of West Lebanon is bemoaned by residents of Hanover, showing their ignorance of why those stores line that stretch of road. They are there so that the people who clean the houses, teach the children, plow the roads, police the streets and sell the groceries in Hanover can shop for their own food, clothing and household goods.
When Hanover and the surrounding area is finally surrendered to those who know how to be unwrinkled, buy and sell stocks, or tell a company how to market its newest widget, life will be good. It will be good until that expensive roof needs to be re-shingled, the road gets blocked by snow or when they simply can't stand their grubby kitchen one-minute longer. Then they'll look for someone to help them, but won't be able to find them. They'll have gone away and will be too busy working for a real community, providing those services and labors that keep a civilization working.
