Lately I've been preoccupied with this whole rest-of-the-world business. One of the more lamentable side effects of being a senior here is that soon I'll have to graduate and either find a job or a rich wife who's willing to support me. One of the less lamentable side effects, however, is that I won't have to live in the Upper Valley anymore. I'm thinking of heading for Southern California -- you know, trade in the snow sculpture for a sand sculpture and Sunja's sushi for some seafood so fresh it can remember the last time it was in the sea.
I could live anywhere, just so long as I can find a job there. Even with the economy in the crapper, I should be able to do that. I'll just clutch my Dartmouth diploma and click my heels together three times. That should pretty much do it right? But honestly, where would I want to go? Los Angeles? Too many beautiful people -- I'd never get laid. Dallas? Too many fat people -- I'd never fit. Baltimore? Too many drug dealers -- don't you watch The Wire? Butte? Where? Seattle? Not bad -- Hendrix, good music scene.
All this mental traveling has got me thinking: I've got opinions about all the places in this country I might want to go, but what about all the people out there thinking Hanover might be a pleasant place to live? I mean, I've lived here for three and a half years, so I know it sucks. But if you're over there in Sandusky, Ohio, stuck behind some mama at Cedar Point with her caboose wedged in a turnstile, you might be thinking: "Hairy liberals, hills they call mountains! The great bloody outdoors! That's just what I need to get me and Geeny's sex life back on track -- a good old-fashioned walk in the woods."
And you might just think to yourself, "Isn't there a little town in the woods up there that happens to have a college in it that just happens to have lost their president recently -- hey, there's a job I could do. I love kids." And you might just read the New York Times' description (Feb. 8) of that town that makes it sound just like a little slice of yuppie heaven: "Indoors, bistros throb with live Latin jazz, stylish women browse in designer T-shirt shops, and markets teem with enough cuts of sablefish, flounder and char to rival any big-city grocery." Sablefish and stylish women! My lord! Could they be speaking of this very hamlet? I can hardly bear to think of all the times I've had General Tso's chicken while Sablefish is just rotting in the refrigerator. Or the times I watched the Hills with Jon Grecu '08 when real, live stylish women were just frolicking about right in my own backyard. It's criminal!
Could it be that I'm wrong about how undesirable a place this is? Even White River Junction gets a spit-shine from the Times. Yes, Junkie Junction -- home to the execrable enterprise that is Vermont Transit and its malignant offspring, the China Moon Buffet: "In White River Junction, Vt., a rehabbing former railroad hub, the Northern Stage theater is now presenting "The Price" by Arthur Miller. For sustenance, the theater crowd often heads to the Tip Top Cafe -- in the old Tip Top Bread bakery -- a soup, salad and sandwich kind of place where you can also get entrees like orange-infused honey-glazed salmon ($14.95)."
Leaving the unintentional "rehabbing" double entendre alone for a minute...what theatre crowd? The last time I heard of anything happening at the theatre in White River Junction was the filming of The Best of Backyard Wrestling.
The only bad things the article has to say about Hanover are limited to a paragraph with the subtitle "cons": "Parking in downtown Hanover is at best a nuisance and at worst grueling....Darkness falls early at the height of winter, and when mud season arrives -- March to May -- high boots are a must."
Parking in Hanover is not a nuisance; it's just asinine. It's like golf: expensive and a surefire way to ruin a nice walk. Darkness doesn't fall early at the height of winter; it crushes your soul. So buyer beware.
You just might want to think twice before snapping up that mansion with the new For Sale sign on Webster Ave. I hear the neighbors are a drag.
