Welcome to New Hampshire. Now Go Home.

I've always felt ambivalent about the hoards of tourists that flood into our small state every year.  Unfortunately for me it is a huge part of our industry.  All of a sudden, around Memorial Day, people from Florida start showing up in droves to populate their summer homes.  They start walking down my road at ungodly hours, getting a bit of Fresh Air, while I am groggily rolling out of bed to Go To Work.  They interrupt me to ask for exceedingly simple directions.  They ask amusing questions like: "These little black flies swarming around my face...they don't bite, right?"

I used to drive through the Notch and slow down at the Old Man Viewing area just to watch the people who would get out of their cars and stare at the jagged outcropping of rock.  Now that the Old Man has finally fallen down, despite the cement and wire which had been holding him up for far longer than he should have been, we all have to find other amusement factors, and also a new State Mascot. 

I live in New Hampshire because I grew up here.  It's a beautiful place, one of the last remaining truly New England states.  We're still heavily forested (most of which is really overgrown pasture...but I digress) and we're still mostly rural, but we're also one of the most rapidly growing states in the Northeast.  Those people aren't coming from Maine, or Vermont.  They're coming from Connecticut and New Jersey.  These citified folk come in and they settle down and they put their children through our idyllic schools and they insist on getting the roads paved and having sidewalks put in because that's the way it is back home.  They change the very character of our small state.  Forget illegal immigrants coming over the border.  Let's throw up a fence between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  Let's keep the foreign influence out.

Dang, I forgot about that tourist industry.  Never mind.  Come on in!  We're open for business!  Bring money!!

tags: totally random  new hampshire