I just can’t help it, but when I like something I can’t quit talking about it. It’s like those mini Sarah Lee frozen cheesecakes; if something makes you feel better, why not share it. At this particular time of the year, when most people curse the 110-degree heat index, I fall in love with the South all over again. This might have something to do with the fact that I get to go up to Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire for a month, so it's kind of like cheating. But I just can’t help it. I get homesick before the wheels of my Yukon hit Highway 17.
Now granted, it’s beautiful up there, no doubt about it. I mean absolutely beautiful. It’s just that you really, really have to like being outdoors all day because that’s all there is to do. My husband’s immediate enthusiasm is not so much because he actually can see the bass in the water before he catches them, but more for the fact that “shopping” means hitting the Moultonborough Old General Store for penny candy and a 10-cent dill pickle out of an old wooden barrel. And if you’re really in that shopping mood, there is a whole line of John Deere coffee mugs, lunch boxes, and t-shirts. So the bottom line or bottom dollar, so to speak, is that he can save some money by having me sequestered up north for a month, more isolated than a member of the OJ Simpson jury. Only you won’t find me in a fancy hotel with up-to-date movie rentals and room service, but in a fifty year-old “cabin” with carpenter ants as big as my foot.
Here are two examples of a typical summer Saturday outing:
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Up there:
Gas for the Yukon: $79
Pass to Mount Washington: $2
Phenergan needed for winding roads: Not included
Xanax needed to subside sheer panic seeing as a skinny piece of twisted metal is all that is between you and 6,000 feet: Not unless your doctor prescribed it.
LL Bean winter down jacket in July (because, with the wind chill factor, it can feel like 20 degrees below zero): You’re on your own.
Tether that they tie you to: Well, at least it’s included in the price.
Total: $81 and a severe case of wind burn.
Down here:
Babysitter: $30
Lunch with girlfriends at Coastal Kitchen: $40
One pair 7 For All Mankind jeans and Theory skirt: $545
Total: $615 and one angry husband.
So the way I see it, it’s why I married him. He is, after all, a pretty smart guy.
Now, I know y’all watch the Animal Planet and find the wild animals scurrying around in the woods endearing. You might even daydream about communing with them in their natural setting. Well, been there, done that. One of the selling points for going up every year was being able to sleep with the windows open, snuggled under one of those Indian blankets, breathing in the fresh mountain air. Sure, until two foxes decide, in the words of Marvin Gay, to “get it on” under your windowsill, making a sound eerily similar to a pack of dying dogs. Not to mention the fact that pets and small children are not allowed outside at night in fear of being, well, mauled by any number of animals like coyotes, mountain lions, and fisher cats. What’s a fisher cat, you ask? I didn’t know either until I dined under a stuffed one at Buckeye’s last year, its fangs bared above my head like it was ready to attack my entrée of moose meatloaf and fried dough.
Oh, and I haven’t gotten to the bears, yet. There is nothing more annoying than hoofing it up to the trash shed, only to find out one of them has ripped into all the trash bags while you slept, making last night’s dinner of spaghetti and meatballs look like a three foot pile of road kill.
Once you have figured out that anything outside must be bungeed down tighter than my husband’s wallet on a shopping spree at Saks, you have to learn the language. I have traveled through several different countries and managed to get around just fine, but up there . . . I don’t think I would ever survive without my “translators,” i.e. family.
See, the letter “a” is replaced with the letters “er” and vice versa. As in, “Hey Laura, you want a margeriter?” or “Hey dub, what’s the matta?” Everything is “wicked,” which up until now I assumed was an adjective reserved just for witches, like “It’s wicked hot out here” or “Hey, that’s some wicked good chocolate.” It’s not only the accent that’s different. Up there, a bulkie what we call a bun, and what they call a bun is we know as a roll. A frappe is their version of a milkshake, and jimmies are what they call sprinkles. It kind of makes your head spin.
I do love New Hampshire, I really do. There is just something so simple and uncomplicated about the locals and how they live their lives. It’s infectious. See up there, it’s not about putting on airs; it’s all about the mountain air . . . which, I hate to admit, really does smell better.
But the one thing my yearly trip does remind me of is how much I love the South and all its complexities. Actually, these complexities, or paradoxes, if you will, are what make this place we live in so special -- this place where opposites are a way of life.
See, down here we eat slow and talk fast. We’ve “never met a stranger,” but we’re fiercely loyal to where we come from. We put pepper jelly on our cream cheese, shrimp in our grits, and Tabasco on our oysters. Our air smells both salty and sweet at the same time. Its scent stays sticky on your skin and lingers leisurely in your soul long after you first inhale it.
I guess it’s true, what they say. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. I just know that no matter where I go, East, West, North, or South, my heart will never wander far from here or from all the many reasons I will always call it home.
You can contact Laura, read her blog, and catch up on her past articles for CI at www.lauraleighpackard.com. She hopes to hear from you soon.
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