Lessons from New Hampshire..??

Pres. Obama brought the DC area's snow confusion problem to the Nation. Now every state and their mother has decided to try and give us some advice...All this was going through my head this morning as I was taking my kids to the bus stop, 2 hours late. The rain froze on top of the snow, making a gigantic ice rink out of our yard and driveway. the tenth of a mile walk up the driveway consisted of me chipping away areas to walk in and pulling greg along...Alex, Melissa and David chose to "ice skate" their way to the bus stop...once we got there David could not manage to stand up! I kept falling down trying to get him over the last little incline...the bus arrived and I still couldn't pull him up from the icy ground! The bus driver was very patient and laughing hysterically at me which made me laugh which made it even harder to get David up!! Eventually, I was successful and all the kids got on the bus safely and I skated back down the driveway on the ice (only fell twice)


I thought about when I was a kid and we managed in New Hampshire where the conditions were much worse than here in Maryland. New Hampshire's 4 seasons are: Cold, Warm, Colder and Snow. New Hampshirites would have to hibernate for a season if they shut down everytime conditions were icy or snowy, .. I never remember school being canceled...In New Hampshire, there was quite a bit of personal responsibilty in dealing with the weather...you had to have shoes with traction, eskimo coats with knitted mittens and scarves, you had to have chains for your tires and you had to have your family friend, Homer, come over and plow you out, and if your car got stuck somewhere you would treck to the nearest house and call your other friend Louie, and he would load up his tire chained El Camino with some shovels and his five, already in eskimo coat daughters, Lippy, Lumpy, Bone, Dink and Peckerface, and would come shovel you out. Schools didn't close, you had to go to work, and even if the roads and sidewalks were bad, it was up to you to figure it out. Generations had dealt with snow and everyone knew what they needed in order to deal with the weather...I remember oohhing and awwwwing over Moonboots and Duc boots because of how much easier my 1 mile walk to school would have been, compared to my rubber galoshes that were not only boys, but 3 sizes to big and looked terrible with my mismatched clothes and my matted, uncombed hair. Point is, maybe the DC area could learn a little bit about the weather and how to deal with it from places like New Hampshire, or as President Obama suggested, Chicago. ...I am not a fan of school closures..the days are added at the end of the year, and it's not like you can do much with the days off when they happen..they are unplanned and it throws all kinds of schedules into upheavel. The point of my ramblings is this , that despite the fact that New Hampshirites allowed for the infamous "man in the Mountain" debacle to happen(see footnote), I think my adopted home of Maryland (where my heart will always be no matter where I end up) could learn some pointers on how to deal with snow from New Hampshire folks like Louie and his 5 darling daughters.





I have never stopped wanting moonboots..I am so happy they are back in style!

I was delighted to put galoshes like these on everyday! They were the perfect accessory to every single outfit I pulled off the floor

*Footnote* New Hampshire's natural rock formation on Cannon Mountain (part of the White Mountains Chain) became known as "the old Man in the Mountain", this unique feature drew thousands of tourists each year and became a great source of pride for New Hampshire. I am not sure if it was expert opinion on the longevity of this formation, or the overall pride of it that led officials years ago to make this the state's Logo. Everything from stamps, to Highway signs, to the quarter have the man in the mountain's image on it...in 2003 the man in the mountain slid down the mountain and is a now pile of rubble, For those of you from Utah, it would be like the "Beehive" getting stepped on or something.. ...The overall reaction of the state was sort of "Huh, that sucks", not a huge rush to change logos, and they actually added a monument to the old tourist site and added new binoculars that allow you to see where it USED to be..so they made an attraction out of the fact that it fell, and just went on with life..I guess it amuses me because the people of New Hampshire amuse me. They are down to earth people with little pretentions and never seem to worry what the rest of the nation thinks of them. (They have to be the only people on the planet that take pride in their political unpredictability) I can see a little bit of myself in them despite all the years of trying to distance myself from the state. My roots are deep there, generations and generations of my family have been there, and still are. I spent the first 8 years of my life there and a few short stints as a teenager living there, It is where I am from and gets a piece of my heart and as I get older, I am learning to love the "New Hampshire" in me...that being said, you will never see me living there!

The state Quarter, the stamp and the state highway sign... just a few examples of how much the "Old Man in the Mountain" was used

Before the "fall"



After the "Fall"


A photo overlay depicting the part that fell...