Charm

This time last week, I was stuck at the Baltimore airport waiting to – hopefully – get a flight to snowy New Hampshire. I think the nearly six hour delay put some in a foul mood. They worried about driving home in the hard snow, work the next day, or scowled upon being stuck in an airport. Personally, I didn’t care. After fifteen months, I was going home. And I would see snow!

I could go on for hours about my visit to New Hampshire. I could show you the two or three hundred odd pictures I took (aren’t digital cameras wonderful?). I could wax eloquent on the wonders of New England that no other part of this country has. But I won’t bore you to death. In a nutshell, once back it felt like the last fifteen months of my life had never been lived. I think that means I have officially found home on earth – even if I don’t live there.

So what makes New Hampshire (or New England in general) so wonderful? Well, you’d have to live there many years to figure it out for the first time I moved back, I hated it. The people do talk funny (my name is not “Melissar”). They’re not very nice on the surface. And unless you enjoy the cold and snow like I do, you’ll find the winters long and depressing. But live there a while and it just might become home. Why? Because New England has charm.

Oh, I know other places have charm – even Texas. Granted, the downtown squares of Texas or the River Walk in San Antonio have charming features. I hear the western part is nice, and the eastern part does have trees. But it doesn’t have forests so thick you can’t see the house for the trees. And the neighborhoods are full of cookie cutter houses on postage stamp lawns. They do little to inspire the local joggers (like me). But, of course, Texans love it.

Of course most Texans also have no clue where “New England” is, let alone been there. If you say Boston, they have a general idea. Otherwise, most of them think you’re from outer space. They don’t understand forests, or mountains with granite tops, or beautiful old Colonial homes surrounded by acres of land. They have their tiny towns that you’ll miss if you blink, but they don’t usually include an old white church with a towering steeple nestled in the hills. And they certainly don’t include a blanket of fresh snow in the winter.

But I am as biased as a Texan, for New England is home – not just because I’ve lived most of my life in four of its six states but because I was born there. And I can be as proud of my little birthplace of Newport, Rhode Island as any Texan is of their grand state with the lone star. For while everything in Texas is supposedly bigger and better, I’d like to see them produce a charming summer cottage like this one:

The Breakers

Newport, RI

Nor will you see a lovely winter scene like this one in Texas:

Wilton, NH

But, then, in New Hampshire you won’t see daffodils blossoming in late February. And if you like spring in February, that’s grand. Personally, I would like to see about twelve more inches of snow.