Other reasons for living in New England: 1) Since you are stuck during mud season, you may as well stick it out where you are. 2) Rocky soil adds flavor to home-grown vegetables 3) Tomatoes that you have to start under glass or plastic before setting them out in the garden have that special flavor. 4) Ice cream. Biggest consumers of ice cream in the country get the best choices. 5) Much easier to imitate a Bert n’ I accent, as it is but an exaggeration of the regional inflections. 6) Fried clams. 7) Grinders – at least the parts of NE that have them. 8) Pizza places that aren’t franchises. 9) The “joy” of repairing 100-200-300-400 [getting close] year old houses. 10) The angst of seeing what century-old “upgrades” did to some of those old houses. 11) Stone walls 12) Refutation of the “Anglos are all alike” meme from SW US.
Gringo: Why do we New Englanders love ice cream so much? Is it because it reminds us of winter? I've always puzzled over this. Just returned from a few days in Bar Harbor, Maine where one merchart serves up lobster ice cream. Didn't try it myself though - stuck with the Indian Pudding flavor, don't cha know.
Gringo: Why do we New Englanders love ice cream so much? Is it because it reminds us of winter?
That could well be. I was born and raised in NE, now live in TX. There is something about winter. My most vivid memories of the NE landscape are of winter. I recently read an autobiographical work written by a peer from my hometown, which also focused on winter landscapes, not on scenes from a more pleasant season. Is it that the difficulties of winter just focus attention? So, the winter-ice cream connection may be there. Maybe it is that ice cream provides a pleasant taste sensation to cold, thus helping us survive a cold time. IIRC, NE ice cream consumption does not appreciably decline in winter.
Perhaps another reason is that NE agriculture , in order to survive, has focused on value-added items, which would include ice cream.
There are also more small producers of ice cream in NE than in other places, as opposed to big corporate producers, which leads to more varieties. Most of the ice cream I ate growing up was locally produced. That reminds me of the pizza situation.
I wonder to what degree Howard Johnson's 31 (?) flavors of ice cream had in fostering ice cream entrepreneurial endeavors in NE. HoJo began in NE.
I'll have to try lobster ice cream if I ever run across it. I wager it would be about as bad as jalapeño or cookie ice cream.
1) You inherit property there and can't sell it in a down market... 2) ALl your neighbors there are equally standoffish, and you can say hello and chat for a couple of minutes every year or two to maintain neighborly ties, (you would actually stay up all night helping out in a crisis, and rally to a town meeting to fight some developer together, but you are solitary as they are) 3) You like having 4 distinct seasons 4) It's good having at least a six month reprieve from the BUGS 6) Winter is so harsh it gives you an excuse to stay indoors and read and keep stoking the wood stove and sleep 10 hours a night. 7) You may actually get snowed in, and have a power cut, and ESCAPE the outside world for a day or two. 8) Cellphone service is spotty in many places so you can avoid answering calls 9) No one thinks you odd for having a door mat that says "Go Away"
Is a theme emerging... (I'm just suffering from too much family bonding this week...)
The theme is true. My next-door neighbor died over Memorial Day. We just found out about it two weeks ago. I had had pleasant conversations with him the past three years, and along about August we noticed that there wasn't a lot of activity over there. But we just assumed he wanted to be left alone, like everyone else.
Retriever: All your neighbors there are equally standoffish, and you can say hello and chat for a couple of minutes every year or two to maintain neighborly ties, (you would actually stay up all night helping out in a crisis, and rally to a town meeting to fight some developer together, but you are solitary as they are)
As Robert Frost said, good fences make good neighbors. As an indication of good neighbors: my family was in a horrendous auto accident when I was a young child. A drunk plowed into our car. My parents were laid up in the hospital for over a month. My father had been painting our house when the accident occurred. When my parents got out of the hospital, they found out that neighbors had finished painting the house. My parents had bought our house three years before, so this was a kindness extended to veritable strangers, by New England standards.
Other reasons for living in New England:
ReplyDelete1) Since you are stuck during mud season, you may as well stick it out where you are.
2) Rocky soil adds flavor to home-grown vegetables
3) Tomatoes that you have to start under glass or plastic before setting them out in the garden have that special flavor.
4) Ice cream. Biggest consumers of ice cream in the country get the best choices.
5) Much easier to imitate a Bert n’ I accent, as it is but an exaggeration of the regional inflections.
6) Fried clams.
7) Grinders – at least the parts of NE that have them.
8) Pizza places that aren’t franchises.
9) The “joy” of repairing 100-200-300-400 [getting close] year old houses.
10) The angst of seeing what century-old “upgrades” did to some of those old houses.
11) Stone walls
12) Refutation of the “Anglos are all alike” meme from SW US.
blah, those were depressing reasons for living here.
ReplyDeleteGringo: Why do we New Englanders love ice cream so much? Is it because it reminds us of winter? I've always puzzled over this. Just returned from a few days in Bar Harbor, Maine where one merchart serves up lobster ice cream. Didn't try it myself though - stuck with the Indian Pudding flavor, don't cha know.
ReplyDeleteGringo: Why do we New Englanders love ice cream so much? Is it because it reminds us of winter?
ReplyDeleteThat could well be. I was born and raised in NE, now live in TX. There is something about winter. My most vivid memories of the NE landscape are of winter. I recently read an autobiographical work written by a peer from my hometown, which also focused on winter landscapes, not on scenes from a more pleasant season. Is it that the difficulties of winter just focus attention? So, the winter-ice cream connection may be there. Maybe it is that ice cream provides a pleasant taste sensation to cold, thus helping us survive a cold time. IIRC, NE ice cream consumption does not appreciably decline in winter.
Perhaps another reason is that NE agriculture , in order to survive, has focused on value-added items, which would include ice cream.
There are also more small producers of ice cream in NE than in other places, as opposed to big corporate producers, which leads to more varieties. Most of the ice cream I ate growing up was locally produced. That reminds me of the pizza situation.
I wonder to what degree Howard Johnson's 31 (?) flavors of ice cream had in fostering ice cream entrepreneurial endeavors in NE. HoJo began in NE.
I'll have to try lobster ice cream if I ever run across it. I wager it would be about as bad as jalapeño or cookie ice cream.
It may also stem from our agriculture having a heavy dairy weighting
ReplyDeleteWhy live in New ENgland:
ReplyDelete1) You inherit property there and can't sell it in a down market...
2) ALl your neighbors there are equally standoffish, and you can say hello and chat for a couple of minutes every year or two to maintain neighborly ties, (you would actually stay up all night helping out in a crisis, and rally to a town meeting to fight some developer together, but you are solitary as they are)
3) You like having 4 distinct seasons
4) It's good having at least a six month reprieve from the BUGS
6) Winter is so harsh it gives you an excuse to stay indoors and read and keep stoking the wood stove and sleep 10 hours a night.
7) You may actually get snowed in, and have a power cut, and ESCAPE the outside world for a day or two.
8) Cellphone service is spotty in many places so you can avoid answering calls
9) No one thinks you odd for having a door mat that says "Go Away"
Is a theme emerging... (I'm just suffering from too much family bonding this week...)
The theme is true. My next-door neighbor died over Memorial Day. We just found out about it two weeks ago. I had had pleasant conversations with him the past three years, and along about August we noticed that there wasn't a lot of activity over there. But we just assumed he wanted to be left alone, like everyone else.
ReplyDeleteRetriever:
ReplyDeleteAll your neighbors there are equally standoffish, and you can say hello and chat for a couple of minutes every year or two to maintain neighborly ties, (you would actually stay up all night helping out in a crisis, and rally to a town meeting to fight some developer together, but you are solitary as they are)
As Robert Frost said, good fences make good neighbors. As an indication of good neighbors: my family was in a horrendous auto accident when I was a young child. A drunk plowed into our car. My parents were laid up in the hospital for over a month. My father had been painting our house when the accident occurred. When my parents got out of the hospital, they found out that neighbors had finished painting the house. My parents had bought our house three years before, so this was a kindness extended to veritable strangers, by New England standards.