Conway, New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a pretty interesting state. In some ways, it's the forgotten child of the northeast. Massachusetts has Boston, Vermont has hippies and timeshares, Maine has Stephen King and lobster and the honor of being as far northeast as you can get. And New Hampshire? It doesn't really know what it is, which makes it kind of cool. Overlooked by tourists, it's kind of scrappy and mountainous and rustic and undefined.

But I'm getting to know only one part of it--the area around Conway. And cities where people live are always more amusing than the majesty of the landscape. Conway is a perfect example.

Let's take their newspaper, the Conway Daily Sun, which I have been reading all week. On Thursday one of the front page headlines was "Losing 'Rural' Status Could Be 'Census Consequence' for Conway." You see, if the census says that Conway now has more than 10,000 people, they would no longer be designated as "rural".

Really? Does "rural" just refer to population? Doesn't it also refer to local culture? Or maybe a state of mind?

If we look at some other headlines from the Conway Daily Sun, we'll probably want to keep calling it "rural".

Here's my favorite, from this past Wednesday:

"Bear-Crossing Signs Going Up on West Side Road".

And that was FRONT page news. And many more to choose from. These headlines are from the past 3 days ALONE:

"Library Book Sale in Full Swing"
(It's such a bummer when it's only in partial swing.)

"Race Fans Rejoice: More Bathrooms at N.H. Track"
(Rejoice. That's right, the fans are rejoicing.)

"Bartlett/Jackson Food Pantry Now Open on Saturdays"
(It's such a bitch when you can only go Mon-Fri.)

"In Golf, As in Life, Timing is Everything"
(An editorial, of course. Too boring to read.)

"Police Cite Wrong Record for Suspect in Pepper-Spray Assault". (Didn't 40 people die in Chicago in one weekend recently? And all the while, the Conway Police were dealing with the ominous pepper-spray assailant.)

"Soup's On in Conway Village: Annual Conway Village Festival and Soup-a-thon is Saturday."
(I talked to some of my other Wilderness First Responder classmates about this. I could sit at home and just eat my own can of soup, but it wouldn't be a soup-a-thon. So the question is, what is the minimal number of cans you would need for it to be classified as a soup-a-thon? We decided it would be twelve. Twelve.)

Ah yes, the rural life can be funny. It can make you feel pretty superior about yourself.

Then again, the other day, I was the one digging through a stack of recycled newspapers, looking for headlines I could make fun of for this blog. Which means I'm an asshole. New Hampshire may be rural and rustic, but I'm an asshole with a blog.

Maybe I should try rural and rustic some day.