In Lieu of Cash, Please Send Granola

I have lived in the Upper Valley for over a year now. I am now qualified to pass judgement.

And my first judgement? Granola. I don't want your stinkin' granola. Who wants your granola? I don't know anyone who wants your granola. And, yet, everyone here makes it. Do they eat it? Feed it to their birds? Wash their childrens mouths out with it if they say naughty things? For something that generally costs a few bucks from the grocery store and tastes like different flavors of "myeh" I never could fathom why people bought it, and now I live in a land where people make it.

Making things is a way of life in Vermont and New Hampshire. In that sense it is this certain sense of true self-reliance and "Yankee ingenuity" which makes folks up here remarkable and unique. Unfortunately where as back in the day people made wooden trunks and wagon trains, now they make bad art and apple sauce.

Which brings me to my second judgement: apple sauce. The second largest state export behind granola? Apple sauce. I am fairly certain in the rest of the United States apple sauce does not remains a food product passed the age of three, but here everyone takes pride in their sauce. I'm sure there's even an apple saucing subculture if I were to look hard enough. Complete with their own lingo and apple sauced-based inside jokes. Initially I was inclined to believe the popularity of apple sauce stemmed in as much part from Vermonter's refusal to admit they just grow too darn many apples, but the longer I stay here the more I am convinced they may just realy love apples.

And lastly, syrup. I know grocery store syrup is essentially a flavored corn product, but it sure takes like syrup to me (in the sense that syrup to me tastes like a flavored corn product.) It's thick, it's amber, it's smell syrupy, it's essentially syrup in ever way aside from the fact that it's not. Most importantly, though, corn syrup syrup costs half the price of real deal, genuine maple syrup. Nevertheless, despite this, genuine maple syrup is the way people prove their Yankee roots in New Hampshire. Nothing will go further for your Upper Valley street cred than showing off a pantry full of maple syrup in every grade. Yes, there are apparently multiple grades of syrup? Why? Because the last thing you want to be seen doing is eating riff raff syrup.

Your GPS Cannot Save You Now

Scene: Small country store and gas station in Eastern Vermont at 7 o'clock in the evening. My friends and I have been looking for a local ski area where presentations and pie would be dispensed on the subject of community ski areas in the northeast. Going off of instructions that basically stated drive to a fork in the road, bend right, and go 9.5 miles we, not surprisingly, are now lost. I pull open the dusty, metal front door immediately across from the only two rusty gasoline pumps to find no one behind the counter but four men idly resting adjacent to it doing nothing in particular.

Me: Y'all know where the Northeast Slopes is at?

Young guy in cap: Northeast Slopes?

Old man standing: Northeast Slopes in Cooksville.

Old man sitting: *Gibberish.*

Me: Cooksville?

Old man standing: Yeah, you know where Cooksville's at?

Old man sitting: *More gibberish.*

Young guy in cap: Yeah you go right down the highway....

Me: Right? That way or that way? *Pointing to my right and left.*

Young guy in cap: Right that away. *Point to his right and my left.* You go about... oh three miles...

Old man standing: 3.4 miles.

Young guy in cap: 3.4 miles till you get to the first road running off to the left.

Middle aged guy in overalls: Ain't it the second left?

Old man standing: Well the first left's right out of town and it's not really a left, more of a switchback in the other direction....

Young guy in cap: Well it's your first real left just past Marty's Auto Repair shop so look for that. Called Brook road.

Old man standing: Right.

Young guy in cap: You turn left past Marty's and you'll start going up hill for three or four miles. The road will twist and turn a lot and there'll be a lot of little roads going off to the right, but the right you want is about four miles down and it crosses a bridge. You cross that bridge.

Me: Okay. Left after Marty's. Go uphill about three or four miles. Take the right across the bridge.

Young guy in cap: Yep. Then you'll drive about another mile past a dairy and a farm and you'll reach Cooksville. Go the town hall in Cooksville and it's right across the road. That's where the Northeast Slopes meetin's at.

Me: *I reiterate the instructions, thank them, and turn to leave.*

Young guy in cap: *reiterates the exact same instructions and agrees.*

Old man standing: *chuckling* Good luck!

All: *laugh as if its the funniest thing they've ever heard.*

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, their instructions were entirely correct. Marty's garage, the bridge on the right, the dairy about a mile down the road; all were where they should be. We arrived just in time to hear about the lost ski areas of Vermont and just in time for coffee and pie. This was followed of course by a pie auction where the big winner sold for $18.50 and the biggest loser for $8.00. Just another crazy Friday night in New Hampshire.

Uhoh!

Two weeks ago my parents came for a visit. Just a few days ago they left. I'm still finding random objects left behind. Whether to call them gifts or not varies depending on the object. Today's gift: two umbrellas in my closet! Awesome, I've been needing an umbrella for oh... about four months now? The black and white checkered dress shirt distinctly suggestive of a picnic table cloth on the other hand I thought I had disposed of before they left.

Their visit though somewhat lengthy by the standard of most visits to small town, middle of nowhere, went surprisingly well. There was the requisite major family argument about whether or not the October Nor'easter was going to end life as we knew it on the Eastern seaboard or not, but that aside it was a remarkably pleasant two weeks. Much of it was spent watching a great if not eventually disappointing World Series or making trips back and forth from Price Chopper with various things to stick in my fridge. Such as a six pack of Romaine lettuce heads which I will hold onto until the gigantic-salad-composed-of-nothing-but-lettuce craving kicks in. And when it does I will have two different flavors of salad dressing to chose from. Or A1 steak sauce. Or Worcestershire sauce.Or an industrial sized bottle of ketchup.

The rest of the trip was divided amongst road trips to Woodstock, VT; Burlington, VT; and Seacoast, NH. The only one of these worthy of note was the last as it was both scenic and complete with a trip to Markey's Lobster Pound where my parents reminisced about their prior visit some twenty years before by eating the largest lobsters they could find. My dad even somehow managed to come away with some vintage postcards from the time of their visit and a coastal New England restaurant guide all complements of Mr Markey who they chatted up as they are want to do. Woodstock and Burlington on the other hand, are worthy places to visit only if you have no other places worthy to visit.

Other highlights of the trip include my mom cleaning my apartment to a level of cleanliness it will likely never see again; my dad bumping, kicking, and karate chopping my coffee table sufficiently till one of the wooden rails broke off; and an early Christmas present consisting of a huge, new, flat screen television complete with swanky new stand which I am still not entirely sure what to make of. I think overall they had a pretty good time; I know for the most part I did. And I hope to eventually one day stop finding new bath towels in my cupboards, closets, and washing machine. Until then I gotta find a way to dispose of a dozen bagels and a half dozen apples before they go bad. Someone may be getting a pretty unique gift basket in the next few days here.