Influx of Free Staters better than influx of Bay Staters

The Union Leader, Manchester, NH ^ | October 6, 2003 | Russ Hoyt

[RJCogburn]

I AM NEITHER a Socialist or a Democrat, so I welcome the Free Staters — the libertarian-leaning people who want to move here — to New Hampshire.

I agree with political pollster Dick Bennett as he is quoted in the Oct. 2 edition of The Union Leader, that they will not all get their own way. However, I must disagree with his opinion that people moving up here from Massachusetts haven't changed things. I feel like I'm living in a suburb of Boston.

I was born in Exeter in 1940 and still live there. Before I was old enough to drive, I often rode my bicycle through downtown Exeter on the way to a place called Fort Rock to go target shooting. I would carry my .22 semi automatic "assault rifle" slung over my shoulder and stop at Young's Hardware store on Water Street to get ammo for the terrorism I was about to inflict upon the soup can covers I had in my back pocket.

It didn't seem to bother anyone that a young lad would walk into the store carrying a rifle (I certainly wouldn't leave it unattended with my bike, outside the store) or go through town carrying it on his back.

A few years ago, before the New Hampshire State Police went digital, I heard a call on the scanner for a "man with a gun" on Lincoln Street. I soon heard replies from every cop within five to ten miles offering assistance to the Exeter police, including a state police unit in Portsmouth and one in Epping. What they found was a guy coming from the American Legion ball field, carrying a baseball bat.

If the guy had been carrying a rifle, it wouldn't have been against the law, unless he happened to be a felon. Tell me Massachusetts has not influenced us.

Now, hardly a year goes by that some local legislator doesn't have a bill in Concord to try to keep me from even having that same rifle in my home. Tell me Massachusetts has not influenced us.

I bought a 12-room colonial house in Exeter more than 30 years ago in which to raise my family. It had two three-room apartments to rent and a six-room apartment for me.

Many of these houses in Exeter have been converted into four three-room apartments. The zoning laws said that I could have four apartments in the house or three apartments and a home business. Since I had a TV repair business I operated from home and needed the extra bedrooms anyway, it was perfect. My plan was to eventually retire, closing the shop and converting the unused bedrooms into a fourth apartment for the added income I would need to retire.

I finally reached my goal last year. Well, not quite. I went to the town offices to beg for the permission to add the fourth apartment so I could retire. I was told the zoning changed a year earlier so I can't do it now. They just stole my retirement from me. I know it was the flatlanders from Massachusetts because the New Hampshire natives I grew up with felt you shouldn't even need the town's permission to do what you wanted with your own property.

Of course I can sell my house and move north, but that would mean they won and I won't be able to die in my home town.

Tell me Massachusetts has not influenced us.

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[austingirl]

I spent a miserable three years in Acton, Mass before returning to my beloved Texas three years ago. I can really understand the feelings of the writer of this article about how the liberalism of Mass has affected NH. The Free Staters will have a challenge in some areas of NH.

[metesky]

I graduated (barely) from Haverhill, MA high school in 1962. In those days the kids from Plaistow, Atkinson and Kingston, NH were all bussed to Haverhill High, even though the migration north had already started.

Today the southern tier of NH, from the MA border to Manchester and east to the Atlantic is about 75/90% Massholes and flatlanders.

I have a pal that drives a concrete mixer out of Portsmith and he tells me it's non-stop, 70-80 hours a week, mostly flatlanders and Massholes building massive monuments to their egos and calling them houses.

[longshadow]

great op-ed bttt.

[ovrtaxt]

Yep, I spent a winter in Worcester, MA about 12 years ago. Absolutely miserable, except for the fall foliage. Being from the south, I was morbidly fascinated by the 'redneck' mentality of the lower classes of the north! And the stupid, gullible denial of the upper classes.