Time for another love-letter to my home state. So if that bores you, feel free to skip it.
I’ve mentioned a time or two that a few years ago I moved back to the city of my birth, Lebanon, NH. We’re probably the smallest “city” in the nation; we have barely 12,000 people. It’s a long and slightly silly story.) And part of the reason I love it is that it seems that the community shares my sense of slightly surreal humor.
I think part of it might be we are a rather old community — we predate the nation itself. (Part of being part of the original 13 colonies.)
And occasionally, things that seem perfectly innocent can, easily a century after being set up, can become unintentionally humorous.
South Park Street is one of four streets that bound the town green, which are creatively named North, East, South, and West Park Streets. And on that green is the weekly (during the summer) farmer’s market. This slice of old New England…
…features a lot of traditional New Hampshire foods.
Also along the edges of the green is this charming fountain. You can’t really tell in this photo, but the waterspout is in the tip of the little girl’s umbrella. In other words, if she didn’t have the umbrella, she wouldn’t need the umbrella.
And just a few yards from the corner of South Park and Church Streets lies this business — which opens at 11:00 a.m. each day.
Now, I’m not certain if this Pregnancy Center actually performs abortions, or if that’s done half a mile down the road at the Planned Parenthood offices, but the irony of the neighboring businesses listed on this sign. (Of “UnDu” and “UnDun,”one’s a head shop, one’s a “body art” studio, and I suspect they share an owner. And “Dead River” is a fuel company.)
And when we close a road, we really close a road.
OK, I didn’t get that one centered right, but I couldn’t get the right distance back. At the left of the photo, behind the big truck, is a mound of dirt at least 30 feet high and 50 feet deep.
Ah, Lebanon, New Hampshire. You fit my perverse sense of humor so well.
