When i moved to new hampshire from the Pacific Northwest last year, I mourned the loss of a certain regional ambience. In my house on Puget Sound, I would wake to the chiming of sailboat riggings and the splashing of 40-pound salmon. The long, wet, evergreen winters conjured a sort of waking-dream state in which one could easily envision characters of mythic proportions lurking in the local coffee shops: Lewis and Clark, Chief Seattle, Kurt Cobain. For me the image of Sasquatch was especially compelling. Three more winters on the
sound, I imagined, and I, too, would gain 40 pounds, sprout a thick pelt of espresso-colored hair, and stumble about in the old-growth forest, barefoot as a discalced friar.
I didn’t expect to find a comparable delirium in New Hampshire, as conservatives generally shun such things. Yet within weeks of my arrival I learned that some major juju lingered in the Granite State. I began to suspect as much when my new neighbor Greg announced that he had decided to follow the Wiccan path. That is, Greg, a former altar boy and recent import from Long Island, was taking up witchcraft. And it was Greg who told me about America’s Stonehenge.
