My Little Corner of the World

by Madeleine Kando

One of my favorite places to visit around Thanksgiving time is an obscure little town called Colebrook in New Hampshire. It is buried in the northern most corner of the state, only 10 miles from the Canadian border. You know you are approaching Canada because suddenly the radio sounds ‘foreign’ and the names of the stores all have a ‘le’ or ‘la’: ‘La Perle’, ‘La Verderie’..
The radio is picking up French rock music, which is not exactly the best in the world and the announcer is now talking in French. If you can call it that. Personally I am of the opinion that French Canadian should never have been allowed to exist. If you want to hear a language being butchered, listen to French Canadian. It literally gives me goose pimples, like someone scraping their nails over a blackboard.

But the countryside up there in the ‘North Country’ more than makes up for these small irritations. It is a blend of pasture and pine forest, of manicured hayfields and dark ominous trees. The occasional moose adds to the sense that there is still hope in the world. There is such a place where moose and bear can roam in peace.

As always we were hoping for snow during our visit. Snow makes everything beautiful. It is like taking a bath in milk after a long year of mud, heat and rain. And my friend Janice, who lives up there on 300 acres of this beautiful countryside always prays for snow at that time of year.

Surrounded by her horses, her dogs and her trees she lives the perfect ‘country’ life. With her husband Marty they have created a little private kingdom. They built a house, soon to be followed by a horsebarn. A loft over the barn has been added as well as a swimming pool and an outdoors hottub. They remind me of the pioneers who went out west. Starting out with nothing, they staked out their territory and began to build and build and build. They carved out a little paradise with their bare hands. It helps somewhat that Marty is a psychiatrist. He is not exactly on a day laborer’s wage and can afford this kind of life style.

This year we all sat around the turkey wishing for snow to fall. And sure enough, the next morning it started to snow. Janice jumped for joy, we all went out and stuck out our tongue to taste the first flakes of the year. And it snowed. And snowed. Until the branches outside their beautiful large windows started to hang ominuously low and move closer and closer to the glass, like in a poltergeist movie.

Not to worry. We were protected from the elements in their warm, cozy house with the smell of a delicious thanksgiving dinner still in the air. Marty started to light candles. Not too soon we found out. A few minutes later everything went dark.

It was a good time for us to take our leave so we walked to our car stepping in snow up to our knees. Snow is a way of life up there. No one was too worried. But as Marty realized how heavy, wet and deep the snow really was he said: ‘uh, we might have a problem. I better go ahead of you in my truck.’

Up in Northern New Hampshire the 3 most important words in winter time are ‘four-wheel-drive'. Which we didn’t have. This is when the fun started. We are very proud of our Camry, but that kind of vehicle doesn’t cut it in a foot of snow. It’s like putting a race horse in front of an overloaded hay cart. You need a Clydesdale for that.

Of course we got stuck on the first 100 yards of their very long drive way. Wheels spinning. Engine revving. Passengers panicking. There is nothing more stressful than the prospect of being stranded in a snow blizzard at night with nothing around except wolves and coyotes and bears and who knows what else watching you from behind those snow covered trees.

We managed a few more yards while we were burning our engine but an oversized branch was blocking the way. Marty is not stupid. He went back for a chain saw and while we were sitting in our car, teeth chattering from angst he cut the branch. He hooked a cable to our car and towed us to the main road. We were all cursing our bad judgement that we didn’t opt to rent a 4-wheel drive.

But we weren’t out of the woods yet (no pun intended). The main road was not plowed and was going up hill. We tried to get the car to go uphill, all making rocking motions as if that would help the car somehow. We must have looked like fools. After many heart stopping attempts we finally made it to the part of the road that was drivable. We let out a collective sigh of relief as a plow truck came our way. Finally! We were saved.

Suddenly a big branch fell out of the dark sky right onto the plow truck’s roof. Boom. Another snapping sound and a black telephone cable slithered right across the road, like a giant anaconda. I was petrified watching all this from my warm car cubicle, afraid of even opening the door. It took the ‘guys’ an hour to cut the cable, saw the branch into pieces and clear the road.

We finally made it to civilization. We left our car in a parking lot and had Marty drive us to our Bed and Breakfast in his truck. Wet, cold and exhausted we didn’t even mind the lack of heat, light or hot water. We groped our way in the dark and were grateful for our beds and a dry place to rest our weary bones.

That kind of excitement will more than carry me over till our next thanksgiving visit. When something else unexpected will happen. Don’t believe it when people tell you that country life is boring. Nothing is further from the truth. leave comment here