Off Topic! No Concertina Content.

[BruceB]

Hi,

I hope everyone planning to attend the Squeeze-In is getting ready.

Just wondering if anyone has any opinions on Brattleboro, Vermont? It looks like my wife is finally ready to move out of NJ, and Brattleboro is currently at the top of the list. She wants to stay in the northeast as our daughter goes to college in upstate NY and the west coast (which I love) is way too far away.

After some online research & a visit there years ago, I really like Brattleboro (Ithaca, NY is a distant second). I know the area has a strong trad/acoustic music scene, plus the Button Box is just down the road a bit. My other interests are bicycling (both road & mountain), hiking and kayaking. The area seems just about perfect for all of them. I want a small, pretty, progressive city with an excellent downtown with lots of places to eat and hear some music. It needs to have a great food co-op, & farmers market. My tastes run more to whole foods, organic & healthy. I want to be able to get around by bicycle & on foot. While I love my Mini Cooper, I hope to only use it for out of town trips.

My wife requires more culture than I do. I'm assuming that there will be enough to keep her happy with Amherst just down the valley. We can make occasional runs to Boston or NYC. We both went to school in Boston and still like to visit there.

So, would a concertina playing, outdoors & bicycling fanatic, health food loving, liberal, progressive, weirdo, be happy in Brattleboro?

bruce boysen

[JimLucas]

So, would a concertina playing, outdoors & bicycling fanatic, health food loving, liberal, progressive, weirdo, be happy in Brattleboro?

Don't do it, Bruce!

... Not only will you be so happy there that you'll never escape, but before long you'll also become addicted to contra dancing.

[Chris Timson]

We once did a house concert there. The farmers market was in progress when we arrived in town, so we bought enough maple syrup to OD on. There was also a fairly decorous demo happening against a satellite NASA was launching that apparently carried a little nuclear material. It struck as as a very pleasant, very European place (rather like Ithaca in that respect). On the autumn day we arrived the weather was lovely, but the people of Vermont like to tell horror stories and even sing songs about something called a black fly. Perhaps it's a plot to keep incomers out.

 

Chris

[JimLucas]

...the people of Vermont like to tell horror stories and even sing songs about something called a black fly.

Chris, are you sure you didn't misunderstand?

Black flies are comparatively rare in Vermont.

But the black fly is the Canadian national bird.

[Animaterra]

Ah, Brattleboro, a little touch of Berkely, CA, mixed with New England stodgy conservatism. Brattleboro is a great town, though a little confused. lots of very creative people, Birkenstocks abound, good music, atmosphere, lovely surroundings.

Before you take the plunge, however, I urge you to look across the Connecticut river to Keene, NH, just 15 miles east. Not as funky, perhaps, but a solid community of good people.

 

Not knowing you or your wife, I would venture to say that there are "Brattleboro people" and "Keene people"- not opposite poles at all, but in a nutshell, Bratt is stereotyped as being to the left of left, and Keene is more moderate.

 

When you come visit, be sure to contact me. I live in Brigadoon- a little town that time forgot, east of Keene. I'd love to meet you and show you around the area on both sides of the river!

[Chris Timson]

Chris, are you sure you didn't misunderstand?

Black flies are comparatively rare in Vermont.

But the black fly is the Canadian national bird.

Sorry, Jim, you've totally lost me, probably somewhere about the middle of the Atlantic. Explain, please?

 

Chris

[Stephen Mills]

When you come visit, be sure to contact me. I live in Brigadoon- a little town that time forgot, east of Keene. I'd love to meet you and show you around the area on both sides of the river!

You're pulling our legs, right, Allison? See Brigadoon, NH.

 

I know about the black flies, though. I go to a meeting in Saxton's River, VT every other year. The first year, I went running with a colleague. He's also from Houston (actually S. England, originally) and was unused to running on hills (I learned to run in Montana). Eventually he decided to drop far behind. A few minutes later, he passed me as just a streak, with a cloud of black flies right behind him.

 

edited for punctuation

Edited August 11, 2004 by Stephen Mills

[Steven]

You're pulling our legs, right, Allison? See Brigadoon, NH.

That's pretty funny! However, it clearly wasn't written by someone from New Hampshire. After all, it refers to people deducting their expenses from their state taxes. What taxes are those? Unless things have really changed in the last few years, isn't New Hampshire free of state income or sales taxes?

 

I once learned how towns up there get their money without all those taxes. Hint: when driving through the state, pay attention to the speed limit signs. They actually mean it!

 

Steven

[bellowbelle]

I'm about 1-1/2 hours from Brattleboro. I think I've been through it...three times, maybe! (I stay home!)

 

My impression was a good one, though it's not rural enough for me (if I were bothering to move somewhere)...a pretty place, though.

 

You could live SO many places around here (even in 'Taxachusetts') and get 'everywhere' in a hurry. You can get to culture spots in so many places in all directions.

 

I opt for the 'nowhere' lands, though, and then find trails that lead out so I can go somewhere if I wish (which is hardly ever, since the world is all so accessible these days via computer and all).

 

Gee, not to sound crazy, but...I did want to tell SOMEONE about the house for sale down the road from us (...it's near a concertina player...ME!). I don't know how big it is inside, but, it's not huge. Our road is fairly quiet, even though there's 'city' nearby. There's a well-treed acre of land around this particular house (from which the beautiful old English Ivy was just removed) and adjoining land will probably never be developed, since there are...well, swampy spots. With all the new 'developments' going up, that's one consolation.

 

This house in this great little spot is being offered through Realty Mark, phone on sign is 978-692-8688, and the road is Rigby. (This edit added...just in case someone is seriously curious!)

 

Every time we walk past this house, I wish I could buy it. But, we already have a house on this road (..sigh).

 

My town (Lancaster) is not progressive, but...I don't know that it really matters, around here! Heehee.

 

I imagine I'll always be here....only would consider moving (with dogs) to a more rural place. I don't care for the housing developments around us.

Edited August 12, 2004 by bellowbelle

[BruceB]

Hi everyone,

 

Thanks for the thoughts on Brattleboro.

 

Allison, I'd say I'm surely a Brattleboro person and my wife more moderate. It's interesting that in college she was more into the whole hippy scene. I was into basketball & astronomy. Now I'm far more liberal than she.

 

Wendy, I'm sure about the small city idea. I DO NOT want to have to drive to get everywhere. That's what it's like now in NJ. I want to walk or bicycle almost everywhere I need or want to go. We'll probably just keep one car once we move. Hopefully, we'll just use it for out of town trips, though I haven't exactly run this by my wife yet.

 

I've been reading more about Brattleboro and it seems like an excellent fit; even more so when global warming heats it up a bit more. Just kidding, but my wife is not thrilled about going somewhere colder as she's a beach person while I'm a mountain person. Hmmm, maybe she should move south and I should move to Brattleboro?

 

Oh yeah, the bugs aren't a problem for me. I'm not sure why, but I've always been much less bothered by them than everyone I've ever gone hiking & bicycling with. My son is the same. Just lucky, I guess.

 

I'm probably going to do a day trip to the Bratt area within a week, and again for a few days with my wife sometime during next couple of weeks.

 

bruce boysen

[Animaterra]

Oops! Sorry, Stephen, I forgot that my town isn't at the bottom of my post! It's Nelson, the little town that time forgot and we like it that way. Dudley Laufman, when I told him I was moving there, said, "How will you find it? It's only there on Tuesdays!"

 

And Steven, it's true, in most places you'll find most folks with NH plates driving within 5 mi. of the speed limit. But we get skinned, too- have you heard about our property taxes?

 

It's still a great place to live.

[Steven]

And Steven, it's true, in most places you'll find most folks with NH plates driving within 5 mi. of the speed limit. But we get skinned, too- have you heard about our property taxes?

Well, if you don't pay it one way, you'll pay it another. No income tax, higher property taxes. No sales tax, higher property taxes. It probably all comes out close to the same in the end.

 

Everyone I've talked to from up there loves it. I've spent very little time in NH myself, but it was an awfully nice place. Not for me, though. I might survive the winters, but the lack of a good, hot summer would kill me. I grew up in Georgia, so anything under 90 just isn't a proper summer day for me.

 

Steven

[Richard Morse]

Lots of drift about NH... I used to live near Brattleboro in the 80's and found it to be *very* different from Keene. Beside different politically, Keene is in bottom of a large, flat valley and has twice the population of Brattleboro (23,000 vs 12,000). I've always found Keene a hard place to get around easily as it's so spread out while I can walk from one side of Brattleboro to the other.

 

I know quite a few folk up around the Keene area - and most interesting - ALL of them live in the small hilltowns just to the east of Keene. Not one of them lives IN Keene! Still, Keene has it's uses.... with the predominant one being a cheap place to shop. So much so that there's a huge tide of cars from Brattleboro to Keen and back again each Saturday!