|
|
||
|
STAFF
BHS Library Catalogue
BHS Library Page |
Friday, October 30, 2020The Number One Threat to America: BEARS!A lot of people posted The New Republic's article on Grafton, NH's deëvolution from aspirational Libertarian paradise to bear-infested danger theme park. I don't know if I would have made the connection to Grafton if they hadn't, but I tend to have a decent radar for fixating on slivers of NH-rated content in national news and entertainment.  In an article in the New York Times this week, there was a bit about how during social distancing, the attendance at a quartz mine in Herkimer, NY has shot up. This, to me, feels a little like the kind of activity that NH has experienced where every mother's son seems to be hiking mountains on the weekends, just to have something accessibly outdoorsy to do since going to things Inside has been canceled. As we look forward to the dark weekends of staying inside from November to March, suddenly parking a mile down the road to hike Mount Major with seemingly EVERYONE else doesn't seem so bad.Buried in this article was a mention that the Herkimer Diamond people bought the Ruggles mine in Grafton, NH a few years after it closed in 2016 upon the retirement of its owner. (A Change.org petition to have it listed as a landmark lists the sale price at $900K, while an NHPR story on the sale says that Keller Williams finally moved it in Sept. 2019 for $500K.) While every article about the sale mentions that the new owners planned "significant improvements"... the fact that March 2020 happened soon thereafter would leave at least this reader unsurprised by unanticipated pandemic-related delays. However, I can't help but connect the dots and wonder if the sheer institutional lawlessness and the unexplained burgeoning ursine population is also going to make it difficult to provide a safe place for random New England tourists to wander about hammering wodges of mica out of stone face, without turning around and coming face to face with Bart wanting to put either it or you in his pic-i-nic basket. # posted by Mr. Russell @ 12:53 PM
|
|
|
|
||
