On this wintry feeling White Mountain morning in Conway NH I found myself daydreaming a bit as I wrapped up responses to the Monday morning flurry of emails. I was thinking back to a time where a morning in The White Mountains, having coffee at a kitchen table in Conway, looking at a property covered in the first blanket of snow in mid-November, meant that I had traveled “up North” to get away from the hustle and bustle of Boston’s Northshore and no one could reach me. I am thinking 20-25 yrs ago. Call it 1995! I may be calling in to my answering machine to check messages but no one was able to call unless you gave/had the number of your destination, right? And that was only a few people. Otherwise we practically stopped business and got away.
Now imagine this: You wake up early, before your partner and any one else in the house. There is a little chill in the house because the woodstove died down in the living room, so you go and add few logs and open the flu. As the fire starts to rewarm the house you are pouring that first cup of coffee and you go to the kitchen table and sit down with the local newspaper you grabbed the night before. When your partner comes out of the bedroom they point out that animal tracks criss cross the yard as they get their coffee too. You are joined at the table and you share your paper and chit chat about some of the articles.
After a little breakfast and morning routines you both get dressed in your snow pants and cold weather clothes, looking like a couple of REI (or Title 9) models, and you start the 1 mile trek down to your gate. After a good 20 min walk you take your key out and open the little kiosk near the gate and you take out your cellphones. Messages get checked, emails responded to and the phones locked back away on the warming charger in the kiosk. Then you both trek back up to house and continue to enjoy your vacation in an internet free zone. You can go back to the kiosk any time but the phones and devices stay in it. Could you do it seems like the typical, although odd, question to ask.
I basically just wrote a description of a meme on the subject. Memories are overwhelmed today but the majority of us spent most of our lives without the internet. Home had a phone and a television and a radio/stereo, maybe video games of some type. There were no portals of information or control over incoming media. It was just how it was. We had to go out our front door, most of the time, to meet anyone or get involved in anything. Home was a quiet place with no expectation of constant connection to the outside world. I can remember feeling just as alive and involved in the world then too.
Posted by Bill Barbin Realtor with Keller Williams Lakes and Mountains North Conway NH Contact Bill at 603-986-0385 for expert assistance with selling or buying a home in the White Mtns of NH or Maine.
