Many years ago, I briefly dated a man from Stamford, Conn. He would fly north in his small Grumman Tiger airplane, and I’d meet him at the tiny airstrip in Antrim. Off we’d go together until it was time for him to head south again.
One evening we were sitting in my living room in Henniker, watching the six o’clock news on Channel 9. A reporter was in town doing a story about New England College when suddenly a familiar face appeared on the screen.
“There’s Mac Borden!” I exclaimed.
A few minutes later came another story, this one about Pitchfork Records and its owner, Mike Cohen.
“I know him too,” I said. “Mike used to live in Henniker.”
My Stamford friend stared at me in amazement and said, half joking, “This is such a small state! Do you know everyone here?”
Truthfully, growing up in Contoocook, it often felt that way.
Just a few doors north of Hopkinton High School, I lived in a house my grandfather had built. My mother’s four brothers all lived in town as well, having been born and raised in “Tooky.” Naturally, I grew up surrounded by uncles, aunts and a crowd of cousins.
We all lived within a few miles of one another and were constantly visiting back and forth. I knew not only my relatives, but also their neighbors by face and by name. And of course I knew our own neighbors too — the Libbys, widows Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Bishop, Ruth Grinnell, the Chapins, the Storrs, the Dinsmores and so many others.
I could walk nearly every street in town and tell you who lived in most of the houses, or at least recall something memorable about them.
Maple Street, the hill leading up to the grade school, was a favorite Halloween destination because there were so many houses for trick-or-treating. One home belonged to a frightening old woman who kept a dim yellow light glowing beside her front door. We’d shout “Trick or Treat!” and she would appear dressed as a witch, complete with a pointed hat and an ugly fake mole. Beside her sat a bubbling black cauldron sending smoke into the air.
Now I realize it was probably dry ice, but to a nine-year-old it seemed absolutely terrifying. We always went with friends, and we never missed the delicious thrill of knocking on her door.
In the 1950s, on Pine Street across from the fire station, sat the town telephone operator, Ruth. She worked beside a window at a large switchboard, plugging wires in and out to connect calls. If I happened to be walking by, I could holler through the window and ask her to call my mother to say I was going to Jean’s or Linda’s house after school.
And she always did.
When fifth grade began at the new Hopkinton High School — there was no middle school in those days — our class expanded as the Hopkinton children joined us Contoocook kids. New friendships formed, and our world grew larger as we discovered neighborhoods on the other side of town. For the next seven years, until graduation, the Class of ’64 spent nearly every day together.
One by one we turned sixteen and earned those precious driver’s licenses. What freedom it felt like to jump into Dad’s car and zip over to Celia’s or Carol’s house for a visit. We’d drive down one street and up another, mentally checking off the families who lived there: the Moles, the Cresseys, the Leavitts, the Astles, the Walls, and on and on.
Instinctively, we felt safe. Doors were rarely locked. We knew our neighbors — mostly good people, with a few exceptions, of course — but we knew them.
So when my Stamford friend jokingly asked if I knew everyone in New Hampshire, I understood exactly why he thought so. When I was growing up, it truly felt as though I did.
Sadly, things are different now. Doors are locked. Cars are locked. The family three houses away may keep entirely to themselves, and we might never even learn their names.
Still, to me, New Hampshire continues to mean community — the comfort of belonging, of recognizing faces, of feeling at home in your town. Growing up in Contoocook, I really did know just about everyone there.
And when you’re a child, your town is the whole world.
Susan Tullis lives in Henniker.