Which Vegas?

Downtown "Rut Vegas" - Rutland, Vermont

I’ve just had two great days off in some spectacular spring weather. Though I have been able to enjoy some down time, including some terrific cycling on my home roads and making good headway on a new book while dozing off in my favorite old beach chair, I’ve had a bunch of errands to complete. Around here, that means driving. And it means driving back and forth across the Connecticut River that separates New Hampshire and Vermont.

The uninitiated often lump together Vermont and New Hampshire, as though they comprise one big, green swath of land north of Massachusetts. For those of us who live here, and for our friends and neighbors who grew up here, confusing Vermont and New Hampshire is cause for serious disapprobation, even scorn and ridicule. “Jeez ‘em crow! Don’t you know what side of the river you’re on?”  It would be like asking a Kiwi from Dunedin how long their family has been in Australia. Or a Welshman whether he puts ketchup on his haggis. You get the idea.

Obviously, the two states have a funny relationship. Sitting on either side of the Connecticut as though spooning each other, these two small states complement each other like yin and yang. Vermont remained steadfastly agricultural through the 19th century, while New Hampshire became the cradle of the industrial revolution. Vermont is not one of the original thirteen colonies - much to Vermonters consternation, the place was actually an unincorporated part of the New York crown colony and was cleared and cultivated in summer by tenant farmers from that state. New Hampshire, with its many navigable rivers to bring its natural resources to mills and markets, was one of the original thirteen and developed as a major player in the international trade of our young country. One of legends of the American Revolution was Brigadier General John Stark, a New Hampshire native who turned that state’s militia into an incredibly effective fighting force for the Americans. Naturally, General Stark’s most famous actions took place in Vermont, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish. New Hampshire was where Hannes Schneider came when he fled the Nazis and brought his modern ski teaching to America. Vermont is home to the legendary Cochran family, boasting several Olympic ski champions and numerous U.S. Ski Team members among them. The Green Mountains are in Vermont, the White Mountains are in New Hampshire, and both sets of peaks are smaller and less numerous than their vastly larger neighboring states of New York to the west and Maine to the east. At least the people of Vermont and New Hampshire don’t have complexes about that. Ok, maybe they do, but just a little.

My favorite little tidbit about the people of both Vermont and New Hampshire is their strong sense of irony as it relates to the towns where I’ve been doing my errands this week. If you’re on the Vermont side of the river, “Vegas” is a reference to “Rut Vegas”, a/k/a Rutland. While a perfectly nice town, Rut Vegas isn’t exactly a major destination for family fun or high culture. If you’re on the New Hampshire side of the river, “Vegas” is “Manch Vegas”, a/k/a Manchester. Also a perfectly nice place, Manch Vegas is home of more abandoned 19th century textile mills than active ones, though they are quite beautiful as they line the river banks.

I’m a native New Yorker, which grants me outsider status in the mountains of these two states. I have been known to remind the folks in the ski industries of both Vermont and New Hampshire how many Winter Olympics we've had in New York in an effort to put them in their place. But, as both places are so beautiful, filled with such fiercely independent people, prideful of their places but cognizant of the remoteness of them, my effort fails. In the end, my outsider status allows me to have equal affection for both Vermont and New Hampshire and both sets of people as I make my way back and forth across the river that divides them. Besides, I’ll always root for the Knicks and neither the citizens of Vermont nor New Hampshire can convince me otherwise.