Although I am a Dover resident (and happily so), we've been living in Rye for the past two months while our kitchen is being gutted. Being a stone's throw from Wallis Sands beach is great and all, but I am really starting to miss Dover, especially the downtown & the library, but also the diversity of a working city--ethnic, age, class, wealth, education level--and the ability to walk to a real downtown. I miss real people: shipyard workers, retirees, teachers, carpenters. When I lived in Durham I felt the same way (except for the walking part).With two advanced degrees, I'm still a working class kid on the inside, child of first generation immigrants who doesn't always remember all the social graces. The small bedroom towns around Portsmouth have a certain snooty feeling to me. My kids look like ragamuffins as we explore the beach in dirty, well-loved playclothes & bare feet, among other kids wearing button down shirts & penny loafers.
What's this got to do with the primary? I'm getting there...Friday. Friday, Barack Obama is going to be in Rye and Newcastle, both locations right down the road from my adopted neighborhood. Two MORE well-educated, wealthy enclaves on the Seacoast. But he does get some credit from me for making part of the visit late afternoon on a Friday, spilling over to a Saturday (but Saturday is a private event, no?). AND, if my information is correct, Obama is on a direct collision course with a certain UNH commencement speaker who's staying in that very area on Friday night and whose wife is also on the campaign trail. But will she be in Rye? Not that I can see. She was around last weekend, in Laconia. ...Just observations, that's all.
And speaking of Laconia...I was wondering if a candidate has ever shown up at Bike Week. Wouldn't that be a hoot!
