Out Among the Lilliputians

 

The Lilliputians symbolize humankind's wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence.--from the internet 

Yesterday, a Friday, Mad Dog went a-canvassing with his indefatigable partner, who will be referred to here by her stage name,  Olivia Ostrich, a woman who is so Hampton she has chosen a plot in the Hampton cemetery for herself and her family. 

Obadiah Youngblood North Hampton House

She is prototypic Hamptonite, in that she wasn't actually born here, her family having Massachusetts origins and she grew up in Manchester but moved here, sending her kids to the Hampton schools, her daughter having started at Centre School , then moving on to Marston Elementary, then the Academy for middle school, and Winnecunnet High school.  Like everyone else in town, she was appalled when the town cut down the majestic pine trees along High Street across from the academy, and bordering the main cemetery, exposing an unsightly gray concrete 18 inch wall separating the cemetery from the street. But she wants to be buried there anyway.

Obadiah Youngblood Water Street Bridge

Mad Dog and Olivia took the clipboard from the DEMS office which bore the map of the homes they were assigned that day, in the streets just south of the honky tonk center of Hampton Beach, a place where they, like most Hampton residents, never venture between Memorial and Labor Day. They had signed out that territory before some years earlier and remembered it for the colorful people and the odd little homes planted along the salt marshes on one side, the ocean and the Hampton River on the other. 

The addresses assigned them were very modest homes within walking distance of the beach, which is separated by sand dunes through which paths to the ocean have been cut. 

Olivia Googled the cost of one home for sale, a  clapboard, which would have not even caught the eye had it been 4 miles inland, but listed for $1 million dollars. Location, location, location.

The first victim was an 80 something woman, sitting on her front porch and they stood on the lawn craning their necks to speak to her. Like many of the residents they met that day, she told them her family had purchased a beach house there around 1965 and she had watched the area change, as a clear sight line to the beach had become obscured by the build up of twenty foot sand dunes, which she seemed to resent for blocking her view. When Mad Dog pointed out the dunes protected her from inundation by the waves she groused that the water, when it did launch an incursion, simply flooded the next street over and then washed along the alley between that street and hers, so she had no kind feelings for the dunes, which she considered an eyesore and an intrusion. 

She was too old to go vote in person. She already had her absentee ballot which amazed Olivia and Mad Dog because the primary elections was just 4 days ago and already the final ballots for the November election are printed and in her hands.

Because they  were out on a Friday, most of the 40  people on the  list were at work. 

Obadiah View from Hampton Beach Great Boars Head

The computer generated list from the DEMS organization contained the names of people who had registered either as Democrats or "Undeclared" and who had voted in previous elections in the town. Specifically excluded were Republican voters. The idea of the "canvassing" is to not confront or try to change opinion, but to solidify and sample people who are thought to be potential supporters and to introduce them to candidates for state office, the House of Reps or the Senate especially. These offices which  are paid $100 a year, are eagerly, often hotly contested.

Before going on, Olivia and Mad Dog walked up the offending sand dune, using a cut path and they encountered a group of a dozen 60 something women, sitting in a clearing between dunes, in aluminum/strap beach chairs, drinking beer and eating snacks. 

"Come join us!" one called out. 

Obadiah Youngblood Beach Plum

"No, we're just passing through," Mad Dog told them. And waving at the white sand beach and green sea, looking up past the town beach, north to  toward Greater Boar's Head, he  added, "Who knew? This is gorgeous!"

"Oh, we know!"

Olivia remarked she'd never been this far south along the beach, beyond the commercialized part of Hampton Beach, but she thought she'd come back now. Townies tend to use North Beach and Plaice Cove, farther north, which are smaller and require town windshield stickers to park. 

Obadiah Youngblood North Hampton View

Mad Dog told her about a friend who rides her horses on Hampton Beach in the fall, and who claims horse poop is just about sterile and no problem for the beach. 

"It's disgusting though," said Olivia, "And I love horses and ride them. But horse poop on the beach? Yuck."

The  next stop was an address where nobody answered but there were two women down the street standing outside talking, and one of them noticed Mad Dog leaving campaign literature and she walked down to see who he was. She was on the DEMS list and this was her house.

"I'm not a single issue voter," she told them. "But I won't vote for anyone who doesn't believe in term limits. That's my big issue. So, no, I won't vote for Maggie Hassan."

"But she's only had one term," Mad Dog objected.

"Well but she's against term limits" she replied firmly. Mad Dog didn't know that. She knew something Mad Dog  hadn't. "Besides she was governor, so she's been in government too long and that corrupts everyone if you're there long enough. But both she and Chris Papas said they're against term limits. So they are out, far as I'm concerned." 

Mad Dog told her about a new candidate, the "fresh blood, fresh ideas" sort of candidate she said she wanted: Erica DeVries, who had been inspired to run to defeat a Republican who had sponsored a bill for New Hampshire to secede from the Union.

"Well," she smiled mischievously, "I sort of have some sympathy for that sometimes."

Renny Cushing Winnecunnet HS

Her husband showed up, a gaunt man in a baseball cap. He said he had worked in the federal government.  He said he was not voting for Tom Sherman for governor because Sherman had tried to mislead him, lied to him really.  Sherman had told him the new bridge across the Hampton River, down the road, would be completed this year and it hadn't been. 

The wife had taught in both private and public schools she said, and she loved Sununu's support for charter schools and didn't think the taxpayer should have to support public schools and not get help with private schools. She told a story about how in their former town, the town tried to stop paying for school buses to the private schools one year, and all the private school parents showed up the day before schools opened to enroll their 80 kids in public schools, "And the town backed down real quick," she said, with evident satisfaction.

"Besides its much cheaper for the town and the taxpayers to pay for private schools," said the husband. "It costs $75,000 a year to educate a kid in public schools and it's much cheaper to send the kid to a private school."

"That would only be true if there were no empty seats in the public schools," Mad Dog responded. "But if there are empty seats and if no new teachers had to be hired, given all the empty seats in Hampton schools, then education for those kids has already been paid for."

"Well, but public schools can only get better if they have competition," he replied, abandoning, momentarily the financial argument, "And I judge the schools by the outcomes. And they are better in private schools." 

"Really?" Mad Dog said. "Have there been studies comparing the two? I didn't know that."

"Well," he said, "Not in Hampton, but in our old town."

"How do you feel about town taxpayers giving the Sacred Heart school $65,000 a year?"

"Well, it's a good thing," the couple agreed. "More competition. Cheaper to send the kids there, too." He was back, Mad Dog noticed, to the financial argument, even after it had been refuted. It was something stuck in his brain.

So spending taxpayer money on a Catholic school did not trouble them. Spending money from public funds for private schools was a good thing, for them, because, well, it saves money, somehow, and it's all about competition. Or something.

That's where they left it.

The next lady to answer her door came out to chat with us on her deck. Her husband, a white haired guy with a white goatee stood behind the screen door and chimed in occasionally.

"I'm a former OR nurse," she told Mad Dog. "And I'm okay with abortion up to 15 weeks, but if you can't get your stuff together by then, well...I've seen late term abortions and that's just murder. That's why I can't vote for Hassan or Papas. They both voted for abortion up to birth. I'm not a single issue voter, but that's just disqualifying."

Olivia and Mad Dog exchanged looks. Neither one of them knew what this woman was talking about. When did Maggie and Chris vote for late term abortion?

"Well," Mad Dog told her, honestly, "I'm okay with abortion, but I'm not for infanticide."

"So, how do you feel about governor of Florida sending those people to Martha's Vineyard?" Mad Dog asked her. 

"Well," she smiled, "Now you're not going to like this, but I think maybe more of that ought to happen. We're protected from those illegals up here, but you go down to Texas and Florida and those illegals are just over running everything! I mean, we're supposed to be a nation of laws and these people jumped the line, broke the law and now we're supposed to pay to take care of them. And the crime!"

"Oh?" Mad Dog asked. "Have you been to Texas?"

"Yeah, San Antonio, but that was some years ago, but I just went to a convention in San Diego, though, and it's a huge problem."

"Funny thing," Mad Dog  said.  "I just got back from a convention in San Diego in May. Never saw a single illegal, not that I could tell anyway. And I've been to Texas in the past two years and never saw any immigrants running around."

"Well, I think America is like a big  family," the woman rejoined. "But that means taking care of your family first and we are just being over run now. They're just taking over!" 

"Seen any around here?"

"No, but it's coming."

The  next visit was across the bridge that Dr. Sherman had promised our man would have been rebuilt this year. The bridge actually looked to be in good shape, but a promise is a promise.

This was Seabrook, not Hampton,Mad Dog thought, but the woman at the door told us, no, Seabrook did not begin for another two blocks. 

The driveway was filled with Audi's with decals from Holy Cross College and Boston College. The woman invited us to her backyard so we could look out over the Hampton River and the jetty.  Sea birds walked on the sandbar fifty yards away.

"This is just breath taking," Olivia told the home owner. "Really just stunning."

"Well, it belonged to my parents  who bought it in 1960, and I rebuilt it. I made it intentionally small. Didn't want a McMansion. But I like it. It doesn't suck."

"No, indeed," said Olivia. 

"Oh, yes, I'm voting for Maggie and Chris and every Democrat on the list," the woman told us. 

"Finally, " Mad Dog  said. "An actual Democrat! We've been interviewing 'Undeclared voters' all day and I haven't run into anything but Fox News Republicans."

"Oh, yes," she said. "That's common in these parts."

Renny The Incumbent 

"I'm married to a Republican," Olivia told her, "But he can't stand Trump or any of them. He's not sure what he is now."

"I used to have Republican friends," the lady told us. "They're not my friends any more."

We had been out for nearly 5 discouraging hours.  We had met one actual Democrat on our list of potential Democratic voters.

"You know," Mad Dog told Olivia. "This country is really conservative. If democracy reflects the people's will, then maybe Trump does that."

Proud To Be An American

"This wasn't a scientific study," Olivia said. "Five hours on a Friday in a really weird part of town where nobody ever goes, except for people whose parents bought houses her 60 years ago."

"Maybe we should go horseback riding on the beach next weekend. Poop all over it," Mad Dog said. 

Olivia just shook her head.