I grew up in Everett, Massachusetts, a city about 10 minutes north of Boston. I walked to school and when I was selected to be in a program for smart kids in the 4th grade I had to take the MBTA bus to that school. I was a tomboy for the most part and growing up in the projects made me tough. Or perhaps it was having uncles that were closer to my age and acted like older brothers, teaching my sister and I lots of bad habits like swearing, fighting, etc. They liked to blame it on the projects but the more I think of it, I learned all my "Best" stuff from them. Anyway, back to Everett. Anything that you needed or anyplace you wanted to go was within minutes of home.
My grandmother and grandfather moved to North Sandwich, NH when I was young. It was a 2 1/2 hour ride from Everett and as far as I was concerned there was absolutely nothing for a kid to do there. When I would visit for my week during the summer we would have to drive for almost an hour to shop. Luckily, Brad (my uncle who is 5 years older than me but I was not allowed to call him "uncle") would usually take me to Funspot or someplace else cool while I was there but this involved a pretty good ride to get there as well. I will say that the highlight of my time there was being able to swim at Squam Lake and it was worth all the time in the car as I was a fish.
My other grandparents had a cottage in Fremont, NH. I spent a large chunk of my summers there from the time I was born. There were lots of summer people that we would see every year and we had lots of fun with all our summer friends. As I got older, the summer people started to sell their cottages and the people buying them were converting them to year round residences. It got to the point where we were the only ones left. We had friends that lived there year round but we were all getting older and they had jobs, cars and friends outside of Beach Street. We had only ourselves and our cousin and the 3 of us got BORED! I mean, what the heck did they do around here? It is so desolate up here. I could NEVER live in the country, I would be so bored.
Fast forward ten years and my parents just relocated back from California and are living in the cottage. They end up buying a house in Fremont. My husband and I are looking into buying a house in the Everett/Malden area and what is in our price range doesn't appeal to me. I don't want a multi family because I don't want to be a landlord. I can't believe the price of houses in southern, NH. We can buy a single family home on an acre of land for the same price as a 2 family in Everett. The area is really growing and we can handle a commute to work if it means having a nice house, I am pregnant after all and it would be so nice to have a house with a yard. It took some convincing to get him to agree to look but as soon as we walked into what became our first house, that was it for my husband. And the city girl was moving to the country. Against everything she ever thought she would do and she LOVED it. I made friends, Rte 101 enlarged to a 2 lane highway, we were 20 minutes to the mall and before I knew it, I had 2 babies to chase around all day. There was plenty to do in New Hampshire.
It's funny but I rarely leave N.H. unless it is on a plane to my next vacation. When I do go to Mass., I find myself in a rush to get home, where there isn't any traffic and things are a little more calm. Who would have guessed that this girl is all country now? Not me, not in a million years!
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