Congratulations – whether you're reading this week's Insider online or in print, you almost certainly stepped through several feet of snow and ice in the bitter cold to do so. You are a hardy New Englander! If you walked five miles uphill in the snow to read the issue, you may also be Abe Lincoln. (I'm impressed that you've kept up with your reading even after being assassinated.)
The seasonal showdown is always fun to watch: Winter moseys into town every few days and wreaks havoc, like the black-hearted villain of a Western movie. But the people are defiant and uncowed, and winter has no choice but to ride away, shaking its fist and promising to return. And then we celebrate by gorging on syrup for weeks on end; the rest of the year is a blur, until we feel that first below-freezing chill in the air around July, and then it begins again.
I admit I didn't understand the intricacy of this dance when I first came to New Hampshire: Being slightly less brave than Scooby Doo's cowardly pal Shaggy, taunting winter sounded to me like standing in a room with a violent Mafia enforcer and the three executive officers of the Hello Kitty fan club – and picking a fight with the mob guy. So I started mocking spring instead. “Flowers and bunnies and sunlight?” I shouted. “Bring it on! I can take it!” A week later I was found unconscious in an alley, mumbling the lyrics to the folk song “Where Have All The Flowers Gone.” I'd been carjacked by some crocuses. They didn't even serve any time for it, either – there was a master gardener on the jury and they got off with a fine.
So let's keep building our love-hate relationship with winter – it may be counterintuitive and even a little codependent, but it works. The pond hockey tournaments are a great place to build out a fuller pond-based economy – for next year we can add pond tennis, pond interior design or maybe pond 401K planning. You'll see those CPAs on the ice, advising clients to invest in a mix of index funds and high-yield growth initiatives, and the small-town love (and the big-time profits) will spread.
And while Concord does a fine job of encouraging people to walk or bike to work, we could just as easily encourage winter transportation options. “Figure Skate To Work Day” has a nice ring to it – I'd love to head out the door in the morning and see a guy doing a triple Lutz through the intersection. We could have snowshoeing, skiing, dog teams . . . and let's make Zambonis the primary way we move downtown, like how Venetians use gondolas. Or if becoming “the Venice of Zambonis” isn't the right path, let's at least do a classic car night once a month, with Zambonis.
The only danger in all this is that winter will become so fun that it won't want to leave, and we'll be stuck with cold weather the whole year. But I've got that figured out too: I'm investing in a company that makes giant, city-sized bubble domes.
