Ode to Nashua

The first time I heard the name Nashua,

it seemed strange and alien. I could never have imagined how much a part of my life it would become or how deeply I would come to love it.

Nashua is not exactly the pride of New England.

Like many old New England towns, it grew on the back of the cotton textile industry. Old red brick cotton mills line its Nashua River. They were abandoned when the textile industry first moved south before being undermined entirely by cheaper labour in Asia. They were and are a decaying sight in some places with sadly broken windows. But now many are being reborn, “repurposed” as they like to say these days, and turning into apartments and studios.

Nashua’s great claim to fame is that John F.

Kennedy declared his intention to run for president in his first campaign speech right there in the main street. A bust of JFK marks the spot.

This is the state which conducts the first primary election in the electoral process which leads to the selection of Presidential candidates. NH is proud of this status. A lot of political action takes place here. Presidential aspirants return over and over to address the people. They speak in local diners, town halls, back yards, living rooms…

The other claim to fame is that Jack Kerouac’s parents lived here before moving to nearby Lowell where the famous beat poet was born.

So here we are again. Recherche du temps perdu.

We are booked into the Homewood Suites by Hilton, a new hotel up on the hill behind the old Radisson Tara. I don’t like the aspect of the first room they offer us but, once

removed to the top floor and the back of the hotel with a view on trees, sky and scruffy wilderness, I am utterly happy. We are to spend a week in this little service apartment with its micro kitchen, desk, chair, couch etc. Of course, Bruce is raring to cook again.

But on our first night, it is about reconnection so we swan out to the shops to buy favourite provisions. Dear old Market Basket, Bruce’s favourite supermarket because it is cheapest. Shaws is mine, because it is classiest.

We drive into town for dinner at Vietnam Noodle House, a favourite haunt of yore.

It has a new doorway and a new paint job plus the addition of booth seating and a new menu, yet it feels much as it ever did. Bruce has a pho. I order a a new item, a Vietnamese casserole on crispy rice. It comes in a pottery pot steaming with heat. And, oh, what a treat.

It’s a good start to our Nashua return.

The hotel swimming pool is brilliant.

By being the first one there when it opens at 9am, I manage to get it to myself every morning for a bit of aquarobics. And a bit of sunshine with a book on the serviceable little patio outside.

Bruce comes down and joins me and we read

quietly together in the morning sunshine doing our Vitamin D thing - until the day we meet Thomas, a handsome Swiss guest who is helping his partner settle into her new 2-year-contract working in NH. Thereafter mornings involve agreeable chats with Thomas who turns out to run VIP transport for the World Economic Forum and when he's not doing that, he coaches tennis and skiing.

The people you meet on the road, eh.

The week passes quickly.

Bruce cooks his famous spag bol, using that stunning new green vegetable pasta. Contentment.

When he reveals that he is back in town, he is invited over to Oracle to meet his old workmates. He has a jolly visit and catches up on their news.

My Democratic Party friend, Debora Pignatelli, invites us over for a reunion over morning coffee at her place - where the autograph of Hillary Clinton features upon the wall. Hillary visited Debora’s house and made a stump speech in the living room on her 2008 campaign. She has returned since, on this campaign, but as a friend and not to make a speech. Debora, who has had a distinguished career in local politics, is keenly involved in her re-election campaign and was at the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. We speak of these things and of families and life as we sip cups of tea and nibble on corn cakes.

We do other catch-up things while in our “home turf” and tend to return again and again to Pheasant Lane Mall for quick, healthy lunches from the very good Chinese stall in the food hall. Retail therapy.

Yes! Hello Macy's! Here I am again!

We do most of our shopping, I get my hair cut by a French Canadian girl at Penney’s Hair Salon, and I get my toenails done (badly) in a zany nail and beauty salon where men seem to be getting as many pedicures as women.

We also return to Mine Falls Park. This was

a very favourite walking place. We went there in all weathers. We saw lots of wildlife there.

Mine Falls is large. There are two loop walks, so we take them on different days, since the weather is hot, enervating and threatening storms.

Maybe it is our age or maybe it is the weather which makes the first walk seem longer than it used to. We head through the woods, under the highway bridge, through more

glorious woods beside the Nashua River and up to the waterfall. The drought is evident. Undergrowth is wilting. Water is low. The waterfall is thin. But fecundity still rules in the understorey - ferns and saplings and, oh, watch out, says Bruce, lots of poison ivy. He makes sure I know how to identify it.

The walk curls back to skirt the glorious big millpond and then follow the path beside the canal. It is all leafy and

lovely, the world mirrored in the waters. Little fish are prolific in the canal, hovering here and there and hanging around in groups under the footbridge. I forgot to bring bread for them. Fie upon me. The slider turtles look disappointed too. They have lovely orange markings.

Bruce decides he should pose again to reiterate the photo we took in 1999 of him out on the trunk of an old leaning tree. Slither. Oh, my. He was so nearly right there in the millpond. A passing local stops ready to do a rescue job if needed.

Laughter and relief when he secures his footing and finds a comfortable, albeit less extreme pose for the photo. Ah, we’re not as young as we were then.

The second walk we take is from the old mill buildings end of Mine Falls, following the river and going past the gorgeous oxbow lake where we used to see swans nesting and cormorants diving. Now, in drought conditions, it is covered in waterlilies and it is very low. There are a couple of ducks. But it is still lush and lovely. We admire it from beside it and later, as we come on the return

along the towpath, we stand at the viewing platforms and enjoy it some more.

We see agile young squirrels and high-chirping chipmunks on the walk. We hear the industrious rat-a-tat-tat of lofty woodpeckers and the disgruntled yowl of little cat birds. Somewhere far above, a red-shouldered hawk whines territorial warnings.

We can’t be in New England without popping down to Maine for lunch.

Rule: Maine lobsters must be consumed in Maine.

It was a favourite outing when we lived here. So off we go, driving down the familiar highway, Bruce snarling a little when he realises there is more traffic now than there used to be. Isn’t that the case everywhere?

In gorgeous Portsmouth, NH, we have to wait while the drawbridge allows water traffic along the Piscataqua River. This river’s name has always fascinated Bruce who is

expert in rivers in the US and everywhere - and there are some pretty weird names. This one has a ring to it. We queue with the cars in the gorgeous, narrow, pioneer roadways of Portsmouth and say it carefully…PISSSScataqua say I. PisCATaqua says Bruce, correctly.

The other side of the bridge is Maine and the

wee township of Kittery which is where Warren’s Lobster House sits on the edge of the water.

For the very first time and to my immense chagrin, we cop an inhospitable hostess who greets my request for a window table with a snapped “they’re kept for reservations” and has us shown to the most far-distant table from the waterside. We’re here for the

lobster, not the view, Bruce comforts. Such an unpleasant reception in this place we long have loved, frequented, and shown off to visiting friends has thrown me. I am not really mollified but the pile of lobster claws is good.

We cross back to lovely Portsmouth for coffee in the town’s Market Square, sitting and watching the locals

amid the masses of tourists.

The first English colonists settled here in 1630, calling the place Strawberry Bank. There’s a re-creation of a period village staffed by actors in costume to prove it. It’s really very good. The Americans do these things very well. Not that we are going there today.

We are off down the coast.

Hampton Beach could not be more of a contrast to elegant, historic Portsmouth with its stately red brick buildings and winding cobbled roads.

Hampton Beach is a great big, cheerfully crass celebration of beach. We find a friendly pay-lot and take ourselves for a nostalgic seaside stroll. The beach, with its

coarse sand and chilly water, is packed with people and umbrellas. It is a wild, colourful scene of people heedlessly burning their skin in the name of seaside fun. They pack the foreshore with push chairs and masses of beach furniture which they cart around on their backs or

under their arms. Oh, and chiller boxes and towels and inflatables. They don’t travel light for a day at the beach.

Nor do they snack light. The pavement is a row of unbelievably naughty, fatty, unhealthy food outlets - starting with fried dough and fried chocolate bars and going on to amazingly thick pizzas, toffee apples, icecream, fudge and, my

favourite, salt water taffy. I buy some and do a spot of shameless swooning as the salty, sweet, chewy cherry confection commands my senses .

We wander about the kitsch souvenir shops and games arcades and past the guest houses tiered on the esplanade and rocking with large, summery, sunburned people.

The contrast as we drive along the coast road is in the rich Bostonians who have their summer houses here.

They are not slumming it at Hampton Beach. They are not really visible at all. But their beach houses are palatial and maintained

year round by staff, one hears. They have vast rolling lawns, flagpoles, fancy verandahs and balconies, turrets and widow’s walks…

They are over the top as displays of wealth and exclusivity. But isn’t it just so much a part of the disparities of this great big country!

Our next stop is Salisbury Beach, the slightly run-down older sibling to Hampton Beach.

It is rather nicer, we think. A

miniature version. Few people. The beach today is really lovely. The tide is out further than we have ever seen it. There is a waterline of firm, walkable sand. You don’t have to tell us twice to have a walk on a wonderful beach.

We whizz back to dear Nashua, along the roads we know. Oh, damn. Road works. Delays. This country is one big roadwork. Bruce slips off an

exit and we detour home via Lowell. Another familiar town. This has Kerouac Park, which is a brilliant shrine, tall polished granite pillars bearing quotes from Jack Kerouac’s writings. It is the best literary memorial in the world, in my opinion. We don’t stop. We follow the gorgeous Merrimack River down to Tyngsboro and then into Nashua.

There is one summer ritual we have

yet to perform. Time is running out. So it is down to Max's Ice Cream Parlor where Bruce is served a black raspberry ice cream big enough for an entire Vietnamese village and I have a proper American root beer float. We sit and listen to the sound of young men whacking baseballs at the adjoining practice range and immerse ourselves in the sheer, unadulterated Americana of it all.

Our week has been well spent. We have sent parcels back to Australia. We have repacked the baggage. We have done the washing. We have cleaned the car. And we have taken out and polished old memories and formed shiny new ones. We wonder if we will ever come back to this comfortable haunt.

Who knows?