Signposts
and Junctions
The Queen City
The Queen City
Remembering Manchester in the Granite State of New Hampshire 1985-1990
For over five years, I called the Queen City home. I lived on Mammoth Road in Hookset,
(just over the town line from Manchester, New Hampshire) from August
of 1985 through December of 1990, and worked for a company situated in
Manchester. I was recently searching the internet on the Queen City and was
struck by the fact that the Manchester of today seems about as dreary as the
Manchester that I remember living and working in during those years. Oh yes,
Velcro was developed there, along with Habitant Pea Soup. Yawn.
Even though the area touts its many schools and colleges, there doesn’t seem
to be any grace, ‘soul’, or spirit to the area, unless of course you are a
conservative pundit, white, and established. In my eyes, New Hampshire seems
a place that you move to, buy property, and live after you have made your
mark, and it is not a land of opportunity. When I lived there, much of the
population of southern New Hampshire worked in Massachusetts.
I don’t recall anything proud or decent about the local paper, the Union
Leader, or its matriarch, ‘Nackey’ Loeb. The only thing I recall the
Manchester area actually being proud of in those days was the fact that the
state continued in its dogged refusal to acknowledge Martin Luther King’s
birthday as a holiday. The state finally acquiesced in 1999 when it became
the last state to do so, sixteen years after the legislation was passed by
Congress and Ronald Reagan had signed it into law.
In those years I worked for AIG (American International Group), the
corporate insurance conglomerate headquartered in New York City. AIG
maintained a data processing development center in Manchester, for tax
reasons I imagine. We were located on the west side of the river in an
innocuous modern brick building, and there was a large contingent of
consultants from Great Britain working there as well. Working with, and
getting to know them, was one of the highlights of my time there.
Even though the presidential primary season in Manchester was stultifying
and tedious, there were riotous moments as well. Some of my co-workers would
volunteer in one capacity or another during the weekends in primary season,
and we would listen to them swap stories at work on Monday about their
hobnobbing with the political elite. One morning there was a general
assembly gathered in the break-room in preparation for a message that was
forthcoming from our COO. One young woman, who dabbled in political
activism, was asked what she had been up to over the weekend, and she
proudly announced to the collected gathering, “I drove the head of Bob
Dole’s staff!” After a pregnant pause, the entire room erupted into
laughter.
There are two reasons why I enjoyed those years in Manchester, the people
and the land. I met some wonderful people in the years I called Manchester
home, people who were loving and kind, and I remain close friends with some.
Together, we enjoyed the mountains, lakes, and winter countryside. The land
itself was glorious, from the rolling hills of southern New Hampshire to the
mountains of the north; I enjoyed and loved it all. Hiking, camping,
snowshoeing, motorcycling, swimming, and canoeing, the Granite State is
certainly a place where a person can relax and have fun in the great
outdoors. Anyone who has read my stories is familiar with my love for the
White Mountains of New Hampshire. During those years, the enduring image of
New Hampshire, the great stone face of the old man of the mountain, still
gazed out at the state from his perch located on the side of Cannon
Mountain, high above Franconia Notch.
I endured my share of hardships during those years in Manchester. I
developed a back problem that led to major surgery and a year out of work,
and I amassed a mountain of debt keeping the apartment going and paying the
bills. That was a trying time and I had my share of dark days during that
year. Yet I got by with the help and support of so many friends, friends who
put a smile on my face when I needed it most. Prior to my surgery, Brock
Anderson and Helen Jalbert threw a party for me and invited some friends to
spend the night at their farmhouse in Warner. They made a roast turkey with
stuffing and all the fixings, and after dinner we all drank too much and
wore stupid hats and sang songs from ‘West Side Story’ and other Broadway
shows. After surgery, I lived with my friend Suzanne Cashman for several
weeks, and she got me through a time when I was depressed, vulnerable, and fragile.
I can remember a few favorite places after these many years. There were the
lamb specials at the Athens Restaurant, and the Easter kielbasa from
Golomb’s Market. We went to Happy Hour at the BTC, or Boston Trading
Company. The owner John was an active guy, and he would sponsor golf
tournaments and fishing trips. The Merrimack River flowed through the town
and once powered the mills that sit high above its banks. It is a beautiful
thing, the river, and I enjoyed many a lunch along its banks watching the
water flow south towards the sea.
The music scene was great, from local groups at small cafes to the big acts
that would occasionally roll into town. There was a small area on the
Merrimack River called Riverfront Park that hosted concerts during those
years. It was a hot place in the summer, what with the heat of the asphalt
and the brick buildings all around, and it was located below the old Notre
Dame Bridge (if I recall the name correctly), a bridge that sported a
beautiful green steel arch on either side of the roadway. In 1986, the Moody
Blues played a great concert at Riverfront in support of their new album,
and one of my favorite bands from that era, the Fixx, was the opening act.
Neil Young played a gig at Riverfront in ’87, and he did the first half of
the concert as a solo acoustic show. The first song was a quiet haunting
version of ‘Hey hey, my my’, and the last song was a full volume
electric-romp version of the same song played by Neil and his band, Crazy
Horse. One of the highlights of that show, on a beautiful summer night by
the Merrimack, was a memorable rendition of ‘Down by the River’.
In 1988, I saw David Lee Roth perform with his band, a group that featured Steve Vai on
guitars. That show was a rocking-good concert that included some wonderful
moments, such as when a dozen or so high school girls, three or four
cheerleaders per squad from the local schools, appeared on stage in their
school’s cheerleader outfits to form a kind of high-kicking chorus line
while Roth sang ‘California Girls’. It was beautiful and sexy, the girls were
flaunting it and the crowd went wild; I smile to this day every time
the memory of that night comes around.
In December of 1990, I left New Hampshire for the West and a new start in
California. There were storm clouds on the horizon for my friends and
co-workers at AIG in Manchester. AIG was one of the first corporations to
abuse the H-1B visa program by firing its homegrown Information Technology
staff and replacing them with cheaper foreign workers, even though AIG’s
profits were soaring. In a few years, it was all over for the little
development center in Manchester, and everyone was let go. One of my last
managers at AIG, Linda Kilcrease, testified before Congress about what was
happening at AIG and at other companies, but her warnings, which were
salient and prescient, were basically ignored. She stands out in my mind as
the first person who publicly voiced her outrage over outsourcing and
offshore IT staffs and worked tirelessly to do something about it; in that regard she was way ahead of her time. Over the
years, the assault on the middleclass continued. Now we have major data
centers in India supporting companies in the United States while the CEOs of
these bastions of capitalism continue to pocket obscene amounts of
compensation.
Now I live in California and look back on my years in New Hampshire with
fondness and gratitude. I remember warmly the friends I made in those years,
and the things I experienced. In addition, I am grateful to have endured
dark times and gotten on with my life as best I could, although I am glad
that I chose to move on. I hope that my stated observation above is wrong,
that the Manchester of today is a vibrant
place, and that it offers its young residents the kind of opportunities they
require in order to make their lives full. If Manchester is a dreary mill
city, then others will need to move on as well. As far as my career is concerned, the
assault on those that work in the field of Information Technology continues,
and I am glad that my working days in IT are drawing to an end.
Today, almost twenty years on, I remember Manchester warmly. I have
forgotten most of the pain, and wish
everyone in the Queen City all the best.
Los Angeles, California
June 2008