Newmarket, NH

Enter Newmarket, New Hampshire.

We first lived in a duplex with some friends of my parents. The guy was named T.O. and I can't remember what his wife's name was. They were both very nice to us kids. It was halfway up a hill in the middle of town. Church Street, if you ever go there. At the bottom of Church Street was, suprise, a church. Between the church and my house were a parking lot (where I learned to ride my bike, but never actually rode one without training wheels until a couple years later) and a small building that may have been an apartment complex. If it was, in one of the ground floor apartments lived our friends Jaime and Joseph. Fletcher and I visited them a lot, and they visited us. Our mothers would swap turns babysitting us. One night while they were over playing with us, Jaime had an epileptic seizure. (Jaime is the RA on the 4th floor of my dorm now). It was very frightening. Across the street from us was an empty dirt space that was used as a parking lot. At the other side of that was a large house where a Laotian family lived. Newmarket had a very high Laotian population. My mother would baby-sit the little boy that lived there. I believe his name was Ricky.

Newmarket was a very small town, but I was an even smaller child, so it seemed very very large. Near and behind the church were the park and Lamprey River (named such for the lamprey eels that lived in it. I only saw these once, and they were dead and on the ground after the river flooded one time). Geese lived on the river, and we would frequently make trips down the hill to the park with bread for the geese. Once in a while, there would be swans. Swans are very beautiful creatures, but also very aggressive and dangerous. I was trying to feed one once that was floating a bit offshore and a man warned me not to, because it would attack and me and try to drown me. The geese never liked the swans either. I took this as a deep metaphorical lesson, but I'm not sure what it taught me.

Nearby the park, along the river, was a place called Joyce's. Joyce's made the best damn pancakes you'll ever have. Blueberry, Apple, Chocolate, with whip cream, with nuts, with natural maple syrup. Whatever it was, they had it, and it was amazing. Just trust me. Breakfast at Joyce's was a special treat. Also along the river, and one of Newmarket's claims to fame, were these large, large mills. I believe they made something that wasn't paper.

There is more to Newmarket, such as my house on Elm St. and this other street. Maybe Elder St.? Also, the playground, and Kendrick, and other semi-notable things, like houses by train tracks.