I read a very engaging column in this morning’s Keene Sentinel, the closest thing to a local newspaper around these rural parts, by one of their editors, Susan Reing. I commend it to you; she writes about the reasons why she chooses to live in New England in spite of winter. And she got me to thinking about the same question, almost: why did I decide to live in New England (after 70 years in the South) in spite of winter? My Top 10 reasons, like hers, and with apologies for all similarities, are all over the map, real and imagined, believable and totally lacking credibility. Please enjoy and judge for yourself.

10. I have completely lost my mind.

9. The other three seasons: spring, summer and fall, each glorious in its own distinctive way, but three very definite, defined seasons, something lacking in the South, which has six months of summer, one month of spring, one month of fall and four months of weather that mixes all three with occasional winter (think of Atlanta in 2014).

8. A fascination with snow. Living in the South, I learned snow is only a very occasional visitor and always a pest when it arrives since no one is prepared for it, the stores run out of bread and milk, traffic gridlocks, and … well, think Atlanta 2014. Truthfully, I like winter. I don’t mind the cold. Which leads to…..

7. Seriously, I have lost my mind.

6. Winter driving skills improved. I have driven successfully over snowy and icy roads with careful impunity for the first time. I am quite proud, or would be if not for the fact that I failed to notice the ice in my own driveway back at the beginning of winter and clipped the end of the garage. No one in my family has forgotten that.

5. Moose. Yep, I have seen my first moose, a resident of New Hampshire, wandering off the highway. So let me repeat: I have actually seen an actual moose, a sentence that will not be repeated by anyone living south of here.

4. Used book shops. I do know and have visited many delightful used book stores around the South, but there’s something special about those little New England shops tucked by the roadside and sitting half-hidden in the woods. Their inventories are as quirky as their owners though usually less cranky.

3. Lobsters. This is really my wife’s big reason. She’s never met a lobster she didn’t want to devour on the spot. And we live close enough to Maine to enable her to drive over in a couple of hours to buy them fresh off the boat at a very reasonable price. The problem: eating lobsters in Maine only makes you want to stay in Maine and eat more as soon as you digest the current meal.

2. The Red Sox. I’ve always been a Red Sox fan, as careful readers of this blog will have observed, and to be here, in their backyard, so to speak, is heaven. I know you can pick up their games anywhere around the country, but living in New England makes it all the more real and satisfying. And Fenway Park is just a couple of hours away.

1.5 The Boston Bruins. Never cared for hockey until I arrived in New England in time to watch the Bruins make an amazing run at the Stanley Cup last year. That turned me into a huge fan, and a trip to the Garden to see them live only enhanced that.

1. The real reason: the kids and grandkids live close by. I suppose to be honest about it, if they had chosen to live in New Zealand instead of New England, I’d be going on about the delights of Auckland. As it is, its all worked out just right. I couldn’t be happier.