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.

The U.S. House today passed a nearly $1 trillion farm bill. The Senate is expected to take up the measure and approve it later this week, and presumably President Obama will sign it into law a few days after that. Forgive me if I am able to contain my rejoicing.

There are, of course, some good things about this bill, beginning with the fact that it passed the House with the support of Democrats and Republicans, suggesting that the partisan apocalypse may not be quite as close as we have feared. It apparently means that the price of milk won’t triple in the next 12 months. And it also does away with those noxious subsidies in which farmers were paid with taxpayer’s money not to grow crops. That has long been a gripe of mine; I once offered not to write anything more if the government would pay me, but alas, no one took me up on the idea.

The bill — for reasons that seem as curiously inexplicable as most of the stuff that passes through Congress these days — includes funding for the nation’s food stamp program. Regrettably, it means that more money is going to be taken away from the people who most need food stamps: the poor, the elderly, veterans. The realist in me says the compromise of getting bi-partisan approval for such a major bill is good. In my heart, however, I hurt for those who will suffer because of its provisions (and I don’t mean those who relied on not growing crops for their livelihood).

The food stamp program accounts for about three-quarters of the money in the bill. That’s a sad commentary on the state of this country’s income divisions. It will trim $8 billion from the food stamp program over the next 10 years. It could have been worse; some Republicans (remember the Tea Party?) wanted to cut $39 billion from it. Most Democrats wanted to preserve it or approve even fewer cuts. So this was a compromise, and that’s why it passed.

Again, compromise is a good thing, but not when it is accomplished over the empty stomachs of millions of Americans. And this cut comes in the wake of another, smaller, cut in food stamp checks that went into effect last November when the recession-era boost in funding came to an end. And how many Americans will be affected by this action? Approximately 47 million. To put that into perspective, consider that attendance at NFL games — and you know the NFL is the world’s largest live spectator sport excluding auto racing –last season totaled about 18 million. So it would take two and a half NFL seasons to reach the number of people in this nation receiving food stamps. The Tea Party enjoys thinking of those recipients as shiftless and irresponsible, but even if
some of those recipients might be, the number who are truly needy is overwhelming. And who speaks for them? Where is their plight treated in this mammoth farm bill?

We drove down to the New England International Auto Show in Boston last week. Of course, how else would you go to an auto show except to drive? The Convention Center was crowded, the exhibition floor was busy, and we had a good time looking at the possibles and the never-going-to-happen models on display.

It’s hard not to be dazzled by some of the upscale cars with prices well beyond our pocketbooks (that would be most everything above $30,000). Take the McLaren, for instance: a gull-winged powerhouse that dashes from 0-60 in 3.1 seconds. It has an interior that is … well, actually I have no idea what the interior looks like; the McLaren rep had no interest in allowing us to peep in. Apparently he could separate the lookers from the buyers at a glance. Similarly for the Lamborghinis on display; they looked great, but then most of us weren’t allowed to get too close to them, and certainly not near enough to peer inside. Nothing like having your status as a poor relation confirmed in such a public place.

We did like the 2014 Corvette Sting Ray, powerful and very handsome. Still above a retiree’s paycheck, but really kind of affordable nonetheless. We were surprised to see that Porsche has come up with a $100,000 hybrid, although we can’t for the life of us imagine why. I mean, really, if you can afford a Porsche why would you care how much the gas for it costs? And of all the cars we were allowed to climb in, the BMW and Lexus models smelled the best — rich, deep leather, almost overwhelming and very satisfying.

Among the affordable autos at the show, we liked the Subaru Forester and Outback SUVs, surprisingly roomy, well designed and featuring that all-wheel drive so good that the Subaru has become the unofficial state car of Vermont and New Hampshire winters. We liked the Chevy Silverado, big and muscular and looking like a real rival to the Ford F-150. We’re partial to the Ford truck because we own one, but we were disappointed Ford chose not to show off the trucks. We had heard about their all-aluminum 2015 F-150, but it wasn’t on display; instead we got a bare-bones 2014 150 and a more appealing if really huge 250. Don’t know why Ford blew off its best-selling vehicle.

As I said, it was fun to see so many autos in one spot. We would have stayed longer if there had been places at the center to eat lunch. But since nothing but pretzels and prepared sandwiches were available, we headed off to a nearby restaurant. One big meal and several drinks later, we decided against returning to the show. The prospect of one more hot toddy on a very cold day was just too appealing. And besides, we think our truck is still better than most of what we saw at the show. Unless, of course, the Lamborghini guy has a real instinct for an insanely charitable act. I left him my number just in case.

Louisianans get what they deserve. Or rather, vote for. Their politics and politicians would be hilarious if they weren’t so tragic. Think back to Huey Long. Or Earl Long. Or Edwin Edwards. There’s a lengthy list of unfathomably unethical elected officials, most of them a governor at one time or another. And now David Vitter wants to join that list. He certainly should; he seems eminently qualified to wallow oops, follow — in the dirty footsteps of his predecessors.

Vitter is currently the Republican junior United States senator from Louisiana, you may recall. You may also recall that his self-serving career has been marred by prostitution scandals. Or perhaps that’s too harsh a term; let’s just say he apparently has a prostitution problem. In his 2004 election campaign, the married Vitter was accused of having a long-term affair with a prostitute. He denied it. In 2007, the still-married Vitter wound up connected to the infamous “D. C. Madam” case. When that came to light, he apologized profusely, wife by his side, for the sins he committed. Apparently, not only his wife but a lot of voters in Louisiana didn’t care; he won re-election in 2010.

As if that’s not sorry enough, during his time in the Senate Vitter has staked out positions that are regrettable if not abhorrent. Apart from all the things he loves about the Tea Party, he approves of discrimination against gays and lesbians by denying them marriage rights, although it’s just fine if any of them might want to buy a gun for any reason. He managed to get $100,000 of taxpayer’s money assigned to a Louisiana organization devoted to teaching kids why evolution is baloney. He’s also strongly opposed funding increases for a state children’s health insurance program, apparently in the belief that kids in Louisiana are health enough already

The sad thing about this is that Vitter is not a fool or a stupid, venal person. He has the advantage of an extraordinary education that includes a degree from Harvard, a degree from Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar and a law degree from Tulane University. He has the background of a serious leader but apparently the mindset of a small-town corrupt politician. He deserves shame, continuing shame.

And what does this matter to someone like me living in new Hampshire, a blessed many miles away from Louisiana? Apart from sympathy for some of the folks in Louisiana who are as embarrassed by Vitter as a lot of us elsewhere are, there’s this: under Louisiana law, Vitter can run for governor without giving up his Senate seat. In other words, this very objectionable man — one of the most obstructionist Republican members of the Congress — will remain there if he loses. This truly qualifies as a lose-lose situation for all of us.

A few weeks ago I wrote a column about a notable New Hampshirite, Horace Greeley, one of the 19th century’s most famous and finest journalists and a passionate supporter of the Abolitionist cause in the antebellum era. A friend called to take me to task for the column, not because of Horace Greeley (“Sort of an interesting guy,” was his description), however, as for the description of Greeley as a New Hampshirite. “Call him a Granite Stater,” my friend said. “It doesn’t sound as dorky, and it makes you sound at least a little more local.”

That hurt. After all, I’ve been local for the last nine months. I’ve already caught the tail end of mud season, been to Lake Winnipesaukee, ridden the cog railway up Mt. Washington, taken a fall leaf drive through the North Country, bought a set of snow tires, endured minus-13 temperatures and over two feet of snow. I’ve even thought about ice fishing. My time in New Hampshire may be brief, but I believe I’ve gotten pretty darned immersed in my home state’s culture during that time.

The last thing I want to do, though, is to sound “wrong.” Of course I don’t sound like I’m from Boston — no one from Atlanta does — but I’ve observed that a lot of Granite Staters/New Hampshirites don’t either. But I’m eager to avoid the cultural lapses that clearly mark me as a flatlander (bearing in mind that Atlanta has a higher elevation and more hills than a lot of locales in southern New Hampshire).

The matter of naming residents of states can get tricky. Easy enough for Georgians, Virginians, Californians and Texans. Pretty easy for Montanans and Oklahomans. But what, for instance, about the folks in Illinois? And for heaven’s sake, New England is practically a case study unto itself. In addition to New Hampshire, you have Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts. No wonder they wind up as Nutmegers, Mainers and — well, I dunno, Massholes?

Anyhow, I’ve been doing some reading about New Hampshire here and there, and in addition to learning a little more history I’ve concluded — nothing scientific, of course — that Granite Stater seems to be a preferred designation. Both terms appear to get a decent amount of usage, but my highly unofficial survey shows that New Hampshirite appears more often in a serious or scholarly work, while Granite Stater is found more often in casual, pop references. The magazine “New Hampshire,” in fact, has an “insider’s edition” that advises newcomers that using Granite Stater makes you seem a little more cool.

Therefore, I have decided that I will henceforth use the term Granite Stater instead of New Hampshirite — unless I’m writing something seriously, in which case I’ll refer to New Hampshirites in defiance of the possibility of being labeled uncool. That way, I hope, I can demonstrate not only an insider’s knowledge of my home state but a scholarly appreciation for the finer points of speech as well. Just call me a Granite Stater. Unless you want to call me a New Hampshirite. I’m happy to respond to either.

The Wall Street Journal recently offered travelers some suggestions for enjoying their journeys by air in this new year. I much admire the story’s writer, Scott McCartney, who is a very good journalist, but I disagree with his sense of optimism about the airlines as well as some of his ideas. So with all respect due Mr. McCartney, please allow me a brief dissenting commentary.

First, I don’t see any reason for travelers to be optimistic about flying in 2014. Unless, of course, you fly hundreds of thousands of miles each year and fall into one of the airline’s premium categories, or you just have lots and lots of money to throw at the airlines for first-class seats. If that’s you, congratulations; 2014 will be another banner year. If you are, however, like the rest of us who fly only occasionally and then in steerage (coach) class, please remember my mantra: The airlines are not your friends.

The new year, I’m convinced, will bring us the following: higher fares, fewer flights, more crowded flights, tighter, more uncomfortable seating, more flight disruptions, less and worse food, more and higher fees, longer waits. On the plus side, there’s a better chance that the airlines won’t lose your checked baggage. Go ahead the pop the champagne cork over that one.

To be more specific about some of the Journal’s ideas — Mr. McCartney suggests you aim for elite status by flying with just one airline even if that means paying higher fares. If your flying is no more than a half dozen or so flights this year, however, you’ll wind up paying more without getting close to elite status. He also suggests making a totally unnecessary flight or two in order to reach elite. I’m not much on that idea either; you’re likely to pay more than anything you’d get.

He proposes passengers buy their food at airports locations rather than wait for something on board, and given the rising quality of those airport restaurants, that’s absolutely the right path to follow. He advocates paying for an airliner credit card to get the right to board early, a suggestion that isn’t awful, but consider the $100 annual fee against the fact that everybody else has one and boards at the same time you do.

Mr. McCartney suggests springing for the extra fee for getting more legroom on longer flights. It’s hard to argue with this, except to point out again that the airlines are doing everything possible to make coach (cheaper ticket) customers terribly uncomfortable and squeezed. They should be ashamed of extorting fees to purchase minimal levels of seating comfort.

New federal regulations now further limit the time pilots can spend in the cockpit without rests — which seems a good safety idea — but given the reduced number of planes now in the fleets and the reduced number of flights, the opportunities for delays are mounting. Add in the usual weather-related issues, whether snow or ice or rainstorms, and you have a year filled with potential problems. We’ve already seen one big one in the Midwest and Northeast, and the year is scarcely 10 days old.

Finally, lest I just sound grumpy, let me add that Mr. McCartney also has some splendid suggestions. Among them, avoid reclining your seat in coach — that’s just being a decent human being with respect for others in the same tight circumstances — and have sympathy for those passengers stuck in a middle seat (again, it could be you, so be kind).

Of course, my suggestion is take the train. Or bus. Or drive your own vehicle. Or bicycle. Or walk. Make flying your last resort if possible. And yes, I know you can’t get to many wonderful places around the globe without flying. I fly when I have to. But the more you can avoid and minimize it, the cheerier your trip is likely to be. And besides, if you believe flying is the best part of your trip, you probably seriously need another bag of peanuts.

For those of you who believe in leprechauns, mermaids, and the benevolence of the National Security Agency, here’s another addition to your list of the unreal: the Republican Party’s desire to help millions of poor Americans.

And why, you could wonder, is the GOP being mentioned in the same breath as anti-poverty programs? Politics. Just politics. Republicans in Congress don’t believe the government’s efforts to help the poor over the last 50 years has yielded enough benefits. Presumably they mean benefits to the poor, but being Republicans, you can never be sure. According to The New York Times, the Republicans want to cast themselves in a more caring way (never mind their continuing efforts to take money away from food programs for the poor, to keep the unemployed from getting more benefits and to abandon fuel assistance funding for cold Americans).

Over the next few weeks, we seem likely to hear some Republican proposals to help the poor. These will be — surprise! — market based, according to the Times. Translation: if the proposals actually help the poor, great, but the focus will be on cuts in a lot of different programs, some of which will surely impact low-income Americans.

Here’s one clear example of why these proposals almost certainly won’t provide any serious of seriously intended help to the poor. Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah — the state that continues to demand its right to discriminate against gays seeking legal marriage — would like to give states more control over Medicaid money and over Head Start funding for early childhood education. What a ghastly idea. Already, you may recall, the federal government offered states millions of dollars for Medicaid programs, only to find a number of governors (Republicans, by the way) who rejected this free money to help their own citizens. Let’s say that one more time so you’re clear: some states refused to accept free money to help their poorest citizens. And Sen. Lee wants to give the states control of funding for a variety of programs to help the poor? It doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that’s going to be a no-win for people with no money.

The number of people officially described as living in poverty has declined from 25% 50 years ago to about 17% in 2012. That’s an improvement if hardly cause for rejoicing. And it has happened in spite of the opposition of many Republicans over that half a century. Moderate/Progressive Republicans in the 1960s and ’70s (they went the way of dinosaurs) supported the anti-poverty programs, but since the 1980s it has been unfettered opposition by the GOP to one degree or another. And when it comes to the Tea Party Republicans, it is total opposition. It would truly be refreshing if the party desired to help the poor with serious proposals, but I’d suggest you listen carefully to what you will hear in the coming weeks. My guess is they will be more self-serving that serving the needs of the poor.

Congress is back! And the excitement level is rising as quickly as the ocean tides in Arizona. Everyone is anticipating the return of nonpartisanship as Democrats and Republicans come together, arm in arm, in a march toward political rapprochement and with a unified determination to demonstrate they can and will govern, in spite of the polls showing most Americans wish they wouldn’t and hope they won’t.

And in that spirit, I take note of some of the bills that have been pre-filed for this session of Congress, proposals that seem certain to generate support from both sides of the aisle since everyone in Congress wants to do the right things. Here’s a quick look at some of the most important bills the House and Senate soon will be considering:

— H. 24338564 A Bill to Lower the Federal Minimum Wage by $3 per hour. Republicans unanimously agree this proposal will jump start America’s small businesses, enabling owners to trim expenses while continuing to operate profitably in the way that capitalism was intended to operate.

— H. 25573497 A Bill to Create Day Care Centers for the Unemployed. This compassionate measure, endorsed by both parties, would establish a series of national institutions to accommodate and provide entertainment and two daily meals for adults who might lose their jobs as a result of a reduction in the minimum wage. The construction of these facilities also will provide employment for thousands of workers.

— S. 555032676 A Bill to Protect Americans from the Pernicious Effects of Obamacare. This bill would provide funding to install software on every American’s computer that would prevent signing up for any federally mandated healthcare program. Backers of the bill agree that the current healthcare system is working just fine.

— H. 466999413 A Bill to allow Texas to secede from the Union. Amazingly, not a single person in Congress, man or woman, has objected to this proposal.

— S. 592224681 A Bill to Permit the Senate Committee on Science and Technology to include Demonology Among Causes of Global Warming. This measure speaks for itself; if the devil didn’t do it, who did?

— H. 177325690 A Bill to Allow Same-Sex Marriages.* This common-sense proposal would end discrimination against gays and lesbians. *Note: Bill would be applicable only in U.S. Territories that begin with “G.”

As a native southerner, I’ve always had a curiosity about Nor’easters. First, I wondered why the “th” was always omitted for the contraction. Was that a peculiar form of the New England dialect, somehow connected to the way Bostonians leave off the “r” in so many words (think “paking the cah in Harvad Yad.)? No, apparently not. According to internet sources — which are always reliable, as we know — the contraction probably comes from maritime usage several centuries ago, but it also has found its way into the language much more frequently over the last 30 years, for whatever reasons.

Secondly, my curiosity got an in-your-face response in the last 24 hours when I experienced my first Nor’easter here in southwestern New Hampshire. We experienced over one foot of snow — light and fluffy for the most part — and moderately windy conditions, all framed in temperatures that ranged from bitterly cold to Holy-smoke-Batman-it’s-time-to-light-a-fire-in-your-pants cold. In other words, high temperatures soared up to 4, while overnight lows dropped to minus 16. That’s air temp, not wind chill.

That is, of course, part of the New England winter statistics which can and do awe and amaze residents of the Sun Belt every year. That was me until this winter, although I find myself pretty much awed and amazed even as I live in the middle of it. Most amazing, I think, is this: after this Nor’easter — which interestingly the meteorologists characterize as the FIRST Nor’easter of the year (there are more coming???) accompanied by up to two feet of snow, whirling winds and temperatures well below freezing, no one seems to be mentioning this as anywhere close to setting records.

So, here in New England with conditions far snowier and colder than in Antarctica where it took four nations to rescue people from an ice-locked ship, no one is even discussing the possibility of setting meteorological records? Better keep that fire going, Batman.

And I must also confess amazement at something else: the matter of how quickly life goes on. Several hours after the last snowflake fell, Ray, our snowplow guy, showed up to make the driveway driveable. Our new snowblower cleared a decent path to the woodshed. Even my shoveling, done under unsuccessful protest, cleared off the porch and steps. Later today we’ll drive into town and carry out our business with businesses that have been open most of the day. Tomorrow we’ll get on the interstate and go visit our kids.

And the Nor’easter? Well, that was yesterday’s news.

PBS is a good thing, by and large. Their programming often aims for the brain, which is more than most other networks can claim. They remain about the only channel on television where those of us who enjoy the classics — whether literature or music and dance and theater — can find an occasional bone thrown our way. And I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for that high-class soap opera, “Downton Abbey.”

But sometimes I get fed up with it. And no, I’m not talking about the incessant fund-raising, always an embarrassment for both pleaders and givers. No, I have in mind one specific: the annual broadcast of the New Years concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, which used to be an occasion for considerable pleasure but now has become increasingly a cheapening experience that I find demeaning to serious listeners.

First, the broadcast conveys only about half of the music performed at the concert. That’s in part because the hostess, Julie Andrews, takes viewers on marginally related tours of wineries, porcelain making institutions, historic sites, palaces and the like instead of permitting us to hear what the orchestra is playing. I readily admit some viewers may prefer that — but this is an orchestra concert, so why can’t we just be allowed to see the orchestra and its conductor? Similarly, during other parts of the concert, views of the orchestra are replaced by shots of dancers dancing moving to fairly nondescript choreography in sumptuous but empty Austrian palace rooms. Maybe it works as a sales pitch for Vienna, but really, it’s just distracting, repetitive and, frankly, an insult to many of us.

Near the end of the “Blue Danube” performance, by the way, the dancers actually show up in the audience, providing television viewers — and possibly audience members — a bewildering and annoying distraction from the conclusion of one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. And this stunt required the collaboration of the Vienna Philharmonic, to whom shame should be directed.

As for the concert itself, well, what I heard was pretty good. Daniel Barenboim was a somewhat starchy conductor (until he loosened up in the finale), but it’s hard not to find just about everything quite agreeable. This is, after all, the Vienna Philharmonic, and they know the heart and soul of this music inside and out, as was evident when they played the final Radetzky March without a conductor. Sadly, the last bars of the march were covered up by graphics and an announcer’s voice. Dreadful.

As I said, this used to be must-see viewing, PBS. But I think I’ve seen it for the last time. I’ll stick to a DVD or CD in order to get the entire concert — without the bothersome side pieces.