I can’t say in full honesty that I enjoy your publishings because to be frank, I find them to be riddled with questions as to who would possibly write these accounts! October’s issue was even worse. Hampton is one of the quietest towns in the state so I wonder who could possibly complain! A random group of motorcyclists passing through town should not be shunned but celebrated! We want to promote our town and not hide it away moving towards inevitable extinction! Yes! Pass through town! Yes! Mow your lawns! Yes! Let’s hear your kids play! This is a community and should not be dictated by “regulation”. My goodness where has the sense of friendship and community gone? Also Auntie Mac, suggesting that the answer lies in ordinances, fines, elected officials and red tape leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. What happened to talking with each other? What happened to embracing the country life? The world does not revolve around any one of our citizens and to think you can prohibit others from living life is ridiculous.

Sincerely,

A Real Hampton Citizen 

My Dear Neighbor:

Your letter is both refreshing and puzzling at the same time—much like receiving a jettison of uncorked champagne in the face at a dull New Year’s Eve party: a welcome diversion, yet leaving the recipient wondering why the bottle was pointed in her direction. Auntie Mac applauds your passion, your Whitmanesque battle cry to embrace all that summer entails, from shrieking children to dawn lawnmowers to a two-hundred motorcycle salute down Main Street. And to be sure, she wholeheartedly agrees that Hampton is a town to be enjoyed.  But it is also to be revered, and reverence takes many forms. There are those of us who like nothing better than to spend the afternoon in our back forty cutting up two or three cords of wood with our new chainsaw sans earplugs. But because Hamptonites are courteous people, as well as broad-minded, we understand that some of us may not feel equally as strongly about the rhythmic 120-decibel hum of a forester-grade Husqvarna, and so we wait until a reasonable hour to indulge our desires—or our professional necessity. Similarly, a large family may have become immune to a posse of 8-year olds who have just discovered the joy of screaming, but their elderly neighbor might not. Alas, a request to have the children play elsewhere for a while, or a wave to a passing motorcyclist to slow down, does not always yield the desired result. In fact, human nature being what it is, the response may be to indignantly cause more racket, and at an even less suitable hour. We must certainly never “prohibit others from living life,” as you say. In fact, I have cautioned against that notion in this very column, when I receive letters from people who move to an agrarian town only to complain about the agrarian nature of it. Those whose families have lived on Main Street for generations (and witness firsthand the surprising amount of traffic and disturbance caused by inconsiderate travelers) understand what it means to be a good neighbor. It doesn’t mean that everybody all shuts up from now till eternity. It means that we all go out of our way to be courteous. It may very well be that some long-time residents cannot fathom that they would have to actually suggest to someone that mowing the lawn at 5a.m. is disrespectful, or that allowing one’s children to continually screech during an otherwise quiet afternoon is inconsiderate. They expect (and perhaps this is where Auntie Mac and others like her are misguided) that people will behave with common courtesy to each other without having to be reminded. Hampton has very few ordinances. It’s because for the most part, we know how to behave with each other. But some of us do not. Some of us simply do not care to know how others feel about the choices we make that might affect them.

Auntie Mac would suggest that a thundering herd of motorcycles speeding through the center of town does not speak to a sense of “friendship and community.” She would certainly “celebrate,” as you put it, a respectful, slow-moving group of them behaving as they would if their own small children or elderly parents lived on this rural section of Rt. 97. Surely some type of enforcement will not drive Hampton to “extinction” — or do you have such little faith in the town’s charms that you believe that obeying the speed limit will wipe us off the map? All communities regulate themselves, dear. The most cohesive do it without using official means. Let us, in the coming year, all try to be a little more cohesive, a little more attuned to our neighbors’ wants and desires. That is, after all, what “embracing the country life” is all about.

Your Auntie Mac