On Marketplace today was a story about broadband Internet and banking that began in Colebrook, and I got an email from the new reporter that will permanently fill my position at the Reporter. A pang of regret hit me each time. I’m not up there full time anymore, and I miss it.

My new position is great, however, and I don’t regret the move. The pace of a daily is a good challenge, as is reporting a new beat with new people. Once life gets fully settled I’m looking forward to getting deeper into the Conway community, where there are surely stories to tell. But I must admit I find myself reminiscing about North of the Notches.

I was talking to a candidate for state senate today, and she called Carroll County the North Country. All of the representatives from the North Country need to band together, she said, because they all have the same challenges. Carroll County is more like Coös County than it is like southern New Hampshire, she said, and they have to stick together.

I told her I didn’t think many people North of the Notches would agree on that point. She agreed—she’d lived there herself. I have to admit, after being let into the club up there, it feels like something special. Most people just don’t understand Coös. I’m not sure I do fully either, but I get enough of it in me that I connect to it.

And I’ve still got things going up there, things that I have to get back to. The story is continuing in the North Country, and though I’m not going to be covering it every day, I don’t want to let it go. Otherwise I’d spend all my time reminiscing.