Where voting is as natural as a dump run

One reason for that is the sense that New Hampshire is exceptional. Its regions include the "North Country," "West Country," and "Seacoast," names which sound more reminiscent of Tolkien's Middle Earth than a humble jurisdiction in austere New England.

It is north of Concord, where the White Mountains cut a jagged spine through the state's midsection, that residents still seem to define community by their collective desire to be left alone.

Government action is often frowned upon. In Woodstock, a tiny town in the middle of the White Mountains, Charles Harrington was recently perturbed by a $10,000 grant to the city to plant new trees. "What do we need more trees for, they're already all around us?" says Mr. Harrington, whose "Charles' Barbershop" has been in operation 44 years.

A mile south, Vicky Long's general store is guarded over by a cigar store indian and a sleeping black lab. An emigrant from Natick, Mass., she was surprised by the remonstrations of some "lifers'" last year against buying the police department another car. "One man ranted for 20 minutes that because the PD didn't change their own oil, they shouldn't get any new cars," she says.

People in Lincoln, the next town over, recently voted down a town proposal to plow seniors' driveways for free. "The long-timers and the new people fight like cats and dogs there."

In southern New Hampshire, where most residents live, people say their towns are unrecognizable compared with a decade ago. "It's Massahampshire now," says Belinda Glennie of Bradford.

Many complain that an influx of people who often commute to Boston, has made their state much more similar to all the rest. Residents in Merrimack are now obliged to wear helmets when they ride a bicycle, a regulation many here believe was hatched by a group they generally describe as a progressive cabal of Massachusetts techno-geeks. "Everyone wants to wear a helmet now for everything," says Jonah Couturier, lifelong Merrimack resident who has 10 facial piercings and poker chips in his earlobes. "It's not government's job for that."

But even some hard-core Yankees, upon whose brows beads of sweat develop with the mention of "local taxes," grudgingly admit that the state needs to change. Some approve the small but comparatively significant influx of blacks and Hispanics into what has always been one of a racially homogenous state.

Others say the new residents often bring with them more money to spend, and jobs in technology companies and financial services that are propping up their local economies.

One example: Nashua (pronounced Nashaw by locals), which has converted a handful of former mills into condominiums. "The city is doing very well," says Dick Avard, who runs a haberdashery. Still, Mr. Avard says the city's "New Hampshire feel" is now virtually gone. "It's hard to put into words what we've lost," he says. "It's a way of life, no frills, a good and healthy lifestyle."

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