Presidents, States, and Capitals - New Hampshire

The Founding Colonies – New Hampshire

In case you’re new to this blog, I’m on a citizenship quest and I’m determined to know each state one by one. I’ve started with the Thirteen Founding Colonies, and I’m doing those in alphabetical order. After that I’m going to go through the 50 states as each one joined the constitution.

I visited New Hampshire once for a training course. While I have vague memories of pretty countryside on the way to and from Manchester and the airport, I didn’t manage to see more of the state other than that. The reason for the visit was a brutal training course on presentations. The day we arrived, the course began with a videotape of each participant doing a presentation on a topic given five minutes before the actual presentation began.

They replayed the video and everyone in the course had to give six positive and six negative comments on the presentation. Now bear in mind, I was the only woman in a roomful of around forty males.

The following day they trained us on body language, inflection, eye contact, you name an aspect, they covered it. That night they assigned us into random teams of two, gave us a topic, forty minutes, and then we had to present. Every step of the way someone was declared a winner.

The last day reverted to individual presentations with the prize being the number one spot and a chance for a paid week’s vacation in St. Croix.

Three months later, the DH and I vacationed in St. Croix. I have very fond associations with New Hampshire.

So below are the New Hampshire facts.

New Hampshire

Capital: Concord
Size: approximately 8,969 square miles with 13 miles of coastline
Size Rank: 45
Bird: Purple Finch
Admitted to Statehood: June 21, 1788, 9th Constitution
Population: 1,235,796
Presidents (birth): Franklin Pierce
Vice Presidents (birth): Henry Wilson

One name caught my eye in the list of famous New Hampshirites (cute) - Alan Shepard, the astronaut. Until I was twelve my driving ambition was to become an astronaut. I started studying astronomy, I wrote to twelve American Universities explained my ambition and requested information on programs and admission requirements. To my utter dismay, each reply contained a requirement I could not fulfill, you had to have been born in the United States.

Notwithstanding the devastating disappointment, I retain to this day a near-obsession with NASA and space. I have five people I consider my heroes, Neil Armstrong’s on that list, but Alan Shepard barely missed a spot. The first American in space, the fifth man to walk on the moon,

Shepard began his career in the Navy (Rear Admiral) and earned his wings in 1947. In 1959 he received an invitation (along with 109 others) to join the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Just thinking about all the changes he saw and was part of over the following three decades boggles my mind. What I would have given to meet him, spend an hour (or fifteen - I am such a greedy-guts) interrogating him (nicely) on his experiences.

Can you imagine the courage it took back then to volunteer to be the second man to orbit the earth? To take a trip to the moon, not knowing if you’d ever return?

Hell - if I had the money I would buy one of Branson’s tickets to the moon and pray fervently the trip would happen in my lifetime.

Would you?



Cheers,

JC