This week’s issue is a celebration of many of the things that make up what many of us have come to think of as our community and our quality of life. It’s Hippo’s Best of 2021 issue, where you tell us what you like best about your community.
We made a few changes this year to reflect the realities of the effects of the pandemic on our community, including more questions relating to outdoor activities and removing some relating to live performances. We also changed how we classified the Best of picks. We kept the Best of the Best — those are the top vote getters in a category — but rather than having geographic Best of picks, such as Best of Manchester, we classified the next four top picks as “Readers Bests.” We hope you enjoy the results and explore (once you feel safe to do so) your community. The results start on page 10.
One of my favorite parts of the Hippo Best of is the Smaaart answers we get. When asked to name the “Thing New Hampshire does better than any other state,” many folks answered maple syrup or four seasons or the great outdoors or live free and others suggested, “hate Massachusetts,” or “just not Massachusetts,” and others hit on a drinking theme with answers such as “booze” or “great beer” or “liquor stores on the highway.”
On a question where we asked readers to fill in the blank — “2021 in NH: Year of the __” — we also got some creative answers. They included “mask,” “Covid,” “lockdown,” “pandemic” and “Oh God, what now,” but there were also a few that went in different directions, such as lobsters, cider doughnuts, beer, babies, divorce, smiles and tattoos. I guess I can see that too much cider doughnuts and beer leads to babies and divorce and soon to follow are smiles and tattoos. “Oh God, what now.”
One of the more surprising reader answers came from our multiple-choice question asking whether vegetables on pizza are a crime against pizza, OK in the case of __ vegetable, or always delicious. One of our vote-counters asked if we were being punked because a fair number of people answered, “broccoli.” Clearly that vote counter is in the George H.W. Bush camp. But as you can see on page 13 the great majority of Hippo readers think veggies on pizza are A-OK (a sentiment I share). I even like broccoli on pizza, though probably not enough to mention it by name.
Thank you to everyone who voted and congratulations to all the winners — even broccoli.