The land time forgot
Technology is a wondrous thing -- a thought that comes to mind whenever I approach the Hampton toll plaza on Interstate 95 in New Hampshire.
Take cellphones. A mere 20 years ago, they were so clunky you all but needed a sherpa to lug one around. Now they come with cameras and Internet connections inside a package so small it can tuck into a back pocket.
The first laptop computer I ever had was roughly the weight of a marine mammal, only bulkier. Every time I wanted to transmit a story to my newspaper, I attached a cord with primitive pieces of rubber to a telephone receiver and asked everyone within a hundred yards to please hold their breath. Now, you can connect any time, anywhere, from wafer-thin computers that need nothing so archaic as a wire.
Luxury cars are equipped with NASA-like navigation systems. Tiny digital cameras take crisp photographs that can be flung in seconds through the atmosphere, no film required. Some companies offer bargain basement prices on Internet telephone services that, best as I can tell, involve someone yelling at their computer while someone somewhere else yells at theirs. I may have that last part wrong.
Which is something of the point. Technology is moving so fast it's impossible to keep up. Every day, there's a new gadget and a different application. Now you can write checks on your computer. You can rewind shows on a 60-inch-wide, high-definition TV that's so narrow it hangs on a wall. You can store 10,000 songs in a concert hall-quality digital music player that can be clipped to your belt.
There's no end to where it all may go, no end, anyway, until you arrive in New Hampshire, and when you arrive in New Hampshire, the whole splendid technology revolution comes grinding to a traffic-clogged halt.
You see, in a world in which reality is in hot pursuit of the imagination, the people of New Hampshire can't quite get their heads around the concept of the E-ZPass -- the transponder system that allows drivers to glide through tollbooths without stopping to pay the fare.
Understand, virtually every other state up and down the Eastern Seaboard grabbed hold of the technology years ago, such that a motorist can drive from Maine to the southern tip of Virginia without ever having to stop to pay a toll.
Except in New Hampshire, where the state slogan shouldn't be ''Live Free or Die," whatever that means, but ''Sit and Wait, Sucker." Every summer weekend, the traffic slows to a crawl at the Hampton tolls, backing up for 3, 4, 5, or more miles, all because the state looks at E-ZPass like some futuristic endeavor they can't possibly comprehend.
I called up to the state capitol this week to ask why. I half expected the governor, John Lynch, to climb atop a telephone poll, one peg at a time, and talk to me with the receiver in one hand and the mouthpiece in the other. Instead, his spokeswoman, Pamela Walsh, summed up the delay in one word: tokens.
Most New Hampshire people use them, and benefit from the 50 percent discount they get. E-ZPass, because of the costs to administer it, would offer residents only a 30 percent break.
''He doesn't want to barrel ahead on this," Walsh said.
Tokens? Barrel ahead? If these people had been around in the 1700s, we'd be playing ''Hail to the Chief" for Tony Blair. Do the people of New Hampshire still use quill pens and parchment? Do they watch 13-inch black-and-white Philcos? Do they use outhouses?
Don't answer that last one. The point is, why not ease congestion? Why not cut down on pollution? Why not do what every other state has already done?
Because it's being studied. Because they're pinching dimes. And because the truth is they don't particularly give a damn if tens of thousands of out-of-staters are needlessly stuck on their roads.
So every summer weekend, as you approach Hampton, pull out your BlackBerrys or flip on the satellite radio. You'll have plenty of time to partake in the fruits of the imagination, thanks to those who won't.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.
