It is Town Meeting season, that festal time of year toward the end of winter, when there is more daylight and maybe less snow, and you can get to town and back with a horse and wagon after throwing a few punches at your neighbor over the cost of building a new school, apportioning land and repairing roads so things can get to market and people get to church.

I don’t know, really, but it sounds like that would have been the idea when things first got going.

Town Meeting is a uniquely New England custom and we hold on to it, like our country inns and markets. The practice followed a few pioneers out west, but here, it remains the principal form of local government.

Out west, the pioneers had room to spread out, so getting to Town Meeting might have been a real journey. And it was the Wild West. They walked around with guns and defended their stakes by relying on them, until the choice was made to introduce grown-ups armed with actual rules of law and order.

Yankee DNA would not trust anyone with that sort of authority, not after the marks left on us escaping from the old countries and clearing mountains of timber. We have relied on making our own decisions, thank you.

Of course, for those of you who have not experienced Town Meeting in thickly populated settlements around, say, Boston, I report that as of 10 to 15 years ago it was getting clunky. Town Meetings were stretching across three to four weeknights, addressing the concerns of 12,000 to 15,000 residents, very few of whom could invest the time to participate on account of needing to work late, being stuck in traffic, taking kids to band practice or helping with homework.

In our town at the time, Town Meeting was broadcast on the cable access channel, which was useful. We had it going in the background during homework, dinner, tub and bedtime. When there were big issues, we could anticipate when to jump in the car – one of us, at least 00 race to the venue, park (at the farthest end of the high school lot), check in, mingle, wait for the issue to be called and vote. Then go home.

A friend finally said, “Enough, we need a mayor, someone we can hire and fire if we choose four years later.” Town Meeting had become inaccessible to a representative majority. I agreed. Possibly, they have figured out how to use technology to allow people to participate from their living rooms, which is fine if the voting is secure, though there is no avoiding irreverent Town Meeting parties and beer cans tossed against the TV screen.

In Hancock, the usual rabble gathered on the first floor of the Meeting House the third Thursday of the month to consider a new bridge (really a large culvert), some updates to zoning ordinances (for instance, acknowledging our reliance on modern equipment such as renewable energy systems), and shifting money around for rainy days. No car dealerships to worry about, or office parks, not much traffic congestion to speak of, no exceptions requested for heavy industry.

None of that. The moderator, Ric Haskins, did read the maple syrup report, respectfully submitted by Mark Thompson of Longview Forest Products, our local producer. Syrup-makers started tapping early because of mild temperatures in January. Happily, no one invoked the specter of global warming because some things are better left to the nether regions of government, where mud collects.

Every article passed with unanimous consent, in an atmosphere of constructive engagement. The chair of the Select Board, Laurie Bryan, was given a bouquet of flowers and a standing ovation for her 12 years of service as a Select Board member.

Lifelong resident Tim Lord speaking to the question of the new bridge, recalled rumbling over the bridge before this bridge as a boy, which he took to go fishing with his father up on Willard Pond. He proposed a return to the thick timbers of those days for all the memories they provided, which people seconded as worth having. Haskins recommended the coffee, tea and baked goods along the side provided, as always, by the volunteer fire department.

After two hours, the meeting adjourned, although I drove by an hour or so later to fetch groceries and there were still people mingling out front catching up on other news and business.

Some days, it works just fine. It can be done.

Jarvis Coffin writes fiction and essays on rural life. He is a retired media and advertising sales executive, and former chef/owner, with his wife, of New Hampshire’s oldest inn, the Hancock Inn. Reach him at huntspond@icloud.com, and keep up with all his musings at postcard-from-monadnock.ghost.io.