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Hampton Beach - After six and a half decades on Hampton Beach, Diana Lamontagne is unhappy with the way her home has changed. The first house she lived in on Exeter Avenue was washed out to sea in 1929. Now she says her house at the beach is being caught up in a rising tide of trash and foul language.
"I'm on a corner where they throw everything," Lamontagne says. She also recounts a recent incident in which she asked a group of boys drinking outside her home to turn down their radio. Instead, the volume went up. When the boys finally left, they left their Beach chairs behind. Lamontagne saw someone else come by and walk off with the chairs.
"I kind of hate to see the beach the way it is," she says. "This is my home."
Hampton Beach has been Lamontagne's home since she was three days old. She says her father, Fred Gagne, was a carpenter at the beach and her parents also rented out cottages for a living. When she married Art Lamontagne, it was a matter of course that they stay at the beach to earn a living. "We just went in (to the business)," Lamontagne says. "My mother and father rented rooms, so we went in."
She and her husband owned the Bluejay Motel on Ashworth Avenue for 34 years before turning the business over to their daughter, Mary. What began as a six-room operation now has 19 rooms.
The Bluejay has always been a family affair, with Mary and her three brothers helping out. Diana says as a motel owner she was on call 24 hours a day. One memorable summer, she even drove a pregnant guest to the hospital when the baby decided to arrive early.
The Bluejay has always marketed itself to families, many coming from Canada and Massachusetts. Lamontagne says the motel's present clientele includes many of the same families, some of them now the fourth generation of Bluejay guests.
Diana says she thinks her daughter will still be able to make a living running the Bluejay. But she is adamant on one thing: "I wouldn't start it today, "Lamontagne says. "I've had it."
Lamontagne may have had it with the trying side of Hampton Beach life, but she still loves her home. "The beach is good," she says. "And the Chamber (of Commerce) works like hell for the beach. The phone rings a million times a day."
She knows, for several hours a week, Lamontagne can be found manning the Chamber's Hampton Beach office. On this particular day a hot westerly breeze blows a continuous stream of sandy tourists in through the open door. Some stop to buy lottery tickets, others to find a safe place to stash their beach paraphernalia before taking a walk up Ocean Boulevard.
The Hampton Beach that Lamontagne remembers was a smaller, quieter one, she says. There have always been day-trippers, but there used to be regular buses running from Lowell, Mass., to Hampton Beach that helped cut down on traffic. There were also regular band concerts. When Lamontagne was growing up, Hampton Beach was also dry - no liquor in any beach business.
Now she says there are more people coming to Hampton Beach. "There are more businesses, more cars, more vacations (of only two or three days' duration).
"It's certainly changed a lot since I was a kid," she says. "It's the people, the whole beach.
"You can't go back to where it was, but it could be improved," Lamontagne says of present-day Hampton Beach.
