As I am reminded nearly daily these days, the Census is being held this year. But my problem with the Census is that it will only collect data on a portion of the Manchester, NH, population. The Census will pay no heed to one quite populous set of folks who have called Manchester, NH, home for decades, and in some cases, centuries, including these subterranean South Willow Street residents:

I speak, of course, of the city's dead, who number, conservatively, in the tens of thousands.

"As we don't have accurate records in some of the smaller satellite cemeteries, it's hard to say how many people are buried in all of them but Pine Grove Cemetery has 40,055," said Chuck DePrima, Director of the City of Manchester Parks, Recreation and Cemetery Department.

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When people ask me, as they often do this time of year, why I left my native South for New England, I'm tempted to tell them I did it for the region's abundance of roundabouts and rotaries.

Okay, maybe that wasn't the main reason, but that's not to say I don't love me some circular intersections. And with the exception of the roundabout near Mississippi's Jackson-Evers International Airport, such intersections are sadly lacking in Dixie.

But here in New England they are quite plentiful. Manchester, NH, has two of these intersections, my favorite being the Massabesic Traffic Circle, around which I can't resist making at least two laps each time I have the excuse to go anywhere near the eastern edge of the city.

My wife just rolls her eyes whenever she's with me, but it's just too much fun:

The city's other circular intersection, of course, is the much larger Amoskeag Rotary, only a small portion of which will fit in a picture:

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