There are lots of wonderful people in New York, and a recent study shows that most of them live in Ellenville, Wawarsing, Kerhonkson, and Cragsmoor — a few in Napanoch, Greenfield Park, and even Pine Bush. They are great friends, interesting and worthwhile people, intelligent and kind. I love them and miss them.

But I have to tell you, people here are more polite. The level of civility continues to surprise me. When I first arrived, I took a sharp blow to the head at the DMV. It cost $450 to buy tags for my little car! Maryland taxes the car at book value, which they said was $14,000. Showing them the year-old receipt proving I paid $13,200 didn't change their stance on that.

Still stunned, I moved on to get a driver's license, and with that, I was spoiled and pampered. The lady who processed me felt my New York photo didn't do me justice. She thought I looked like an angry prison matron. She took four photos of me before she got one she liked, and in Maryland, I look like a happy, rosy-cheeked apple. She also signed me up as an organ donor and registered me to vote.

People here don't have syrupy Southern accents, but they are just naturally inclined to be courteous. If someone passes within two feet of you on the sidewalk, or in the grocery aisle, they say, "Excuse me." If they are at a greater distance, they still make eye contact, smile and say, "How 'ya doin'?" If you compliment them, they respond with a pleasant "thank you," instead of, "Oh, I've had this old coat for ages," a self-deprecation we Yankees use that is meant to express modesty.

They let you in the line when traffic is heavy, and road rage is rare.

They return shopping carts at the grocery store, and they do not loudly berate and abuse their children in the grocery store; they don't annihilate other shoppers with grocery carts carefully aimed at the Achilles heel, and they don't purposely damage products to claim a discount at checkout.

But there is one wildly annoying local custom that must be noted, one that Journal readers who object to the annual Road Rally will understand. In Hagerstown, there is a year 'round love affair with noise.

I have never lived anywhere where noise is so happily tolerated, even admired. Not only the mighty rumbling of testosterone trucks, but mosquito-like two-wheeled things with lawn mower engines screaming in pain as they struggle to carry old fat guys who are hanging over the edges of these pathetic motorcycle wannabes.

And the "Hot Stuff": adolescents with cool headwear whose hormones power up with incredible noise, pulsating radio racket supplementing the lack of a muffler, thinking to impress…well, who, exactly, do they imagine is favorably impressed?

Could this be related to the local fascination with tractor pulls and monster trucks? Some kind of sexual ritual in which throbbing noise proclaims sexual prowess and arouses other vehicles? A primal dance among Alpha Drivers to determine a dominant Zoomzoom Goon?

Local police seem reluctant to enforce Hagerstown's noise ordinance. They don't seem to want to bother with these thrill-seeking recreational riders.

Why do they buy into this obnoxious practice? "Boys will be Boys"? "Noise will be Noise"? Why is it allowed, even when these yahoos are driving their little vehicles like heat seeking missiles, buzzing and whining like immense and aggressive insects?

The City of Hagerstown's noise ordinance is defined by decibels, but surely, even without a testing device, police must know that these hideous, dentist drilling, ear splitting, screaming, bone rattling, grating, jarring, wildly annoying, rat-a-tat-tat machine-gun-fire noises violate local laws and disturb the peace.

Oh, ye citizens of Ellenville, and the Town of Wawarsing, rejoice and be grateful! The assault on your senses is confined to a small and well-defined area. We in Hagerstown are subject to continual surprise attack.

And here in Hagerstown, it's against the law to shoot at them.