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Episodes
- A Little About the New England Language
(6mb)
Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the December 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
A Little About the New England Language
It's still true that every region of our country continues to have its own special words.
Ask a waitress in almost any American restaurant if you can have a poached egg and she'll understand. Say you want it porched and she'll be with you if she originally lived in the Deep South. Ask for a dropped egg, and unless she's a New Englander, her face will remain blank. You'll need to explain that you'd like it fried in water.
The separating area in the middle of a four-lane road is a mall in New York, a medial strip in Pennsylvania, a median strip in parts of New England and the Midwest, a medium strip in Kentucky, a center line in the West, a centerstrip in Ohio, and neutral ground in Louisiana and Mississippi. We New Englanders, particularly about four months from now, sometimes feel logy. But in Indiana they’re more apt to feel dauncy, while elsewhere they might be sort of punk, puny, or draggy.
There's little question that the language is somewhat different from region to region across the United States. I guess (or if I were from the South, I reckon, or if from some of the New England offshore islands, I presume likely) the only argument is whether or not those differences are disappearing. In my view, maybe regional accents are becoming less pronounced (except way Down East, of course), but not regional language.
Words and expressions unique to individual regions remain in use because so many are based on specific historical, geographical, or other attributes of their region. "Straight as a loon's leg" will never, for instance, become an Oklahoma expression. If a Texan suggests a swim in a pond, well, more than likely she/he is not a Texan. Because so many ponds in Texas are man-made, ponds are called tanks.
In a similar way, my camp on an island in New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee isn’t a place for tenting or camping. As outsiders are quick to learn, a camp in New England can be a pretty luxurious home, as can a summer cottage. During a recent visit with friends in South Carolina, I learned that when building a fire they prefer splinters to our kindling. We had battercakes for breakfast one morning rather than pancakes. Served on the same plate was streaked meat, not bacon. And can you guess what they called their attic? It was the plunder room. No kidding.
A North Dakota friend of mine told me when we first met that he never realized the word "summer" could be used as a verb. In fact, I recall he got quite a chuckle out of it. After he moved to Vermont to take a job with Vermont Life magazine, however, I smiled when he informed me that his parents were building a camp on Lake Winnipeg in Canada and were intending to summer there.
Good, I thought. Even newcomers to New England eventually learn the region's expressions, names, and words. What they don't always learn is the accurate pronunciations. But that's another story -- maybe for next year.
Meanwhile, Merry Christmas, everyone.
- When "Maudlin" Was "In" (7mb)
Sat, 01 Nov 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the November 2008 edition of “Jud's New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
When "Maudlin" Was "In"
Years ago in New England, people viewed death and dying quite differently …
About a month ago, when I had a little spare time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, I decided to take a walk through Mount Auburn Cemetery, known as the "Gateway to Heaven." With the fall foliage just coming along, it was beautiful in there, but I really marveled at the size and elaborateness of some of the larger mausoleums. The sculptures are quite something, too -- including weeping maidens, life-size statues of dead children, tons of cherubs, urns, and weeping willows. I was reminded that it wasn't so long ago that what is considered extravagantly maudlin today was once very much "in."
My grandmother, for instance, displayed in her house a wreath made from the hair of a dead relative. I believe she told me it was her brother’s. On the mantelpiece in the same house was my grandfather's appendix, pickled in a jar. Whenever we visited "Pop" and Grandma when I was a boy, that particular mantel was where I'd head first. And I'd stare, always fascinated.
Absent for the most part from Mount Auburn are the quirky-but-memorable epitaphs one sometimes finds in the older graveyards around New England: "I told you I was sick, Maude" and the like. Mount Auburn was, and still is, too proper for any but the most dignified memorials.
Dignity is an important requirement of almost any stone reminder of a onetime presence here on Earth. But the most dignified and elaborate of memorials aren’t always an indication of great wealth and New England social position. There have been many people who decided to save for years in order to have a really fancy remembrance.
For example, a man named Lucas Douglass died, apparently penniless and alone, on the streets of Ashford, Connecticut, one cold December night in 1895. He'd never married and had few relatives. Shortly after his death, it was discovered his will left enough money -- thousands of dollars -- to erect, as he stipulated, a 34-foot-high monument of Italian marble, complete with headstone, urns, and a 140-foot stone wall surrounding the plot. It's there to be seen in Westford Hill Cemetery today. It includes epitaphs ("I have heard Thy call"), a portrait of Douglass in a circular medallion, and all manner of various inscriptions. Since he ordered all this before he died, at least he must have had some satisfaction in picturing it there for all to see forever. But the most common reaction of the several hundred tourists who view it each year is one of wonder and pity.
Henry Daniel Cogswell, a wealthy Rhode Island dentist of the 19th century, encountered far worse reactions to his efforts at self-perpetuation. In fact, his major contribution to the world may have been the regulations of today's fine-arts commissions relative to the suitability and good taste of monuments in public places. Not that Dr. Cogswell initiated such rules. Rather, it was his memorials that demonstrated the need for them. It seems that the good doctor donated large stone monuments doubling as drinking fountains (he was a teetotaler) to Boston, Fall River, Pawtucket, and more than a dozen other American cities, each topped by a statue of himself and, unfortunately, as described in a New Haven newspaper of the day, "outlandishly ugly."
One of the few remaining Cogswell fountains stands today in Central Park in Rockville, Connecticut. Years ago, it was thrown into a nearby lake, as many of Cogswell's memorials were, but was retrieved in 1969 and erected in its present location, with a flowerpot substituting for the statue of Dr. Cogswell. There's another at the entrance to Slater Park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. You might want to go see it. As for me, I think I'd still rather stare at my grandfather's appendix.
- What to Do in Case of Fire (6mb)
Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the October 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
What to Do in Case of FireAs a volunteer fireman, I learned early on how to mask my fears -- and my inadequacies.
There’s a "coming together" evident in a small New England town after the summer is over. Social divisions become noticeably fuzzier. Town organizations spring back to life with renewed vigor, and almost all are socially integrated. An exception is the volunteer fire company. No "year-round summer people" become firemen. It's always all townspeople. And unlike many other town organizations, it’s active all summer, too.
I'm not sure whether or not I qualify as a bona fide "townsperson" -- after all, I came "from away" -- but nonetheless I was a volunteer fireman here in Dublin, New Hampshire, for about 15 years. I was and still am inordinately afraid of fires, and I have zero aptitude in mechanical matters. However, upon arriving in town 50 years ago, I felt it was my duty to join the fire company simply because the fire station was located a hundred yards from my Yankee office. When the siren sounded, I was one of those readily available. The first man to reach the firehouse after the alarm began to wail always jumped into the 10-wheel, multiton fire truck, started it up, and commenced to move out in the direction indicated on the truck radio. Later-arriving firemen would hop aboard as the truck moved, bring the second or third truck, or follow in their own cars.
I was very often that first man to arrive at the station. And that constituted a problem. To put it simply, I could never remember how to start or how to shift the many gears in that big truck -- or for that matter, how to tune in the radio.
The solution to my problem presented itself around the time the company purchased waterproof fire coats and helmets for us volunteers to use during a fire. They were hung on the rear of the truck. The first time the alarm sounded after the purchase of this equipment, I was once again the first arrival at the station. Instead of jumping in the cab and struggling with the gears, I ran to the rear of the truck to fetch my new coat and helmet. Running back forward, I noted to my intense relief that someone else was already in the driver's seat starting the engine.
So at every subsequent fire, I made certain I took a long enough period of time fetching a coat and helmet to avoid the driver's job. Often this required initially running around and around the truck a number of times until someone else finally arrived, but no one ever caught me on that particular ruse. During a fire alarm, the main thing is to run. It really doesn't matter to anyone where you're running to or why. Just run.
I eventually resigned from the fire company, feeling I'd served my stint and that there were enough men close by the fire station. But despite my fears and all the rest, I miss the fire company today. I particularly miss those times after the fire was out, when a can of beer or a little whiskey might be passed around while we were on night duty, occasionally hosing down still-burning embers. There was a euphoric feeling of having worked, endured under trying circumstances, and succeeded together. "We've never lost a cellar hole," we always said at some point.
I have never, before or since, felt more a part of what I might call the central spiritual core of the town than I always did during these quiet times after all the excitement was over.
Wonderful memories. But I'm still a mechanical dunce.
- On the Road Again With The Old Farmer's Almanac (6mb)
Mon, 01 Sep 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the September 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
On the Road Again With The Old Farmer's Almanac
"What's the winter going to be like?" is the usual first question. But my most vivid memories of my past radio and television interviews had nothing to do with the weather.
Well, for the 217th consecutive year, The Old Farmer's Almanac appears this month on newsstands across the country. September 9th is the official on-sale date for the brand-new 2009 edition, but you'll be seeing it around before then. For more years that I care to say, I was the 12th (since 1792) editor of The Old Farmer's Almanac and, as such, traveled around the country every September promoting the new edition on radio and television. I'll be out there again this month, but most of the touring is now done by the 13th editor, my friend and colleague Janice Stillman, as well as Yankee Publishing CEO Jamie Trowbridge. But it'll be a while before they've compiled as many bizarre, weird memories as I have.
For instance, I recall attempting to convince Katie Couric on the Today show that the chicken I was holding in my arms wasn’t stuffed but rather hypnotized. (We had a story that year on how to hypnotize a chicken.) She didn't buy it. She's pretty sharp, that Katie Couric.
I think it was the next year that I was, at the last minute, told I wouldn't be going on Good Morning America because the Pope had just died. They scheduled me for a show three months later, and I was bumped off once more because -- guess what? The Pope had died again!
There were times on these promotional tours when I had the feeling that some people considered The Old Farmer's Almanac a little, well, maybe "hokey" would be the word. For example, I was on a live morning show in Cleveland on which I was the third of three guests. The first guest, a man from Pittsburgh, played "America the Beautiful" -- with his armpit! (Actually, he was pretty good.) The second guest was the tallest woman in the world. At 7'9" she was taller than even the late Wilt Chamberlain. As I said, I was the third guest that morning. Later, I began wondering whether there was some sort of message in that grouping of guests. And, if so, just what was that message?
Another odd memory is being interviewed by the ex-wife of the governor of Minnesota in her round wooden hot tub, water right up to our necks. Apparently her daily hot-tub interviews were quite popular in that part of the country. I'm not sure whether she's still at it. I do recall she was very much on the hefty side. How hefty? Well, let's put it this way: When she stood up and got out of the hot tub after the show, there were actually only a few inches of water in there.
The most vivid -- and saddest -- memory I have is sitting in the "the Green Room" -- next to Harry Belafonte, incidentally -- waiting to go on the Today show with Al Roker, when the second plane hit the World Trade Center's south tower. Obviously, I never talked with Al that morning. The world had changed forever.
So look for me on the tube this month, although you'll be more apt to see Janice Stillman and Jamie Trowbridge. (I'll "do" only New York, Detroit, and Toronto.) And, also, look for that familiar yellow cover on the oldest continuously published periodical in North America. It's the best issue ever. Am I already overly "promoting"? Shame on me.
- Making Fun of Democrats and/or Republicans (6mb)
Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the August 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Making Fun of Democrats and/or Republicans
Actually, New Englanders have always managed to make fun of just about everyone …
Since the days of Roosevelt and even further back, the Democratic party has, rightly or wrongly, been associated with the antithesis of New England thrift. Therefore, like the federal government, tourists, and New Yorkers, the Democrats have always been a favorite and traditional subject of New England humor. I should add here that Democratic jokes cannot be turned around to become Republican jokes. They're not interchangeable. Nor are they like so-called ethnic jokes, in which you can usually substitute almost any ethnic minority for another ethnic minority.
For example, if you substituted "Republican" for "Democrat" in the following old-time story, often told by the late Sherman Adams when he was governor of New Hampshire, it simply wouldn’t be funny.
The governor's version of the story concerns a boy in a Vermont village near his home town (Adams was raised in Vermont) who decided to go to college. His parents were willing to help him but were unsure about some of the ideas he might pick up out there in the wide, wide world.
"Sure enough," Adams would say, "the boy came back from college a Democrat. The family was very upset about that and considered that he’d been under the auspices of evil. To make matters worse, the boy founded the local Democratic Club and on the next Fourth of July organized a parade. His father pulled down all the shades in the house and wouldn't let anybody look out to see what was going on. But then he got curious and picked up just the corner of the shade and took a peek. In horror, he turned to his wife and said, 'My God, Samantha, they've stolen our flag!'"
Oh, how Adams loved that one. Anyway, here's one more, as told by the late Professor Allen Foley of Dartmouth College and involving a Texas Democrat and a Vermont Republican. It takes place in Texas and has a double whammy because New Englanders enjoy putting down Texans (and I'm sure the reverse is true) just as much as they enjoy putting down Democrats.
"How come you're a Republican?" the Texas Democrat asks the visiting Vermonter.
"I come from Vermont and my father was a Republican," replies the Vermonter.
"Oh, I see," says the Texas Democrat. "So I suppose if your father had been a horse thief, you would have been a horse thief, too."
"No," says the Vermonter. "In that case I would have been a Democrat."
So how do New England Democrats -- and there are lots today, maybe even a majority -- counter all these old-time New England "Democrat stories"? Well, one of the most effective means is to utilize all the "wealthy, fancy, city slicker" stories and then simply substitute "Republican." Maybe that's not fair, but fairness and accuracy have nothing to do with New England humor. Come to think, fairness and accuracy don't have much to do with politics either.
- Do You Think Grits Are a Southern Invention? (5mb)
Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Well, not really. Fact is, they originated in New England...
Welcome to the July 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Do You Think Grits Are a Southern Invention?
Well, not really. Fact is, they originated in New England…
When most people think of New England food, they think of lobsters, clam chowder, Boston baked beans, scrod, Indian pudding, cranberries, and apple pie. (Yes, we claim apple pie, too.) But how many of us today have a craving for white field corn, with the hulls removed, that's been boiled in water for many hours with a little salt until it's become a sort of mush? Yuck. And yet the dish, once a hearty staple on New England tables, hasn't disappeared. You can still buy it in a few places, dried or in a can. It's known as hulled corn. Or samp. Or hominy. Or cornmeal mush.
My friend the late Vrest Orton, founder of the now-famous Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vermont, once explained to me that samp is actually kernels of corn ground coarse for breakfast cereal; hulled corn and cornmeal mush are roughly as described above (no hulls); and hominy is another name for cornmeal cooked in water, as in "hominy grits," which Southerners claim as their very own. Of course, in truth hominy grits were invented by the Algonquin Indians -- who lived in New England.
Now, when Rhode Islanders convert stone-ground cornmeal, salt, butter, and milk (or -- and this is controversial -- water) into patties and then fry them, the result is one of New England's truly iconic foods, the Rhode Island johnnycake, or jonnycake, or journey cake. (That's right, the spelling is controversial, too.) Purists maintain that only real jonnycakes (we'll opt for that spelling) are made with whitecap flint corn, a type pretty much unavailable today in any sort of quantity, although the University of Rhode Island's cooperative extension service maintains a seed supply and furnishes limited amounts to growers such as Old Sturbridge Village.
"Any of us will tell you that the flavor and texture of a jonnycake made with flint corn is entirely different from other commercially grown corn," a past president of the Society for the Propagation of the Jonnycake Tradition in Rhode Island once informed me. And the Rhode Island legislature firmly agrees with the society's stand on the matter. Many years ago, it actually passed a law making it illegal to call jonnycakes made with anything other than flint corn "Rhode Island jonnycakes." As far as I know, the law still stands.
My own idea of jonnycake wouldn't pass muster anywhere but in Maine. When I was a boy growing up on a farm there, we enjoyed a sort of cornmeal shortcake covered with sliced apples and cream, which we called "apple Jonathan."
Anyone remember that?
- Anyone Ever See a Sailing Ship on Fire? (6mb)
Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)A few people on Block Island say they have -- more than once.
Welcome to the June 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Anyone Ever See a Sailing Ship on Fire?
We love taking the Point Judith Ferry (Galilee, Rhode Island) out to Block Island, and so do more people than Block Islanders would probably like. It's such a magical place. But I wonder how many have seen a sailing ship burning and then sinking off Block Island shores. I've personally talked to several who swear they have. And they were sober, too.
Now bear with me for a moment. It all began back in the 1700s, when a ship called the Palatine sailed from a German port, bound for Philadelphia. The captain died -- or was killed -- en route, and the crew then robbed the German and Dutch passengers before leaving them onboard while they high-tailed it for land in lifeboats. That much is fairly well recorded in history.
So now the legend takes over: The Palatine supposedly drifted, or was sailed, onto the shores of Block Island, where greedy islanders plundered and killed the passengers and then set the ship on fire while one live, screaming woman was still onboard. Nasty, nasty … and Block Islanders don't buy it. They insist the islanders heroically rescued the passengers and nursed them back to health while burying the dead. I’ve personally seen four little "Palatine" gravestones on the island, so labeled by a historical monument.
Now, enter famous New England writer John Greenleaf Whittier, who couldn't resist writing a poem about the whole affair, including the following six lines:
For still, on many a moonless night,
From Kingston Head and from Montauk Light
The spectre kindles and burns in sight.
Now low and dim, now clear and higher,
Leaps up the terrible ghost of fire,
Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire.Since John Greenleaf Whittier wrote those lines, lots of people have actually seen the burning Palatine.
"I was walking home on a night late in November," Mrs. Venetia Rountree, a former business manager of one of Block Island's summer hotels and a graduate of Brown University, told our Yankee Magazine reporter some years ago. "It was moonless and windy, and we were busy getting ready for a predicted storm. Then I happened to glance out to the Sound, and I saw a flickering glow. The light grew bigger as it approached the shore -- and I recognized it from drawings and paintings I'd seen. It was the Palatine."
I recall another Block Island native visiting our Yankee offices back in 1958, the year I began working there, and how earnestly she described how, as a young girl living on the north end of the island, she was awakened one night by her parents and saw, for several awestruck moments, as she described it, a flaming ship that "rounded the Point" and then disappeared beneath the waves.
Walter Johnson of the United States Geological Bureau, as it was called some time ago, once tried to calm everyone down with a scientific explanation for all these sightings of the burning Palatine. He said that in that area of the ocean, just as is claimed in the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" area of the Atlantic, there are clouds of gas, which may escape from vast deposits below the ocean floor and reach the surface, sometimes actually igniting into flames.
Well, okay. But flames always in the shape of a sailing ship? Personally, I tend to go along with John Greenleaf Whittier.
- New England's Secret Season (6mb)
Thu, 01 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the May 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
New England's Secret Season
It's not ever mentioned in regional or resort promotional material. Never.
However, all of us New Englanders are very familiar indeed with what's known among us as "bug season." Bug season starts out with a sort of subseason known as "blackfly season" and then continues on into what's ordinarily labeled as the summer season, which, in turn, can be broken down into haying season, corn-on-the-cob season, and "August." August is the month when the young summer workers in the large resort towns discover that it’s either difficult or impossible to maintain a pleasant front to tourists.
Bug season, however, encompasses all of these New England mini-seasons, simply because there are bugs swarming around all during those months. Not that they bother most of us natives all that much. There are many ways to cope with them, the best being to ignore them. But I personally have briefly known several couples who have moved to New England, discovered to their total surprise the existence of bug season, and moved away because of it -- to Hawaii, for instance, where apparently there are no bugs.
For some, the blackflies are the most difficult to tolerate, even though, thank goodness, they go to sleep after sunset. By the time the mosquitoes, which don't seem to ever sleep, the no-see-ums (which also don't require rest), and the assorted deerflies, also known as horseflies, are geared up to seasonal capacity, we're pretty much over our early-spring notion that living in the country is perfect.
Some years ago, the town of Harrisville, New Hampshire, dealt with its abundance of blackflies by actually celebrating them. Each spring there was a Blackflies Ball, to which residents came dressed up in blackfly costumes. There were blackfly T-shirts for sale in town and the Harrisville softball team was called -- you guessed it -- the "Blackflies." Guess they eventually got sick of doing all that, however, and went back to simply enduring their blackflies like the rest of us.
Henry David Thoreau used to rub a concoction "composed of sweet oil of spearmint and camphor” all over the exposed areas of his body. As many of us discover early in life, he eventually concluded that "the remedy was worse than the disease."
Other "remedies" would include wrapping oneself up like a mummy so that not one square inch of skin is exposed, smearing on commercial fly dope, which renders one temporarily blind if it seeps into your eyes, and standing in either campfire or cigarette smoke or in a good ocean breeze.
I find it helpful to remind myself that whenever I'm with bugs, I'm either picnicking, fishing, camping, working in the garden, or otherwise engaged in a pleasant, warm activity. In theory, then, I suppose one is programmed to associate pleasure with voracious blackflies swarming into one's nostrils and mouth.
Ignoring our bugs requires an extreme form of mental concentration on things like blossoming lilac bushes and fruit trees, the sound of birds in the early morning, the greening of the countryside, the full brooks and rivers (if not too full!), the blooming of the Indian turnip (or jack-in-the-pulpit), and those wonderfully long hours of daylight.
Come to think of it, after a winter like the one we just experienced, I truly am looking forward to "bug season."
- So Where, Exactly, Is the Cradle of Liberty? (7mb)
Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the April 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
So Where, Exactly, Is the Cradle of Liberty?
Concord, Massachusetts, has always claimed that distinction. But then so has neighboring Lexington …
The official first battle of the American Revolution is often referred to as "the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775." That doesn't set particularly well with either Lexington or Concord. Each of those two Massachusetts towns considers itself alone to be the specific cradle of American liberty. But in the minds of Americans in general, Concord has the edge, thanks in large part to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard 'round the world.That first stanza of Emerson's "Concord Hymn" is carved (without credit to Emerson) on one side of the pedestal of the Daniel Chester French statue The Minuteman, which stands near the "rude bridge" in Concord where the three-minute battle occurred. It was unveiled on April 19, 1875 -- 100 years later -- with President Ulysses S. Grant in attendance. As Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, Emerson's stirring lines "made Concord's reputation" for all time.
Lexington, however, has a Minuteman statue, too. Its version, sculpted by H. H. Kitson, was dedicated in 1900 and was, ironically enough, modeled after an Englishman by the name of Arthur A. Mather. (Mather later became a U.S. citizen, settled in Medford, Massachusetts, and was, of all things, both the national heavyweight wrestling champion and the national canoe-paddling champion.)
At the base of a flagpole near Lexington's Minuteman is an engraved line proclaiming Lexington the "Birthplace of American Liberty." Nice … but somehow it lacks that special ring that Emerson provided Concord.
Several artists have contributed to the somewhat-inaccurate "legendary" impression of the Lexington battle. The first drawing of it, by artist Amos Doolittle, is probably accurate because Doolittle sketched it only a few days after the battle. If "battle" is the right word.
It shows well-organized British soldiers lined up in combat formation, firing a volley at a motley group of scattered colonials, who are not firing back. Those not already lying dead or wounded are hightailing it -- a perception of that particular historic event not compatible with popular legend.
By 1830, artistic renditions of the Lexington battle show a few Minutemen firing at the British, while a Hammett Billings painting of 1868 depicts almost all of the Minutemen engaged in battle. However, it is the heroic 1886 Henry Sandham oil painting that forms the basis for the modern version of the Battle of Lexington. The Minutemen and the British are all toe to toe, blasting away at one another.
All this points up the important element of time in the making of legends. For instance, most of the impressive memorials standing today in both Lexington and Concord were never viewed by anyone who was alive on April 19, 1775.
But I should add that it's not only New Englanders who are apt to let legends develop for years before officially recognizing their historic (and tourist) value. For instance, Texans let the Alamo remain in a heap of rubble for almost 80 years after it fell to Santa Anna in 1836. How 'bout that?
- About Boston and Bostonians (6mb)
Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the March 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
About Boston and Bostonians
Probably "snobby" is too harsh a description. "Proud" might be better …
Old-time New England humor typically includes the "asking directions" jokes and those deadly "put-downs," too. It also includes Bostonians, relying on their allegedly snobby ways and attitudes. Of course, some of it is even true!
"My goodness," said a Boston woman when the Boston Transcript announced it was going out of business. "Whatever shall the country do now for a newspaper?" That same particular woman was known to have said, when her husband was in the Antarctic on a six-year scientific expedition, that he was "out of town."
I remember a brief cocktail-party discussion in a house on Commonwealth Avenue on the subject of the desirability of extensive travel. "Why should I travel," one elderly matron interjected, "when I'm already here?"
Harvard, of course, often comes into play. When a Harvard alumnus asked a fellow classmate what class a mutual friend had been in, the classmate replied, "He had no class. He went to Yale." There are lots of those.
James T. Fields, a great supporter of the "Chosen City of the Universe," as he called Boston, used to delight in telling the story of a Boston man he personally knew who, after viewing a production of Hamlet, was expressing his wonder at the genius of William Shakespeare. Finally, he was moved to the ultimate praise. "There are not a dozen men in Boston," he said, "who could have written that play."
Boston and its suburbs (to which a lot of the "old money" has moved) really are the center of New England culture and social life. Not because culture and social life in other parts of New England aren’t as good. In many cases, they are. Maybe it's just that they're not as old. Something like that.
I mean, formal dinner dances (rare these days) in, say, Springfield, Massachusetts, are very fine, but as the participants themselves say frankly, they're "not Boston." The Boston Symphony Orchestra travels to the Berkshires every summer, but when it returns to the "Hub" (meaning "Hub of the Universe") in the fall, Berkshire County, as writer Tim Clark says, "hangs up its tuxedo and pulls on the long underwear and overalls."
Then there are the "Brahmins." Even though the dictionary broadens "Brahmin" to include all New Englanders of a "cultured, long-established, upper-class family," it seems to me that the two words "Boston" and "Brahmin" are inexorably linked.
The best image of a Boston Brahmin, in my opinion, is to be found in a certain anecdote told by Cleveland Amory, in his book The Proper Bostonians, about the late Wendell Barrett of Boston, known during his lifetime as "the Brahmin of Brahmins." It seems that on one of his trips to Ireland, Barrett visited the famous Blarney Stone. However, he did not, as almost every other visitor does, lie on his back and kiss it. Instead, he touched it with his umbrella and kissed that.
That sorta says it all.
- The Day I Learned About Salesmanship -- and Deadbeats (5mb)
Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)
Jud's New England Journal February 2008Welcome to the February 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.
The Day I Learned About Salesmanship -- and Deadbeats
It happened quite a few years ago. But the lessons still apply …
Much of my early education at Yankee Magazine resulted from us all being in one room. There were no private offices. As a result, everyone knew what everyone else was doing and saying.
"Yes, they put the ad rates up again," I overheard our advertising manager, the late Mrs. Annabelle Dupree, say on the telephone one morning. "No, I don't know why. They just did." Mrs. Dupree was a no-nonsense, hardworking New Hampshire native who considered her position at Yankee to be a good lifetime job but certainly not a "career." Careers were for city people, or maybe artists or actors. "They," not she, made important decisions such as determining the advertising rates, and she was perfectly content to put it in those terms when talking on the telephone to our customers.
In this case, I felt duty-bound to call the customer back. "It's not really that our rates have gone up," I said, attempting to smooth what I felt must surely be the ruffled feathers of a heretofore steady advertiser. "What Mrs. Dupree meant is that our circulation has gone up, and so every advertiser, like yourself, will by buying more apples in the barrel, but at the same rate per apple."
"How's that?" said the advertiser, who ran a small furniture company in North Conway, New Hampshire. "I'm selling furniture, not apples."
"Right," I said, feeling myself sinking into some obscure morass. "I use apples as an example. You see, our rates are based on a certain cost per thousand subscribers, so …"
"Wait a minute," the man interrupted. "Will I have to pay more for my advertisement?"
"Well, yes," I admitted, "but …"
"Well, that's what your Mrs. Dupree told me 10 minutes ago. I understood her!" After he'd hung up the phone, Mrs. Dupree called across the room for me not to worry, that the man had already extended his contract six months -- at the higher rate. I had a new respect for Mrs. Dupree's "no frills" sales technique: Just say it straight and plain.
A few days later, a customer stopped by the office to pay an advertising bill that was three months overdue. While he stood next to her desk, Mrs. Dupree searched for several minutes through her file drawers for his records. Suddenly she brightened and reached for a large manila folder on the shelf behind her. "I remember now," she said in her matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You're here in my file of deadbeats."
Across the room, I cringed. Surely she'd gone too far. But not at all. As he wrote out a check for the amount he owed, the man apologized, and on his way down the stairs to the outside door, he called back that he'd try to live the rest of his life in such a way as to avoid being included in "anyone's file of deadbeats." Mrs. Dupree didn't reply. She was already busy with something else.
- Three MORE Often-Asked Questions About New England (6mb)
Tue, 01 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)
Jud's New England Journal for January 2008Welcome to the January 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, the editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Three MORE Often-Asked Questions About New England
1. Widow's walks: Were they built atop homes so that women could look for their husbands' returning ships?
2. Why is (or was) Connecticut known as the Nutmeg State?
3. Who in Sam Hill was Sam Hill?
The answer to #1 is "no." However, closed-in cupolas with windows, such as, for instance, on the Dr. Daniel Fisher House in Edgartown, Massachusetts, were built for that purpose. "Widow's walks" are, in fact, found on old houses hundreds of miles inland. They provided a protected platform on which to stow buckets of sand and water to put out the frequent chimney fires. The term "widow's walk" was erroneously applied by some romantic writer way back when -- and it caught on.
To get to the origin of #2, the Nutmeg State, as applied to Connecticut, one must go back to the early 1800s, when, in the town of Waterford, the minister there, a Rev. Jacob B. Spofford, was invited to tea one day by a rather wealthy lady by the name of Mrs. Eliza Peterson. It seems that, knowing the reverend was fond of boiled rice sprinkled with sugar and nutmeg, Mrs. Peterson asked her servant to prepare it. Her servant replied that they were out of nutmeg, so Mrs. Peterson suggested she borrow some from a neighbor. The rice, liberally sprinkled with nutmeg, was greatly enjoyed by the reverend, and after he'd left, Mrs. Peterson complimented the servant, reminding her to return the remaining borrowed nutmeg to the neighbor. The servant informed her that she hadn't borrowed any after all, because all of the nearby neighbors happened to be out of nutmeg, too.
"What did you use, then?" asked Mrs. Peterson.
"Well," replied the servant, "I didn't want to disappoint you or the reverend, so I just grated the wooden handle on one of my button hooks." The amused Mrs. Peterson evidently circulated the story and thus eventually Connecticut became the Nutmeg State.
We should add here that it's also often told that certain people in Connecticut used to sell nutmegs carved from ordinary New England trees rather than the seed of a true nutmeg tree, which had to be imported from somewhere in Indonesia. This is a theory that rings true. Those Connecticut Yankees were pretty slippery back in those days. In fact, it was said that "you might as well hold a greased eel as a live Connecticut Yankee."
Finally for #3, who in Sam Hill was Sam Hill? Well, if you really want to know, he was Colonel Samuel Hill, 1678-1752, of Guilford, Connecticut, where he was town clerk for 35 years, judge of the probate court for 12, and deputy to the general court for 22 or more sessions. In fact, he ran for so many offices so many times (sort of a Harold Stassen of his day) that "running like Sam Hill" became an expression denoting outstanding persistence and endurance. From there, Sam Hill just worked his way into being a generally used old-time expression, as in "Who in Sam Hill really cares?"
- The Three Most-Asked Questions About New England (7mb)
Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the December 2007 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, NH.
The Three Most-Asked Questions About New England
1. Where's 'Down East' begin?
2. Why were bridges covered?
3. Were spring dance floors built to be that way?I thought by now everyone knew the answers to these. But during this past year, I've received quite a few e-mails indicating that quite a few don't. So, well, for a little Christmas present to those in doubt, here's my take on all three.
Let's start with "Down East." Almost everyone knows the correct meaning in a nautical sense: When you're sailing northeast along the coast of Maine, you're almost always sailing with the wind, or downwind. Okay -- but where exactly does the area called "Down East" begin?
Many equate the term with the entire coast of Maine. They maintain that it begins the second you cross the Piscataqua Bridge at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, heading north. However, the majority of New Englanders, myself included, think of Portland, Maine, as the very southernmost town or city Down East. Some purists argue that Camden or even Penobscot Bay is the starting point, but I'd call that area "way Down East". Then, of course, Nova Scotia would become "way, way, way Down East."
Now as to why bridges were covered and why some of the roofs were so high, I think I'll refer to my late friend, Joe Allen of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. He used to answer reader questions in Yankee under the heading "Sayings of the Oracle." Here, written a month before he died, is his last reply to the covered bridge question. Obviously, he was sick of the subject. It's heretofore unpublished, because at the time we felt Joe was being overly cranky. Which he was. But here it is, verbatim.
"Jesus for Guard Almighty, we thought all hands knew by this time. Bridges were covered, damn fool, for the same reason women used to wear petticoats -- to protect their underpinnings. Ever hear that wood rots when it gets wet? Your asinine suggestion that they were covered to keep snow off the road is dead wrong. In fact, I recollect throwing snow inside covered bridges after a snowstorm so our sleighs wouldn't grind on the wood. As to the height of covered bridges, any simpleton would know it took some height to get a full hay wagon through." Thanks, Joe.
Finally comes the question of spring dance floors. Were they made "springy" deliberately, or were they just the result of weak construction? Well, I had a conversation with Philip Baker of Antrim, New Hampshire, some years ago on this subject. Phil, a noted expert on historic-building restoration, had personally studied spring dance floor construction details during some of his company's projects. His conclusion: Some were made deliberately and some were that way by accident.
He said the actual springing quality was created by the lack of support beneath the ballroom floor and/or the use of particularly springy timbers for the floor joists. He told me that the Jones Tavern in Weston, Massachusetts, had one of the very best spring dance floors, but like so many of them, it didn't conform to present-day legal specifications and had to be reinforced, which removed the spring. The original Jones Tavern floor joists were made of 3x10-inch spruce -- "a real whippy wood," Phil said. Certainly that had to be deliberate. Phil and his fellow workers were amazed at how easily they could make the floor "pick up a lively rhythm."
I've walked and bounced (I'm not much of a dancer) across the ballroom of the historic Hamilton House on 9 Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts, and I'm convinced that the considerable spring of that floor in such an otherwise solidly constructed house was no accident.
Maybe next month I'll address a few more often-asked questions. In the meantime, however, Merry Christmas, everyone.
- Time to Walk in the Woods Again (5mb)
Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)With the leaves gone and the ground bare, this is the month to discover weird rocks 'n' stuff …
Welcome to the November 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Time to Walk in the Woods Again
With the leaves gone and the ground bare, this is the month to discover weird rocks 'n' stuff …
There are lots of peculiar dry-stone "beehive" constructions in the forests around New England. And November is a great time to investigate such things. However, the people who own properties where you can view these mysterious stone formations have usually asked us not to publish any exact locations in Yankee Magazine. For instance, a few November Yankees ago, we made the mistake of describing exactly how to find a certain perplexing underground stone structure in the vicinity of Goshen, Massachusetts.
"Tarnation!" the property owner wrote me after the issue came out. "I wish you hadn't printed that danged old legend about 'the Goshen Stone Mystery.' " He went on to say that hordes of people had come to investigate, and he was afraid someone might fall down into this particular stone legend -- and then, as he said, "sue the pants off me." We were more vague about locations after that.
However, we've never needed to be careful about describing the location of New England’s most famous stone bunches, called Mystery Hill, in North Salem, New Hampshire. That's the one with the so-called "sacrificial stone," which has a groove all around the outside of it, supposedly carved thousands of years ago for the purpose of catching the blood of human sacrifices. Mystery Hill is in all the tourist brochures and is open to the public. To be sure, it's an intriguing thing to see, but the explanation for it seems to change every few years.
At one point, for instance, a group of archaeologists decided that the stones were the work of Bronze Age people from the British Isles who crossed the Atlantic about 1200 B.C. and established a short-lived colony here in New England. Then some in the scientific community felt it might be the other way around. In other words, they decided that Europe's stone-building culture, so strongly oriented to the heavens, as at Stonehenge, actually originated in North Salem, New Hampshire, about 4,000 years ago and then crossed the Atlantic west to east.
Some years ago, while visiting the Mystery Hill site, I met an old, seemingly knowledgeable gentleman who earnestly told me that it was the early colonists who built these stone structures to winter-store their turnips. When I asked him about the carved groove all around the huge "sacrificial" stone, he simply shrugged.
I've also seen the strange carvings—letters, crude figures, and such—emblazoned on rocks lying about what they call Round Swamp, near Sandwich, on Cape Cod, on what is now Otis Air Force Base property. Some maintain that they were carved by one Charles Nye in the late 1700s, during the last few years of his life, when he was sulking out in a nearby cabin because the love of his life, one Sal Pry, had married someone else. After Yankee published this tale and a few other mystery-rock stories, a Pennsylvania man wrote to say that maybe Charles Nye could have wandered out of that Cape Cod swamp as far as North Salem, New Hampshire. I remember replying to him that his theory really stretched believability... but hey, who knows?
- The Happiest Time in the Life of a Community Church (5mb)
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the September 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, N.H.
The Happiest Time in the Life of a Community Church
Oddly, it's often during those months -- sometimes even a year – when it's searching for a new minister.
While larger towns in New England naturally have several churches of various denominations, innumerable small communities across our six-state region have, over the past 50 years or so, have been reduced to one church, usually known as the "Community Church." It's nondenominational in spirit – that is, open to all -- but its background and traditional support are often Congregational or Unitarian.
A small-town community church often finds it difficult to encompass its members' various religious backgrounds, and its popularity among various social groups swings from high to low to in between.
Sometimes Episcopalians will have a dominant influence. During that time, more so-called "year-round summer people" will attend, and communion may even be offered, to the distress of several townspeople.
Then, perhaps some liberal-minded young people will gain the upper hand. There will be an awkward few minutes in each service where everyone holds hands. Quite a bit of guitar playing, too.
When this sort of deviation subsides, and subside it always does, the natives and working professionals in town assume command once again and run the organization in the straightforward, no-frills manner in which it has been run for centuries.
The ebbs and flows of community church life are dictated to a large degree by the sort of minister in residence. Ministers come and go fairly regularly, and I think it's during those periods between ministers that the church experiences its ultimate harmony.
A search committee, including all town social functions, is formed and meets regularly with the congregation as a whole to report on progress, as well as to invite discussion and opinion as to what the church "needs." On these occasions, person after person rises to explain what the church means to him or her and what marvelous attributes ought to be part of the new minister's character.
Everyone agrees with what everyone says. The church is never happier. And often the search process can last more than a year, with guest ministers filling in on Sundays. The man or woman eventually hired is simply the nicest person available at the moment the church feels it really is time to choose somebody.
Unfortunately for the minister chosen, he or she is expected to be an approximate replica of Jesus Christ—no human frailties allowed. Over the years, I've known and liked many ministers, and most have had more apparent human frailties than many people I've enjoyed less.
The first minister I ever knew—in Vanceboro, Maine, where I was raised—suffered from a severe stutter, particularly with the word "Christ." It's unfortunate he wasn't a Unitarian, because the entire service would come to a halt over and over while he’d silently struggle with that particular all-important name until it would finally burst forth in a minor explosion.
Alcohol was the problem of another minister I knew well—probably precipitated by self-doubt. "Do you think being a minister in this town or anywhere makes any sense, Jud?" he’d ask me as we sipped cocktails on my porch from time to time. During sermons, he often forgot where he was going. His point would remain dangling in the air somewhere for his flock to guess at. "And as John once said in those never-to-be-forgotten words ... those never-to-be forgotten words ... those ..." I'd hurt for him.
You know, I've come to realize it's not easy to be the minister in a small New England town.
- In Northern New England There's Law and Our Own Order (5mb)
Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Take deer hunting, for instance …
Jud's New England Journal For October 2007Welcome to the October 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, NH.
In Northern New England There's Law and Our Own Order
Take deer hunting, for instance …
Deer hunting in northern New England towns is a veritable way of life, as foreign to the average summer person as the world of horse shows and fox hunting on horseback is to the average New England native.
In the town in which I was raised, Vanceboro, Maine -- and, I suspect, in most northern towns even today -- deer hunting was and is a way of life year 'round. Not just during the season. Oh, sure, there are game wardens, and they'll throw the book at any outsider caught poaching (hunting out of season) or jacking (hunting at night with a light). They'll also prosecute natives for those same illegal hunting activities, if they have to. The subtle and important point here is that they're apt to find ways not to have to.
I became aware of these deer-hunting subtleties at an early age. In fact, the first bona fide illegal deer I remember seeing was on a late September afternoon, when I was about 9 years old. It was a month before deer hunting season. A number of my father's old farmhands (the young ones were off fighting Adolf Hitler and Tojo) and others were gathered at the Vanceboro store after the day's work.
I was there, too -- hanging around as usual for a free candy bar or lunch-bucket tidbit, which these men enjoyed giving their boss's young son -- when I heard one of them say to our farm foreman, a guy named Russell, "Got any deer lately, Russ?" Immediately there was an embarrassed and uneasy silence, with the most embarrassed being the questioner. Not because it wasn't deer season yet, but because for a second he'd forgotten that the game warden was a member of the gathering that afternoon.
"Why, sure I have!" Russell boomed after a split-second hesitation. "Biggest ol' buck in the State-o’-Maine. Got 'm with one shot right between the eyes. He's out there waitin' for me in the truck right now if you wanna go see 'm." Everyone laughed uproariously, including the game warden. What a jokester, that Russell.
A few minutes later, I left the group, the men still laughing and backslapping, and meandered right out to Russell's truck, parked behind the store. There, under a large burlap covering, was one of the largest buck deer I was ever to lay eyes on. A little warm, too.
I still think that if Russell had denied the deer, looked uneasy, and generally acted guilty, the game warden would have had to look in the truck on his way out -- and, of course, would then have had to arrest Russell for poaching. Such was the code.
There's a life lesson somewhere in that story -- I think.
- The Social Structure of a New England Town (6mb)
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Welcome to the August 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, Editor-in-Chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, N.H.
The Social Structure of a New England Town
Over the years, it really hasn't changed all that much …
The social structure of every New England town can be basically divided into two categories: the "haves," known as summer people, and the "have-nots," known as townspeople. Of course, the entire world can be divided in the same way (excluding the terms "summer people" and "townspeople").
So I should refine “summer people” to include, in order of respect, starting with the least respected: 1) tourists, 2) regular summer people, 3) year-round summer people, and 4) the very wealthy, socially elite. Townspeople can be subdivided into: 1) the working professionals who are longtime residents but originally from somewhere else, and 2) the natives. Natives can be divided into wealthy natives and regular natives, but I don’t think the term "native" would apply to a native if said native was very wealthy.
Young people are members of all these groups, with the possible exception of those we used to call "wire-rimmers" (so named for the wire-rimmed eyeglasses many wore) or "hippies," a term seldom used today. However they're known today, they're very seriously "into" saving the environment, organic gardening, weaving, contra-dancing, and raising goats or maybe llamas.
Not included in the social structure of a New England town are the dirt poor. They live in shacks or roofed-over cellars at the ends of town roads, have car bodies and old refrigerators strewn about their yards, and are ignored by everybody. It's unfair, but they're not in the structure at all. Therefore, I'd have to say that the lowest rung on the social ladder is the "tourist."
The late Walter Muir Whitehill, head of the Boston Athenaeum for so many years, used to quote the prophet Jeremiah in discussing tourists -- like "When ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination." If someone reminded him that lots of tourists are wonderful, fine, generous, law-abiding family people, he’d say he wasn’t referring to all tourists, just those, as he'd put it, "tripping gawkers … who rush through the state dressed as if for the beach, scattering beer cans behind them."
"What do you do after all the summer people go home?" I once overheard a tourist ask the weary proprietor of the Dublin General Store.
"Oh, just fumigate," he replied. "Fumigate and keep on living."
Can someone actually change his or her status? Well, with the passing of many years, when a year-round summer person has worn out several sets of snow tires and long underwear, paid property taxes many times, toughed out a few winters without either Florida or Arizona, raised a succession of vegetable gardens, and become a legal resident, "you qualify for the highest attainable accolade," says Jim Brunnelle in his book Over to Home and From Away. "You are now 'from away.' Strive for nothing beyond this."
Well, come to think of it, after living here in Dublin, New Hampshire, year-round for 49 of my 74 years, I guess I can be numbered among those "from away."
It's something to be proud of … isn't it?
- Sure, It's Only 47 Miles Long, But... (5mb)
Sun, 01 Jul 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)
Welcome to the July 2007 Edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.
Sure, It's Only 47 Miles Long, But...
... don't get Rhode Islanders started on the subject of their state. That is, unless you have plenty of time ...
First of all, you ought to know that its official name isn't just "Rhode Island." Rather, it's "The State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations" (a little long for the license plate). Other names for it have been "The Plantation of the Otherwise Minded" and "Rogues' Island." At one time the greatest slave-trading colony in America, Rhode Island was the first civilized community anywhere that allowed freedom of religion. Of its Roger Williams-inspired psyche emphasizing freedom of conscience and action, Massachusetts Puritan Cotton Mather said, "If a man has lost his religion, he might find it at this general muster of opinionists."
Little Rhody, or the Ocean State, is still a "general muster of opinionists," and as such has just naturally developed a reputation for tolerance. I believe it still has the only fishing cooperative in New England; Brown is the only city university in our region without the "town and gown" problems one encounters in, say, Cambridge and New Haven; and it calmly tolerates crooks in various positions of power ... like, for instance, colorful and beloved-by-many former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, who was just released last month from jail. Known as "the working man's mayor," Buddy was occasionally seen riding horseback down fancy Blackstone Boulevard with his spurs pointing forward so they wouldn't hurt the horse. And did you know that Rhode Island has the highest proportion of Roman Catholics of any state in the Union?
Of course, it's small—only 47 and a half miles long and, at most, 40 miles wide— yet it has more people that either Vermont or New Hampshire. If you live in the Rhode Island countryside you can, or so they say, be in the city in seven minutes. And like a person of small stature, Rhode Island absolutely refuses to be overlooked or ignored.
"Do you realize Rhode Island was the first colony to disregard the British stamp act?" a museum curator suddenly asked me a few years ago as we were sifting through some photographs of 19th-century Cranston (pronounced "Creeanston").
"We were also the first to officially renounce allegiance to Great Britain," he continued, his voice now raised, "and among the first to adopt the Articles of Confederation, and first to fire a cannon at any British naval vessel."
"Really?" I remember responding, attempting to lift the appearance of my own interest to his very earnest level. "Oh, sure," he said, "and the first Baptist church is in Providence; the first Jewish synagogue in America is in Newport; the country's first cotton mill, started by Samuel Slater, was begun in Pawtucket in 1790; the first lighthouse on the American coast was built at Beavertail back in 1749; the first spinning jenny in the United States was ..." And it was about here I managed to interrupt him with a hearty "By gorry!" followed by "That's something!" No telling how long he would have gone on.
But, you know, I was impressed. Still am, too. - Behind the Scenes at the Community Church (4mb)
Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Some things that happen here just aren't included in one’s local church or town history.
Welcome to the June 2007 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.
This month "Jud's New England Journal" is brought to you by The New England Quarterly: Publishing the history of our region for eight decades. Come explore the past from new perspectives.
Behind the Scenes at the Community Church
Some things that happen here just aren't included in one's local church or town history. For example ...
The minister of the local church is usually a central figure in a small New England town, closely observed by everyone. And sometimes that also applies to his wife (or her husband, as the case may be). Vivid in my own memory, for instance, is a particular minister's wife who, as it turned out, happened to be observed more carefully than most.
She was a handsome woman and very concerned about health, eating the correct foods, exercising, and so forth. She also felt that the sun's rays are important to the well-being of one's body. So during the summer, beginning usually in June, she would sunbathe in a well-hidden area behind the church parsonage, often without a stitch of clothing on.
About a quarter of a mile up the hill from the parsonage was the only garage and gas station, which, in those days, served as a meeting place for male townspeople after four o'clock. A few beers were consumed, and the day was reviewed.
I would happen over there on occasion and was, therefore, a witness to a harmless little ritual that started quite by accident one early June afternoon and was then deliberately continued off and on for the rest of the summer. It began when someone in the group used the wall telephone in the garage to call the minister on some matter then under discussion.
The minister wasn't there. The caller let the phone ring a number of times in case he was outside. He wasn't. But his wife was. And suddenly someone in the group caught a fleeting, distant glimpse of her running for the parsonage back door — stark naked!
Well, several days later at the garage gathering, the consensus was (its being a bright, sunny afternoon) that the minister ought to be telephoned. If he was there, the caller would ask whether or not a church supper was being planned for that month, or some such, and if he wasn't there ... well, let it ring for a while, because he might be outside.
This time everyone caught a fleeting, distant glimpse of a stark-naked lady racing for the parsonage's back door. When she answered the phone, the caller left an unimportant message for her husband.
I believe it was several weeks before someone brought a pair of binoculars to the garage gathering. That someone, as I recall, was none other than one of the church deacons, and it was that very same church deacon who, after the minister and his wife divorced several years later, eventually became her second husband.
Too bad that church histories and annual reports seldom, if ever, include the romantic stories of small-town church life ...
- MORE Reasons Why New Englanders Are Annoyed with Longfellow (4mb)
Tue, 01 May 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Even Connecticut Yankees have a pretty good reason to complain about him...
Last month, we wondered why Henry Wadsworth Longfellow omitted the name of Paul Revere's horse in his famous poem that begins, "Listen my children and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere." After all, every horse has a name.
Well, now it turns out that's not the only reason New Englanders are annoyed with Longfellow. Also irritating to us is that he omitted the name of the man who hung the two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church. He referred to him simply as Revere's "friend" who "climbed the tower of the Old North Church, / By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, / To the belfry-chamber overhead."
Most believe it was the sexton of the Old North Church, Robert Newman, who climbed those 154 steps with the lanterns. Others vehemently support a Captain John Pulling, who was Revere's good "friend" and shared the same political beliefs. Pulling advocates, comprising principally the captain's descendants, argue that Revere would not have entrusted the mission to anyone but a valued and courageous friend such as Pulling. But there's not enough hard evidence to dissuade either side.
Even the Old North Church itself has, over the years, been involved in controversy. Some years ago I received an impressive collection of data from a small group of amateur historians who feel strongly that Paul Revere's lanterns didn't hang in the Old North Church at all. They maintain the lanterns were hung in what history today refers to as the Second Church, but which was known in 1775 as "Old North." Second Church was situated across the street from Paul Revere's house in North Square, its steeple also had a clear view of the harbor, and it was the only Boston church demolished by the British after the lantern episode.
Second Church advocates point adamantly to a letter Revere wrote 23 years later, recalling that "if the British went by water we would show two lanterns in the North Church steeple." They say that if Revere had meant the present-day Old North Church, he would have said "Christ Church," as it was known at that time. Longfellow avoided that particular hornet's nest by omitting the street address of the Old North Church.
Connecticut Yankees also have a special problem with Longfellow. They wish he'd seen fit to mention one Israel Bissell of East Windsor, Connecticut, who left Watertown, Massachusetts, on the afternoon of April 19, 1775, calling men to arms in town after town all through the state of Connecticut and down as far as Philadelphia. It is said he rode 345 miles in five days, and that at one stop along the way he didn't even have to rein in his exhausted horse. It simply dropped dead.
That's certainly the stuff of poetry, but because a poem was never written about it, say Connecticut's Bissell fans, the heroic ride of their man has virtually been forgotten. However, I can sympathize with Longfellow on this one. I mean, can you think of anything that rhymes with "Bissell"?
- Why New Englanders Are Annoyed With Longfellow (5mb)
Sun, 01 Apr 2007 04:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)One reason has to do with Paul Revere's famous horseback ride the night of April 18-19, 1775 ...
Some history buffs in New Hampshire -- myself included -- have always believed that the colonists' attack on Fort William and Mary in New Castle, New Hampshire, four months before the battles in Lexington and Concord, was, in fact, the beginning of the American Revolution. We feel that the only reason the rest of America doesn't have the same perception is simply because Henry Wadsworth Longfellow didn't happen to write a poem about Fort William and Mary.
Perhaps Longfellow's most important poem in terms of historical impact is found among his Tales of A Wayside Inn, based on real characters of the Red Horse Inn (known today as the Wayside Inn) in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Every New Englander, and probably most Americans, can recite at least the first two lines:
Listen my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
The poem is actually called "The Landlord's Tale," and, although published 88 years after the events it describes, it left an indelible stamp on certain historical facts. (And, OK, I'll have to concede it would have been difficult to find words rhyming with "Fort William and Mary.")
New Englanders have always been a little annoyed with Longfellow's account. For instance, why didn't he include the name of Paul Revere's horse? Every horse has a name. What a silly oversight! This particular horse was called Brown Beauty ... or Brown Betty ... or, as some maintain, Minuteman ... or ...
Opinions vary, with the vast majority favoring a mare (though, to be sure, some argue a gelding, and others, a stallion) called Brown Beauty, which Revere supposedly never returned to her owner, Samuel Larkin, after he'd borrowed her for his famous ride the night of April 18-19, 1775. Some believe she was a Narragansett Pacer, a breed popular before the Revolution (George Washington, for instance, owned two Narragansett Pacers) but which no longer existed after about 1800. Surely, say New Englanders, Longfellow should have included some of those things in his poem.
Also irritating is the fact that Longfellow omitted the name of the man who hung the two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church.
But more about that oversight and whether or not it even was the Old North Church next month. Can you hardly wait?
- It's Best Not To Call the Moderator at Town Meeting a Liar (4mb)
Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)And, if you want to get along in a small New England town, there are a few other "don'ts" we'd suggest, too...
Good attributes for functioning effectively in a small town include common sense, humility, patience, compassion and, perhaps most important, a good instinct for the sensitivities of others. I think all of those would be perfectly obvious to everyone. I mean -- one would assume most wealthy summer people would know that the habit of not paying bills to local businesses for months and months is rankling to townspeople.
It would seem equally obvious, too, that if one wished to get along well and happily in a small New England town, one would not hire workers from outside; in a letter to a local newspaper advocating that newer people be taxed more, one would not refer to one's own property as "my ancestral lands"; one would think twice before giving one's worn-out clothing to a family one considers poor; one would not ask the commodore of the local yacht club how much money he'd be willing to take for his boat; one would be very careful about decorating one's garden for the annual garden club tour by hanging one's underwear on various casually displayed clotheslines to simulate the gay informality of an Italian garden; during a burial service at the cemetery, one would not refer to the bereaved wife of the recently deceased resident as "the widder of the corpse"; one would not put one's opinion at a church meeting into the form of a motion when it is obvious there are several people present who still do not agree; one would not show up at a Memorial Day parade in a costume; one would resist the temptation to take, as seconds, the last piece of lemon meringue pie at a church supper; and, finally, one would not call the town moderator a liar during town meeting.
I have been witness to each and every case of misjudgment listed above. No doubt, I've committed similar ones myself. Probably, at one time or other, everyone has.
Actually, I guess the moderator to whom I refer, Robb Sagendorph, founder of Yankee Publishing Inc. (and my uncle), was not exactly called a liar. Rather, he responded to some criticism from the floor by saying angrily, "Ben, do you mean to call me a liar?"
The retort was, "No, Robb, I don't. But, ain't you?"
The laughter that followed throughout the town hall diffused any potential problem. Laughter seems to have a way of doing that ... So I'd say that's probably the most important "do."
- Thoughts on Turkeys and This Winter's Weather (6mb)
Thu, 01 Feb 2007 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Unbelievable as it may seem, there may be a link between the two...
There's been a whole lot of talk about the weather lately. It's been weird all across the country, but particularly here in New England. And many of the old reliable "signs" have been way off -- at least so far.
I personally had a hint of said confusing weather this past Thanksgiving Day, when I examined, as I always do each year, the breastbone of our cooked turkey. You know the drill, I'm sure -- if the breastbone is light in color, the coming winter will be mild. If it's blue or purple, it'll be snowy and bitter cold. (Incidentally, the turkey must not have been previously frozen.) Well, at first glance, our turkey breastbone looked to be pretty light in color. Fine, I thought. We'll have a mild winter, and certainly December and January proved to be just that.
But you know, on closer examination, I discovered that one end of the breastbone was dark purple. I'd never seen a two-tone breastbone before, but that's what it appeared to be. Sorta confusing.
Well, we've all been fooled by weather signs before. It's not that nature doesn't know what she has in store for us, but rather our interpretation of her signs can be off. And then some of the so-called "sayings" are ridiculous. Like why would a warm Christmas (like this year) mean a cold Easter on April 8? If a month comes in good, why should it go out bad? Surely, if an elder person makes it through the winter, it doesn't necessarily mean he/she will make it through the summer. And why should squealing pigs signal a coming blizzard? (Well, maybe that one has some validity.)
I used to think that the most ridiculous weather saying was, "As many days old as is the moon at the first snow, there will be that many snows before crop-planting time again." To me, the age of the moon during the season's first snowfall would be irrelevant.
Sometime ago, I was attempting to explain this in a little talk I was giving to a women's club in Brattleboro, Vermont, a week after a snowstorm had hit New England unusually early that year. It was, of course, the season's first snowstorm and it so happened that it occurred when the moon was two days old. A perfect example, I thought, of how numerological weather sayings simply do not work.
"So you can see," I said, "that if the old moon-age theory were to be applied to this coming winter, the storm we had last week would be the second-to-last major snowstorm we'll have throughout the entire winter season coming up."
General laughter all around. How silly. But guess what? It was.
As I reflect back on that today, I'm beginning to think about that part of last Thanksgiving's turkey breastbone that was dark purple. There's lots of winter ahead and, well, do you suppose turkeys aren't really all that dumb?
- The Story That Never Dies (5mb)
Mon, 01 Jan 2007 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)It's unbelievable. And weird. But people still ask us about it...
It's not possible to freeze old people in the beginning of winter, store them outside, almost naked, and then thaw them out in time to help with the spring planting. Is it? Well, in 1939, a Dr. Temple S. Fay of Philadelphia, who had done some experiments freezing human organs, gave a talk in Providence, Rhode Island, in which he related a grotesque story he believed to be true. He said it occurred just outside Montpelier, Vermont, about the turn of the century. And if I were asked to name the most popular story we ever printed in The Old Farmer's Almanac (yes, we do both Yankee magazine and The Old Farmer's Almanac), I'd probably have to name this story of Dr. Fay's. In fact, we still receive letters about it. Although Dr. Fay's title for it had been "A Strange Story", we called it "Frozen Death."
Supposedly Dr. Fay quoted the tale from an old diary that was kept by his late uncle Williams, who visited a remote community outside Montpelier one January 7 and found all the community's elderly people lying on the floor of a cabin, drugged into unconciousness. The diary does on to describe how, during that evening, the drugged people were stripped of all clothing "except a single garment," carried outside in to the bitter-cold air and stacked up on logs.
The next day the bodies, by then frozen solid, were covered with straw and pine boughs, placed in layers in a huge wooden enclosure to protect them from animals, and left there. The diary relates that when the writer returned to the community the following May, all the frozen old people were brought inside, placed in tubs of warm water with hemlock boughs until they revived and were given sips of brandy. Soon they were going about their business "rather refreshed by their long sleep of four months."
That, essentially, was the story. So one cold January day when I was in that area researching a story about Vermont legends, I stopped at a country store outside Montpelier. The proprietors were a man and his wife, both quite elderly.
After introducing myself and chitchatting about the cold weather, I told them that I'd heard that somewhere nearby they used to freeze the old people in early January and then thaw them out come spring.
"Ever heard of that?" I asked. Both nodded and said, yes, everyone around there had heard that story.
"Well, what I'd like to know," I said, "is whether or not you believe it. Do you believe it?"
Again, they both nodded.
"Yes, we believe it to be true," the old gentleman replied to which, after a moment of silence, his wife added, very seriously, "All except for the thawin' out part."
Makes me smile to remember how, after that, the three of us laughed together that day.
- How I Learned Everything One Christmas Eve (6mb)
Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:00:00 +0100 Author: rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale)Because it's one of my favorite memories of all time, I can't resist remembering it once again...
WHEN I WAS GROWING up on our farm in Vanceboro, Maine, during the 1930s and '40s, my mother always put on a Nativity play for the townspeople on Christmas Eve using mostly members of the family and various animals from the farm.
I first participated at about age 5 or 6. My role the first year was to sing four verses of "We Three Kings" all by myself. A solo. Well, I did it without any problems and received a nice round of applause from the packed house. Once backstage I learned there was going to be a second performance so that the people who'd remained outside, unable to find seats, would be accommodated.
Well, I began to cry when the second performance began. Yes, when it was time for my solo, I bravely sang all four verses of "We Three Kings" once again, but this time it was more of a wailing than a musical rendition, and the tears streamed down my face throughout.
No one was able to comfort me that night, not even my mother, and for some reason I refused to explain to her why I was crying. For years, she told people that I cried all through the second performance because I didn't think we'd done it right during the first performance. It was one of those oft-told family stories.
But it was wrong. That is not why I cried. The reason I cried was because the second performance would go past my normal bedtime, so when Santa Claus came to our house that night, I would not be there in bed like I was supposed to be. I figured, therefore, that Santa would then assume I didn't live there anymore or that I'd been a naughty boy and snuck off somewhere. Either way, there'd be no presents in my stocking that year. And, most certainly, that was good reason to cry.
Later that night, after my sister and I were finally tucked into our beds, it was, of course, a tremendous relief to hear our dogs begin to bark at Santa's sleigh flying in from the north and, with an ever-increasing sound of bells, land on the roof above us with a great clatter of reindeer hooves. We were in bed in time after all. Thank goodness.
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" Santa bellowed in a deep voice amid much foot stomping. Then there was a loud thump followed by a veritable stream of rapid-fire curse words in a voice suddenly familiar. My sister and I popped out from the bottom of our beds where we'd been huddling under the covers in exquisite terror and peered out the window that overlooked part of the roof. There was our father. He had a broomstick in one hand (to make the sound of reindeer hooves) and a string of bells in the other. He was lying prone on the roof, but was twisting the upper part of his body to look at his backside and the new rip in his best riding pants.
It was one of those eye-opening moments in life when you feel that, at least for an instant, you pretty much know everything there is to know.
