Travels With Becky

The original recycling

Call it the Country Store, the Warehouse, the Outdoor Market, or the Dump – here in New Hampshire we’ve been recycling since before recycling was called recycling. We’ve been recycling since the term was “dump pickin'.” A trip to the dump was (and is) my family’s idea of an outing.

One time my dad was looking particularly dapper. I complimented his outfit.

He said: “All from the Country Store – jacket, shirt, pants and shoes.” 

“I guess you draw the line at underwear and socks,” I said.

“No,” he said, “couldn’t find any.”

Cousin Jeff expressed shock that the lady from away (mentioned in a previous blog) didn’t know much about dumps. 

“I don’t know about your friends, Beck,” he wrote. “Never been to the dump? Where else can you get clothes, furniture and Danielle Steele novels for free!”

Where else, indeed?

The circle that isn't

Paula from The Cozy Nest in Somersworth has invited me to visit on April 4 at 1:00 p.m. and tell a few stories, sign a few (or maybe many) books. Sounds like fun to me, a cozy afternoon in a Cozy Nest, which is not a bookstore, but a home and garden center. Guess I better bring my pocketbook – might spot something nice for my home or garden.  (Doing my best to help the economy by buying a little something here and there.) She sent directions:

We are easy to find. We are diagonally across the street from Key Auto on Rte 108 (corner of Blackwater Road). Two miles up the street from Weeks Circle (Exit 9). How is that for N.H. directions? I had a man from N.J. ask me why everyone referred to it as Weeks Circle when there was no circle so I had to explain to him it used to be a circle.

And, may I add, it used to have a Weeks Dairy Bar Restaurant in the middle of what used to be a circle. No more circle, no more Weeks, but we all still call it the Weeks Circle. I guess that could be confusing to somebody from New Jersey.

Maybe holding on to the old names is our way of resisting change.

Cooking terms, Yankee style

My friend Art the Ridgerunner suggests that cooking terms might make a good Yankee-fied subject. Terms like “grunt,” “snap” and “spider.” I know a spider is a cast-iron pan, but I don’t exactly know what those other two mean, cooking-wise, and Art didn’t tell me. Any ideas? Otherwise, I’ll have to look them up in my grandmother’s handwritten cookbooks which I have in my possession, on the promise of photocopying and returning to their rightful owner.

Art recalls the Fourth of July that the firesave range burned through the floor at his Gramps’ hotel. “The cook did not miss a beat on getting the meal served, but the bus boys were busy keeping water on the burning floor. Just after the last meal was served the stove crashed down through to the crawl space under the kitchen.”

No sense getting worked up about a small thing like a burning floor.

Which reminds me of the night some friends and I were driving through Nottingham, late, and we spotted flames shooting about 10 feet out of a big center chimney, or chimbley as my dad says.  We pulled into the driveway, ran up to the door, and knocked frantically.  A man in long johns cracked the door about a quarter the way.  “You’ve got a chimney fire!” we said.

“So,” he said.

In some circles a chimbley fire is considered nature’s way of clearing out the creosote, or as my dad says, creersoot. It’s OK so long as the timbers don’t catch, nor the shingles.

Could have been worse

Bruce Geiger’s neighbor in Lyndeborough told me this story. Bruce recently died, but is fondly remembered as a great Yankee character. He pronounced his name Geigah, of course. A tall thin man, good with horses, did a lot of work in the woods. 

One day he was out in the woods working with his tricycle tractor. When his wife came home from work, Bruce hadn’t come in from the woods yet. She got ahold of their other neighbor, Tinker Johnson. “Tinkah,” she said, “I haven’t seen Bruce. He should have been home hours ago.” 

So Tinkah went in search of Bruce and came upon a terrible scene, the tractor upended and Bruce pinned underneath. Tinkah rushed to Bruce’s side expecting the worse. But he realized his friend was still alive when Bruce looked up and said: “What took ya?”

Which reminded me of a story that may be apocryphal (that means an extra big lie), but then again may have some truth to it. Up in Colebrook, another woods mishap. The logger out all alone felled a tree the wrong way, got his arm pinned bad, and had to saw his arm off to escape. Then he tucked the severed arm under his good one and walked three miles out to the truck, drove himself to the hospital, and got the arm sewed back on.

“My gosh,” a fella said, upon hearing the story. “That’s about as bad as it gets, ain’t it?  Having to saw off your own arm, walk three miles out of the woods, drive yourself to the hospital so you can get your arm sewed back on.”

“Could have been worse,” the logger said. “Could have been my head.”

Fox pox redux

Audiences have been laughing up a storm at my fox pox (that’s Yankee for faux pas) stories. I guess it’s kind of funny when somebody else gets foot-in-mouth disease. 

Linda, one of the Questors (a group of preservationists and collectors), told this story about a big antiques fair and flea market she often attends. It’s quite a large event, antiques and dealers as far as the eye can see. She ran into an old friend.  “How you doing?” she said.

“Well,” he said, “I lost my wife.”

“I’m sure you’ll find her,” Linda said. 

He explained that his wife had, in fact, died. Linda told me, “I’m always losing my husband at these flea markets. I thought that’s what he meant.” 

Fox pox.

Fire safety

Strange thing, but some parts of Massachusetts are a lot like New Hampshire.  I know. I’ve been to those little towns in the west. Villages, just like some of ours. Linda grew up in Dunstable and recalls Pop, the fire chief. When her dad would see Pop on the road, he’d say: “There goes Pop, checking to see if the fire’s big enough to take the fire truck out.”

Which reminds me of a story out of Moultonborough. When Jo moved to town she wanted to tred carefully, not break any of the strange country laws. She had a pile of brush to burn. Before setting a match to it, she called the fire chief to ask about the rules. “The rules?”   

“Yes,” she said, “are there any special rules about burning brush?”

“Well,” he said, “not really. But we’d appreciate it if you’d wait until after 6 in the evening. All the volunteers work out of town and if your house caught fire, there woudn’t be anybody around to cover.”

No manure, please

Ann from Amherst said before she lived in New Hampshire, she she’d never used a dump before. I said, “What did you do with your rubbish?”

She said, “People came and picked it up.” 

“Oh,” I said, amazed.

Anyway, she went to the village hall and found the chief of police. She told him she wanted to use the dump properly and asked what were the regulations. He thought a minute, then said:  “No hoss manooah or dead cahcahses.” She said, “Thank you.” Though, she told me, “I had no idea what he was talking about.”  

She needn’t have worried.  Turns out she didn’t own a horse or have any carcasses laying around that she’d need to deposit.

So moved

At Belmont High School, Mr. Fournier (the teachers go by Mr. and Ms.) told a story about his days as town moderator.

A fellow in town named Elcid Moody was quite a philosopher and always had much to say at Town Meeting. Mr. Fournier enforced the rule that once you spoke on an article you couldn’t speak again until everybody else who wanted to speak on it had said their piece.  

Well, Elcid spoke on a budget question. Several others spoke. Elcid got in line to speak again. He was about to step up when he noticed a woman behind him, so with a gallant flourish he said, “You go right ahead, ma’am.”

She did.

“Move the question,” she said. And the house agreed.

Elcid never got to make his second comment.

Moose has spring in her step

The Moose (that’s me, Moose of Humor) feels regenerated. It’s almost spring. My yard is thawed to glorious mud and I’ve spent quality time with young people. Gave a little talk to the Belmont High School English Honor Society. That’s us in the picture below, gathered around a library table. 

And, I got to work with seven talented high school writers at the New Hampshire Young Writers Conference on Saturday, held at New England College. David Carroll, certified genius and recipient of the MacArthur Prize, gave the keynote. That’s David standing under the flags answering questions from the young writers. 

Some people call David the Turtle Man because he knows all about turtles and wrote the book Year of the Turtle, as well as several others. Annie Dillard called him, “A madman, a genius, and a national treasure.” He is all those things and a heck of a nice guy, as well as a passionate advocate for natural preservation, which is one step beyond conservation. He has a shop in Warner, where he and his wife Laurette, daughter Riana and son Sean sell their gorgeous artwork. Rianna paints on feathers. I do not tell a lie. Check it out here. 

The Moose basks in David Carroll’s glow. And in the glow of young writers in Belmont and at the conference. The other day I asked my friend George Radcliffe, known as Uncle George the Storyteller, how he was doing. He said:  “If I was any better I’d be twins.”

That about sums it up.

So, why, you ask, are you called the Moose of Humor, besides the obvious physical similarities? Years ago, New Hampshire Magazine named me “Thalia, Muse of Humor.”  Later, a nice man with a lisp introduced me as, “Thalia, the Moose of Humor.”  I liked it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last night it was my privilege to see the legendary Tommy Sands and his son and daughter Moya and Fionan at the Rochester Opera House. They travel the world these musicians, singing the new songs (Tommy writes them) and old (a version of Danny Boy centuries old).  Tommy also tells stories -- such stories!  The ones that stuck in my head speak to Irish culture and New England culture too.  Not so different us.  Tommy said he realized the Irish are an indirect people when he visited New York.  A New Yorker asked did he want a cup of tea.  He said, “No, thanks,” and “didn’t get a cup of tea!”

In Ireland, he says, the exchange goes like this:

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No, thanks.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?”

“No, thanks. I don’t want you to go to any trouble.”

“Making a cup of tea is no trouble at all.”

“Ah, then, I will have a cup of tea. If you’re sure it’s no trouble.”

Maybe we yankees aren’t so much indirect as literal.  Here’s what we go through in my house, pretty much daily:

Husband:  “Have you seen my keys?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Husband:  “Do you know where they are?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Husband:  “Would you tell me where they are?”

Me:  “Yes.”

Husband:  “Where are they?”

Me:  “Beside the toaster.”

Tommy also described the meanest (cheapest) man in County Down: “When he’s pouring you a whiskey and you say stop, he does.”

If you ever get a chance to see Tommy, Moya and Fionan in concert, take it.  They’re in Ellsworth, Maine, tonight, FYI.  Check their website.