Travels With Becky

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My friend Marge Palmer from Derry wrote with this great Yankee story. She said:

"One of my older sisters was here recently and related a story I don't remember hearing about our great-uncle Ben, my grandmother's brother. When he died our grandmother remarked about how surprised she was that so many attended the funeral. His brother-in-law replied, 'It's his own damned fault!'  

"I just loved that one. Both of these uncles were real characters. I can just hear Uncle Mont say this about Uncle Ben now."

Stories connect us through the generations. Isn’t it funny the small moments we remember?

Calling all town meeting stories!

My friend Susan Bruce and I are kinda hard at work on a new book all about town meetiing in New Hampshire. We’re reading town histories, town reports, Robert’s Rules of Order. We’re talking to folks who’ve been to lots of town meetings and have stories to tell, including town and school moderators.

One of the stories Susan picked up was from a moderator in an unnamed but real town who said, “I was at a moderator’s training session with Walter Peterson some years ago, and he asked me, ‘What do you do when a liberal rasises his hand at town meeting?’ I said, ‘Walter, some days my vision is just not so good.’ ” 

Please send me your town meeting stories, school meeting tales, too; budget committee lore for that matter. We’re interested in all the components of this democratic tradition. Funny or not so funny. Name the town or don’t. The story can be attributed to you. Or not. It’s the stories that matter and preserving the rich flavor of this institution.

Also, if you know of a person in your town (including you) who’s a treasure trove of town meeting stories, I’d love to spend an hour or two chatting with him or her. Contact information much appreciated. It’s all in good fun and good for history.

My e-mail is [email protected] or 

[email protected]. Or simply comment below. I can hardly wait to hear what you faithful readers of this blog have to say.

On we go.

Soap stories

At the Congregational Church Holiday Fair in Northwood, we got to telling stories about soap. Charlotte recalled her college roommates playing a dirty trick. They coated her soap with colorless fingernail polish.

She used it for a week, before they thought they better clue her in for reasons of hygiene.

Joann recalled sending one of her boys to camp with all the necessary supplies on the list provided by camp supervisors. When little Charlie returned after two weeks, you could still read the word Ivory on the soap.

Which reminded me of the lady who caught her two daughters in the bathroom, practicing curse words and washing their own mouths out with soap.

And while we’re at church, folks tell of the deacon who didn’t think the church needed any such fancy thing as a “chandelier,” whatever that was,  but some new lighting might be good. 

It's Showtime!

News flash:  The New Hampshire Authors Series featuring the hilarious children's book writer and illustrator Marty Kelley will air on NHPTV on  December 27 at 9 p.m. and December 28 at 8 p.m.  We taped the show back in the fall.  Get a load of his humor at martykelley.com -- including his new Action Blog, featuring me. 

Taping this television show is one of my favorite things to do. It's always taped on a Sunday afternoon in a beautiful big room at UNH's Dimond Library in Durham, beginning at 2:00. Takes about an hour to get enough footage for a half-hour show, once they cut out all my stutterings, stammerings, and gigglefests. Mekeel McBride and I got laughing so hard, we almost fell off our chairs. She's a wonderful poet and very funny person.

We do three shows a year, but they get repeated a lot on Channel 11, so it seems like more. You can check them out at www.nhptv.org/authors. Included are interviews with Marie Harris, William Tapply, Sy Montgomery, Donald Hall, Maxine Kumin, Don Murray, Charles Simic, and Tomie dePaola. Marty's interview is show number 17.  

If you happen to be down Durham way on January 24, I'll be interviewing Dayton Duncan for the next show! The writer and filmmaker wrote "Horatio's Drive" with Ken Burns, and works on all of Burns' documentaries, including his latest on our national parks.  Among Duncan's many other books are "Miles from Nowhere," "Out West," and "Grass Roots," about the NH presidential primary.

Come to the Dimond Library at 2 p.m. to be in the audience.  We always open the floor to audience questions for part of the program -- my favorite part, in fact.  There's no admission charge, but you'll want to pre-register with Tracey Lauder ([email protected]) to make sure we'll have a seat for you.

Pretty in Pink

Took our annual tour of The Christmas Dove in Barrington (across the road from Calef’s).  Besides rooms upon rooms of decorations downstairs, they’ve added an upstairs that’s rooms upon rooms of nuttin’ but toys.  Great fun, whether you’re shopping or gawking.  We were gawking.

Here's one of many displays.  Note NH’s own Annalee figures.

 

Reminded me of a special Christmas.  Many years ago, my husband John got hit by a car in the parking lot of McDonald’s.  (Don’t worry; he didn’t get hurt.)  As he flew up over the hood and hovered midair, he said:  “All I could think of was that I was wearing pink underwear.”  You know, a red sweatshirt gets in with the whites and everything goes pink.

That Christmas, I put a flea in the ear of friends and relatives:  John received 27 pairs of tighty-whities, size 38.

Don’t that bring a tear of joy to your eye?  I know he was touched.

The bells of Nashua

When Hazel moved to Colby Commons, a retirement facility, a friend drove by with her little boy. “That’s where Hazel lives now,” she said. 

“What a lot of housework Hazel must have to do,” the little boy said.

So  Mother brought him to visit, so he could see that Hazel only had to do housework in a small apartment in the big complex.

Claire, also at Colby Commons, remembered growing up in Nashua and the bells of Christmas. “We had lots of snow in those days,” she said. The workers pushed snow to the sides of the road but also piled it in the middle of Main Street. She remembered a machine that had what looked like a ferris wheel of little shovels that picked up the snow. The chains on the trucks sounded like bells. But she never much noticed them, until Christmas time grew near, and then those bells, she was convinced, were the bells on Santa’s sleigh.

Stick with the union suit

Barbara at Colebrook Commons Senior Center told about her grandfather Josiah Piper, a dyed in the wool Yankee who always wore a union suit to bed. Until he married the school marm, who was kinda tony, and insisted he wear a nightshirt. Those nightshirts weren’t all that big and didn’t give the coverage a union suit did, but Josiah succumbed.

In the middle of the night, they heard a commotion in the hen house. Josiah jumped out of bed, loaded his firing piece and ran to the coop. He stuck head and shot gun through the opening, bending low, to see inside. Just then Old Spot put his cold nose where the sun don’t shine, startling Josiah, who pulled the trigger and killed 45 chickens.

Traveling the North Country

The Arts Alliance of Northern New Hampshire has organized programs for me in several North Country towns over the last couple of weeks. Keeping me wicked busy. And, allowing me to visit senior centers, the St. Johnsbury, Vt., rehab center, town halls and all kinds of other cool places. My lunch at Howard’s Restaurant in Colebrook with e-mail buddy Ginger Jannenga and her friend Karen was top-notch. Grilled cheese with tomato and corned chowda for under five bucks? Can’t beat it with a stick.

Over to the right is me and Leonard at Riverside Enrichment Center in Lyndonville, Vt. After an hour of stories, Leonard said, “I loved it! You remind me of my Irish grandmother . . . when she was drunk!” 

Compliment accepted. And right back at you, Leonard.  

When Bill was new in the north country, he was determined to grow vegetables. His neighbor, Percy, was a seasoned gardener, Yankee and man of few but pointed words. One morning Percy smoked his corn-cob pipe and watched Bill dig the earth, plant seeds and string supports for the beans.

When the job was completed, Percy had but one comment. “You might’s well put up a tombstone and give them a decent burial.”

That year, unaware of how prolific zucchini can be, Bill put in about 15 hills. He had zucchini coming out his ears.  Percy suggested he put the extras out by the road with a free sign. So Bill propped a sign and piled the zucchini on a chair by the road.

That evening the chair was gone.

Nanook and Indy

At the Lancaster Town Hall, some trees from the old-fashioned tree decorating contest remained on display. This one snagged the Most Original prize. It’s a red hot tamale of a tree. I include a close-up of some of the sizzling ornaments.

  

Among the stories told in the Lancaster was this typically north country tale. I didn’t catch the teller’s name, but we’ll call her Nanook. She lived six miles out in the woods for nineteen years — and has since moved to town. But during her woods years she hosted a mini-shelter for cats and dogs between homes. Eight-year-old Indy500 had a lot of problems. He was blind, deaf and crippled with arthritis, but still enjoying life (as dogs do). Several times each day, Nanook helped Indy outside to do his thing. On this occasion, Indy stopped short in the yard, his nose twitching. He couldn’t see or hear but his sense of smell was acute.

Nanook looked into the woods. It was winter. She saw nothing but brown tree trunks. Until Indy woofed. The woods moved — fast. Many of those tree trunks had actually been the legs of a herd of deer. With Indy on the scent, those woods thinned out some fast.

Vermont adventure!

Took a trip out-a-state to Vermont, and visited the Riverside Life Enrichment Center in Lyndonville, then on to the St. Johnsbury Rehab Center just down the road. Finished my day telling stories at the Corner House Inn in Sandwich, N.H., as part of its regular Thursday night dinner and stories series. It was quite a loop — almost six hours of driving all tolled. (There weren’t any tolls — that’s just an expression. Read all about it in my New Hampshire Dictionary and Gazetter when it’s published in 2010.)

 From a distance, Vermont and New Hampshire might look like identical twins — one standing on its head. But I knew I was in Vermont when I saw this car parked in downtown St. Johnsbury — or St. J. as the locals call it. The bumper stickers told the story: “Enlighten up,” “Treehugger,” and “All the arms we need are for hugging,” “The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth,” and “Protected by angels.”

I had time to take this photo of the car, because traffic stopped dead for a good five minutes. A delivery truck had double-parked and somebody stopped behind it. Evidently the driver didn’t think there was room to go around and avoid oncoming traffic. Nobody was going over 15 miles an hour in any direction.

There we sat. And sat. Traffic backed up behind us. Nobody honked. We just all waited patiently. Finally, one car pulled slowly out of line — when nobody was coming the other way — and passed. Then another car. And another. The vehicle directly behind the delivery truck never moved. No sense taking a chance. He may still be sitting there.

My husband, who’s driven a lot in Boston lately, said down there everybody would have been honking. Including the drivers coming in the opposite direction. They’d be honking in solidarity with the one’s who’d stopped.

And that’s the difference between St. J. and Boston.