Travels With Becky

Tastes like chicken

Billy McGowan told the story of a buddy of his who had a couple of pet ducks but didn’t want to keep them over the winter. Billy had an idea. He called his Mom and Dad at the farm; they had a barn and a pond and everything. “Do you want Fred’s two ducks, Ma?” he asked. “Sure,” she said.

Dad went to the buddy’s with a burlap sack and took the ducks home. That night, when Billy got home for supper, he smelled a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.

Sure enough, Ma was cooking up some fricasseed duck.

No bumpkins here

Bob Chadbourn told the true story of Charlie Thorn who ran Thorn’s store in Bow Lake Village.  Some counterfeiters from Boston thought they’d put one over on the country bumpkin, so they tried to get Charlie to change a fake $18 bill.

“Sure I can change it,” Charlie said. “Do you want three sixes or two nines?"

Swapping lies

We had so much fun swapping lies at Chadbourn’s Restaurant in Northwood Saturday night, I can’t even tell you. The stories were flying! Some told Bert and I stories; we had one that traces back to Vermonter Francis Colburn, about the bird dog that, when the shot duck fell into the lake, walked across the water to fetch it. Fella said, “That’s one weird dog.” Other fella said, “He ain’t weird. He can’t swim, that’s all.”

One of my favorites came from Dottie, who remembered an uncle (I believe it was) who was in the pear tree, pruning it. A friend, watching, asked how he knew which branches to prune. The uncle said, “If it pokes me, I cut it.”

A bird in the hand?

For those of you who wonder where my inspiration comes from, I think this picture, taken by my husband while I worked on my blog in my study, says it all.

Terrain matters

Years ago when I served my three years hard labor on the school board, we hired a woman from the Midwest as school principal.  She didn't much like the New Hampshire terrain.  She said she couldn't see where she was.  Too many hills and valleys.  She felt closed in by the trees, claustrophobic.  Those of us who are from here have a little trouble identifying with that.  We know where we are — in our mind’s eye.  Don’t have to see Deerfield to know it's just the other side of Saddleback Mountain.

  Here's another story from Zephine Humphrey's A Book of New England that speaks to the New Hampshire landscape.  It goes like this:  Newlyweds built a log cabin in thick woods on a hillside.  Winter came and the woods began to close in on the young wife.  She became depressed by the darkness all around.  The woods were not her friend and she wished she’d never moved from the relative openness of the village where she'd grown up.

Come spring, a "chopping bee" was organized.  Neighbors and old friends from the village worked all day in front of the cabin notching the trees one by one — so they were almost ready to fall.  In late afternoon "everything was ready for the final blow which brought all the trees down together.  As they crashed to the earth, the young woman, watching from her doorstep, found herself suddenly confronted with the serene, gracious presence of Mount Kearsarge rising directly before her, framed in the forest, bathed in sunset light; a neighbor, a presence, a 'prospect' of the most heartening kind."

And they lived happily ever after. We hope.  

Because life is uncertain

Zephine Humphrey’s charming and informative valentine to New England, A Book of New England, was published in 1947 — and, far as I can tell — not reprinted in recent history.  (I got my copy cheap through Alibris.)  I love these olde books full of stories.  

In her chapter on stage coaches, she writes about the Boston Post Road, which “began its illustrious career as a mere development of an Indian trail in 1673,” for the purpose of carrying mail from New York to Boston and back — a two-week trip on horseback.

In 1761, "a unique vehicle called Mr. Stavers' 'Large Stage Chair' " ran from Boston to Portsmouth in just two days time — two horses, four passengers. 

Meals were taken at taverns along the way.  One tricky tavern keeper in Spencer "made himself offensively notorious by his habit of spreading a generous dinner before the hungry travelers, collecting payment for it and then, after a very brief interval, calling out, "The state is ready."  And it was, driver on the seat, horses champing their bits, wheels all but in motion. The poor travelers had no choice but to leave their dinners unfinished or stay there overnight.  A protesting and often profane stampede took place from table to door.”

Which reminds my of my dear friend Ann White, whose husband served in the US embassy in the Netherlands, I believe it was. Ann learned always to eat before state dinners, since no one could eat until the queen took her first bite. Furthermore, since the higher officials were served first and in order, the wife of a lowly diplomat was apt to be served last.  Plus everybody had to stop eating the minute the queen stopped.  So poor Ann hardly ever got a bite.

One other Ann White story.  She was among the most gracious ladies you’d ever want to meet.  She told of a horrendous airport delay during which would-be passengers became irate and grumpy.  They were on the cases of the folks at the airline desks.  Ann made a point of thanking one of those folks for being so patient and for doing her very best.  

One Ann got on the plane, she found she’d been upgraded to first class.  And got the royal treatment!


 

Deep roots

How deep do your roots go?

Researching my book about  New Hampshire town meeting I learned from Dartmouth Professor and all around great speaker and expert on NH towns, Jere Daniell that:

The first New England town meeting convened somewhere in Massachusetts (Dorchester has the best claim) soon after John Winthrop and his associates settled in the Bay area.  By the 1650s the meeting had become a well established institution of local governance. 

Which reminded me of the running joke at the Society of New England Women — some of whose members trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower. The joke goes like this.  “My people arrived on this continent in 1652,” Lavinia says.

"Oh," says Jane.  "What took them so long?"

 

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree -- or does it?

Another story out of Berlin, told this summer in Lancaster. Nearly 25 years ago, Alice was new to Berlin.  She bought a house in town on one of those many dear little side streets.  But she was annoyed.  Each morning she'd find apples in her yard, cluttering the grass.  She blamed the two little girls who lived next door. 

She diligently picked up the wormy, errant apples and tossed them over the fence, returning them to the neighbors' yard.

Until one day, she was watering her flowers when she heard a strange sound -- looked up.  And rolling down the tar road was an apple, dropped from the tree at the top of the hill.  It rolled down the road and into her yard, coming to rest at her feet.

Seems the little girls next door weren't the culprits at all. The real culprit was gravity.

Tracing your roots

The family had always lived in town -- and traced its roots back many generations.  Two Great Aunties lived in a lovely, big house in the village -- and the little niece would often visit for cookies.

One day the little niece was overheard explaining to a friend:  "That big house is where my ancestors live."

Tastes like chicken

Speaking of rabbits, I'm reminded of a story out of Berlin.  During the Depression many people raised rabbits for food.  Grammie came to live with the family and she laid down the law:  "I'm not fussy, but one thing is true, I will not eat rabbit. I refuse."

On Sunday, Mother would bring out the steaming platter of meat.  "Chicken again," she'd say.  The little daughter always wondered where Mother found all those four-legged chickens.