Travels With Becky

A Halloween Story -- and it’s true

Jim Blodgett is the great grandson of Winfred Scott Littlehale of South Sutton. Winfred collected animals -- foxes, rabbits, snakes -- and made pets of them. Among his favorites was an albino porcupine. Winfred died in 1904 and was buried in an unmarked grave, said to lie between two big rocks in his back field, with holes poked in the ground deep down so his pet snakes could visit.

Jim set out to find his great grandfather’s grave in the field. He used a metal detector, thinking it might find hinges on a casket or some such. He said the detector didn’t detect much, but when he checked out two particular big rocks in the field, what should appear just ten feet away, but . . . an albino porcupine.

Jim doffed his hat and said, “Sorry we disturbed you, great grandfather.”

The cat came back...

This comes from a collection of old stories of early Henniker, according to the woman who told it to me.  The children of the house played a mean joke on the maid, Violet.  When the cat died, they slipped the corpse into her bed.  Listening outside her door for her screams, they heard none.  Disappointed they took to their own beds.

No mention of the prank was made all the next day.  At supper time, Violet served the children soup.  They remarked that it had an unusual taste, but it was good.  Violet smiled as she cleared away the bowls.

 

Views from heaven

A woman at a wedding this weekend told this story with which she entertained Homeland Security as she crossed the border from Canada to the US.

Joe, Bob and Jeff were fishing buddies.  Joe, sadly, died.  But on the next fishing trip, Bob and Jeff held a seance and made contact with Joe’s spirit.  They asked him what it was like where he was.  He said he’d gotten into a routine.  He’d have a nibble, a nap, and an encounter with a lovely lady.  Then nibble, nap, encounter. And this is how his days went.

“So that’s what heaven’s like,” Bob exclaimed.

“I’m not in heaven,” Joe said.  “I’ve been reincarnated as a moose.”

 

Headin' for the Rhubarb!

My new book Headin’ For the Rhubarb: A NH Dictionary (well, kinda) is well and truly launched.  We had a good turn out on a cold and windy night at MainStreet BookEnds in Warner and sold quite a few of the freshly printed volumes.  Some people bought more than one, for gifts.

Of course, since it’s a dictionary, people wanted to know if I got all the New Hampshire words and expressions in.  I didn’t.  Already oversights are rising to the surface.  For example,  ununder.  Suggested by my daughter.  Usage:  Where’s the floor cleaner?  It’s ununder the sink.

Another missed phrase, which a listener heard me use in passing:  “That’s right, too.” She said her dad always used it to change the subject when he got something wrong.  Example:  

Dad: The best way to get from Northwood to Hampton Falls is down 4 and across 125 to 101.

Dad’s Friend:  It’d be quicker to go cross 152 and you’d avoid all the traffic on 4.

Dad:  That’s right, too.

With the phrase “That’s right, too,” a person is never wrong.  It’s the Yankee way.

Rick asked if the handy words yessir and nossir were in my dictionary.  I said, “Nossir they ain’t.  But I’ll put them in the next edition should there be one. Yessir I will.”

 

But still in the phone book

Eileen from Monroe sent this insight into small town life.  She wrote:

I had to reach Edith Ann to let her know the trailer for towing the Alumni Band in the parade was all set.   Looked her up in the phone book.   No luck.   Called Norene, who in her late 70s is one of the younger band members, and right away she gave me Edith Ann's number.    When I commented I'd been unable to find her in the phone book, Norene said, “Oh, that's because you're new in town.   You didn't know to look under Forrest.”   

"Who is Forrest?" I asked, thinking I was sure Edith Ann was not married.   

"Her father," Norene explained.    

"Isn't he deceased?" I inquired.   

"Oh yes, for about 30 years now.   But we all know to still look for him in the phone book."       

I love this place!    How could you not?    

Could've been worse...

In Townsend, Massachusetts, at their beautiful new senior center, donated -- lock, stock, and barrel -- to the town by the Sterilite Corporation, we got to discussing outhouses.  Linda said she’d heard a story from Chris Drew, park ranger, that the wind was blowing so hard at Baxter State Park, he had to drop the toilet paper in the hole five times before it stuck.

Another outhouse story told of Townsend.  Gaylord and his son were walking on West Elm, the boy proudly dragging his red balloon on a string (not the helium kind -- the hot air kind), when the boy had a bathroom emergency. “I got to go real bad, Dad,” he said.  They were passing Miss Palmer’s house.  Gaylord figured Miss Palmer wouldn’t mind if a little boy used her outhouse in an emergency, so the sent the boy in.  Boy comes out crying, “I dropped my balloon down the hole.”

It was sad, but Gaylord decided to leave the balloon where it lay.

Next time Miss Palmer used the outhouse, she looked down in the hole and saw that big red shiny thing.  Called the doctor, Old Doc Churchill.  He came right over.  Miss Palmer was concerned about what she might have passed and what having passed it might mean health wise.

Old Doc Churchill looked down in the hole.  He poked the big red shiny thing with a stick.  It popped.  

“Ahh, Miss Palmer,” he said. “You and I have witnessed something rarely witnessed in the history of mankind.  You and I have seen a fart.”

Naturally, Miss Palmer -- though a little embarrassed -- was relieved.  

In two places at once?

A supervisor of the checklist was stunned on voting day to notice that one of the town’s leading citizens was not on the checklist, though he’d lived in town all his life and his parents and grandparents before him.  A new statewide computer system has towns sucking names off lists from other towns. Say, for example,  Sharon Roy registers to vote in Canterbury.  She gets looked up on the system and is found in Colebrook, so the computer sucks her and her info off the Colebrook checklist and relocates her in Canterbury.  But what if she was a different Sharon Roy? Huh. What if there were two of them?

The aforementioned supervisor noticed that “Joe Smith” was missing from the checklist.  She drove to his house.  Found his wife in the kitchen. “Shirley,” she said, “did you know Joe had moved to Milton?”

Shirley says:  “What’s he doing settin’ in the living room then?” 

 

The moose and the loggers

One more true Bob Chadbourn story (he’s full of it, I  mean, full of them).

Carl and Pete were up Pittsburg way moose hunting.  Yup, they won the lottery.  Pete shot a big one, run about a thousand pounds, give or take, but when Carl and Pete grabbed on either end to haul that moose out of the woods, it was just too heavy.

Luckily, a couple of loggers, Marcel and Rene,  were working nearby.  They had a horse and a scoot, and between the four of them, and the horse and the scoot, they got that moose back to the truck.  The hunters were so grateful, they wanted to give the loggers a reward. Carl had just a ten dollar bill; so did Pete.  What the heck!  They handed the $20 to the loggers, who stared at the money a full minute.  Then, Marcel says to Rene:  “No more logging today.”