Jud's New England Journal

Podcast Archives

May 2008 - New England's Secret Season

April 2008 - So Where, Exactly, Is the Cradle of Liberty?

March 2008 - About Boston and Bostonians

February 2008 - The Day I Learned About Salesmanship -- and Deadbeats

January 2008 - Three MORE Often-Asked Questions About New England

December 1, 2007 - The Three Most-Asked Questions About New England

November 2007 - 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 …

September 28, 2007 - In Northern New England There's Law and Our Own Order - Take deer hunting, for instance …

September 1, 2007 - The Happiest Time in the Life of a Community Church

August 1, 2007 - The Social Structure of a New England Town

July 1, 2007 - Sure, It's Only 47 Miles Long, But...

June 1, 2007 - Behind the Scenes at the Community Church - Some things that happen here just aren't included in one’s local church or town history.

May 1, 2007 - MORE Reasons Why New Englanders Are Annoyed with Longfellow - Even Connecticut Yankees have a pretty good reason to complain about him...

April 1, 2007 - Why New Englanders Are Annoyed With Longfellow - One reason has to do with Paul Revere's famous horseback ride the night of April 18-19, 1775 ...

March 1, 2007 - It's Best Not To Call the Moderator at Town Meeting a Liar - And, if you want to get along in a small New England town, there are a few other "don'ts" we'd suggest, too...

February 1, 2007 - Thoughts on Turkeys and This Winter's Weather - Unbelievable as it may seem, there may be a link between the two...

January 1, 2007 - The Story That Never Dies - It's unbelievable. And weird. But people still ask us about it...

December 1, 2006 - How I Learned Everything One Christmas Eve - Because it's one of my favorite memories of all time, I can't resist remembering it once again...

November 2006 - How Best to Get Along in a Small New England Town - An important requirement is one many outsiders find particularly difficult to learn or accept. It's called patience.

October 1, 2006 - It's Not Easy to Believe in Ghosts - Perhaps the main difficulty is convincing the skeptics ...

September 1, 2006 - Going "By the Signs" - Forecasting the weather is full of hazards ...

August 1, 2006 - Have You Ever Cut the Devil's Throat? - New Englanders don't necessarily need either adjectives or adverbs to describe something....

July 1, 2006 - The Birth of a Legend - It requires just the right circumstances, occurring in just the right order, for a legend to be born. Take the legend of Kilroy, for instance...

June 1, 2006 - Which of Our Six New England States Is the Most "Yankee"? - That would be Connecticut. Of course. And here's why....

May 1, 2006 - The Very Best Way to Cook a Lobster - You may not cook lobsters this way. But if that's the case, then yours are simply not quite as good.

April 1, 2006 - Humpty Dumpty? Sure. Moby Dick? Never! - New Englanders can accept a certain amount of fantasy and artistic license in literature. But not always...

March 2006 - The Three Most-Often-Asked Questions

February 2006 - Can You Imagine Anything Cleaner Than a Hound's Tooth? - ... or Even a Pig's Whistle?

January 2006 - So How Slow Is Molasses in January? - A bizarre tragedy in Boston's North End once answered that age-old question for all time.

December 2005 - Maybe New Englanders Weren't So Stuffy After All - Some romantic customs were even, well, sort of shocking ...

November 2005 - It's Fun to Believe in Ghosts - But not on blind faith. New Englanders have to actually see or hear them ...

October 2005 - So Who Was this "Molly Stark" Woman? - For reasons never fully explained by anyone, Molly Stark is really big in New England today ...

September 2005 - The Best of New England -- Plus a "Worst" - Some would probably describe my list as downright odd ...

August 2005 - Yankee Sentimentality - There doesn't seem to be much of it here in New England (at least as far as I can tell).

July 2005 - Yes, Virginia, There Was a REAL Uncle Sam - But his brother, Eben, could have changed everything.

June 2005 - New Englanders Don't Really Believe in Bad Luck - On the other hand, why take unnecessary chances?

May 2005 - North, South and West of the Hub - Like all the New England states, Massachusetts has always been able to laugh at itself -- thank goodness.

April 2005 - Vermont Isn't Just a Geographic Area - But it's not easy to be a true Vermonter...

February 2005 - More on New England Humor - ...including possibly the best put-down story of all time.

January 2005 - Speaking About Sex and Romance - Years ago, New Englanders were very careful when referring to such things. Well, usually...

December 2004 - Can New England Claim the First American Christmas Tree? - After considerable investigating, I believe I've come up with the answer...

November 2004 - Some Tall Tales are Almost True - ... particularly when it comes to the typical New England description of how we think our cider and our tea ought to be.

October 2004 - Confession of a "Yankee Moseyer" - Once upon a time long ago, the perfect YANKEE Magazine story, all written and photographed, never appeared in the magazine. Now, after all these years we know the reason why...

September 2004 - Exploring a Few New England Oddities - Some you'd never discover unless you knew to look UP...

August 2004 - The Legend of the Sacred Cod. Or Haddock. Or Scrod? - While "scrod" may be delicious, have you ever heard of anyone actually fishing for "scrod"? Of course not...

July 2004 - Still An Incredible Story - We all know the ship Essex was sunk by a whale. It was a bizarre enough event for the instant creation of a New England legend. But then, when you add the gruesome aftermath...

June 2004 - Thoughts On Ups and Downs and Overs and Outs - From southern Maine, you must go up to Bangor but down to Eastport. Confusing? Well, not to New Englanders...

May 2004 - Frankly, We'd Sooner Old - Throughout our six-state region, many of us have felt that way for years and years. (Most of the time.)

April 2004 - About "Peepahs" and Peas - Both are integral parts of a New England April...