Jud's New England Journal

Making Fun of Democrats and/or Republicans

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the August 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Making Fun of Democrats and/or Republicans

Actually, New Englanders have always managed to make fun of just about everyone

Since the days of Roosevelt and even further back, the Democratic party has, rightly or wrongly, been associated with the antithesis of New England thrift. Therefore, like the federal government, tourists, and New Yorkers, the Democrats have always been a favorite and traditional subject of New England humor. I should add here that Democratic jokes cannot be turned around to become Republican jokes. They're not interchangeable. Nor are they like so-called ethnic jokes, in which you can usually substitute almost any ethnic minority for another ethnic minority.

For example, if you substituted "Republican" for "Democrat" in the following old-time story, often told by the late Sherman Adams when he was governor of New Hampshire, it simply wouldnt be funny.

The governor's version of the story concerns a boy in a Vermont village near his home town (Adams was raised in Vermont) who decided to go to college. His parents were willing to help him but were unsure about some of the ideas he might pick up out there in the wide, wide world.

"Sure enough," Adams would say, "the boy came back from college a Democrat. The family was very upset about that and considered that hed been under the auspices of evil. To make matters worse, the boy founded the local Democratic Club and on the next Fourth of July organized a parade. His father pulled down all the shades in the house and wouldn't let anybody look out to see what was going on. But then he got curious and picked up just the corner of the shade and took a peek. In horror, he turned to his wife and said, 'My God, Samantha, they've stolen our flag!'"

Oh, how Adams loved that one. Anyway, here's one more, as told by the late Professor Allen Foley of Dartmouth College and involving a Texas Democrat and a Vermont Republican. It takes place in Texas and has a double whammy because New Englanders enjoy putting down Texans (and I'm sure the reverse is true) just as much as they enjoy putting down Democrats.

"How come you're a Republican?" the Texas Democrat asks the visiting Vermonter.

"I come from Vermont and my father was a Republican," replies the Vermonter.

"Oh, I see," says the Texas Democrat. "So I suppose if your father had been a horse thief, you would have been a horse thief, too."

"No," says the Vermonter. "In that case I would have been a Democrat."

So how do New England Democrats -- and there are lots today, maybe even a majority -- counter all these old-time New England "Democrat stories"? Well, one of the most effective means is to utilize all the "wealthy, fancy, city slicker" stories and then simply substitute "Republican." Maybe that's not fair, but fairness and accuracy have nothing to do with New England humor. Come to think, fairness and accuracy don't have much to do with politics either.

Do You Think Grits Are a Southern Invention?

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Well, not really. Fact is, they originated in New England...

Welcome to the July 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Do You Think Grits Are a Southern Invention?

Well, not really. Fact is, they originated in New England

When most people think of New England food, they think of lobsters, clam chowder, Boston baked beans, scrod, Indian pudding, cranberries, and apple pie. (Yes, we claim apple pie, too.) But how many of us today have a craving for white field corn, with the hulls removed, that's been boiled in water for many hours with a little salt until it's become a sort of mush? Yuck. And yet the dish, once a hearty staple on New England tables, hasn't disappeared. You can still buy it in a few places, dried or in a can. It's known as hulled corn. Or samp. Or hominy. Or cornmeal mush.

My friend the late Vrest Orton, founder of the now-famous Vermont Country Store in Weston, Vermont, once explained to me that samp is actually kernels of corn ground coarse for breakfast cereal; hulled corn and cornmeal mush are roughly as described above (no hulls); and hominy is another name for cornmeal cooked in water, as in "hominy grits," which Southerners claim as their very own. Of course, in truth hominy grits were invented by the Algonquin Indians -- who lived in New England.

Now, when Rhode Islanders convert stone-ground cornmeal, salt, butter, and milk (or -- and this is controversial -- water) into patties and then fry them, the result is one of New England's truly iconic foods, the Rhode Island johnnycake, or jonnycake, or journey cake. (That's right, the spelling is controversial, too.) Purists maintain that only real jonnycakes (we'll opt for that spelling) are made with whitecap flint corn, a type pretty much unavailable today in any sort of quantity, although the University of Rhode Island's cooperative extension service maintains a seed supply and furnishes limited amounts to growers such as Old Sturbridge Village.

"Any of us will tell you that the flavor and texture of a jonnycake made with flint corn is entirely different from other commercially grown corn," a past president of the Society for the Propagation of the Jonnycake Tradition in Rhode Island once informed me. And the Rhode Island legislature firmly agrees with the society's stand on the matter. Many years ago, it actually passed a law making it illegal to call jonnycakes made with anything other than flint corn "Rhode Island jonnycakes." As far as I know, the law still stands.

My own idea of jonnycake wouldn't pass muster anywhere but in Maine. When I was a boy growing up on a farm there, we enjoyed a sort of cornmeal shortcake covered with sliced apples and cream, which we called "apple Jonathan."

Anyone remember that?

Anyone Ever See a Sailing Ship on Fire?

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0100

A few people on Block Island say they have -- more than once.

Welcome to the June 2008 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

We love taking the Point Judith Ferry (Galilee, Rhode Island) out to Block Island, and so do more people than Block Islanders would probably like. It's such a magical place. But I wonder how many have seen a sailing ship burning and then sinking off Block Island shores. I've personally talked to several who swear they have. And they were sober, too.

Now bear with me for a moment. It all began back in the 1700s, when a ship called the Palatine sailed from a German port, bound for Philadelphia. The captain died -- or was killed -- en route, and the crew then robbed the German and Dutch passengers before leaving them onboard while they high-tailed it for land in lifeboats. That much is fairly well recorded in history.

So now the legend takes over: The Palatine supposedly drifted, or was sailed, onto the shores of Block Island, where greedy islanders plundered and killed the passengers and then set the ship on fire while one live, screaming woman was still onboard. Nasty, nasty and Block Islanders don't buy it. They insist the islanders heroically rescued the passengers and nursed them back to health while burying the dead. Ive personally seen four little "Palatine" gravestones on the island, so labeled by a historical monument.

Now, enter famous New England writer John Greenleaf Whittier, who couldn't resist writing a poem about the whole affair, including the following six lines:

For still, on many a moonless night,
From Kingston Head and from Montauk Light
The spectre kindles and burns in sight.
Now low and dim, now clear and higher,
Leaps up the terrible ghost of fire,
Then, slowly sinking, the flames expire.

Since John Greenleaf Whittier wrote those lines, lots of people have actually seen the burning Palatine.

"I was walking home on a night late in November," Mrs. Venetia Rountree, a former business manager of one of Block Island's summer hotels and a graduate of Brown University, told our Yankee Magazine reporter some years ago. "It was moonless and windy, and we were busy getting ready for a predicted storm. Then I happened to glance out to the Sound, and I saw a flickering glow. The light grew bigger as it approached the shore -- and I recognized it from drawings and paintings I'd seen. It was the Palatine."

I recall another Block Island native visiting our Yankee offices back in 1958, the year I began working there, and how earnestly she described how, as a young girl living on the north end of the island, she was awakened one night by her parents and saw, for several awestruck moments, as she described it, a flaming ship that "rounded the Point" and then disappeared beneath the waves.

Walter Johnson of the United States Geological Bureau, as it was called some time ago, once tried to calm everyone down with a scientific explanation for all these sightings of the burning Palatine. He said that in that area of the ocean, just as is claimed in the so-called "Bermuda Triangle" area of the Atlantic, there are clouds of gas, which may escape from vast deposits below the ocean floor and reach the surface, sometimes actually igniting into flames.

Well, okay. But flames always in the shape of a sailing ship? Personally, I tend to go along with John Greenleaf Whittier.

New England's Secret Season

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Thu, 01 May 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the May 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

New England's Secret Season

It's not ever mentioned in regional or resort promotional material. Never.

However, all of us New Englanders are very familiar indeed with what's known among us as "bug season." Bug season starts out with a sort of subseason known as "blackfly season" and then continues on into what's ordinarily labeled as the summer season, which, in turn, can be broken down into haying season, corn-on-the-cob season, and "August." August is the month when the young summer workers in the large resort towns discover that its either difficult or impossible to maintain a pleasant front to tourists.

Bug season, however, encompasses all of these New England mini-seasons, simply because there are bugs swarming around all during those months. Not that they bother most of us natives all that much. There are many ways to cope with them, the best being to ignore them. But I personally have briefly known several couples who have moved to New England, discovered to their total surprise the existence of bug season, and moved away because of it -- to Hawaii, for instance, where apparently there are no bugs.

For some, the blackflies are the most difficult to tolerate, even though, thank goodness, they go to sleep after sunset. By the time the mosquitoes, which don't seem to ever sleep, the no-see-ums (which also don't require rest), and the assorted deerflies, also known as horseflies, are geared up to seasonal capacity, we're pretty much over our early-spring notion that living in the country is perfect.

Some years ago, the town of Harrisville, New Hampshire, dealt with its abundance of blackflies by actually celebrating them. Each spring there was a Blackflies Ball, to which residents came dressed up in blackfly costumes. There were blackfly T-shirts for sale in town and the Harrisville softball team was called -- you guessed it -- the "Blackflies." Guess they eventually got sick of doing all that, however, and went back to simply enduring their blackflies like the rest of us.

Henry David Thoreau used to rub a concoction "composed of sweet oil of spearmint and camphor all over the exposed areas of his body. As many of us discover early in life, he eventually concluded that "the remedy was worse than the disease."

Other "remedies" would include wrapping oneself up like a mummy so that not one square inch of skin is exposed, smearing on commercial fly dope, which renders one temporarily blind if it seeps into your eyes, and standing in either campfire or cigarette smoke or in a good ocean breeze.

I find it helpful to remind myself that whenever I'm with bugs, I'm either picnicking, fishing, camping, working in the garden, or otherwise engaged in a pleasant, warm activity. In theory, then, I suppose one is programmed to associate pleasure with voracious blackflies swarming into one's nostrils and mouth.

Ignoring our bugs requires an extreme form of mental concentration on things like blossoming lilac bushes and fruit trees, the sound of birds in the early morning, the greening of the countryside, the full brooks and rivers (if not too full!), the blooming of the Indian turnip (or jack-in-the-pulpit), and those wonderfully long hours of daylight.

Come to think of it, after a winter like the one we just experienced, I truly am looking forward to "bug season."

So Where, Exactly, Is the Cradle of Liberty?

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the April 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

So Where, Exactly, Is the Cradle of Liberty?

Concord, Massachusetts, has always claimed that distinction. But then so has neighboring Lexington

The official first battle of the American Revolution is often referred to as "the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775." That doesn't set particularly well with either Lexington or Concord. Each of those two Massachusetts towns considers itself alone to be the specific cradle of American liberty. But in the minds of Americans in general, Concord has the edge, thanks in large part to Ralph Waldo Emerson.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard 'round the world.

That first stanza of Emerson's "Concord Hymn" is carved (without credit to Emerson) on one side of the pedestal of the Daniel Chester French statue The Minuteman, which stands near the "rude bridge" in Concord where the three-minute battle occurred. It was unveiled on April 19, 1875 -- 100 years later -- with President Ulysses S. Grant in attendance. As Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote, Emerson's stirring lines "made Concord's reputation" for all time.

Lexington, however, has a Minuteman statue, too. Its version, sculpted by H. H. Kitson, was dedicated in 1900 and was, ironically enough, modeled after an Englishman by the name of Arthur A. Mather. (Mather later became a U.S. citizen, settled in Medford, Massachusetts, and was, of all things, both the national heavyweight wrestling champion and the national canoe-paddling champion.)

At the base of a flagpole near Lexington's Minuteman is an engraved line proclaiming Lexington the "Birthplace of American Liberty." Nice but somehow it lacks that special ring that Emerson provided Concord.

Several artists have contributed to the somewhat-inaccurate "legendary" impression of the Lexington battle. The first drawing of it, by artist Amos Doolittle, is probably accurate because Doolittle sketched it only a few days after the battle. If "battle" is the right word.

It shows well-organized British soldiers lined up in combat formation, firing a volley at a motley group of scattered colonials, who are not firing back. Those not already lying dead or wounded are hightailing it -- a perception of that particular historic event not compatible with popular legend.

By 1830, artistic renditions of the Lexington battle show a few Minutemen firing at the British, while a Hammett Billings painting of 1868 depicts almost all of the Minutemen engaged in battle. However, it is the heroic 1886 Henry Sandham oil painting that forms the basis for the modern version of the Battle of Lexington. The Minutemen and the British are all toe to toe, blasting away at one another.

All this points up the important element of time in the making of legends. For instance, most of the impressive memorials standing today in both Lexington and Concord were never viewed by anyone who was alive on April 19, 1775.

But I should add that it's not only New Englanders who are apt to let legends develop for years before officially recognizing their historic (and tourist) value. For instance, Texans let the Alamo remain in a heap of rubble for almost 80 years after it fell to Santa Anna in 1836. How 'bout that?

About Boston and Bostonians

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the March 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

About Boston and Bostonians

Probably "snobby" is too harsh a description. "Proud" might be better

Old-time New England humor typically includes the "asking directions" jokes and those deadly "put-downs," too. It also includes Bostonians, relying on their allegedly snobby ways and attitudes. Of course, some of it is even true!

"My goodness," said a Boston woman when the Boston Transcript announced it was going out of business. "Whatever shall the country do now for a newspaper?" That same particular woman was known to have said, when her husband was in the Antarctic on a six-year scientific expedition, that he was "out of town."

I remember a brief cocktail-party discussion in a house on Commonwealth Avenue on the subject of the desirability of extensive travel. "Why should I travel," one elderly matron interjected, "when I'm already here?"

Harvard, of course, often comes into play. When a Harvard alumnus asked a fellow classmate what class a mutual friend had been in, the classmate replied, "He had no class. He went to Yale." There are lots of those.

James T. Fields, a great supporter of the "Chosen City of the Universe," as he called Boston, used to delight in telling the story of a Boston man he personally knew who, after viewing a production of Hamlet, was expressing his wonder at the genius of William Shakespeare. Finally, he was moved to the ultimate praise. "There are not a dozen men in Boston," he said, "who could have written that play."

Boston and its suburbs (to which a lot of the "old money" has moved) really are the center of New England culture and social life. Not because culture and social life in other parts of New England arent as good. In many cases, they are. Maybe it's just that they're not as old. Something like that.

I mean, formal dinner dances (rare these days) in, say, Springfield, Massachusetts, are very fine, but as the participants themselves say frankly, they're "not Boston." The Boston Symphony Orchestra travels to the Berkshires every summer, but when it returns to the "Hub" (meaning "Hub of the Universe") in the fall, Berkshire County, as writer Tim Clark says, "hangs up its tuxedo and pulls on the long underwear and overalls."

Then there are the "Brahmins." Even though the dictionary broadens "Brahmin" to include all New Englanders of a "cultured, long-established, upper-class family," it seems to me that the two words "Boston" and "Brahmin" are inexorably linked.

The best image of a Boston Brahmin, in my opinion, is to be found in a certain anecdote told by Cleveland Amory, in his book The Proper Bostonians, about the late Wendell Barrett of Boston, known during his lifetime as "the Brahmin of Brahmins." It seems that on one of his trips to Ireland, Barrett visited the famous Blarney Stone. However, he did not, as almost every other visitor does, lie on his back and kiss it. Instead, he touched it with his umbrella and kissed that.

That sorta says it all.

The Day I Learned About Salesmanship -- and Deadbeats

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Jud's New England Journal February 2008

Welcome to the February 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, New Hampshire.

The Day I Learned About Salesmanship -- and Deadbeats

It happened quite a few years ago. But the lessons still apply

Much of my early education at Yankee Magazine resulted from us all being in one room. There were no private offices. As a result, everyone knew what everyone else was doing and saying.

"Yes, they put the ad rates up again," I overheard our advertising manager, the late Mrs. Annabelle Dupree, say on the telephone one morning. "No, I don't know why. They just did." Mrs. Dupree was a no-nonsense, hardworking New Hampshire native who considered her position at Yankee to be a good lifetime job but certainly not a "career." Careers were for city people, or maybe artists or actors. "They," not she, made important decisions such as determining the advertising rates, and she was perfectly content to put it in those terms when talking on the telephone to our customers.

In this case, I felt duty-bound to call the customer back. "It's not really that our rates have gone up," I said, attempting to smooth what I felt must surely be the ruffled feathers of a heretofore steady advertiser. "What Mrs. Dupree meant is that our circulation has gone up, and so every advertiser, like yourself, will by buying more apples in the barrel, but at the same rate per apple."

"How's that?" said the advertiser, who ran a small furniture company in North Conway, New Hampshire. "I'm selling furniture, not apples."

"Right," I said, feeling myself sinking into some obscure morass. "I use apples as an example. You see, our rates are based on a certain cost per thousand subscribers, so "

"Wait a minute," the man interrupted. "Will I have to pay more for my advertisement?"

"Well, yes," I admitted, "but "

"Well, that's what your Mrs. Dupree told me 10 minutes ago. I understood her!" After he'd hung up the phone, Mrs. Dupree called across the room for me not to worry, that the man had already extended his contract six months -- at the higher rate. I had a new respect for Mrs. Dupree's "no frills" sales technique: Just say it straight and plain.

A few days later, a customer stopped by the office to pay an advertising bill that was three months overdue. While he stood next to her desk, Mrs. Dupree searched for several minutes through her file drawers for his records. Suddenly she brightened and reached for a large manila folder on the shelf behind her. "I remember now," she said in her matter-of-fact tone of voice. "You're here in my file of deadbeats."

Across the room, I cringed. Surely she'd gone too far. But not at all. As he wrote out a check for the amount he owed, the man apologized, and on his way down the stairs to the outside door, he called back that he'd try to live the rest of his life in such a way as to avoid being included in "anyone's file of deadbeats." Mrs. Dupree didn't reply. She was already busy with something else.

Three MORE Often-Asked Questions About New England

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 05:00:00 +0100

Jud's New England Journal for January 2008

Welcome to the January 2008 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, the editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Three MORE Often-Asked Questions About New England

1. Widow's walks: Were they built atop homes so that women could look for their husbands' returning ships?

2. Why is (or was) Connecticut known as the Nutmeg State?

3. Who in Sam Hill was Sam Hill?

The answer to #1 is "no." However, closed-in cupolas with windows, such as, for instance, on the Dr. Daniel Fisher House in Edgartown, Massachusetts, were built for that purpose. "Widow's walks" are, in fact, found on old houses hundreds of miles inland. They provided a protected platform on which to stow buckets of sand and water to put out the frequent chimney fires. The term "widow's walk" was erroneously applied by some romantic writer way back when -- and it caught on.

To get to the origin of #2, the Nutmeg State, as applied to Connecticut, one must go back to the early 1800s, when, in the town of Waterford, the minister there, a Rev. Jacob B. Spofford, was invited to tea one day by a rather wealthy lady by the name of Mrs. Eliza Peterson. It seems that, knowing the reverend was fond of boiled rice sprinkled with sugar and nutmeg, Mrs. Peterson asked her servant to prepare it. Her servant replied that they were out of nutmeg, so Mrs. Peterson suggested she borrow some from a neighbor. The rice, liberally sprinkled with nutmeg, was greatly enjoyed by the reverend, and after he'd left, Mrs. Peterson complimented the servant, reminding her to return the remaining borrowed nutmeg to the neighbor. The servant informed her that she hadn't borrowed any after all, because all of the nearby neighbors happened to be out of nutmeg, too.

"What did you use, then?" asked Mrs. Peterson.

"Well," replied the servant, "I didn't want to disappoint you or the reverend, so I just grated the wooden handle on one of my button hooks." The amused Mrs. Peterson evidently circulated the story and thus eventually Connecticut became the Nutmeg State.

We should add here that it's also often told that certain people in Connecticut used to sell nutmegs carved from ordinary New England trees rather than the seed of a true nutmeg tree, which had to be imported from somewhere in Indonesia. This is a theory that rings true. Those Connecticut Yankees were pretty slippery back in those days. In fact, it was said that "you might as well hold a greased eel as a live Connecticut Yankee."

Finally for #3, who in Sam Hill was Sam Hill? Well, if you really want to know, he was Colonel Samuel Hill, 1678-1752, of Guilford, Connecticut, where he was town clerk for 35 years, judge of the probate court for 12, and deputy to the general court for 22 or more sessions. In fact, he ran for so many offices so many times (sort of a Harold Stassen of his day) that "running like Sam Hill" became an expression denoting outstanding persistence and endurance. From there, Sam Hill just worked his way into being a generally used old-time expression, as in "Who in Sam Hill really cares?"

The Three Most-Asked Questions About New England

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 05:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the December 2007 edition of "Jud's New England Journal," the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, NH.

The Three Most-Asked Questions About New England

1. Where's 'Down East' begin?
2. Why were bridges covered?
3. Were spring dance floors built to be that way?

I thought by now everyone knew the answers to these. But during this past year, I've received quite a few e-mails indicating that quite a few don't. So, well, for a little Christmas present to those in doubt, here's my take on all three.

Let's start with "Down East." Almost everyone knows the correct meaning in a nautical sense: When you're sailing northeast along the coast of Maine, you're almost always sailing with the wind, or downwind. Okay -- but where exactly does the area called "Down East" begin?

Many equate the term with the entire coast of Maine. They maintain that it begins the second you cross the Piscataqua Bridge at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, heading north. However, the majority of New Englanders, myself included, think of Portland, Maine, as the very southernmost town or city Down East. Some purists argue that Camden or even Penobscot Bay is the starting point, but I'd call that area "way Down East". Then, of course, Nova Scotia would become "way, way, way Down East."

Now as to why bridges were covered and why some of the roofs were so high, I think I'll refer to my late friend, Joe Allen of Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts. He used to answer reader questions in Yankee under the heading "Sayings of the Oracle." Here, written a month before he died, is his last reply to the covered bridge question. Obviously, he was sick of the subject. It's heretofore unpublished, because at the time we felt Joe was being overly cranky. Which he was. But here it is, verbatim.

"Jesus for Guard Almighty, we thought all hands knew by this time. Bridges were covered, damn fool, for the same reason women used to wear petticoats -- to protect their underpinnings. Ever hear that wood rots when it gets wet? Your asinine suggestion that they were covered to keep snow off the road is dead wrong. In fact, I recollect throwing snow inside covered bridges after a snowstorm so our sleighs wouldn't grind on the wood. As to the height of covered bridges, any simpleton would know it took some height to get a full hay wagon through." Thanks, Joe.

Finally comes the question of spring dance floors. Were they made "springy" deliberately, or were they just the result of weak construction? Well, I had a conversation with Philip Baker of Antrim, New Hampshire, some years ago on this subject. Phil, a noted expert on historic-building restoration, had personally studied spring dance floor construction details during some of his company's projects. His conclusion: Some were made deliberately and some were that way by accident.

He said the actual springing quality was created by the lack of support beneath the ballroom floor and/or the use of particularly springy timbers for the floor joists. He told me that the Jones Tavern in Weston, Massachusetts, had one of the very best spring dance floors, but like so many of them, it didn't conform to present-day legal specifications and had to be reinforced, which removed the spring. The original Jones Tavern floor joists were made of 3x10-inch spruce -- "a real whippy wood," Phil said. Certainly that had to be deliberate. Phil and his fellow workers were amazed at how easily they could make the floor "pick up a lively rhythm."

I've walked and bounced (I'm not much of a dancer) across the ballroom of the historic Hamilton House on 9 Chestnut Street in Salem, Massachusetts, and I'm convinced that the considerable spring of that floor in such an otherwise solidly constructed house was no accident.

Maybe next month I'll address a few more often-asked questions. In the meantime, however, Merry Christmas, everyone.

Time to Walk in the Woods Again

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:00:00 +0100

With the leaves gone and the ground bare, this is the month to discover weird rocks 'n' stuff

Welcome to the November 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.

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

There are lots of peculiar dry-stone "beehive" constructions in the forests around New England. And November is a great time to investigate such things. However, the people who own properties where you can view these mysterious stone formations have usually asked us not to publish any exact locations in Yankee Magazine. For instance, a few November Yankees ago, we made the mistake of describing exactly how to find a certain perplexing underground stone structure in the vicinity of Goshen, Massachusetts.

"Tarnation!" the property owner wrote me after the issue came out. "I wish you hadn't printed that danged old legend about 'the Goshen Stone Mystery.' " He went on to say that hordes of people had come to investigate, and he was afraid someone might fall down into this particular stone legend -- and then, as he said, "sue the pants off me." We were more vague about locations after that.

However, we've never needed to be careful about describing the location of New Englands most famous stone bunches, called Mystery Hill, in North Salem, New Hampshire. That's the one with the so-called "sacrificial stone," which has a groove all around the outside of it, supposedly carved thousands of years ago for the purpose of catching the blood of human sacrifices. Mystery Hill is in all the tourist brochures and is open to the public. To be sure, it's an intriguing thing to see, but the explanation for it seems to change every few years.

At one point, for instance, a group of archaeologists decided that the stones were the work of Bronze Age people from the British Isles who crossed the Atlantic about 1200 B.C. and established a short-lived colony here in New England. Then some in the scientific community felt it might be the other way around. In other words, they decided that Europe's stone-building culture, so strongly oriented to the heavens, as at Stonehenge, actually originated in North Salem, New Hampshire, about 4,000 years ago and then crossed the Atlantic west to east.

Some years ago, while visiting the Mystery Hill site, I met an old, seemingly knowledgeable gentleman who earnestly told me that it was the early colonists who built these stone structures to winter-store their turnips. When I asked him about the carved groove all around the huge "sacrificial" stone, he simply shrugged.

I've also seen the strange carvings—letters, crude figures, and such—emblazoned on rocks lying about what they call Round Swamp, near Sandwich, on Cape Cod, on what is now Otis Air Force Base property. Some maintain that they were carved by one Charles Nye in the late 1700s, during the last few years of his life, when he was sulking out in a nearby cabin because the love of his life, one Sal Pry, had married someone else. After Yankee published this tale and a few other mystery-rock stories, a Pennsylvania man wrote to say that maybe Charles Nye could have wandered out of that Cape Cod swamp as far as North Salem, New Hampshire. I remember replying to him that his theory really stretched believability... but hey, who knows?

The Happiest Time in the Life of a Community Church

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the September 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, N.H.

The Happiest Time in the Life of a Community Church

Oddly, it's often during those months -- sometimes even a year when it's searching for a new minister.

While larger towns in New England naturally have several churches of various denominations, innumerable small communities across our six-state region have, over the past 50 years or so, have been reduced to one church, usually known as the "Community Church." It's nondenominational in spirit that is, open to all -- but its background and traditional support are often Congregational or Unitarian.

A small-town community church often finds it difficult to encompass its members' various religious backgrounds, and its popularity among various social groups swings from high to low to in between.

Sometimes Episcopalians will have a dominant influence. During that time, more so-called "year-round summer people" will attend, and communion may even be offered, to the distress of several townspeople.

Then, perhaps some liberal-minded young people will gain the upper hand. There will be an awkward few minutes in each service where everyone holds hands. Quite a bit of guitar playing, too.

When this sort of deviation subsides, and subside it always does, the natives and working professionals in town assume command once again and run the organization in the straightforward, no-frills manner in which it has been run for centuries.

The ebbs and flows of community church life are dictated to a large degree by the sort of minister in residence. Ministers come and go fairly regularly, and I think it's during those periods between ministers that the church experiences its ultimate harmony.

A search committee, including all town social functions, is formed and meets regularly with the congregation as a whole to report on progress, as well as to invite discussion and opinion as to what the church "needs." On these occasions, person after person rises to explain what the church means to him or her and what marvelous attributes ought to be part of the new minister's character.

Everyone agrees with what everyone says. The church is never happier. And often the search process can last more than a year, with guest ministers filling in on Sundays. The man or woman eventually hired is simply the nicest person available at the moment the church feels it really is time to choose somebody.

Unfortunately for the minister chosen, he or she is expected to be an approximate replica of Jesus Christ—no human frailties allowed. Over the years, I've known and liked many ministers, and most have had more apparent human frailties than many people I've enjoyed less.

The first minister I ever knew—in Vanceboro, Maine, where I was raised—suffered from a severe stutter, particularly with the word "Christ." It's unfortunate he wasn't a Unitarian, because the entire service would come to a halt over and over while hed silently struggle with that particular all-important name until it would finally burst forth in a minor explosion.

Alcohol was the problem of another minister I knew well—probably precipitated by self-doubt. "Do you think being a minister in this town or anywhere makes any sense, Jud?" hed ask me as we sipped cocktails on my porch from time to time. During sermons, he often forgot where he was going. His point would remain dangling in the air somewhere for his flock to guess at. "And as John once said in those never-to-be-forgotten words ... those never-to-be forgotten words ... those ..." I'd hurt for him.

You know, I've come to realize it's not easy to be the minister in a small New England town.

In Northern New England There's Law and Our Own Order

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:00:00 +0100

Take deer hunting, for instance

Jud's New England Journal For October 2007

Welcome to the October 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, NH.

In Northern New England There's Law and Our Own Order

Take deer hunting, for instance

Deer hunting in northern New England towns is a veritable way of life, as foreign to the average summer person as the world of horse shows and fox hunting on horseback is to the average New England native.

In the town in which I was raised, Vanceboro, Maine -- and, I suspect, in most northern towns even today -- deer hunting was and is a way of life year 'round. Not just during the season. Oh, sure, there are game wardens, and they'll throw the book at any outsider caught poaching (hunting out of season) or jacking (hunting at night with a light). They'll also prosecute natives for those same illegal hunting activities, if they have to. The subtle and important point here is that they're apt to find ways not to have to.

I became aware of these deer-hunting subtleties at an early age. In fact, the first bona fide illegal deer I remember seeing was on a late September afternoon, when I was about 9 years old. It was a month before deer hunting season. A number of my father's old farmhands (the young ones were off fighting Adolf Hitler and Tojo) and others were gathered at the Vanceboro store after the day's work.

I was there, too -- hanging around as usual for a free candy bar or lunch-bucket tidbit, which these men enjoyed giving their boss's young son -- when I heard one of them say to our farm foreman, a guy named Russell, "Got any deer lately, Russ?" Immediately there was an embarrassed and uneasy silence, with the most embarrassed being the questioner. Not because it wasn't deer season yet, but because for a second he'd forgotten that the game warden was a member of the gathering that afternoon.

"Why, sure I have!" Russell boomed after a split-second hesitation. "Biggest ol' buck in the State-o-Maine. Got 'm with one shot right between the eyes. He's out there waitin' for me in the truck right now if you wanna go see 'm." Everyone laughed uproariously, including the game warden. What a jokester, that Russell.

A few minutes later, I left the group, the men still laughing and backslapping, and meandered right out to Russell's truck, parked behind the store. There, under a large burlap covering, was one of the largest buck deer I was ever to lay eyes on. A little warm, too.

I still think that if Russell had denied the deer, looked uneasy, and generally acted guilty, the game warden would have had to look in the truck on his way out -- and, of course, would then have had to arrest Russell for poaching. Such was the code.

There's a life lesson somewhere in that story -- I think.

The Social Structure of a New England Town

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the August 2007 edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, Editor-in-Chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, N.H.

The Social Structure of a New England Town

Over the years, it really hasn't changed all that much

The social structure of every New England town can be basically divided into two categories: the "haves," known as summer people, and the "have-nots," known as townspeople. Of course, the entire world can be divided in the same way (excluding the terms "summer people" and "townspeople").

So I should refine summer people to include, in order of respect, starting with the least respected: 1) tourists, 2) regular summer people, 3) year-round summer people, and 4) the very wealthy, socially elite. Townspeople can be subdivided into: 1) the working professionals who are longtime residents but originally from somewhere else, and 2) the natives. Natives can be divided into wealthy natives and regular natives, but I dont think the term "native" would apply to a native if said native was very wealthy.

Young people are members of all these groups, with the possible exception of those we used to call "wire-rimmers" (so named for the wire-rimmed eyeglasses many wore) or "hippies," a term seldom used today. However they're known today, they're very seriously "into" saving the environment, organic gardening, weaving, contra-dancing, and raising goats or maybe llamas.

Not included in the social structure of a New England town are the dirt poor. They live in shacks or roofed-over cellars at the ends of town roads, have car bodies and old refrigerators strewn about their yards, and are ignored by everybody. It's unfair, but they're not in the structure at all. Therefore, I'd have to say that the lowest rung on the social ladder is the "tourist."

The late Walter Muir Whitehill, head of the Boston Athenaeum for so many years, used to quote the prophet Jeremiah in discussing tourists -- like "When ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination." If someone reminded him that lots of tourists are wonderful, fine, generous, law-abiding family people, hed say he wasnt referring to all tourists, just those, as he'd put it, "tripping gawkers who rush through the state dressed as if for the beach, scattering beer cans behind them."

"What do you do after all the summer people go home?" I once overheard a tourist ask the weary proprietor of the Dublin General Store.

"Oh, just fumigate," he replied. "Fumigate and keep on living."

Can someone actually change his or her status? Well, with the passing of many years, when a year-round summer person has worn out several sets of snow tires and long underwear, paid property taxes many times, toughed out a few winters without either Florida or Arizona, raised a succession of vegetable gardens, and become a legal resident, "you qualify for the highest attainable accolade," says Jim Brunnelle in his book Over to Home and From Away. "You are now 'from away.' Strive for nothing beyond this."

Well, come to think of it, after living here in Dublin, New Hampshire, year-round for 49 of my 74 years, I guess I can be numbered among those "from away."

It's something to be proud of isn't it?

Sure, It's Only 47 Miles Long, But...

rss@ypi.com (Judson D. Hale) — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 04:00:00 +0100

Welcome to the July 2007 Edition of Jud's New England Journal, the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, editor-in-chief of Yankee Magazine, published for over 70 years in Dublin, New Hampshire.

Sure, It's Only 47 Miles Long, But...

... don't get Rhode Islanders started on the subject of their state. That is, unless you have plenty of time ...

First of all, you ought to know that its official name isn't just "Rhode Island." Rather, it's "The State of Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations" (a little long for the license plate). Other names for it have been "The Plantation of the Otherwise Minded" and "Rogues' Island." At one time the greatest slave-trading colony in America, Rhode Island was the first civilized community anywhere that allowed freedom of religion. Of its Roger Williams-inspired psyche emphasizing freedom of conscience and action, Massachusetts Puritan Cotton Mather said, "If a man has lost his religion, he might find it at this general muster of opinionists."

Little Rhody, or the Ocean State, is still a "general muster of opinionists," and as such has just naturally developed a reputation for tolerance. I believe it still has the only fishing cooperative in New England; Brown is the only city university in our region without the "town and gown" problems one encounters in, say, Cambridge and New Haven; and it calmly tolerates crooks in various positions of power ... like, for instance, colorful and beloved-by-many former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, who was just released last month from jail. Known as "the working man's mayor," Buddy was occasionally seen riding horseback down fancy Blackstone Boulevard with his spurs pointing forward so they wouldn't hurt the horse. And did you know that Rhode Island has the highest proportion of Roman Catholics of any state in the Union?

Of course, it's small—only 47 and a half miles long and, at most, 40 miles wide— yet it has more people that either Vermont or New Hampshire. If you live in the Rhode Island countryside you can, or so they say, be in the city in seven minutes. And like a person of small stature, Rhode Island absolutely refuses to be overlooked or ignored.

"Do you realize Rhode Island was the first colony to disregard the British stamp act?" a museum curator suddenly asked me a few years ago as we were sifting through some photographs of 19th-century Cranston (pronounced "Creeanston").

"We were also the first to officially renounce allegiance to Great Britain," he continued, his voice now raised, "and among the first to adopt the Articles of Confederation, and first to fire a cannon at any British naval vessel."

"Really?" I remember responding, attempting to lift the appearance of my own interest to his very earnest level. "Oh, sure," he said, "and the first Baptist church is in Providence; the first Jewish synagogue in America is in Newport; the country's first cotton mill, started by Samuel Slater, was begun in Pawtucket in 1790; the first lighthouse on the American coast was built at Beavertail back in 1749; the first spinning jenny in the United States was ..." And it was about here I managed to interrupt him with a hearty "By gorry!" followed by "That's something!" No telling how long he would have gone on.

But, you know, I was impressed. Still am, too.