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What You Like (and Don't) in March/April
by Mel Allen
Our March/April issue is now on sale where magazines are sold, and subscribers have had a head start in reading the issue -- so it is time to open the mail and see what readers think:
Can you stand more feedback about Yankee's new format? I was first introduced to Yankee Magazine when I was 15 years old. My father was in New England Baptist Hospital recovering (successfully) from cancer surgery and issues of Yankee were available in many of the rooms, ready to help family members while away the tedium of hospital visits. I developed a special nostalgia for all things New England from those days nearly 40 years ago. No matter what size the print, quality of the paper, or dimension of the publication, nothing brings New England to me more than Yankee Magazine.Thanks.
Diane Piper, Westfield, Massachusetts
Editor's note: Feeling good, a good start.
You mentioned in the last issue that you've heard a lot about moving "Mary's Farm" to the "front-ish" part of the magazine, on page 16, after 11 glossy advertisement pages and other fluff. What may be lost on you is that Yankee is a paper magazine and that "Mary's Farm" was easily folded back to be left open. It is (was), in fact, the cover of Yankee Magazine as far as I'm concerned. Now Yankee's slick and glossy cover glares at me, to be slid easily out of sight under all the similar covers on my table. Put "Mary's Farm" back where it belongs. It was the only thing I consistently read in your magazine and I'm not inclined to hunt for it. You are losing it, Yankee.
Andrew Kuether, Northampton, Massachusetts
Editor's note: I'm starting to think my obituary will begin, "Mel Allen, who moved Mary's Farm off the last page…"
Your "puff piece" on Senator Olympia Snowe is misleading. It paints a more heroic picture (the article consists entirely of quotes by the senator) than reality indicates. If she were really in the mold of Margaret Chase Smith, she would have been more than a maverick. Senator Chase would have declared herself independent from the Republican Party. Senator Snowe's victory margin in 2006 is misleading, too. The Democratic Party leadership held back on its support of the party's candidate, conceding the election. Otherwise, the vote total for Snowe would have been closer to 59 percent. She is, at bottom, another "enabler" for Dubya Bush. Time will tell.
Meantime, Yankee Magazine ought to stay away from mere "puff pieces" if it is to be seen as being on the cutting edge of reporting accuracy.
Dick Bernard, South Portland, Maine
Editor's note: The Olympia Snowe interview is one of a series we call "The Big Question." They are all in the first person, so rather than being a puff piece, it's more like hearing someone -- in this case Senator Snowe, last issue Bode Miller, and the many people ahead -- talk about their lives and passions.
Your article, "Secret Places", shows the beauty of the Quabbin reservation. Hidden beneath pictures and words lie the four doomed towns where 2,500 inhabitants were forced to relocate and 7,561 bodies to be reinterred in other cemeteries. The Quabbin Reservoir was created to provide a large source of water to meet the present and future demands of Boston and surrounding towns. All signs of human habitation had to be eradicated to accomplish construction of the reservoir. Four towns were sacrificed in the Swift River Valley to create the largest domestic water supply in the world.
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