This has been a strange summer, cold and rainy. I have a particular fleece jacket that I wear around the house in the winter and I’ve been wearing that through this summer as well. It’s usually buried in the closet by now, waiting for the summer heat to chill. But the last couple of days, […]
This spring and summer, it seems, has been a succession of weddings and funerals. I want the weddings to win but the funerals keep coming. One week in May I went to three funerals in six days, all at a distance so, just in terms of the driving, I felt spent at the end. A […]
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the woman who wrote to me to tell me of the demise of Spencer’s Shad Shack. She had been to visit and she had taken photos and then she went by again and saw the dozer poised to push it over. And I wrote a plea to […]
Yesterday I went on a house and garden tour in the next town. There are many historic houses in that town, especially on their main street, which looks more like a stage set for Anne of Green Gables than it does a real town, operating in the 21st century. But it does operate every day, […]
I am truly blessed by the mail that I receive. It all seems to me to come out of the blue. A letter from a member of the National Guard, telling me how much he loves Yankee, how it used to be the perfect size to fit into the pocket of the cargo pants of […]
Excerpt from “This New England: Mount Desert Island, Maine,” Yankee Magazine, August 1981. When Samuel De Champlain named Mount Desert Island, he did so because he was so struck by the barren, deserted summits of the stretch of mountains that give the island its soft, rounded profile. Though the mountains’ summits remain deserted, the island […]
Around here, we have our choices of ways to celebrate the Fourth of July. In the town next to us, dozens of residents gather to read the Declaration of Independence, including the names of all the signers. This is done at their historic Meetinghouse which looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The […]
Mayday came home a week ago. Her fever was gone and she was basically ready to return to her life. There had been no ready explanation for her illness and no real explanation for her recovery, other than the antibiotics she received and the “magic” chicken and rice concoction I took to her up at […]
In the next town to ours is a company that manufactures some of the best fireworks in the country. As a result, most towns around here hold extravagant fireworks shows on the Fourth. One of my favorites is in a nearby town, where the show is hosted and paid for by a private lake club. […]
Helene Harbage’s fingers nimbly pick over the quart of raspberries, selecting only the plumpest, most perfect of the lot, setting each one, bottom down, to dry on a clean towel. She turns next to the blueberries, choosing the biggest. Helene is making her one-crust “Star-Spangled Berry Pie,” a favorite of hers that once won first […]
Yesterday, friends came over for supper. Our main course was to be strawberry shortcake. It’s strawberry season here and, even though we’ve had way too much rain to make it a good year for berries, there are still wonderful berries to be had. At this time of year, we all have our favorite berry patches. […]
Video: Interview with David Carroll Excerpt: David Carroll’s new book, Following the Water Yankee Class from June 1993 In the April afternoon, the sun sinks low, coloring the wide oval expanse of the marsh. David Carroll tugs his waders to the tops of his thighs and strides into the place he calls the Route of […]
