Magazine

Temple Town Band, Music Makers, Temple, New Hampshire

We start arriving at dusk, setting out lawn chairs and blankets in front of the bandstand. We may hear the Temple Town Band perform in any number of small New England towns, but we’ve come here because their music is one summer sound that binds the generations. The first Temple Town Band was founded in […]

Magazine

Dick Pulsifer, Boat Builder, Brunswick, Maine

To say Dick Pulsifer makes boats is to say Stradivari made fiddles. Every year for the past three decades, he has painstakingly crafted an average of three finely made small boats, plank by plank, at his modest workshop outside Brunswick. And these beguilingly simple boats — he’ll be completing #104 in 2008 — are treasured […]

Magazine

Jim Donahue & Eugene Platt, Topiary Gardeners, Portsmouth, Rhode Island

In 1905, the Thomas Brayton family hired Joseph Carreiro to create gardens on their estate overlooking Narragansett Bay. He clipped the first green animals out of privet, yew, and boxwood, and tutored his young son-in-law, George Mendonca, who created his own legacy for more than half a century. Eugene Platt now carries on under the […]

Magazine

Ken Squier, Mr. Thunder Road, Barre, Vermont

On Thursday nights from May through September, this quarter-mile racetrack features cars that vary from your standard 380-horsepower types to, well, those that aren’t far removed from the junk heap. Which is pretty much what Ken Squier, former racing voice of CBS Sports, envisioned in 1960, when he turned a tired old dairy farm into […]

Magazine

Priscilla Hobbs | Popcorn Maker in Salem, Massachusetts

E.W. Hobbs has been a constant at Salem Willows Park since 1897. When Priscilla Hobbs was a child, she watched her father and grandfather pop their famous buttered Hobbs popcorn on the same century-old equipment that she and her brother Charlie use today. “I tell my grandkids to start learning those machines,” Priscilla says. “We […]

Magazine

Mike Creato, Vintage Biplane Pilot, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

It’s early at Katama Airfield, the largest (and one of the oldest) grass airfields in the country. Mike Creato, who’s been running Katama for the past 5 years, learned the ropes from his grandfather, who owned it for 40 years before selling it to the town of Edgartown and The Nature Conservancy. It’s one of […]

Magazine

Jeremy Frey, Basketmaker, Indian Township, Maine

Jeremy Frey’s baskets aren’t just works of art, but small monuments to perfection. He splits brown ash into thin strips, then weaves them into a creation that’s both feather-light and sturdy. He may spend up to a month creating a single one; pricing starts at about $95 and averages $300. Look for Jeremy at Bar […]

Magazine

Paula Marcoux, Maritime Artisan, Plymouth, Massachusetts

Paula Marcoux brings the 17th century alive for visitors to Plimoth Plantation as one of the dedicated staff who painstakingly maintain the Mayflower II, a full-size replica constructed in England in 1957 to reenact the original 1620 voyage across the Atlantic. Last year, to commemorate the ship’s 50th anniversary, Paula worked with the brewers of […]

Magazine

Bruce Cloutier, Railroad Engineer, Bellows Falls, Vermont

He got his first model train when he was 5; it was an American Flyer and he still has it. More than 50 years later, Bruce Cloutier is still into trains — right up in the cab, in fact. Following 32 years of elementary-school and college teaching, Bruce turned his summer train job into a […]

Magazine

Del Christman, Dogman, Lowell, Massachusetts

Dogman starts his howl at 6 p.m. That’s when Del Christman, minor-league baseball’s most recognizable hot-dog guy, puts on his outfit: white shorts, collar, “Hats Off to Dogman!” T-shirt, and finally the hat — always the hat — complete with dog flaps and a Scooby-Doo doll. “Then I go see the fans and start barking,” […]

Magazine

Rosaly Bass, Organic Farmer, Peterborough, New Hampshire

Rosaly Bass’s strong hands have seen 35 years of working these 16 acres of rocky soil — the oldest certified organic farm in the state. She’ll harvest as much as 10,000 pounds of tomatoes for her farm stand this season, plus kale, cucumbers, squashes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, eggplants, flowers, and lots more. And she’ll sell […]

Magazine

Tuller Family, Ice Cream Makers, West Simsbury, Connecticut

The Tullers have been working this same land since 1768. Now they’ve taken the venerable “do it simple, do it well” philosophy to their latest crop: gourmet ice cream. Using only real fruit puree and 16 percent butterfat, they mix up more than 50 flavors named matter-of-factly after the ingredients in them (“Red Raspberry with […]

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