Our annual celebration of ordinary New Englanders — the angels among us — who are making an extraordinary difference in the lives of others.
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For more than 35 years, the popular Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, attracted prominent visitors, including actors (Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson), athletes (Rocky Marciano, Joe DiMaggio), singers (Ethel Merman), composers (Cole Porter), and politicians (Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK). But the inn’s famous legacy is tied to a single day in the mid-1930s, when diners there […]
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Twice as Cold as Zero | Lexicon
Before people used the term “windchill” to refer to the weather, there were numerous other descriptions of meteorological conditions. In Maine “Twice as Cold as Zero” (don’t bother doing the math) is an old saying that means it’s zero degrees with a high wind blowing. Excerpt from “The New England Sampler,” Yankee Magazine, January 1993.
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Yankee Frugality Contest Winners
After learning untold uses for dryer lint, worn-out panty hose, and used dental floss, we present the winners of the Yankee frugality contest. In our September 1990 issue of Yankee Magazine, our issue devoted to Yankee frugality, we asked for your own frugal tips and anecdotes. You responded with more than 200 letters, many of […]
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Earmuffs Invented in Maine
When Chester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine, received a new pair of ice skates on Christmas morning (quite an expensive gift in 1873), all he could think of was his ears. “They’ll start aching. They always ache when I’m out in the cold too long,” he complained. His mother suggested wrapping a scarf around his head, […]
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A Christmas Miracle
A chance encounter stirs the author’s memory of the man who gave him a new life.
We asked Henry Traverso, author of The Art Lover’s Pocket Guide, to share his choices for the 5 best small museums in New England.
Every year at this time, as the last note of “Deck the Halls” fades into the general hubub of Christmas party conversation, the question hangs in the air, unasked: What exactly does the phrase “troll the ancient Yuletide carol” mean? Wonder no more. This troll is not a monster found beneath bridges or a method […]
In November 1888 a 22-year-old Vermont woman named Kate Gillette was plucking and dressing turkeys for the Boston market on her family’s East Randolph farm while waiting for a teaching job to start in December. Worried about how she would live on the $7 a week that the position paid, she tried a novel variant […]
North of where you’re reading this, there’s a hayfield with rolling hills, and in a certain portion which probably made poor hay, a farmer thought, “Well, let’s try some balsams.” And in the spring of 2003, he did. Had you visited this plantation last week, you would have wandered across the sprawling meadow into a […]
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The Lure of a Simpler Life
If someone offered you a simpler life, would you take it? I did once. It was just before the birth of my son and I was working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The hours were unpredictable and the work was frustrating at best (covering territorial politics is a […]
Sometimes simply being able to carry an armload of wood is reason enough to give thanks.