An editor needs readers, of course, because without readers there’s no magazine. But beyond the obvious, Yankee‘s editors look forward to hearing from you, our readers, because for a long time you’ve been key contributors to our pool of ideas. So many times I’ve opened letters and found this line: “I want to tell you […]
Yankee‘s spring issue (March/April) leaves our Dublin, N.H., offices soon, on its way to the printing plant where in the next few weeks the intricate process of getting a magazine printed, bound, and on its way to readers takes place. This is a sneak peek. Of course I am close to the contents since I […]
I am writing this on a January morning that feels as if spring has leaped into our midst while we were sleeping. I know many of us no doubt feel a twinge of guilt when we step outside without a jacket, look at blue skies, know that days like this in January may portend deep […]
New. A New Year. A New Yankee. What is not new is that Yankee‘s readers care. Big time. For the past few days my phone here has been ringing off the hook with loyal, faithful, readers, many of whom feel their longtime friend, Yankee Magazine, has gone away. At the moment, I am not their […]
Winter brings with it an apprehension, a raised expectation. We consult the almanacs and listen to the prognosticators. Never mind that they are often wrong. We always want to know what to expect, and hope we are ready. We expect snow. And plenty of it. My preparations begin in late fall. I remove the screens […]
It’s not possible to freeze old people in the beginning of winter, store them outside, almost naked, and then thaw them out in time to help with the spring planting. Is it? Well, in 1939, a Dr. Temple S. Fay of Philadelphia, who had done some experiments freezing human organs, gave a talk in Providence, […]
Even before Yankee‘s new January/February issue arrived in subscribers’ homes, the letters and e-mails started coming: “Why are you changing my Yankee?” These messages, surprisingly, give me much hope for our future, because Yankee readers care passionately about the unique little magazine they’ve always looked upon as a friend. And we never want our friends […]
WHEN I WAS GROWING up on our farm in Vanceboro, Maine, during the 1930s and ’40s, my mother always put on a Nativity play for the townspeople on Christmas Eve using mostly members of the family and various animals from the farm. I first participated at about age 5 or 6. My role the first […]
MANY YEARS AGO, a member of the Grange in Brattleboro, Vermont, told me proudly that from the program of recycling hearing-aid batteries, the Grange had raised about $70 for its scholarship program. “You mean you personally raised seventy dollars for the Brattleboro Grange by recycling hearing-aid batteries?” I asked. “Heavens, no,” he replied. “I mean […]
GOING “BY THE SIGNS” has always been a popular method of individual weather forecasting here in New England, other than simply hearing the weather on radio and television. The signs are everywhere, particularly beginning this month and extending through the fall, and they do seem to have some significance in the overall weather scheme of […]
In this column last February, I recalled my old friend and barber, Bill Austin, telling me a joke I might use in a forthcoming speech I was to make at the local Women’s Club and assuring me that, no, I needn’t worry. It was clean. In fact, he said, it was so clean “you could […]
To those of us who were around during World War II, and even as late as the 1970s, the name Kilroy is as familiar as MacArthur, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson. During those years, the words “Kilroy Was Here” were penciled on rest room walls, carved on picnic tables, painted on bridges — you name it. […]
