Love Stories | Inside Yankee

At first glance, there would seem to be little connecting the stories you will find as you turn the pages of this issue. Ski hills that for generations have been the center of their communities. A library archivist who rescued his city’s memories. A Cuban-American poet who found both a home and inspiration in small-town Maine. A legendary hot-air balloonist. Except for this: Each shows a deep attachment to place and a passion to pursue what brings meaning and joy to one’s life.

While many skiers associate New England with destination mountains—Killington, Okemo, Stowe, Sugarloaf, Sunday River—that today belong to mega ski companies, “The Soul of Skiing” [p. 74] steps back to when community hills nourished the sport. And while many dozens of these small, beloved places have closed over the past decades, others have made a comeback and continue to endure because people who grew up on those ski hills held memories they could not forget.  

Abraham A. Schechter of Portland, Maine, understands how memories resonate through generations. When he learned that hundreds of thousands of photo negatives dating back to the 1930s were on the verge of being destroyed, he sped on his bicycle to rescue them from the former Portland Press Herald building, which was being gutted before its new life as a boutique hotel. Each image captured something that happened on a day in the life of his city. His dedication to restoring those images, and with them Portland’s collective memory, has occupied him since 2009 [“Keeping Time,” p. 94].  

About 65 miles north of where Schechter labors over his photos, Richard Blanco still writes the stunning poetry that caught America’s attention when he was President Barack Obama’s inaugural poet in 2013. As Blanco grew to love his hillside home in Bethel, Maine, his poems found an ever-expanding audience of fans who followed his lifelong quest for home and identity [“Conversations,” p. 88].

For decades, Vermont’s Brian Boland was a larger-than-life hot-air balloonist. In the course of reporting a profile on him, senior editor Ian Aldrich went up twice in a hot-air balloon (once attached to an open-air bench, so that only a strap separated him from the land hundreds of feet below) to better understand the passion that led Boland to become the best-known pilot in the world. Ian has a considerable fear of heights, but good writers become obsessed with getting their stories right—and his story about this unforgettable explorer of flight is one you will not soon forget [“The Balloonist,” p. 102].

Finally, I hope that when you sit down to savor these stories, you will also have by your side a bowl of chowder, one of the most cherished of all New England foods. Connecticut chef and author Nadine Nelson serves up traditional and surprising recipes [“In the Thick of It,” p. 44] that will likely begin your own love story, spoon to mouth. 

Mel Allen
editor@yankeemagazine.com

Mel Allen

Now editor at large, Mel Allen's first byline in Yankee appeared in 1977 and he joined the staff in 1979 as a senior editor. Eventually he became executive editor and led the staff as editor from 2006 to 2025. During his career he has edited and written for every section of the magazine, including home, food, and travel, while his pursuit of long-form storytelling has always been vital to his mission as well. He has raced a sled dog team, crawled into the dens of black bears, fished with the legendary Ted Williams, profiled astronaut Alan Shephard, and stood beneath a battleship before it was launched. He also once helped author Stephen King round up his pigs for market, but that story is for another day. Mel is author of Here in New England: Unforgettable Stories of People, Places, and Memories That Connect Us All (Earth Sky + Water LLC, 2025).

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