[feature slug=”the-popcorn-myth”] Faculty art shows at colleges and universities all over the universe tend to be wonderfully democratic yet wildly incoherent free-for-alls lacking any cohesive idea or theme. For that very reason, I stopped reviewing them decades ago. It’s just not possible to say anything meaningful about a show of random works by a bunch […]
chair
Magazine
Cape Cod: A Place and a Dream
I think I must have been about eight years old the first time I felt the Atlantic Ocean at the Cape call to me. I remember that particular trip so well: the first whiff of the briny air, the turn up a sandy dirt road, and my mother saying, “Listen you can hear the ocean […]
Make a Christmas tree farm visit a new family ritual! Just add a saw, snow, and a hillside filled with balsam, Fraser fir, and Scotch pine.
Magazine
The Bluebirds of Wall Street
The news on the television is pretty grim these days. I’ve decided not to watch. I have moved my laptop from my desk to the kitchen table where I can watch the colors change while I work. In most places, yesterday was a gray and drizzly day, but here, we are a bit above the […]
Magazine
Three Days at Yale
“The first time I came here, I left my car running in case I wanted to leave immediately,” the woman said, smiling at me over lunch under a big white tent. I hadn’t left my engine running, but I knew exactly what she meant. I’d thought long and hard before deciding to accept an invitation […]
New England paint colors range from subdued, earthy tones to bright, vibrant hues, but all draw from the rich landscape and history of the region.
Peter Ralston is telling me about a boy he once knew. In 1957, when the boy is seven years old, he moves to an old gray stone house in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Magazine
Give Us This Day Our Daily Storm
The only thing people have been talking about these past few weeks is the weather. Not only has it been stormy but it’s been cold. In the past week, I’ve visited two neighbors who had hearth fires snapping in their living rooms. We all pulled up beside these fires as if it were October. I […]
Yankee
The Gift of the Glaciers
During my childhood summers in Chester County, Pennsylvania I did many things: played baseball, rode my bike, caught fireflies, waited for the twilight jingle of the ice cream truck — but swimming in clear fresh water was not one of them. My town was too far south for the ice age glaciers to have reached […]
In 1962 Waine Morse decided to build a make-believe store beside his vegetable garden in Greenfield, MA, to house his burgeoning collection of Americana. He couldn’t stop. Excerpt from “’The Man Who Build a Town in His Backyard,” Yankee Magazine, December 1989. It didn’t start out to be like this, a whole village, a toy […]
Magazine
Portsmouth, RI: The Tin Can Man
Yankee classic from January/February 2001 In a small, white house on a side street off a side street in the seaside town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, there lives a village so lightweight a child could pick it up and carry it away, but strong enough to lift the weight of the world off the shoulders […]
New England
Ski Resorts in Summer
Looking for scenery, endless activities, few crowds, and family fun? New England’s ski resorts may be the best summer and autumn destinations around. And the best bargains. Here is a sampling of ski resorts that have transformed into summer destinations. Remember to look on your favorite ski resort’s web site for summer and fall packages. […]