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 […]
Even novice gardeners can easily create an at-home flower show with amaryllis.
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 […]
Eastport, Maine, has always looked to the sea for its identity and the livelihoods of its 1,900 residents. When the last of its 18 sardine canneries closed in the 1980s, salmon farming, scalloping, and diving for sea urchins filled in—but the town’s economic life has never ceased being hard and uncertain.
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, […]
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 […]
Yankee Classic from November 1983 Read about a 2008 visit to Plimoth Plantation. The little village hugged the cleared hillside under the crude wooden fortress and the one heavy artillery piece that faced seaward across the salt marshes. The defensive position told the visitor that this was wartime. The lone street was a long, unpaved […]
THE WEEKEND BEFORE Memorial Day is when a lot of wonderful commercial enterprises along the Maine coast open up for the summer tourist season. Bertha Nunan’s Lobster Hut, in the tiny fishing village of Cape Porpoise (just up from Kennebunkport), is a case in point. Multiple generations of Nunans have been hauling lobster traps off […]
Six skiers and snowboarders competing in the 2002 Olympics have something in common: a particular education in the mountains of western Maine.
From Colonial, Georgian, and Federal to Greek Revival and Victorian, here’s a guide to New England architecture for the roadside historian.
