On a weekend camping trip near Palm Springs we stopped at a remote supermarket for supplies. Around the soup section, I discovered a real old-timer. His wrinkled face was red and rough, and his pushcart contained only two items: cranberry juice and Cape Cod potato chips. “With your taste in food, you could be from […]
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Bud | A Vermont Dog
Bud was a Vermont dog, a purebred malamute. He lived in and about Adamant, a village bounded by mountains and set in a curving bowl of fields, woods, marshes, and ponds. Bud was brought to Adamant by Louis Porter, a ten-year-old boy, during the summer of 1986, but in September of that year, when Lou […]
He was a barn cat, half wild, half tame. When his life hung in the balance, which half saved him? As usual, I let the cats out a few minutes after sunrise on that Sunday last July. We live at the end of the old town road on a hilltop surrounded by the area’s last […]
Everyone loves a title, everyone wants to be special, even entire communities. Take Groton and New London, Connecticut, for example. The good folks of Groton, Connecticut, posted a sign, “You Are Entering the Submarine Capital of the World,” to eliminate confusion, because some people believe that New London, Connecticut, across the Thames River is the […]
A stay in a rented summer cottage always seems to start with a note from the owners that reads something like this. Welcome to Bide-A-We!! Before you and the gang rush out to the water, here are a few things you probably ought to know about our beloved home. First of all, the plumber’s name […]
Pickle Day | Yankee Classic
When I think back on pickle day, I see Aunt Etta in the side yard. And I hear, at times, the rare sound of my Grandmother’s laughter.
Nor’Easter Wedding
In retrospect, an outdoor wedding reception during a nor’easter was a perfect introduction to New England.
Oyster Shucking | How to Buy, Store, and Open Oysters
With oysters, as with all shellfish, freshness equals quality. Buy the local oysters if you live in a region that has beds. Otherwise, look for the famous New England oysters. (These oysters grow slowly, taking up to twice as long to reach maturity as its cousins from warmer places. I believe that the combination of […]
Welcome to the August 2014 edition of “Jud’s New England Journal,” the rather curious monthly musings of Judson Hale, the Editor-in-Chief of Yankee Magazine, published since 1935 in Dublin, NH. Still An Incredible Story We all know the ship Essex was sunk by a whale. It was a bizarre enough event for the instant creation […]
A local legend like that of the Old Leather Man — Connecticut’s most famous tramp — can easily die of neglect unless someone takes an abiding interest in keeping it alive. The Old Leather Man was a legendary beggar who trudged a wide circle through southeastern Connecticut and western New York State during the late […]
A Special Place Called ‘Liberty Street’
Have you ever decided to do something that for most of your life you’d never have even dreamed of doing?
Summercater | Lexicon
Over a hundred years ago Mainers used the term “rusticator” to describe aristocrats, who seeking “rusticity,” came and built 100-room shingled “cottages” on Mount Desert Island. “Summercaters” evolved as a term for the more diverse summer tourists who descend upon “Vacationland” each July. Excerpt from “’The New England Sampler,” Yankee Magazine, July 1993.