Inside Yankee: Finding Summer
We wait so patiently, don’t we? We find all sorts of ways to enjoy winter–snow sports, cozy inns, reading by the fire, bragging about snow tires and wood piles–because we either do that or be miserable, or join the snowbirds. So we wait. And spring comes. Café tables appear like welcome blossoms; we put away […]
We wait so patiently, don’t we? We find all sorts of ways to enjoy winter–snow sports, cozy inns, reading by the fire, bragging about snow tires and wood piles–because we either do that or be miserable, or join the snowbirds. So we wait. And spring comes. Café tables appear like welcome blossoms; we put away the fleeces, find the shorts. Then the blackflies try to intimidate us back indoors, but we don’t give in. Because we waited; we’ve earned short sleeves. We slap the flies dead. Slap again. Then suddenly, one day, we know real summer. No more 80 degrees one day, snow squalls the next; the heat makes itself at home. We have more lakes and seacoast here than anywhere I’ve known, and it all beckons. That first summer evening after work, when you go to the lake and jump in and feel the cool water slowly warm as you kick to the dock … Every minute of the wait was worth it, wasn’t it?
We wanted to capture that sense of summer and put it into these pages so that you can feel it wherever you are, and whenever you want. Every pocket of New England can claim its own piece of summer’s heart. The sea touches five of our six states (and Vermont has those sunsets over water and waves hitting the shore covered nicely, thanks to Lake Champlain), but the Maine coast enters into the mythic with the fog, the beaches, the bays, the sailboats, the light dancing on the meadows. If you’ve been there, you know what I mean. And if you haven’t, follow along with photographer Richard Schultz as he looks for the mystery of summer not just in the landscape but in the people who live there (“Maine Coastal Odyssey”).
Maybe because I lived in Maine for 10 years, I didn’t need coaxing to highlight still more of the state in this summer issue. We’ll show you a sea trail that lets boaters and kayakers camp on primitive islands (“Follow the Blue Watery Road,” p. 42); lobster recipes you’ll turn to again and again (“After the Catch,” p. 64); and even some lobster-trap trivia (“Up Close”).
You’ll also want to explore a Rhode Island house where tidepools are a child’s playground (“Cliff and Cove,” p. 50); a family celebration (“The Day of the Pomodorata“) that will surely entice you to bite into a ripe tomato; and a Vermont town that has discovered that its future lies in what has always been there–its soil (“Hardwick and the New Frontier of Food”). Plus, on the 35th anniversary of Jaws, we explore why sharks are becoming a surprising tourist attraction on the Cape and Islands (“Feeding Frenzy”). The best part? You can take all of these great stories to the park or the beach, sink into a chair, and let the day settle around you.
Mel Allen
Mel Allen is the fifth editor of Yankee Magazine since its beginning in 1935. His first byline in Yankee appeared in 1977 and he joined the staff in 1979 as a senior editor. Eventually he became executive editor and in the summer of 2006 became editor. 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 story telling 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 taught fourth grade in Maine for three years and believes that his education as a writer began when he had to hold the attention of 29 children through months of Maine winters. He learned you had to grab their attention and hold it. After 12 years teaching magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he now teaches in the MFA creative nonfiction program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Like all editors, his greatest joy is finding new talent and bringing their work to light.
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