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    • In Search of Mark Twain

      Growing up on Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, I have an affinity for Mark Twain.  As a kid I always thought of him as a Mississippi River guy.  No wonder given his most memorable characters and the settings for his greatest work.  But Mark Twain moved from Missouri to Hartford, Connecticut and spent summers at his wife Olivia’s family farm in Elmira, New York.  These are the places where he wrote most of his novels.

      Both places have developed and changed since Mark Twain’s death in 1910.  The Hartford neighborhood beyond the block on Farmington Avenue is grittier and more urban, while Elmira beyond Quarry Farm has grown more industrial.  Mark would surely look around in wonder at both.  I have a lot to say about this guy.  More than one blog post possibly can contain.

      I visited Elmira a couple of weeks ago to visit Mark Twain’s study and grave site.  I was envious when I visited his study in Hartford, but seeing the octagonal study with it’s fireplace made me positively jealous.  It once was perched on a hill at Quarry Farm overlooking Elmira and the river below.  Since 1953 it’s been at Elmira College, where it’s open to the public.  Mark Twain viewed it as a place away from distraction where he could focus on his writing.  In Hartford he would chat with friends and neighbors, or play pool in his study there.  In Elmira he could draw inspiration from the views and simply write.

      On the day I visited it was raining and I found myself alone looking in the windows of the study.  I made a point of checking the door knob just to see if it was open, but also imagining Mark Twain grabbing this same door knob on his way in to write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I’d had a similar feeling walking up the stairs in his home in Hartford, sliding my hand up the railing, which was one of the only things you were allowed to touch there.  I wonder if the door knob is original, it certainly looked like it.

      I’ve written before that I like to chase ghosts.  Not the poltergeist kind, but the living history kind.  Visiting Hartford and Elmira brought me a little bit closer to Mark Twain.  And gave me a little inspiration.  I’m not sure how long I’m going to live in the house I’m in now, but I think I’m going to build myself a study.  Perhaps not as ornate as Mark Twain’s, but something that gets me out of the house and looking at the trees out back.  Maybe I have a novel in me, or maybe I just use it as a base of operations in my current job, but either way I think of it as a way to be a little more like Mark Twain.  That’s not such a bad goal.

    • The Beer Run

      The last twenty years has seen an explosion in micro brewing.  There was a time when I talked about starting a brewery myself, and sometimes I wonder what might have been.  Some of the breweries from the late 1990’s have come and gone, others sold out to the mass market brewers, and a few have stood their ground and grown organically.

      As a lover of good beer, I’ve been known to make a side trip or two in search of a great brewery.  A trip to Halifax brings with it an obligatory stop at Alexander Keiths.  A trip to St John’s demands a visit to Quidi Vidi brewery.  Breweries are popping up everywhere now and it makes drinking local easier than ever.

      No trip stirs the beer lover’s imagination like a trip to Vermont.  Some of the best beers in the world are brewed in Vermont.  According to Beer Advocate’s rankings, The Alchemist, Lawson’s and Hill Farmstead consistently rank in the top tier of brewers.  There’s something in the water up there in Vermont.

      Yesterday I found myself with extra time in Burlington, Vermont.  My last meeting cancelled on me and I recalled a beer fridge at home that needed a refresh.  So I went to a local beer store I’ve been known to check in with on occasion and purchased some Sip of Sunshine and Focal Banger.  Two worthy beers for sure.  But I was out of Heady Topper and wasn’t sure when I’d be back in Vermont again, so I planned a side trip on my drive home that would take me to Stowe for a visit to The Alchemist.  This is a route I know well and I was able to secure my designated share of Heady Topper, along with a four-pack of Holy Cow.

      Beer purchases complete, I plugged my home address into Waze and backed out of my space for the trip back to I-89.  And then it hit me.  I’ve done this drive a dozen or more times.  Every time I say to myself that I need to visit Hill Farmstead.  I’ve had some of their beers before, but always felt the side trip to Greensboro was tough to justify.  Today was feeling like one of those days too.  I’d picked up my favorite Vermont beers already, why get more?  Maybe just plug the address into Waze and see how much time it would add?  Sure, what’s the harm of that?  What’s this – it will only add a little more than an hour to the trip?  That’s not so bad!  Let’s do it!

      I thought of that as I drove down Vermont’s route 15, turned northward onto route 16 and watched my cellular signal fade from 3 to 2 to 1 to no bars.  Waze kept me on track anyway, but boy this place is out there.  But that’s where the adventure comes in.  While driving down Hardwick Road, I came across a monument that marked the Bayley-Hazen Military Road, built during the Revolutionary War for troop movement towards Quebec.  Sadly I didn’t take a picture of it, which means I clearly have to return to it another time.

      If you ever want to see what some of the areas near Boston looked like before they were built up, visit this part of Vermont.  There’s nothing but farms, woods and general stores that time forgot.  As I drove closer to Hill Farmstead, it became clear to me that brewing beer was the best thing that’s happened in this area in a long time.  Great beer brings beer tourism, as people make the pilgrimage to the brewery, buy beer and maybe stop at a few of the other businesses in the area while they’re here.  It’s an economic boon for an area that otherwise relied on dairy, maple syrup and livestock.

      As I got closer to Hill Farmstead, the roads got progressively narrower, and finally the pavement itself ended.  Great reminder that April is the beginning of mud season.  Did I mention that it was snowing lightly too?  Did I mention I was wearing business attire and dress shoes?  Did I mention that there was nobody else around?  This was my view of Jaffin Flats Road as I drove closer to Hill Road.

      I finally arrived at Hill Farmstead and glanced around.  Bit of snow on the driveway but a few cars parked there put me at ease.  Walking up to the building, I was crushed to see a sign saying they were closed.  Damn, I hadn’t checked that on their web site.  This was Tuesday and the sign said they’re only open Wednesday through Saturday.  Damn.  Long way to go for nothing.  As I was cursing myself for not checking the schedule first a guy walked out of the building with a keg over his shoulder.  I joked about not checking the schedule before I drove out here and he clued me in that there were people inside who might still sell me beer.  It turns out Tuesdays are for locals only, and I was feeling a bit local myself, even if I wasn’t dressed that way.  The bartender and locals were gracious with me, gave me a few pointers on the extensive beer menu and sold me a couple of growlers full of liquid gold.

      Not all beers are created equal.  I generally curse the artificial scarcity that some brewers inflict on their beer-loving public.  But supply and demand dictates that some beers are harder to get than others.  The Alchemist makes some outstanding beer, but they’re invested heavily in the hype with a shiny new tasting room and gift items for sale.  Hill Farmstead is charmingly authentic, dictated in no small part by how far off the beaten path they are.  Both are worth the pilgrimage.  Maybe just not Sunday through Tuesday, and perhaps not during mud season.

       

    • Revolutionary War Supply Chain

      During the Revolutionary War, when it seemed like momentum had turned from the Continental Army to favor the British, a few things turned the tide.  First, of course, was the support of the French in the war.  Without the French its inconceivable that the Continental Army would have been victorious.  But another huge factor was the Atlantic Ocean.  The sheer distance between American and Great Britain made it challenging to run an efficient supply chain, even for the British.  Without supplies, the British generals were reluctant to spread themselves too thin.  When they did venture out to forage off the land, they were highly vulnerable to gorilla warfare, and also created bad blood with colonists who might otherwise be neutral.  Shipments from Ireland were greatly compromised by the weather and privateers.  The Americans by contrast were using their land to their advantage, running supplies and men from battle site to battle site.  

      The most famous supply chain route was the Henry Knox Trail, or the noble train of artillery, on which the cannons and cannonballs were transported from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, where they were placed on the heights in the secrecy of darkness, prompting the British to evacuate Boston.  The 59 artillery pieces were hauled on ox-driven sleds in winter from Lake Champlain through New York and Massachusetts to Boston, a massive undertaking for the time.  The arrival of this artillery was surely a shock to the British and one of the first big wins for the Continental Army.

      While the war started in Boston, it was decided in the battles and strategic moves of Washington’s Army in New Jersey.  Key battles in Manalapan, Princeton and Trenton helped swing momentum to the Americans.  Ramapo Valley Road was a key route for the Continental Army during this phase of the war, and was the path that many marched on route to skirmishes throughout the Hudson River Valley and the Delaware River Valley.

      Bergen County, New Jersey has a trail running through it called the Cannonball Trail, which was loosely part of this network of trails and roads that transported and supplied the Continental Army.  One of my goals is to hike portions of both the Henry Knox Trail and the Cannonball Trail.  There’s something about walking in the footsteps of those before you that resonates with me.  When I walk into the Adams House in Quincy, Massachusetts or the Signal Hill barracks in St, John’s, or walk on the battlefields in Lexington and Concord, I feel a connection to the past.  Maybe its the history geek in me, or maybe its the ghosts of those who walked here before me.  Either way the connection is real for me.

    • The Merritt

      The Merritt

      Running from the New York border to the Housatonic River and opened 80 years ago this year, the Merritt Parkway has maintained a nostalgic charm even as the volume of cars traveling on it test its limits.  Sure. I’m talking about a highway, but this one has personality.

      The Merritt was completed in 1938 as an extension of the Hutchinson Parkway.  It officially ends/starts at the Sikorsky Bridge, where the Wilbur Cross Parkway begins.  This is Route 15, but most people just call it The Merritt.  Like most people I have a love/hate relationship with The Merritt, and it’s directly related to the volume of traffic on it at the time.  The Merritt is a great alternative to I-95.  There are no trucks, buses or trailers of any kind on the Parkways in the region, and that makes for a more pleasant drive.  Unless there are thousands of cars jammed on this two lane highway, or there’s an accident that you have to wait out.  Or there’s road work or tree work being done.  Basically there are a lot of variables that make it a roll of the dice as to whether The Merritt is a good choice.

      But a drive down the Merritt Parkway is a time warp to when people viewed a car ride as an adventure.  The journey was as much a part of the trip as the destination.  We’re going out to the country!  We’re going into the big city for the day!  The Merritt wasn’t made for commuters, it was made for adventurers.  And its design makes it a part of that adventure.

      The first thing you notice when you drive the Merritt is the trees, which closely line both sides of the road and for much of it’s length in the median as well.  The trees create a feeling that you’re driving down a country lane to visit your grandparents, not commuting 90 minutes to your job in the Stanford.

      The second thing you notice about the Merritt is the bridges.  Each of the original bridges is unique, mostly in the Art Deco style from the period.  Art Deco was all the rage in the 30’s, and like Rockefeller Center you feel like you’re in a different time when you see the detailing.  That every bridge is different makes them a destination along the way.  They aren’t just another generic bridge that you’re passing under, they have a personality.  Stopping to smell the roses, or at least take notice of the bridge as your driving at highway speed, is a uniquely Merritt experience.

      The third thing you notice, especially if you are entering from one of the side roads or from the rest areas, is that the road was built for cars going a different speed.  Coming from a dead stop to 60 MPH is an adventure when there’s moderate traffic at highway speed.  When it’s busy and the gaps are few and far between it’s a different kind of adventure.  Pulling into one of the rest areas with their old brick facades makes you decompress immediately.  These tight little rest areas burst at the seams on a busy weekend, but during the quiet times you feel like you’ve pulled into the corner store.

      To me the Merritt really starts at the Heroes Tunnel.  Its name, changed from West Rock Tunnel, honors first responders.  West Rock Ridge has some interesting history that warrants its own blog post so I’ll save that for another day.  While technically part of the Wilbur Cross, the tunnel has that mid-19th century feel to it, meaning it’s not a soulless civil engineering project, but has a certain charm to it.  I’ll take that, because I’ve seen plenty of highway in my time traveling the country that has none of that charm.

      Up in Massachusetts, there’s a stretch of Route 3 that runs from Lowell to Burlington that was once very much like the Merritt Parkway.  The bridges were all sided with stone, and the highway itself was two lanes each way with trees tightly lining it, including the median strip.  Like the Merritt it was jammed at rush hour but it felt like you were in the forest anyway.  In the early 2000’s they widened Route 3.  Seemingly overnight the trees were cut down, the median bulldozed, the bridges torn down and wide new bridges replaced them.  Route 3 became another highway, slightly faster but without the soul it once had.

      They say that the Merritt Parkway is an endangered species.  That the fate of Route 3 will befall Route 15 at some point as the volume of cars demands changes.  I’m hoping that doesn’t happen.  There needs to be a place for old charm in our modern world.  And at some point something will replace the infrastructure of roads and gas stations that we’ve built up to support our primary method of transportation.  As our population grows and rents increase, there’s a tendency to expand outward.  Urban sprawl demands taking more of nature to ease our commuting times.  It takes grassroots support and political will to resist those who would bulldoze the old to make way for the new.  With changes in how we work and talk of new mass transit options perhaps the demands for ever expanding roads will ease.  Let’s hope the Merritt remains it’s charming old self.

    • Cod Tongue

      Cod Tongue

      Newfoundland doesn’t waste time flirting with you – its beauty drops your jaw to your chest at first sight.  The flight into St John’s reveals the rugged coastline and the rolling ocean swells that define it.  Cape Spear is easy to find with its old lighthouse and its newer replacement reaching up to the sky to greet us.  Newfoundland is a rocky coast, much like Maine, Ireland, Portugal and other North Atlantic coasts that feel the wrath of the ocean.  I feel at home here immediately.  This is a place I could live in…  or at least return to again soon.

      Newfoundland is strongly associated with the Atlantic Cod, a lovely freckled fish that fed generations and once thrived in the ocean from here to Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  So thick you could walk on them its said.  At least until massive overfishing fueled by highly efficient bottom trawlers scooped up cod by the millions.  Scientists were slow to sound the alarm, but eventually the entire fishing grounds were closed in 1992.  With the closing of the fishing grounds the lives of tens of thousands of fishermen and their families were changed.

      Almost 30 years later the cod are slowly rebounding.  The fishing industry, which shifted to crab and shrimp but never fully recovered, isn’t there just yet.  Cod offers a great lesson in sustainability, responsible self-governing, corporate greed, weak political leadership and tradition that dies hard, even in the face of overwhelming evidence.  The climate change, coal and fracking debaters today would do well to look closely at the Grand Banks to see what happens when you aren’t open to facts that differ from your current point of view.

      Cod tongue is a uniquely Newfoundland treat.  I ordered it at a bar in St John’s Harbor just to try it.  Frankly it was a bit fatty and chewy for my tastes, but I finished the appetizer anyway.  I like to try new things, just as I like to visit new places.  And I don’t like to waste food.  Especially endangered food.  Cod borders on mystical in the land of Alexander’s Map, and by God I was going to give it a go.  It’s not really the tongue, more like the cheek of the fish.  Kids would cut out this throwaway part of the fish to bring home to the family to cook.  Over time it came to identify this place almost as much as the unique Irish-Canadian brogue identifies the people here.

    • Ice Out

      The changing of the seasons is well underway in the northeast.  While the calendar says spring, Mother Nature decides when it’s really upon us.  In New Hampshire spring is marked by Ice Out; the time when the ice on Lake Winnipesaukee has melted enough that the Mount Washington can sail to all of her ports of call on the lake.  This is determined when one designated guy, currently Dave Emerson, flies over the lake and gives it his blessing.
      In 2017 Ice Out was on April 17th.  The year before it was on March 18th.  Looking at the dates it seems like the average is late April over the last 131 years.  Honestly, it’s a big deal if you’re on the lake, but for the rest of us its check box indicating another winter has passed.  I live in Southern New Hampshire, where the local ponds thaw out a little faster than Lake Winnipesaukee does.  A walk around town over the weekend showed that we’re getting close.
      Back when I rowed, melt off got us out of the weight room and erg room and onto the water.  It was a huge milestone after a long winter.  Being on the Merrimack in college, the melt off meant a swollen river.  The coxswain and coach had to keep a sharp eye out for floating debris.  I recall a few bumps as submerged logs were detected a bit too late.
      They say back in the early days of our country that people would walk across or skate up the river.  That seems insane now.  You never know what the current on a river does to the thickness of the ice, and nowadays you just don’t seem to have that kind of sustained deep freeze that would build up the ice to those levels.
      Climate change is happening, no matter what the fake news crowd says.  Facts don’t lie.  As much as I embrace spring and the chance to be on the water again soon, I wonder what kind of planet we’re leaving for our grandchildren.

    • Sap Moon

      Sap Moon

      Tonight I watched the moon rising through the trees and illuminate the night.  Sometimes the universe gives you just enough.

    • Clusters

      I read a great book called Geography of Genius that focuses on the tendency of communities of like-minded people to form and thrive, often changing the course of history.  Essentially people feed off each other, and are inspired by the geniuses around them to do more in their own lives.  Rome, Athens, Vienna, Edinburgh and other places are covered in the book.

      It got me thinking about the clusters of geniuses in the northeast.  Maybe we didn’t have Beethoven, Mozart and Freud running around Boston as Vienna had, but we sure had Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Nathanial Hawthorne roaming around Concord, Massachusetts at roughly the same time, and all are buried at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

      Down in New York in another Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, you have the titans of industry Carnegie, Rockefeller, Chrysler all clustered in their final resting place after building empires just down the river from Tarrytown.  The New York Sleepy Hollow Cemetery is where Washington Irving, writer of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, is buried.

      In Boston, you can visit the graves of Sam Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and other notable figures from the Revolutionary War at the Granary Burying Grounds.  They fed off each other in life, building on each other’s ideas, one-upping each other.  In death, they’re still neighbors.

      Down in Hartford, Connecticut you had Mark Twain living right next door to Harriet Beecher Stowe.  Talk about a literary one-two punch.  While the neighborhood has changed significantly, becoming grittier, the homes of these two literary giants remain much as they were when they lived there.  I’ve toured the Twain house, and will carve out time for Stowe another time.

      As the weather gets warmer, I’m going to spend a little more time visiting the homes of notable people.  Walking around the homes of Robert Frost and Mark Twain reinforce that they were just regular people with extraordinary talent and the grit necessary to produce.  Visiting their graves reminds you that their time was brief, and so too is ours.

    • Blackbirds

      They’re back.  The rebel bike gang of the skies have come back to New Hampshire.  Where I once filled my bird feeders once or twice a week, I have to fill them daily when these swarms of Red Winged Blackbirds and Common Grackles come to town.  They swarm the feeders and you can almost watch them empty in moments.  There’s no taking your fair share and moving on with these thugs – it’s all or nothing.

      I’ve read up on changing up the feed, putting chicken wire around the feeders, or buying new feeders that they don’t like to go to.  But I’m not spending money or time on that.  With a snow storm coming in tonight, I’m not taking down the feeders either.  I’m going to fill them up and let them run out – quickly mind you, but unnaturally natural.  Maybe the desirable birds will get their fill too, maybe not.  But sometimes you need to let nature decide.  The feeders come down in a month.  I’ll continue to feed the bluebirds, which has been a pleasant success in the yard.  Maybe even the finches, depending on how quickly they blow through the thistle.  But the cardinals, jays and other birds are going to have to live off the land once the snow melts.  For now it’s ever bird for itself.

    • Kills or Creeks

      New York, and particularly the Hudson River Valley, was once part of the Dutch Colony of New Netherland.  Manhattan was once New Amsterdam, and the region is sprinkled with names that hint at the Dutch influence.  As a New England, I’m always intrigued by the unique names in the Hudson Valley.  Towns like Rensselaer, Guilderland and  Watervliet have distinctly Dutch names.

      Perhaps no place name turns the head more than Kill.  It means body of water, and you’ll see it used often in the region.  Peekskill, Fishkill, and from my rowing days the Schuylkill River.  Normans Kill, Fall Kill, Owl Kill, Batten Kill, Saw Kill, Fall Kill….  and so on.  I drive by these places and wondered for years what this kill thing was all about.  Google and Wiki solved that mystery for me.

      Doing business in the Hudson River Valley, I run into people with Van in their name, which is uniquely Dutch.  Rip Van Winkle is a character right out of this valley.  I’d imagine that if old Rip were to wake up now he’d hardly recognize the towns, but he’d know from the river and the hills exactly where he was.

      The Hudson River Valley remains a strikingly beautiful corridor despite the encroaching development of the region.  For Henry Hudson and other explorers to this region, it must have been an extraordinary trip up the river.  The Dutch were a relatively small footnote in the settling of North America compared to the English, French and Spanish, but they picked a region that strongly influences the rest of the country.  New York and Pennsylvania hold on stubbornly to the Dutch cultural influences.  One could say you can’t kill it off.