Around Concord Magazine Summer 2017

Around

CONCORD SUMMER 2017 VOLUME 10, NO. 1 $4.95

community• culture• lifestyle

IN THIS ISSUE: The oldest Sunset League in the country Porches: the intersection of our private and public lives Music beneath summer’s stars Poetry: A Thin Light Morning

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CONTENTS

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SUMMER 2017

CONCORD

VOLUME 10, NO . 1

46

40

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Features 40

52

The South Comes North

Baseball in Summer’s Soft Evening Light

BY RACHEL FORREST

Traditional Southern barbecue with a New Hampshire flair.

BY RAY CARBONE

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As Long as There Is Summer, There Will Be Porches

We Are Moss Covering Granite

BY SUSAN NYE

Poems of New Englanders.

A good porch is a place of family and community.

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Since 1909, the Concord Sunset League has played real, gritty ball just down the street.

BY JANET BARRY

60 find around concord at www.aroundconcordnh.com

CONTENTS

Around

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SUMMER 2017

CONCORD

VOLUME 10, NO . 1

32 38

24 Get more

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In Every Issue

Departments

Editor’s Note

Home & Garden

10

20

Contributors

Business

14

24

Personal Essay

The Arts

BY JOHN GFROERER

32

9

36 Humor

16

See, Do & Enjoy

BY ERIC PINDER

38 Neighborhood Profile

BY KATHLEEN M . FORTIN

64 Calendar

72 Last Word

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A front porch sits at the intersection of our private and public lives ... A porch is a gathering place for family and draws friends off the sidewalk and up to the house. page 46

On the cover DAWN BREAKS OVER THE WHITE MOUNTAINS . ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY TO GET OUT AND EXPLORE THE WIDE ARRAY OF NATURAL WONDERS SO CLOSE TO HOME .

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Around

CONCORD community • culture• lifestyle

ARGYLE COMMUNICATIONS GROUP , LLC

30 TERRILL PARK DRIVE CONCORD , NH 03301

(603) 538-3141 PUBLISHER @ AROUNDCONCORD . COM

PUBLISHER

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150th

ANNIVERSARY

LIZ BUSTEED Tom Dustin, Vice President, Commercial Loan Officer and Brad Kulacz, AVP, Branch & Business Development Manager, Merrimack County Savings Bank with Chris Gilbert (r), General Manager of Concord Food Co-op.

The Concord Food Co-op supports and reinvests in the community by stocking and preparing delicious food produced by local farms. They have grown into one of the most successful natural food co-ops in the state.

Choosing a banking partner that shared their community focus was critical, so they turned to Merrimack County Savings Bank. The Co-op knows that by partnering with a strong, local bank, they can count on expert advice, outstanding service and prompt, local decision-making.

A natural fit!

Contact Merrimack’s experienced business bankers at 800.541.0006 or visit any of our local offices or themerrimack.com.

800.541.0006 8

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Around Concord wants to hear from readers.

Correspondence may be addressed to the publisher at 30 Terrill Park Drive, Concord, NH 03301. Or email the editor at: editor@ aroundconcord.com. Advertising inquires may be made by email to publisher@aroundconcord.com. Around Concord is published quarterly by Argyle Communications Group, LLC © 2017. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is strictly prohibited. Around Concord accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, artwork, or photographs.

EDITOR ' S NOTE |

BY JAMES BUCHANAN

Enduring

Summer Memories S

ummer is lightening with moments of deep, visceral memory.

In fact, as I write this on a cold and rainy late May morning, I am amazed that we are just three weeks from the longest day of the year and the slow fade of the sun. And I know that in late August as I pack my kids up for school—my daughter in her senior year and son in his second college year—I will feel as if summer was a flash.

But I also know there will be indelible memories. Last night as I fell asleep, my mind wandered to the view from the front gate of the Tanglewood Music Center. It stands on a hill that overlooks a long, sloping field bordered by the kind of thick New England forest that I love so much. The sun was deep in the horizon, which was burgundy fringed by bright marigold.

Time stood still in that moment.

And then there is the memory of sitting on my parents’ back porch in Keene Valley, the heart of the Adirondacks. It was the same evening light, but this time it reflected off a tall, pointyheaded mountain, lighting up the green forest that is its skirt.

The air was still, the town silent as I looked in the window to see my mother, lost to her thoughts, her features arranging then rearranging with each passing thought. I’d cooked the family dinner, as I always do when I visit, and she'd said to let her finish the washing up. She’s a gentle woman and her body was backlit by soft kitchen light. I admired her and thought this is a scene that Edward Hopper would have painted. Time stood still in that moment too.

As I fell toward sleep, my thoughts tripped on the notion that each of these two memories—clear and their emotion intact—are separated by a decade. I will never lose them and they will never fade.

Someone once told me, or maybe I read it somewhere, that luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparedness. On both those evenings, I was lucky to have these experiences, but they occurred because I was within that intersection.

In this issue, we want to help you create that intersection where serendipity is possible.

Whether it is an evening on a beloved porch, watching young men play baseball beneath a setting sun, a concert under the stars in some beautiful place, or exploring the glorious grounds and art of Saint-Gaudens, there are plenty of inspirations for indelible summer memories.

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JAMES BUCHANAN , EDITOR EDITOR @ AROUNDCONCORD . COM

CALLING ALL CONTRIBUTORS We would love to hear from you with ideas, suggestions, and anything else you care to send.

Contact us

editor@aroundconcord.com

90 North Main Street Concord, NH ∙ 603-224-1350 Questions@CharterTrust.com Chartertrust.com SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

9

CONTRIBUTORS

AMY MITCHELL

KATHLEEN FORTIN

ERIC PINDER

Decorator and color consultant Amy Mitchell is the owner of Home Glow Design (homeglowdesign.com). Each week, she writes for Home Glow’s Saturday Blog, focusing on fresh twists on classic style, American craftsmanship, and value and quality for dollars spent. She lives in Hopkinton with her husband and two boys.

Kathleen Fortin is a law firm consultant in Bedford, New Hampshire. She received a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from Dartmouth College and is a published nonfiction author. Her essays, articles, and book reviews have been published in magazines, an anthology, and journals including the Bellevue Literary Review. She has completed a book manuscript about Italian-American immigration.

Eric Pinder is the author of Life at the Top: Weather, Wisdom & High Cuisine from the Mount Washington Observatory, If All the Animals Came Inside, How to Share with a Bear, and other books for all ages. He teaches creative writing at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He can be found online at ericpinder.com.

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10

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JANET BARRY

RACHEL FORREST

RAY CARBONE

Janet Barry is a New Hampshire musician and poet with works published in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Little Lantern Press, Clementine Poetry Journal, Mom Egg Review, Snapdragon, and Third Wednesday. She serves as a judge for Poetry Out Loud and has received several Pushcart and Best of the Net nominations, as well as having her poem “Aubade” chosen for inclusion in BILiNE (Best Indie Lit New England).

Her website is www.jbarrypoetry.com.

Rachel Forrest is a food writer, restaurant critic, and author. She is frequently a judge for food and drink festivals and competitions and is included in the book Legendary Locals of Portsmouth. Rachel is also a James Beard Award Selection Committee member. Find her work at www.rachelforrest.com.

For twenty years, Ray Carbone has lived in and written about all things New Hampshire. His byline has appeared in the Boston Globe, NHPR.org, Business NH Magazine, and numerous other regional media platforms. A longtime Lakes Region resident, Ray now lives in Warner with his wife Jane and their large cat Teddy. You can view his Granite State blog at granitebeneathmyfeet. wordpress.com or connect with him at raycarbone@yahoo.com.

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TRANSITIONS |

BY KRISTY ERICKSON

Saying Goodbye

to McGowan Fine Art Easterseals Changes Lives.

We’re Hiring Caring Companions Bus Drivers & Monitors

A

fter thirty-seven years of providing quality artwork in a friendly atmosphere, McGowan Fine Art will be closing its doors in July. Co-owner and gallery director Sarah Chaffee made the announcement recently at a reception for Twenty Years of a Singular Vision, the exhibit celebrating two decades of her leadership at the gallery.

McGowan Fine Art showcases the work of more than seventy-five regional artists, including local favorites Melissa Anne Miller, John Bonner, and Bob Larsen, and offers custom framing and corporate art consulting around New England.

The gallery has been a community partner for many organizations and a friend to Around Concord since our magazine’s beginning. To say that we will miss them is an understatement. Art is a vital and core component to the character of a strong, connected community. McGowan Fine Art has helped identify and explore Concord’s creative soul.

Their final exhibit, Color of Seasons, featuring the paintings of Bruce McColl, will be on display through their closing date, July 7. Visit www.mcgowanfineart.com for more information.

Youth Support Specialists Direct Support Associates To view our other current openings, please visit http://bit.ly/EasterSealsNHJobs

Visit EastersealsNH.org Text NHJOBS to 22828 Call (603) 621-3439

Left to right: Amanda McGowan Lacasse, Sarah Chaffee, Nancy Simoneau, and Julie Hamel.

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www.mcgowanfineart.com

PERSONAL ESSAY |

BY JOHN GFROERER

City of the

Corn

It was fake news about Concord, and I started it.

But before you force me to turn in my Concord identity, let me explain. It is not my fault. Really. And I had only good thoughts about Concord in mind.

Several years ago, I produced a short video about the Merrimack River as it flowed through Concord.

Like so many projects, this was also a learning experience. I was struck by how rural Concord could feel when going downstream on the river. Even through the downtown area, buildings were barely visible. Once you went under the Loudon Road bridge, the shoreline was trees, bushes, green. Tune out the car noise, and you separated from reality. It was, and still is, quite magical.

How to underline this in a script became my challenge.

I needed a bold statement, simple yet beyond refute. That cornfield behind the plaza where the post office is came to mind.

Now, I knew I didn’t want to explain the fresh smell that permeates downtown when the Morrills put down their manure every springtime. But a cornfield right across the river from the New Hampshire State House? How many state houses have such proximity? I measured the distance. Just about a half-mile.

There is an old saying: Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure. I decided to put it to the test. The state known for its corn became my target. I called up the planning department in Des Moines, Iowa, with a simple question. How far is their state capitol building from the nearest cornfield? It caught them a bit off guard, and I don’t

"Do you know that no other state in the country has a cornfield closer to its state house than Concord?"

Well, are you sure about that?

Because, you know, I only called Iowa.

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remember the answer anymore. But it was farther than a half-mile, no question about it. The office staff there seemed to be in full agreement.

And so, I wrote the line, “Not even Iowa grows corn this close to its state capitol building.” Now that is rural. And you can fact-check it if you like. Former Concord Mayor Martin Gross was my narrator for the video, which gave my claim a little more weight.

Statement made. Video finished. Point made. On to other projects.

A dozen or so years later, I was talking about open space in the city with Tom Aspell, Concord’s city manager. To make his point—and to my surprise—he looked at me and said, “Do you know that no other state in the country has a cornfield closer to its state house than Concord?”

Well, are you sure about that? Because, you know, I only called Iowa. What is your source here? He wasn’t sure, but as we talked further, it sounded like it might have been some video, done years ago, about the Merrimack River by some local producer.

So, you see, it really is all in how you state it. To say, “not even Iowa” is accurate. But to say, “no other state” might be pushing it a little too far. We need some research here, some verification. But who wants to call forty-eight planning offices and put them on the spot? Google Earth might be of assistance. But can you really get down that close?

Don’t waste your time. Because, in the end, what matters is quality of life.

Whether it is a cornfield across the river, or the river itself, most of us are happy with what we have here in Concord.

Nothing fake about it, for sure.

And just to be clear, I stand by the original statement about Iowa. It wouldn’t be so much a lie, just a creative manipulation of certain facts.

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SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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HOME & GARDEN

|

BY AMY MITCHELL , HOMEGLOWDESIGN . COM

Right: A beautiful fabric can be a perfect starting point for a room. The color palette of blues, greens, and neutrals (below right) was drawn from this Sarouk rug fabric in Ultramine by Kravet.

Going

Below: An example of a bedroom by Home Glow Design. The color palette of fuchsia, gold, and beige was drawn from the owner's vintage Persian rug.

Beyond Gray

CREATE A WHOLE-HOUSE COLOR SCHEME THAT ISN’T BORING (BUT ISN’T A DISASTER EITHER)

D

ecorating a home can be tremendously daunting. Whether you’ve just purchased your first home, downsized after your kids have flown the coop, or are finally ready to turn your house into the grownup home you’ve always wanted, the overwhelming number of options can make it seem like you’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole of endless possibilities, and not in a good way.

Most people start at the paint store when beginning the decorating process. Not a good move. Why? There are thousands of colors. Trying to pick a gray? Do you want a cool gray or a warm gray? And what about undertone? Do you want a blue undertone, a yellow, a green? Colors that look lovely on the chip can look terrible on the wall, and vice versa.

Choosing paint can be paralyzing if approached in a vacuum. The reason is that, in any room, there will be so much more going on than just the paint colors. Paint is only the background. Moreover, it is much more difficult to match fabrics, rugs, and art to paint colors than the other way around. In that case, where should you begin when decorating?

usually offer a varied color palette that you can design a room around and from which you can springboard to surrounding rooms. Find something you love as an inspiration, and you’ll feel that the environment you create more personally reflects you and your family.

First, take a cue from the architecture.

Love the house you’re in. Don’t fight it. What style is it? What period? I’m not saying that you can’t take some artistic license, but you’ll have more leeway furnishing a 1980s pseudo colonial than a 1765 cape. Similarly, you probably wouldn’t have Chippendale furniture in a 1950s' ranch.

Determine your color and style preferences.

Take a look at your Pinterest pages.

If you don’t have any, start some.

Websites for magazines such as House Beautiful and Traditional Home usually have sections like “100 Beautiful Bedrooms” where you can

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start looking for inspiration. You can also check out Home Glow Design’s Pinterest page, where I have rooms categorized by color.

What colors/patterns do you love?

What do you detest? Are you a color lover, or do you prefer a more neutral palette? You’ll begin to notice patterns in what you pin.

Find your inspirational starting point.

There must be a starting point, and we’ve already discussed how it shouldn’t be your paint color. It might be a rug, a painting, or a fabric you’ve fallen in love with. Pieces such as these

homeglowdesign.com

Finally, start with the room that will get the most use or is the easiest or least expensive to complete.

The best place to start in a home is usually the living room or family room.

Living rooms are usually near the front door, adjacent to the dining room, and set the tone for the home (albeit the more formal tone). Family rooms are usually off or open to the kitchen. Both give ample opportunities for choosing colors, patterns, and furnishings that can serve as a launchpad for variations in other rooms.

However, these rooms can also be expensive and time consuming to complete. If, for example, you have

some bedroom furniture you intend to keep—like a bed and dresser—it might make sense to start with your master bedroom. Fewer upholstered furnishings can make it a less-expensive room to furnish, and you will be motivated by the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a room—you’ll also have a retreat from the chaos as you tackle the rest of your house.

The problem many people face is that they may not yet have anything they want to use as a starting point, but they have a painter breathing down their neck. My advice is to go to a website like DecoratorsBest.com or InsideFabric.com.

These websites offer to-the-trade-only fabrics to consumers at a markup. However, you’ll have the kind of selection you’ll never find at Jo-Ann Fabric or Calico Corners.

Choose something that has a more complex color scheme. You don’t even have to end up using the fabric itself in your home, or perhaps it’ll only be used on a pillow or two. The point is that the fabric is a starting place. For example, I tend to be big on blues and greens, preferring traditional-with-a-twist style, and I’m not afraid of color, as long as I mix in neutrals. I chose this fabric from Kravet. (See fabric photo at left.)

Please note that I made this home palette from images on my computer screen, so they are by no means color accurate. If you try this exercise for real, please order the fabric and get paint samples from the store!

From that fabric, I built a potential palette of nine colors. (See palette at left.) A little scared of those deep, vibrant colors? I would use them in places like the dining room, powder room, laundry room, and kids’ rooms. I would use the whites for trims and ceilings and the paler colors for transition areas like halls and stairways. Because I took a color palette from a fabric company, I know there will be many coordinating fabrics out there. Moreover, I have a plan for a color scheme that’s anything but boring, but it isn’t jarring either.

This advice may only scratch the surface of decorating an entire home, but it gets you started.

Put in the work and planning beforehand, and you can have a home that feels uniquely you. And don’t stress too much. It’s only paint, after all!

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SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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HOME & GARDEN

Let Your Home’s Light

Shine G

Be architecturally sensitive: Regardless of the lighting fixture, make sure its style is in keeping with the rest of your house.

Choose your poison: Evaluate your front door’s particular situation to decide what type of fixture— sconces, pendant, flush mount—you need. If you have a large entry or porch, a combination of two types may work best.

oing for an evening walk after dinner through any of Concord’s neighborhoods, I’m continually attracted to those houses with welcoming entrances. You’ve probably seen them too—the front doors are beautifully painted, the porches or stoops are decked with planters full of flowers, and perhaps a flag waves by the front door.

The reason we notice this eye candy at all is perhaps less apparent—it has to do with lighting.

Lighting is so often an afterthought when it comes to a home’s exterior, but without a good lighting plan, no one is going to see how beautiful your home is after dusk.

Done well, entry lighting welcomes home your loved ones, complements your house’s architecture, increases security, and helps guests navigate their way to the front door. The possibilities may seem endless, but a few rules of thumb can help you choose the best exterior lighting fixtures for your home.

Don’t skimp on size: Cut out cardboard mock-ups of your choices. Tape them up (the center of the light bulb should be about sixty-six inches from the floor for a sconce) and then walk backwards thirty feet to get a perspective on how big they really need to be.

In general, sconces look appropriate at one-quarter to one-fifth the size of your front door plus the casing.

Only room for one sconce? Try a little bigger at onequarter to one-third the size. The width of a ceiling flush mount can be up to one-quarter the height of the door plus casing to look substantial enough. A pendant’s height should be about one-fifth the size of the door plus casing.

Give your guests some headroom: In general, leave eighty inches minimum (if not eighty-four inches) of space from the floor to the bottom of any overhead fixture, like a pendant or flush mount. Leave six inches

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of space above the door’s frame for over-the-door wall mounts.

Set a beacon to guide them: Nothing is homier than a post lantern by the drive or front walk. Always mock up your choices and then walk across the street to make sure of the size and perspective. Lantern size should be about one-quarter the post height, but the farther from the road your light is, the bigger it and the post need to be. A six-foot post may look great right by the road but puny if placed sixty feet up the drive and nearer the house.

Make your house a star: Don’t forget a spotlight!

Placed at the base of a post lantern or hidden amidst the landscaping, a spotlight will make your house an oasis of welcoming light in a sea of darkness.

Be quality conscious: Everyone has a different budget, but keep in mind that exterior lighting will have to brave all the elements of our New Hampshire winters. Lesser-quality steel and aluminum fixtures will oxidize and rust over time and need to be replaced, whereas brass or copper fixtures can last a lifetime. Buy good-quality fixtures the first time, and you’ll only cry once about the cost. New Hampshire’s own Northeast Lantern provides a lifetime warranty on its brass fixtures.

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BUSINESS

|

BY JAMES BUCHANAN , PHOTOS BY MICHAEL BROWNING

Market Days Festival

A CELEBRATION OF COMMUNITY AND SUMMER

T

here are certain community-defining events that occur throughout the year such as the Christmas parade, Halloween, the Black Ice Pond Hockey tournament, Canterbury Fair, and the farmers’ market. These are times and places where people come together to celebrate not just a holiday or season but each other.

One of the most important of these is the Market Days Festival.

For three days, residents of Concord and folks from around the state come to our evolving downtown for a free summer street celebration of area small businesses, craftspeople, artists, musicians, chefs, brewers, performers, and much more.

Along a half-mile stretch of North Main Street that encompasses Eagle and Bicentennial Squares, there will be hundreds of vendors, as well as performers, exhibitors, concerts, and activities for the entire family. And there will be food, glorious, locally grown and created food of all kinds, as well as a beer and hospitality tent in the center of the festival where visitors can sample a range of local and regional craft brews.

The Market Days Festival runs from June 22 through June 24. To learn more, go to intownconcord.org.

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intownconcord.org

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BUSINESS

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THE ARTS

|

BY LAURA POPE

Music and Art

Alfresco and Pastoral THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF MUSIC AND VENUES TO ENJOY AN EVENING UNDER THE STARS

A

s the season warms, our thoughts turn to music wafting on a soft summer breeze and starlit evenings in beautiful settings, along with the recommended gear, of course—insect repellent, maybe lawn chairs or a blanket, and of course, a picnic! To clip and save, here’s a guide to bucolic, outdoor settings for live music, from mountaintops and woodland trails to lakefronts and riversides.

CASTLE IN THE CLOUDS

PATIO WITH A VIEW

CASTLE IN THE CLOUDS 455 Old Mountain Road, Moultonborough WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

A perfect finish to any day is a visit to the landmark Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough with an outdoor music experience on the patio—the perfect perch for admiring a sweeping, majestic view of Lake Winnipesaukee. The summer music series includes a variety from jazz and folk to country rock, every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 5:30 (just as the castle itself closes) to 8:30pm.

Visitors to Castle in the Clouds enjoy a glorious view and music. Photo courtesy of Castle in the Clouds.

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www.castleintheclouds.org

MUSIC IN THE MOUNTAINS

MUSIC MEETS NATURE AND ART

AESTHETICS A stunning view of New Hampshire’s largest lake.

FOOD FACTOR A special dinner menu is available on the patio—an entirely optional perk. The patio seats eighty to ninety patrons during the concerts. The menu ranges from simple to high-end fare with an extensive wine list and beers, a full bar, and tableside service.

OTHER THINGS TO DO Tour the Castle in the Clouds. Visit the historic arts and crafts style Lucknow Mansion and the Art Gallery. Hike along twenty-eight miles of trails with waterfalls, or go horseback riding.

DETAILS Call (603) 476-5900 for more information. A $10 cover charge and reservations are necessary for Monday and Thursday performances. Tuesdays are free and handled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Visit www.castleintheclouds.org to view the summer series lineup and menus.

Learn more

NEW HAMPSHIRE MUSIC FESTIVAL, MUSIC IN THE MOUNTAINS, AND ARTSWALKS Silver Center for the Arts, 7 Main Street, Plymouth, and statewide WWW.NHMF.ORG

With the goal of reaching a wider audience in unexpected, beautiful locations to enhance appreciation of and exposure to classical music, the New Hampshire Music Festival (in its sixty-fifth season) presents their third season of Music in the Mountains. This highly praised series includes more than twenty free, informal concerts on lakesides and mountaintops featuring various iterations of their roster of sixty professional musicians performing as soloists, duets, string quartets, or brass quintets. The listening experience varies from site to site, from a solo cellist playing on West Rattlesnake Mountain to accompany the panoramic view to a full chamber

Above: Cellist Walter Gray plays at sunset atop Rattlesnake Mountain. Photo by Brad Dumont.

Below: Photo by Brad Dumont.

ensemble performing at Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site as part of their Sunday Chamber Series.

Additionally, the New Hampshire Music Fest has aligned with conservation partners to offer a variety of free ArtsWalks that present a confluence of live

FAMILY DAY CONCERT, PLYMOUTH

www.nhmf.org SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

25

THE ARTS music, visual artists at work, and trail ecology. They are scheduled on select Friday mornings in various communities, including Sandwich, Waterville Valley, Meredith, Wolfeboro, and Hebron. For instance, a sculpture and nature walk in Meredith features live music and conservation and artist talks, bestowing a multidimensional listening/learning experience.

PRESCOTT PARK ARTS FESTIVAL

AESTHETICS The views vary, from mountains and woodlands to lakesides and forests.

FOOD FACTOR Varied, depending on music habitat: backpack snacks and picnics for hikers and walkers; coffee shop fare with the Caffeinated Classic Café Series; and numerous dining establishments in Wolfeboro, Plymouth, and Laconia.

DETAILS For a taste of Music in the Mountains, call (603) 2389007 to get more information or visit www.nhmf.org for performance information and dates about Music in the Mountains, ArtsWalks, the Caffeinated Classic Café Series in Plymouth, and the free Family Day Concert on July 22 in Plymouth. You can also learn more about the many orchestral and chamber music concert hall performances (and Classical Conversations preconcert) in Plymouth at the Hanaway Theater concert hall or smaller Smith Recital Hall in the Silver Center for the Arts, in Wolfeboro at Kingswood Regional’s Performing Arts Center, or in Anderson Hall at Brewster Academy, and in Laconia at the Taylor Community.

Photo courtesy of Prescott Park Arts Festival.

As the sun sets, Prescott Park comes alive with color, light, and music. Photo courtesy of Prescott Park Arts Festival.

ARTS GALORE ON THE PISCATAQUA RIVER

OTHER THINGS TO DO

PRESCOTT PARK ARTS FESTIVAL 105 Marcy Street, Portsmouth WWW.PRESCOTTPARK.ORG

Now in its forty-first year, the Prescott Park Arts Festival presents another amazing, summer-long, riverside arts festival with more than ninety events, including a mainstage musical—this year it’s Mary Poppins (June 23 to August 20)—and headline musical acts like Taj Mahal and Mavis Staples; festivals such as the Tommy Gallant Jazz Festival and Country Festival; the Monday night outdoor movie series (a drive-in experience without the car) beginning at dusk, and many more live music and entertainment events.

Check out the formal and experimental gardens in the park. Take a memorable stroll across the new, pedestrian-friendly Memorial Bridge, or explore the restored South End neighborhood. Don’t forget about Strawbery Banke, a ten-acre maritime history museum right across the street!

DETAILS Call (603) 436-2848 for more information or visit www.prescottpark.org to see the schedule of events and weather updates, to make reservations for VIP tables or blankets, and to review a list of recommended parking areas. The cost is a suggested donation of $5 to $10 at the gate.

AESTHETIC Riparian with a salt scent. On its journey to the sea, the mighty Piscataqua River passes the shores of Prescott Park, which also has extensive experimental and floral gardens. The park reaches capacity quickly.

FOOD FACTOR

PRESCOTT PARK ARTS FESTIVAL

Bring your own picnic or cooler (no alcohol, please), blankets, and chairs (visit the reservation link on the website to familiarize yourself with the rules governing placement of blankets and chairs), or rent chairs and tables. An on-site concession stand called The Prop serves burgers, hot dogs, and basic outdoor fare. For après-park dining, the oodles of options on lower State Street (Bridge District) near the park offer a diverse array of choices, from ice cream parlor treats and sushi to Italian and Mexican.

Learn more 26

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www.prescottpark.org

Industry Experts Agree…

BEST IN NH – BEST IN THE WORLD!

Simply the Best

HEAVENLY MUSIC NEAR THE BARN

APPLE HILL CENTER FOR CHAMBER MUSIC SUMMER CONCERT SERIES

At Fuller’s Sugarhouse we personally taste and approve every batch of our maple syrup and candy.

410 Apple Hill Road, Nelson WWW.APPLEHILL.ORG

The renowned Apple Hill Center presents it summer chamber music series to listeners in and near its big barn situated on one hundred acres of fields and woods in rural Nelson. The Tuesday night series presents chamber and classical music featuring the Apple Hill String Quartet and guest faculty musicians from the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. Founded in 1971, the center is a hub for the performance and teaching of chamber music and home to the Apple Hill String Quartet, an ensemble that travels the world, often to areas of conflict as part of their ongoing Playing for Peace series.

AESTHETIC Concerts are staged in the one-hundred-fifty-seat Apple Hill concert barn, which typically sells out, but the music spills outside to an alfresco audience with blankets, chairs, picnic baskets, and beverages.

Visit us in Lancaster or shop online. For a list of retailers near you visit our website.

Wedding Favors Corporate Gifts Supplies for Maple Production Fuller’s Sugarhouse & Country Store 267 Main Street | Lancaster, NH | 877-788-2719

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FOOD FACTOR Audiences may partake of an on-site buffet with outdoor dining at 6pm, followed by a brief

New Hampshire Music Festival

Mike Kelley, viola; Elise Kuder, violin; Colleen Jennings, violin; Rupert Thompson, cello. Photo courtesy of Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.

Photo by Shawn McHenry.

Plymouth & Wolfeboro, NH

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Market Days | June 22–24 Halloween Howl | October 27 Midnight Merriment | December 1 Discover Downtown Series | Year round promotional events Upstairs, Downtown | September

APPLE HILL CENTER FOR CHAMBER MUSIC

BECOME AN

!

Do you enjoy all that Intown Concord does to make downtown great?

If so, go to www.intownconcord.org for more info on how to become an Intowner!

INTOWNCONCORD.ORG

Full Orchestral Concerts Weekly Chamber Concerts Classical Conversations Music in the Mountains FREE Family Concert Make Music Plymouth Arts Walks Tickets:

nhmf.org

(603) 238-9007

New Hampshire Music Festival

July 5–August 5, 2017 SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

27

THE ARTS

BEDROCK GARDENS

preconcert lecture given by Apple Hill Center Director Leonard Matczynski, before the concerts begin at 7pm.

The buffet is $15 per person and includes a choice of entrĂŠes, salad, side dishes, and breads. Many choose to bring wine or other libations to accompany dinner.

Monadnock in Jaffrey. Nearby, Keene is home to Keene State College, with the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery on campus. Keene also has a great Main Street with a colorful variety of shops and restaurants.

OTHER THINGS TO DO

Call (603) 847-3371 for the concert event schedule or visit www.applehill.org for more information. Listening to the music outside the barn is free.

Go swimming at Center Pond in Nelson or at Otter Brook State Park in Keene, a mere nine-minute ride, or hike Pitcher Mountain in Stoddard or Mount Enjoying a relaxing evening of music at Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. Photo courtesy of Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music.

DETAILS

JAZZ AND BLUEGRASS AMONG TWENT Y ACRES OF BOTANICAL S, L ANDSCAPE DESIGN, AND ART

BEDROCK GARDENS 45 High Road, Lee

APPLE HILL CENTER FOR CHAMBER MUSIC

WWW.BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

Those in the know regard Bedrock Gardens in Lee as a refuge, a sanctuary where the invigorating combination of vast botanical varieties growing in a variety of landscape designs on twenty acres offers a balm to the frenetic modern world. Visitors strolling the threequarter-mile garden trails with a map or guide will also view sculpture and hear live jazz or bluegrass music through September.

Live music is performed Saturdays on the second Open House weekend of the month by Dale’s Jazz

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www.applehill.org

Bedrock Gardens presents musicians with deep roots in traditional American musical genres of bluegrass and jazz. Photo courtesy of Bedrock Gardens.

Lab from noon to 2pm. Bluegrass music is featured on the first Open House weekend in June by the talented Smith Family of Lee. Additional cultural events include an Artisans Fair and En Plein Air Artists on June 17 and 18, an Antique Car Show and Ballroom Dance Class on July 1 (rain date July 2), and a Fiber Arts Festival on July 15 and 16.

The gardens are open to the public only during Open House events, scheduled the first and third weekends of each month. Saturday hours are 10am to 4pm, Sunday from noon to 4pm. Dogs are not welcome, except for service animals.

AESTHETIC A variety of gardens and walking trails at a lovingly transformed former dairy farm.

FOOD FACTOR Bring a picnic, spirits, a blanket, or chairs to the live music events. The Flatbread Mobile Oven will be onsite for the TJ Wheeler Jazz Twilight Jazz Concert on August 20 at 5pm.

DETAILS Suggested donation of $10; kids are free. Check the events page at www.bedrockgardens.org or call (603) 659-2993.

www.bedrockgardens.org

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Cork & Canvas

A New Way to Paint the Town

W

hether you’re a first-time painter, a dabbler, or an expert, the group painting classes at Cork & Canvas Paint and Sip art studio on North Main Street in Concord offer an engaging way to paint with friends while sipping a glass of wine or beer and nibbling bites from their on-site bistro.

“The collective experience of painting in a casual setting for two hours with the guidance of a teacher and with access to libations and refreshments makes it memorable and fun,” enthuses owner Melissa Caro. “People come here in groups for team building, fundraisers, all sorts of parties for all ages, corporate gatherings, mother–daughter outings, a date, or as a group of singles. One woman in her late eighties had never painted before and came here to paint for the first time. It was on her bucket list, and she was phenomenal.”

Cork & Canvas offers free open-studio hours where prospective artists can sign up and paint to their heart’s content. All supplies are provided—including an apron—as well as an instructor if needed. To sign up for a guided group session, go to the calendar page on Cork & Canvas’s website, where there are a range of paintings on different dates to select from. The fee covers supplies as well as the instructor who will help you create your next artwork.

Patrons may choose to partake from the bistro beverage and food menu; there is no BYOB. Kids’ painting groups are available on weekends, and each of the classes has a maximum of forty participants.

Cork & Canvas is open seven days a week. To view their calendar, events, and menu, visit www.concordpaintandsip.com or for more information, call (603) 856-7766. Most classes are $30 per person. It’s also wise to view calendars in advance, as weekends tend to sell out.

The collective experience of painting in a casual setting for two hours with the guidance of a teacher and with access to libations and refreshments makes it memorable and fun.

Learn more 30

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www.concordpaintandsip.com

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603-225-6677 | 130 Broadway, Concord SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

31

SEE , DO & ENJOY |

BY JAMES BUCHANAN

Kites aloft at Star Island.

Photo by Sean D. Elliot.

Exquisite Adventures

WITHIN ABOUT AN HOUR, THERE IS BEAUTY, HISTORY, AND SERENITY

Summer is the slipperiest season. We groan through mud season, each day often feeling as if life is stuck in metaphoric mud, and then summer comes in a single day and time accelerates to the speed of light.

Some of us overprepare. There are myriad camps for kids.

Each weekend is planned for sun or rain down to the last detail, and evenings are a hodgepodge of cookouts, walks, drinks with friends, and gardening. For others, like me, there are a few plans, but we act more in the moment and then wonder where the summer went.

No matter. Whether you are the overplanner or the underachiever, the following is a list of places to visit and things to do that are all about an hour away, guaranteed to brighten your eyes and show you something of New Hampshire you’ve never seen before. And there’s a cheater for quickly hiking above tree line on the Presidential Range that folks of any age or condition can manage.

TWO HIKES Webster Cliff WWW.HIKENEWENGLAND.COM/JACKSONWEBSTERCLIFF080913.PHP

Most of us, either as children or parents or both, are familiar with mighty Mount Willard. The trailhead for Willard is located at the top of Crawford Notch near a beautifully restored railroad station now used by the Conway Scenic Railroad.

What many do not know is that there is an equally lovely hike of moderate difficulty right across the street. The WebsterJackson Trail starts at the top of the notch, so there is relatively little hiking to get to the first views. It reaches a junction where the trail to Mount Jackson leaves to the left, and the Webster

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Notch Train Crawford Station. Photo by Debbe Hill.

Cliff Trail continues to the top of Mount Webster. The trail follows the ridgeline the entire way, so you have constant views of Crawford Notch and the valley below and can see the Conway Scenic Railroad’s Notch Train as it makes it way up the notch.

WARNING: From the top of Mount Webster, the Webster Cliff Trail continues until it descends into the notch to its much lower trailhead. Unless you want to hitch a ride back to the top

of the notch and the parking lot at the train station, turn around at the top of Mount Webster to return to the upper trailhead and parking lot.

Jefferson Notch Road WWW.ALLTRAILS.COM/TRAIL/US/NEW-HAMPSHIRE/ MOUNT-JEFFERSON-VIA-CAPS-RIDGE-TRAIL

This is the best cheater in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. Jefferson Notch Road travels from near Bretton Woods up to the top of Jefferson Notch where there is a parking area and a trailhead. At an elevation of three thousand feet, this is the highest trailhead in the White Mountains and requires the least hiking to get above tree line and to the top of one of the Presidentials.

Go up through Crawford Notch on Route 302 to Base Station Road. You can also take Mount Clinton Road (GPS may bring you this way), but this is a seasonal road with rougher terrain. Either of these roads heads toward the Cog Railway. At a four-way intersection—Base Station Road and Mount Clinton Road ends and becomes Jefferson Notch Road—take a left onto Jefferson Notch Road (if you’re on Base Station Road) or go straight if you are on Mount Clinton Road.

Follow this to the parking area at the top of Jefferson Notch and take the Caps Ridge Trail. This is a great destination if you just want to hike above tree line and snap a few shots or if you want to follow the trail to the top of Mount Jefferson (about five miles round-trip).

WARNING: Weather on the Presidentials can be extreme even in summer. Play it safe and be prepared for poor conditions, or don’t go if the weather is bad.

Rhododendron State Park. Photo courtesy of NH Division of Parks and Recreation.

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site and reflecting pool. Photos courtesy of National Park Service Photos.

TWO STATE PARKS Rhododendron State Park WWW.NHSTATEPARKS.ORG/VISIT/STATE-PARKS/RHODODENDRON-STATE-PARK.ASPX

Located in the town of Fitzwilliam on Rhododendron Road, Rhododendron State Park features the largest grove of Rhododendron maximum in New England and was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1982. There is a half-mile trail that encircles the grove and a wildflower trail that winds through the forest adjacent to the grove, as well as a trail leading to the summit of Little Monadnock.

Rhododendron State Park makes for a wonderful place to wander or sit in the shade on a bench to write, paint, or enjoy the quiet beauty of the rhododendrons and wildflowers. There is also more to do nearby. Monadnock State Park is a few miles north, as are the scenic and artsy towns of Jaffrey and Peterborough.

Odiorne State Park WWW.NHSTATEPARKS.ORG/VISIT/STATE-PARKS/ODIORNE-POINT-STATE-PARK.ASPX

Located in Rye and near the island of Newcastle and city of Portsmouth, Odiorne State Park offers a series of trails that wind through sheltered tidepools, the Sunken Forest, a rugged coast, and past the remains of World War II fortifications that protected the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. There is also a jetty that is walkable and extends out into Little Harbor. In addition to walking, there is access to put in kayaks, and you can rent them just down the street.

Once you’ve finished at the park, downtown Portsmouth, one of the most scenic of New England’s small cities, is just a few miles away. There are shops, restaurants, and multiple theaters for plays, musicals, and unique arthouse movies.

There is also a musical as well as live music performances offered in Portsmouth’s Prescott Park, which is filled with flower gardens, fountains, and an incredible view of the Piscataqua River.

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TWO DESTINATIONS Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site WWW.NPS.GOV/SAGA/INDEX.HTM

Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, located in Cornish, features the home, studios, gardens, walking paths, and sculpture of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of America’s greatest sculptors. It is a truly peaceful, beautiful, and bucolic setting that we can’t recommend highly enough.

Once you are done touring the grounds, Cornish is a lovely little town, and Hanover, home to Dartmouth College, is just down the road and filled with shops, restaurants, and lots of pleasant ways to spend an evening.

Star Island WWW.STARISLAND.ORG

In the 1600s, Star Island—one of the nine Isles of Shoals—was the busiest fishing port on the East Coast. Today it is home to the Oceanic Hotel, which is owned and operated by the Unitarian Universalists as a site for quiet contemplation and host to a summerlong series of weeklong and weekend retreats open to the public.

These retreats include topics related to self-help such as Exploring Life in A Time of Transition, Mindfulness and Calming Retreat, and Meditation: Practicing Presence. There are also yoga retreats, retreats designed for the whole family, retreats for writers and artists of all inclinations, and those that are simply fun such as Gatsby on the Isles: Jazz Age Lawn Party & Soiree on Star Island. And for those wishing quiet contemplation in a beautiful setting, you are more than welcome to visit for a day or overnight.

Though the Oceanic Hotel was one of the first grand hotels in New England and is a beautiful and impressive building with an unbelievable view of the ocean, it is not quite in the mold of a grand hotel anymore. Accommodations are comfortable and the food is delicious and served as a common meal to guests.

They also prepare vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options at every meal.

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HUMOR |

BY ERIC PINDER

The

Moose Myth

TOURIST TRAP OR MYTHICAL BEAST?

Y

ou get two types of students in the front row of a college lecture course: the attentive go-getters who always earn an A, and the occasional slackers, sitting there only because they showed up late and those were the only seats left.

Michelle is one of the former, which makes it all that much harder for me to convince her that, for once, she is completely, utterly, ridiculously wrong.

“Moose don’t exist,” Michelle says. She narrows her eyes.

“They’re a scam to lure tourists to New Hampshire.”

I sputter in astonishment and look around the classroom for support. No one speaks, though a few students grin.

They’re enjoying this challenge to the teacher. “How can it be a scam going back hundreds of years?” I finally say.

“Even Thoreau saw moose.” I hoist up the book we’ve been reading and flip to the page where a canoe-bound Thoreau cracks a joke about the “moose horns” he sees lying on the riverbank.

Michelle yawns. “Notice he’s not even talking about a whole moose,” she says. “Anyone could have put those antlers there. They could’ve been carved out of wood.

Does he go check? No.”

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Newly transplanted from Los Angeles to our small, rural college in New Hampshire, Michelle complains that she’s seen thousands of moose pictures for sale in gift shops and grocery store checkout lines, but never a single live moose.

To her, moose are either hoaxes or mythical beasts, like Sasquatch, leprechauns, and Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.

I tell the class about the time I almost walked into a moose while I was hiking up Mount Washington. The animal stood in the middle of the trail like a wall, gazing back at me with black eyes the size of plums. I had to bushwhack around the beast to continue. And other moose that wander daily into my friends’ driveways while the neighbors gather and gawk.

“They’re really real,” I say.

Michelle just shakes her head. “Uh huh. Were they hanging out with the unicorns?”

“I have pictures,” I protest.

She scoffs. “Photoshop.”

How can I make her believe?

Another student, Morgan, tries to help, pointing out the big yellow signs that warn, Brake for moose! Hundreds of collisions! Surely the Department of Transportation wouldn’t spend so much money on highway signs just to trick tourists into paying for moose-watching tours. While the chances of seeing a moose on a moose-watching tour are hit or miss (“Yeah, right,” scoffs Michelle), the one sure way to find a moose is to drive too fast at night down the twisting, wooded roads of New Hampshire and Maine. Moose are basically giant, mobile speed bumps with antlers. Locals know enough to go slowly, with eyes wide open and their feet hovering over the brake pedal.

“Moose are nature’s answer to cars,” Morgan says. “You think you have cars, well . . .” He swells his chest, Popeyestyle. “We have moose!”

Michelle rolls her eyes.

To persuade her, I describe the unexpected moose that almost killed me a week ago on the late-afternoon commute home up I-93, just hours after the class had taken a long walk in the woods in search of moose. (How can something so big be so hard to find?) I had skipped lunch before our field trip, so by the end of the school day, my stomach was grumbling. I pulled off Exit 14 and bought a pear to snack on at the Concord Hannaford. Hunger satisfied, I drove north with a little rhyme stuck in my head: Pears, pears, the magical food, The more you eat them, the better your mood.

Apparently, reading Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax to my nature writing class had imprinted iambic pentameter and other rhyming variations on my brain.

Soon the sun sank, the woods alongside the road vanished in darkness, and I was almost home when a car approached

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in the distance. I flicked off my high beams. My eyes were momentarily drawn to the car lights far ahead. Naturally, that’s when the moose stepped in front of my car. She galumphed across the road, slow as a glacier and almost as big.

Panic. Blur. Turn!

No time to break or even think of breaking—she was that close. Instinctively I flicked the steering wheel to the left.

Somehow, I swerved around her, missing the moose by mere inches. Less than a second passed. In my rearview mirror, the moose silhouette shrank and lurched into the night.

I felt no adrenaline at first. The road ahead was open and empty and safe.

Then I realized how close the encounter had been. If the moose had been just a step or two more to the left, or standing still instead of in motion to the right, I would have clipped her hind legs and had a thousand pounds of moose torso slam into the roof of my car. My heart started drumming in trochaic spasms. The rest of the way home, a strange, soothing variation of that silly childhood rhyme played over and over in my mind like a lullaby: Moose, moose, the oversized deer The sooner you see them, the faster you steer The faster you steer, the safer you feel Moose, moose, a large . . . ani-meel?

I blame the mixed cocktail of panic and relief flooding my veins for my failure to get the last line to rhyme. Thank goodness they don’t usually let me teach poetry.

Michelle’s response to my story? “I believe that you believe that you think you saw a moose.”

No tall tales by me or words on pages

by Thoreau can convince her. But seeing is believing. That is why I finish our class with a field trip into the lovely, dark, deep woods beyond campus, where wildlife inscribes the streambed mud with hoof prints like signatures. In search of moose and inspiration, we close the covers of Walden and open the classroom door.

Colby Hill Inn is a historic and quintessential New Hampshire bed and breakfast located on the Currier and Ives Byway. This is the ideal spot to explore our beautiful state (as well as all of New England) with friends or family – or on your own. Whether you are here for a wedding, vacation, business trip, or romantic getaway, you are sure to find our New England B&B has the ideal accommodations for you.

Don’t miss The Grazing Room, serving exceptional dinners yearround to inn guests and the public.

Our Chef’s Menu features the freshest from each week’s local harvest; seatings are available Wednesday through Saturday from 5:30–8:30pm & Sunday from 5:00–7:30pm. We are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Reservations are always encouraged and highly recommended on weekends & holidays.

Private dining room and barn are also available for meetings & events.

33 The Oaks, Henniker, NH | www.colbyhillinn.com | (603) 428-3281

“When the ordinary isn’t suitable.”

Third generation, award winning, family owned florist located in a 230-year-old red colonial in the town of Boscawen. Original designs, romantic and rustic weddings our specialty.

151 King St., Boscawen (603) 796-2272

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

37

NEIGHBORHOOD PROFILE |

STORY BY KATHLEEN M . FORTIN , PHOTOS BY ALLEGRA BOVERMAN

Cobbler

The of Concord

Above from left to right: Pete Annicchiarico, DJ Annicchiarico, and Mackenzie Curtis.

Below: Pete and Mackenzie work with the modern and traditional tools of an age-old craft.

KEEPING NEW HAMPSHIRE’S FEET HAPPY, ONE SOLE AT A TIME In this era of disposable goods, it is refreshing to see the centuries-old craft of cobbler still being honored through the legacy of the Annicchiarico family’s craftsmanship.

David Joseph Annicchiarico (Anna-care-e-ko) is the youngest owner of Concord’s United Shoe Repair, located at 8 South Main Street. DJ, as he is known, grew up in the business his family has owned for more than a century. It was started by his great-grandfather, Michael Angelo Annicchiarico, who immigrated to this country from Italy.

GROWING UP IN THE FAMILY BUSINESS Around 1909, Michael Angelo and his wife settled in Concord.

Michael’s son, Joe, became the second generation to carry the business forward. A picture of Joe, DJ’s grandfather, is on the tee shirts that DJ and his Uncle Pete wore the day I met them in their shop.

DJ, the fourth generation of his family to work in the business, is a co-owner with his parents, Dave and Lynn. Like his grandfather, uncles, and cousins, he began spending time in

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the shop when he was young.

At around the age of eight, DJ started with jobs like sweeping floors and learning to shine shoes. When he was in his teens, he thought he might do something different with his life, but by his twenties he had decided to make the family business his life’s work. And much like DJ, his young daughter is beginning to spend time at the shop. Since the shop’s beginning, DJ estimates that about twenty family members have been helpers, employees, or owners.

As a kid, he used to watch his grandfather, his Uncle Pete, and others run the various machines. By the time he was a young man, he already knew how to use each one. From this early exposure to the skills and tools of cobbling, he developed a natural feel for the craft. However, perfecting his work required honing and practicing his skills over time. He was perhaps a born cobbler, but mastery came only with commitment and determination.

A LOVE FOR THE CRAFT Inside the equipment room, DJ rattles off the names of a dozen machines and their functions. Those of us delighted to see our worn shoes restored to their prior beauty and function have most likely never thought about the labor and skill involved.

There are machines for sewing, nailing, cutting, stretching, grinding, trimming, sanding, pressuring, and polishing.

Then there are the knives and other dangerous-looking hand tools used for tearing apart old soles and rough-cutting new ones.

“Forearm strength is a big help,” DJ says.

One polishing machine looks especially interesting, with its long row of brushes, each disc a different type bristle. Built by DJ’s grandfather, the machine is still in use.

What lies behind the shop’s success is not only a love of craftsmanship but also an enduring family legacy. DJ’s grandfather, Joseph Annicchiarico, worked at the shop until he was seventy-nine years old.

When he turned sixty-five and considered the prospect of retirement, he asked his oldest son, Mike, what he should do. Mike responded, “Do you love what you do, Dad?” He answered, “Of course I do,” and decided to keep on working.

This same love and pride top DJ’s list of reasons for working in the family’s business. In talking with DJ, his ambitious work ethic—often an inheritance from our immigrant traditions—is self-evident.

Quality is a priority, as is family. No matter the project, an experienced eye for detail is key to the finished product.

While flats, work boots, and highheeled shoes are routine repairs, such as when the dog uses them as a chew toy, DJ is also asked to repair other items such as belts and handbags. He sees an element of fun in the work and likes taking on a challenge. One customer asked to have a printer case repaired. The case needed a lot of creative stitching and hand mending. DJ enjoyed the project and delighted in returning it to the customer looking as good as new. Yet another customer brought in his scuba gear for repair.

MEETING TWENT Y-FIRST CENTURY CHALLENGES Success in the business includes seeking new opportunities in a changing industry. DJ and his family have seen other cobblers—sometimes with long family traditions—close their doors for lack of business in a world driven by e-commerce or the lack of a next-generation successor willing to step into the business.

With his daughter showing some interest, DJ is countering these forces by establishing satellite locations such as one in Keene to expand the business. Customers drop off their shoes at these locations, and each week, the shoes are picked up and brought to the shop. He calls each customer to discuss the work, takes payment by phone, and returns the repaired items.

This is a nod to the shop’s past, when his great-grandfather played his mandolin at the gazebo in New London while taking in shoe repairs. Rather than sit in the shop and wait, he went out to the people—a lesson that’s not lost on DJ. Another lesson from the shop’s past is represented by an antique shoeshine stand used by customers who sat in its chair while having their shoes professionally shined. DJ has an idea to create a mobile shine service in corporate office buildings.

In addition, the marriage of the shop to its partner store, Simply Birkenstock, is one more adaptation to enhance the appeal of using a cobbler rather than tossing a worn pair of footwear. By way of example, DJ has repaired the same pair of work boots four times and a pair of men’s Italian leather loafers eight times.

With a one-hundred-eight-year history, the Annicchiarico family has served thousands of people in the Granite State, and they look forward to heeling many more soles.

United Shoe Repair 8 South Main Street Concord, NH (603) 228-8254 unitedshoerepair.com

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BY RACHEL FORREST PHOTOS BY JOSEPH ST . PIERRE

The South Comes North TRADITIONAL SOUTHERN BARBECUE WITH A NEW HAMPSHIRE FLAIR

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ucculent Carolina pulled pork with a tart vinegar-based sauce or dry-rubbed Memphis ribs and Texas brisket, juicy with fat . . . When talking barbecue, states far to the south and west of New Hampshire come to mind first. And there is no shortage of controversy when it comes to who has the best because variations abound across and within regions. There are nuances in spices, varieties of wood used for cooking, and the use of a dry rub versus sauce unique to each shack, restaurant, and backyard grill or smoker.

But it isn’t only the South and West that have good barbecue. All the traditions found elsewhere are part of the rapidly growing New Hampshire barbecue scene. It is a heritage that has its roots in both the Native American practice of smoking meat over an open fire and in the eighteenth century, when colonists from Spain and Britain barbecued meat on the coast as far north as what is now Portsmouth.

Right now, barbecue is hot across the country and experiencing a meat renaissance that has led to the unthinkable: Austin, Texas, pitmaster Aaron Franklin won the coveted James Beard Award for Best Chef in 2015. This is an honor traditionally reserved for fine-dining chefs working to plate their food with tweezers, not elongated tongs.

In the Concord area, barbecue restaurants are growing

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in number and reputation. And while some have been around for decades, like Beefside, others are part of a new wave of pitmaster talent.

SMOKESHOW BARBEQUE Smokeshow Barbeque’s Matt Gfroerer is New Hampshire born and bred, but he learned to love the craft in Austin, Texas. From there, he brought what he learned to restaurants such as Rudy’s in Baltimore and then KC’s Rib Shack in Manchester. Finally, he made it back home to Concord, where he opened his small restaurant with big flavor in April 2016.

Matt is making his brisket just as barbecued meat should be—low and slow, at very low temperatures for a very long time. “Most people around here are familiar with the Carolina and Florida styles of barbecue, which is more of a vinegary sauce with less smoke, less seasoning type of barbecue,” he says. “I learned at Rudy’s and at PoK-e-Jo’s in Austin to use a lot more black pepper, a lot more cayenne, and a lot more smoke, which gives it a heartier flavor than the Carolina style.”

Matt suggests that New Hampshire has more Carolinaand Florida-style barbecue thanks to the number of snowbirds who travel to those warmer states during winter.

They bring their taste for that style of barbecue back north with them.

Left: Smokeshow's unassuming front belies what awaits inside.

Below and far left: Smokeshow owner Matt Gfroerer.

Learn more

www.smokeshowbbq.com

JalapeĂąo cheddar sausage and beef brisket with mac and cheese and cornbread.

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Learn more

www.arniesplace.com

St. Louis-style pork spareribs, slow-cooked smoked sausage with homemade potato salad and jalapeño corn fritters.

“We New Englanders drive places, so we shoot down I-95 and drive through the Carolinas to Florida,” Matt says. “So originally when we first opened, everybody went for the pulled pork because that’s what they’d had before and were used to.

Texas doesn’t sell a whole lot of pulled pork; it’s chopped beef instead and lots of brisket. Most places in Texas don’t even offer pulled pork and, in Texas, if you don’t have good brisket, you aren’t going to make it. I think that Rudy’s, although it’s a chain restaurant, has some of the best brisket you can get, so we put an emphasis on having good brisket, and that’s been really successful.”

Brisket is simply the cut of meat found on the breast or lower chest of a beef or veal animal. As barbecue, it’s cooked low and slow in a smoker. Each pitmaster works to create his or her own style and flavor from variations in woods, rubs, temperatures, and cooking times.

“Our custom rub that we developed in-house is different for a couple of reasons,” Matt adds. “A lot of people cook briskets and pull them all out at the same time, when the reality is that every brisket is different, so the smoking time is different. People up here will also reheat brisket. You can’t reheat brisket—it’s terrible reheated. We do fresh brisket every single day, and if we

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have leftover brisket, it goes into either our chili or Goodness [a mix of brisket, pork, and turkey scraps].”

Turkey, brisket, and pulled pork, as well as pork loin and Goodness, are sold by the half-pound at Smokeshow. According to Matt, giving people samples of the meats has expanded local palates for his Texas-style barbecue, which is smoked in a J&R Smokemaster made in Mesquite, Texas. It’s an all-woodfired smoker with no gas element. Matt uses red oak to impart a lighter flavor to his meats, and he goes through about thirty briskets a week.

Matt says, “I had no idea what brisket was when I went to Texas. Then when I moved back to New England, some people were doing brisket, but it didn’t have that ‘Texas love’ to it that I had experienced and that it needed.

“When I opened Smokeshow, I took a chapter out of Rudy’s barbecue and sampled out. You want to try something? We’ll give you what you want. Typically, people get Goodness or turkey samples if they’re first-timers. Turkey is another meat that we introduced that no one around here sells, and we’ve had tremendous success with that. We don’t even sell chicken, which throws people off until they taste the turkey. Then they understand why.”

“ALL OF US WHO SERVE BARBECUE,” TOM SAYS, “IT’S UP TO US TO MAKE SURE PEOPLE KNOW WHAT REALLY GOOD BARBECUE IS.” Left: MacKenzie Dalrymple and Kaitlyn Witts.

Below: Arnie's Place owner Tom Arnold.

BEEFSIDE If Matt is the new kid on the smoker block, Billy Ray and his wife Susan are veterans of the New Hampshire barbecue scene.

After buying out his partners at Beefside in 1995, Billy built a reputation on classic roast beef sandwiches and then branched out into barbecue.

“We started to see what was going to happen,” he says. “Barbecue is what Mexican food was in 1975. We saw what was happening with Mexican food—at first, no one knew what it was in our area, then it got very popular. We knew barbecue was going to be like that.”

Beefside started with pulled pork, pork butts, and brisket and has been smoking barbecue for about twenty years. Billy says that when they first started, they did get some pushback.

“There were a few people who came from down South who said, ‘You don’t know how to do it. We make our own barbecue and it’s not like that.’ Now everyone’s doing it, and even people coming from the South like our barbecue.”

Billy and Susan aren’t afraid to draw from different styles to make Southern barbecue. “It’s Southern barbecue, but you can go down South and get all different kinds,” Billy says. “Everything is going to be different, but really, the meat is still the same. Brisket is brisket and until you smoke it, it’s not barbecue.”

Beefside serves Southern-style pork ribs, pulled pork, and barbecue brisket along with some specials like brisket sliders served with their beer-battered fries, slaw, and famous cornbread. “The most important thing is consistency,” Billy adds. “If they like our barbecue, they like it, and you have to give them what they expect each time.”

ARNIE’S PLACE Tom Arnold, owner and pitmaster at Arnie’s Place in Concord, didn’t start out with a yen to create barbecue. While he was working at Shaker Village in Canterbury making ice cream, thenchef Jeffrey Paige, now at Cotton in Manchester, introduced him to the wonderful world of the ’cue.

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AFTER SOME SPICY BARBECUE, TIME FOR COOL ICE CREAM Beech Hill Farm 107 Beech Hill Road, Hopkinton WWW.BEECHHILLFARM.COM Just fifteen minutes down Currier Road and a short left onto Beech Hill Road lies Beech Hill Farm and Ice Cream Barn, a wonderfully homespun antidote to the desire for a bit of silken, sweet ice cream.

You don’t have to take our word for it. Boston Magazine and Parenting New Hampshire magazine have named Beech Hill a Best of New England and Family Favorites Award winner. And the honor is well deserved. With seventy-five flavors of Blake’s and Richardson’s New England–made ice cream and frozen yogurt, plus a make-your-own sundae bar, this is the place to go after finishing a plate of tangy ribs, corn on the cob, and slaw.

There is also plenty to do while enjoying a cone or sundae or after you’ve finished and need a postprandial walk. Visitors will find friendly farm animals, a giant pile of sand and toys for the kids, and the one-mile Rhododendron Nature Trail, or poke around the Garden Barn & Potting Shed and explore the farm as it settles on a quiet evening beneath a beautiful sunset.

More

www.beechhillfarm.com

Ballard’s Ice Cream Sandwiches & More!

7 Broadway, Concord WWW.BALLARDSICECREAM.COM When you’ve finished a half-rack at Arnie’s or Smokeshow, be sure to grab a few extra wet wipes. No barbecue meal is complete without at least a little ice cream, and Ballard’s Ice Cream Sandwiches & More has something wonderful for everyone’s sweet tooth.

Ballard’s offers more than sixty flavors of ice cream as well as a decent selection of sugar-free ice cream, soft serve (eleven flavors), soy ice cream, sherbet, frozen yogurt, and sorbet, plus twenty gourmet cones—including gluten free—and a huge selection of sundae treats including the Yodel-ei-e, Peanut Butter Bonanza, You Devil Dog You, and Hot Fudge Brownie Delight. If you see a fellow wearing a white hat with a black brim, that’s Norm Ballard. Be sure to say hi.

A Few Other Options . . .

• Sugar & Ice Creamery, housed in a renovated garrison built in the 1700s, is located at 146 Calef Highway in Barrington.

• Dodge’s Farm Ice Cream Stand, Route 77 in New Boston or call (603) 487-3339.

• Lang’s Ice Cream, 510 Pembroke Street in Pembroke or call (603) 225-7483.

• Dudley’s Ice Cream, 846 NH-106 in Loudon or call (603) 783-4800.

• Frekey’s Dairy Freeze, 97 Suncook Valley Road in Chichester or call (603) 798-5443.

“He said, ‘Try this. It just came out of the smoker.’ And I was intrigued,” says Tom. “We wanted to have something at Arnie’s that Concord really didn’t have much of, so he started me out in barbecue. He helped me develop the dry rub we use, and now I’m making six hundred pounds of our dry rub a year—the rub we put on the ribs and pork shoulder before it goes into the smoker.

“Then I saw an ad for the Central Florida Barbecue Competition. I called the number and asked if they could find a team I could join that could help me, mentor me, and they put me in touch with a team that had been around for fifty-two years.

I was their token Yankee. They said they might not be able to show me how to do it, but they would show me how not to do it.”

That was twelve years ago, and now Tom is a member of the Kansas City Barbeque Society and a certified judge, which he became in order to learn more about what judges looked for in competition.

Like Billy Ray, he says that when they introduced barbecue to the region, it was quite exotic. “When we first started, people had no idea about it,” Tom says. “There’d be long lines for

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More

www.ballardsicecream.com

the ice cream window, and I’d go out there and just hand out samples. We developed a following, and now we do about five hundred to six hundred pounds of pork a week here.

“There are a few different barbecue places in the area, and we all do it different. Smoke Shack in Boscawen, Matt at Smokeshow—I’ve known him since he was a little kid—we all do it different. Ours is Southern style and we don’t sauce our ribs, number one. We want to taste the meat, not the sauce.”

While they don’t serve brisket at all, you’ll find sausage, ribs, pulled pork, and pulled chicken on the menu, and their Cookshack smoker runs as many as eighteen hours a day. Tom burns hickory to impart flavor to the meats. Along with the dry rub, they make five sauces for customers to use or they can go just as is; it’s that good.

Tom notes that, unlike twelve years ago, today you can go to many local restaurants and find pulled-pork sandwiches. The problem is, he says, they’re often made from frozen pork. And anyone can pick up baby back ribs at the supermarket completely cooked, sauced, and cryovaced. But that, he says, is not good barbecue. “All of us who serve barbecue,” Tom says, “it’s up to us to make sure people know what really good barbecue is.”

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BEWARE THE AFTERBURN

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here there’s barbecue, there’s often heat. Bow’s very own Afterburn Hot Sauces can supply as much heat as you can handle for wings, barbecue, and more. George Beck and business partner Doug Parker have been increasing the heat all over New England with their spicy sauces, dry rubs, and beef jerky.

“About fifteen years ago, we were at a chili festival with a barbecue team, and we went up there and we burnt our chili,” George says about how they founded the business. “So, we made it so stinking hot you couldn’t taste the burnt flavor, and we became known as the hot chili guys.

After a couple of years, we came out with our own hot sauce just for the barbecue team, using it to heat up our chili, and people said, ‘You have to bottle it!’ We got so much pressure from our wives and friends that we did. Now we have twentysomething products.”

Those products include a beef jerky hot sauce, a wing sauce, and a pomegranatemango barbecue sauce as well as their line of original hot sauces with colorful names like Ja-Makin’ My Ass Burn and XXXX Blow Your Ass Off Hot Sauce as well as the milder Wussy Ass Hot Sauce. They’re known for turning up the heat as well as for their comical labeling, complete with toilet-paper-toting donkey (aka, ass) and the motto, “Try us today, remember us tomorrow.”

The heat factor didn’t happen all at once, however. “We had the four hot sauces when we first started,” George says, “and some guy walked up to us when we were at a show and said, ‘That’s not hot enough.’ So I made a hotter one, but my partner Doug said, ‘No, we’re going to kill somebody—you can’t make it any hotter!’ But we sold them out. A couple of months later, another guy said that one wasn’t hot enough, so we made an even hotter sauce. Doug said, ‘Stop it, we’re going to kill somebody!’ But we are coming out with a Carolina Reaper sauce pretty soon.”

It turned out that most could, indeed, handle the heat, and Afterburn sauces and products can be found in about thirty locations around New Hampshire as well as in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and Florida and at many festivals and fairs. To learn more, go to www.afterburnhotsauce.com.

Learn more

www. afterburnhotsauce.com

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As Long as There Is Summer,

There Will Be

Porches A GOOD PORCH IS A PLACE OF FAMILY AND COMMUNITY

BY SUSAN NYE

E

very house hunter, whether a buyer or a renter, starts with a must-have list. Big kitchen, three—no, make that four—bedrooms, a large backyard, and, and . . . These lists can go on and on. From my search for the perfect apartment for a one-year adventure in Switzerland to my current, be-here-forever home, my lists have always included a porch of some kind or another.

The one-year adventure in Switzerland stretched into seventeen years and five apartments. All but one had balconies. When I left Switzerland for California, I was delighted with my picturesque cottage and its lovely, big kitchen. However, the fact that it came with a deck didn’t negate the need to build a second, larger one. Had I stayed in sunny California, I’m convinced that the original deck would now be a cozy, screened porch.

I doubt I’m alone in professing that a porch is more than a wish. It’s an absolute must-have. However, my frugal ancestors would certainly view this so-called need as highly suspicious and frivolous. New England summers are short. Why would anyone want an outdoor room? That said, porches have become an integral part of the New England culture.

A front porch sits at the intersection of our private and public lives.

It creates a transition from the street to our personal space. A porch is a gathering place for family and draws friends off the sidewalk and up to the house.

Early New Hampshire farmers had little leisure time, especially in the summer. The idea of relaxing with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine was nothing short of ridiculous. A porch was superfluous, a waste of money and time. Besides, there were no morning joggers to watch or strolling neighbors to invite up for a glass of lemonade or something stronger.

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“Designing the porch is a balancing act of needs and constraints.”

— Jeremy Bonin, principal at Bonin Architects & Associates

caption

A porch is a place for food, family, and community. This classic example offers a cool spot for lunch. Photo courtesy of Bonin Architects & Associates.

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“We’ve been a family of porch sitters for generations. Every home needs a porch, a place to watch the world go by.”

— Kate Bartlet, co-owner of Henniker House

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Above, left, and far left: The porch at Henniker House. Photos by Joe St. Pierre.

Not surprisingly, porches made their earliest appearance in the southern parts of the country. Steamy summers from Louisiana and Florida through the Carolinas and Virginia cried out for a shady sanctuary. However, South or North, most early settlers came to America from Northern Europe, where porches are few and far between. Without an architectural tradition to guide them, the earliest homes were built without porches.

It may come as a surprise to learn that most, if not all, of the earliest American porches were built by African slaves. While the list of economic, agricultural, and cultural contributions made by Africans is both long and well respected, few realize their early influence on American architecture. Slave quarters may have been filled with exceedingly humble homes, but a porch was often attached to the front. In addition, slave artisans played major roles in the design and construction of plantation houses. They brought wide verandas as well as other elements of African architecture to Southern plantations.

Porches began to appear in the North in the early 1800s. Industrialization created new wealth, and bankers and factory owners built homes to reflect their prosperity and newfound leisure. Starting with Greek Revival, with Parthenon-inspired columns and porticos, to the many variations of Victorian architecture, a porch became a mandatory fixture for homes of substance.

At the same time, mechanized equipment began to replace farmers’ laborintensive hand tools. While their days were still long, farmers might be able to snatch an hour from time to time. Front, side, and wrap-around porches were added to farmhouses. In addition to catching your breath and watching the sun set, these covered porches were perfect for hanging laundry on a snowy day.

Newfangled equipment or not, farming in New Hampshire has always been hard work. In the late 1800s, New Hampshire farmers found a new source of revenue: summer people. Artists and city folk devel-

oped a taste for New Hampshire’s beautiful scenery and fresh air.

Never ones to miss an opportunity, many Granite State farmers put out the welcome mat for tourists and made extra money renting rooms from June to September.

Given New Hampshire’s harsh climate and stony soil, turning a farm into a summer rooming house provided a much-needed source of added income.

Not unlike some of today’s alternative vacations, some guests even helped on the farm. In the beginning, most of these summer inns were quite rustic. However, over time, additions and renovations enlarged and refined the experience. Amenities improved with the addition of private baths, wide porches, and rocking chairs. Before long, tennis and golf replaced weeding and haying.

Other farmers simply gave up. The lucky ones sold out, while others walked away from a mortgage they couldn’t cover. In both cases, they left farming and moved to the city for a better life. Business tycoons and their socialite wives bought many of these humble farms. They renovated the houses and added on or tore them down and started over.

Miss Frances Hadden, a socialite from New York City, purchased the Story Farm in Hopkinton in 1932. Originally built in 1760, she renovated and enlarged the house and turned the property into a gentleman’s farm and bucolic retreat. A lovely side porch was among the changes.

Now called the Old Story Farm Bed & Breakfast Inn, guests are delighted with Miss Hadden’s improvements. Current owner and innkeeper Jennifer Balkus says, “Everyone gravitates to the porch. It is where our guests gather and meet throughout the summer.” She adds, “It is the perfect spot to listen to the birds or make a new friend while you sip your morning coffee or evening cocktail.”

Kate Bartlet, co-owner of Henniker House, is a self-described porch person.

Back when she was twelve or thirteen, her father built a porch on the side of the

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“(The porch) is the perfect spot to listen to the birds or make a new friend while you sip your morning coffee or evening cocktail.”

— Jennifer Balkus, owner and innkeeper of Old Story Farm Bed & Breakfast Inn

Above and left: A classic New England summer porch at the Old Story Farm Bed & Breakfast Inn. Photos by Joe St. Pierre.

family’s ranch home. He explained to his daughter, “We’ve been a family of porch sitters for generations.” Kate now adds, “Every home needs a porch, a place to watch the world go by.”

Henniker House has a beautiful front and side porch. Sitting right on the corner of Main Street, it is well placed to watch the world go by. This proud Victorian lady has been a private home, a hospital, and a rooming house. With lots of room and comfortable wicker chairs, the porch is a perfect place for guests and friends to congregate.

Porches are not just for lovely old farmhouses or grand Victorian dames.

Kate’s dad was not alone when he added a porch to the family home. Like the farm-

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ers who added porches to watch the sun go down and hang laundry, porches themselves found their way onto the sides and backs of mid century ranches, capes, and colonials.

Mostly modest in size, they were large enough for a family to sit after dinner and listen to the ball game on the radio.

Drive through any neighborhood, and you’ll see a few stuck off the living room.

The rest are hidden out back.

A minimalist might argue that a porch is a relic of a bygone era, no longer needed in the age of central air conditioning.

Not so for many of Jeremy Bonin’s clients. The principal at Bonin Architects & Associates, Jeremy designs private homes in the Lakes Region, and a porch is a frequent must-have.

“Determining the type of porch and where to put it is an important discussion,” says Jeremy. While facing the water is first and foremost, the architect needs to understand the challenges of each lot. Perhaps it sits on a steep slope, faces north or, like many lakeside lots, is narrow. Next to consider is the homeowner’s lifestyle. Does the couple need a peaceful spot for morning coffee, or lots of room for big family dinners? “Designing the porch is a balancing act of needs and constraints,” says Jeremy.

A cynic might say that nostalgia is the only thing that keeps the porch—front, side, or back—from becoming obsolete.

They would be wrong. Unlike with a Facebook post, we can watch the real world go by from a front porch. Unlike a text message, we can engage in a real conversation.

As long as there are summers, there will be porches. They help us connect with our neighbors, drawing them up off the sidewalk. They bring families together around Monopoly boards on rainy afternoons. And as long as my porch continues to provide a backdrop for peaceful mornings with the hummingbirds, boisterous dinners, and the occasional hushed tête-à-tête, it will never be obsolete.

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BY RAY CARBONE PHOTOS BY JOHN BENFORD HISTORICAL PHOTOS COURTESY OF NH HISTORICAL SOCIETY

baseball in

Summ˜ ’s

Soft Evening Light SINCE 1909, THE CONCORD SUNSET LEAGUE HAS PLAYED REAL, GRITTY BALL JUST DOWN THE STREET

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Above: Delly Callahan, Ray McLean, Robert “Red” Rolfe, Ken Jones (taken at the fiftieth anniversary celebration in 1958).

Delly Callahan was in the league in one form or another his entire life, including playing for the Haymakers that dominated the first seasons of the league. You can see him as a young man in the 1910 champions photo.

Opposite: The sun sets over the outfield and scoreboard at the Red Eastman Field in White Park.

t’s an elegant game that tugs at our hearts.

A game of stillness broken by the crack of a bat and then frenetic races to the ball and around bases. Its roots were planted after the Civil War, when men from the divided nation adapted local versions of bat and ball games into standardized base paths, batter’s box, and pitcher’s mound.

And then, in 1909, a few local fans organized a summer evening’s entertainment that they named the Concord Sunset League.

Over the years, the Sunset League helped give rise to a distinguished baseball legacy here in Concord. In its earliest years, one of its stars was possibly the last black man to play pro or semi-pro baseball before the “gentleman’s agreement” among pro team owners banned black players (see sidebar). There are also notable major leaguers like Joe Lefebvre, Doc Tonkin, Matt Tupman, Robert “Red” Rolfe, and Bob Tewskbury. For one local boy, Delly Callahan, the

I

league provided a lifelong connection to the game he loved (see photos).

Today, you can watch the inheritors of this legacy play on summer evenings at White Park on the Red Eastman Field. They are young men from colleges around New England who come to Concord to play in the oldest amateur league of its kind in the country on the same field where it started in 1909.

On a warm night last August, DeStefano’s Century 21 Circa ’72 team faced off against the Grappone Auto Group squad in the Sunset League’s championship series. Grappone came in with an impressive thirteen-and-three season record, but the DeStefano team had won a tough game against a good pitcher the previous night.

A skinny kid whose pants hugged his legs took the mound for DeStefano. He gave up some hard-hit balls early on, and the Grappone runners pounded up clods of dirt as they dashed down the baselines, but the pitcher’s defense kept him going and the game stayed tight.

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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1928 Champions.

Back row: Minnow Landry, George Crutchfield, Shammy Angwin, Paul Haskell, Pep Shepherd, Jess McIsaac. Middle row: Red Felton, Lewis Messler, Charlie Nutter, Sub Sullivan. Front row: Sonny House, Bat Boy.

At one crucial point, a spinning ground ball bounced toward Grappone’s shortstop. “Get weird for me,” the batter yelled at the ball, but it didn’t oblige.

Another batter approached home plate as a teammate yelled, “If you think too much, you’re done. Don’t think, just swing.”

The play of the game is crisp and fast, like minor league play, and despite some early runs against them, the DeStefano team edged out a win to take a three-to-two lead in the best-of-seven game series.

THE SUNSET LEAGUE’S FIRST INNING The idea of a sunset league was not born in Concord.

Similar groups—sometimes called twilight or after-supper

leagues—were an integral part of American urban life in the early 20th century. Men who’d left their farms for city jobs turned to early-evening baseball to relieve the stress of their assembly-line lives.

By the early 1900s, most communities had town teams made up of local men and boys who played nearby rivals on the weekends. The Concord Sunset League grew out of a combination of civic pride (local businesses have long sponsored teams), the need for an inexpensive summer diversion, and the desire of the best players to get in as many games as time and summer would allow. Fortunately, there was an abundance of such players in the Concord area.

The original Sunset League had four neighborhood teams: the Main Street Sluggers, the Kimball School Haymakers, the Old-Timers (mostly former Concord High School athletes), and a local White Park team. The league

BILL THOMPSON, PIONEER Sunset League fans usually point to longtime Yankee third-baseman Red Rolfe as their most accomplished alumnus. But Rolfe may be second to Bill Thompson, a catcher who played in the league’s early days and who could have played in the major leagues if he’d not been a black man.

As close as anyone can tell, Bill was born in 1880 and probably landed in Concord after traveling through the area with a barnstorming team. At the time—approximately 1910—it was common for highly skilled black teams to tour the country. However, he got here, he 54

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liked Concord, and he made it his home for the rest of his life.

Historical records of the sport’s early days are sketchy, especially regarding black players, but it’s clear that Bill had talent. A 1910 newspaper clipping says he was the first player signed for a new Boston professional team, and there are indications that he played with the Cuban Giants, the first professional African-American baseball club in America.

Baseball historian Seamus Kearney of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR) believes that Bill

Some people still call Concord Sunset League veteran Tommy Hardiman the best athlete that Concord ever produced.

may have played a significant role in the sport’s history. In a story published in SABR’s National Pastime magazine, Seamus suggests that Bill was the last black man to play a full season on an integrated team before the so-called gentlemen’s agreement banned black players.

It happened in 1911, when Bill played for the Bellows Falls, Vermont Sulphites, a team in the short-lived Twin State League. “The unusual thing with him,” writes Seamus, “was that [skin color] didn’t matter, no one cared.

He was just a ballplayer. That’s how the team saw him [and] the fans loved him.”

After a hand injury caused Bill to miss the last few games of the year, “his departure resulted in a ringing, frontpage [newspaper] endorsement for his contribution to the Bellows Falls team,” Seamus writes.

When not playing for a paying team, Bill was part of the Concord Sunset League playing at White Park. After his playing days ended, he remained keenly interested in the Sunset League and participated as much as he could.

Robert “Conky” O’Connell, a Sunset League alumnus from the World War II era, remembers, “He was always dressed to the nines. In one of the parades we held at the start of each

season, he had a pin on his tie and a big top hat.” His standard attire for opening day also included scarlet trousers, a white linen jacket, and a straw boater.

Bill also had the unique habit of calling girls Rosie and boys Chuckie, remembered Edson “Red” Eastman, Sunset League president for forty-two years, in a Concord Monitor story from the late 1970s.

Bill died on May 17, 1960, in Boston at the age of eighty-five. He is buried alongside his wife Margaret (Conklin) Thompson in the Blossom Hill Cemetery on North Street here in Concord. On his gravestone are two crossed baseball bats.

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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One of the Sunset League’s first teams.

this isn’t sandlot Red was drafted by the New York played its first official game on June Yankees in 1931 and played third base 22, 1909 in front of a crowd of about baseball. these guys can for them until 1942 with players such five hundred. as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMag“Back in the old days, you’d have really play and, unlike gio, and Lefty Gomez. Red’s best seathousands of people show up for son was 1939, when he had two hunthese games,” says Steve DeStefano, traveling down to boston dred thirteen hits, forty-six doubles, the league’s president and owner of or even manchester for a and batted .329.

Concord’s Century 21 Circa ’72 real There were, and are, many other estate firm. From the beginning, the pro game, the first pitch greats but, well, you get the picture. league attracted talented players like This isn’t sandlot baseball. These guys Bill Thompson, a talented catcher who is thrown just over on can really play and, unlike traveling could throw a bullet to second base eastman field. while still in his crouched position bedown to Boston or even Mancheshind home plate. He was so good that ter for a pro game, the first pitch is he would occasionally leave to join a thrown just over on Eastman Field. team that paid its players, such as the famous Cuban Stars, but he always A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY returned to the Capital City.

Once a month, a group of Sunset Old-timers recall that Bill also had a good baseball League alumni gather at Kimball’s CAV’ern, a family sports mind. A late 1970s Concord Monitor story reported that restaurant in Pembroke, to enjoy lunch and talk about the the legendary New York Giants Manager John McGraw league and the game they still love. They’re mostly octogetold Bill he could have played for the Giants if he weren’t narians who recall seeing Bill Thompson hanging around White Park and, as youngsters and then young players, a black man. hearing about Red Rolfe’s connection to the league.

Perhaps the next most notable player came along in the Robert “Conky” O’Connell, the group’s unofficial histori1920s and faced a very different kind of obstacle. Robert “Red” Rolfe of Penacook, wrote Philip R. Harvey in a Conan, likes to talk about a 1947 team that managed to make a cord Monitor column, was razzed by opposing teams as a name for itself beyond Eastman Field. He was just a young million-dollar baby. Though he was a tough player, Red had man when he and some other guys—including Bill “Bunk” Bailey and Tommy Hardiman (who some people still call a distinctly blue-blood background. He had attended Philthe greatest athlete to ever come from Concord)—were lips Exeter Academy and graduated from Dartmouth Coldrafted into an American Legion team. lege, an Ivy League school.

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Dave Dean was a pitcher and outfielder in the Sunset League for more than 10 years.

Sunset League players, past and present, gathered at White Park last fall. Front, left to right: Robert “Conky” O’Connell, Dave Dean, and Kyle O’Brien; rear: Tom DeStefano, Steve DeStefano, Jeff Hastings, and Tommy Hardiman.

Once a month, a group of Sunset League old-timers meet for lunch. Seen here, left to right, are Tommy Hardiman, Bill “Bunk” Bailey, Robert “Conky” O’Connell, and Paul Eastman.

The Sunset League transcends generations, as seen in this photo from the 2016 championship series. Kyle O’Brien, left, was the winning pitcher in the season’s last game; Tom DeStefano, middle, pitched in the league in the 1950s; and Steve DeStefano, right, is Tom’s son and the current league president.

A LOOK INTO THE SUNSET LEAGUE’S PAST The New Hampshire Historical Society has lovingly preserved numerous photos and other remembrances of the Concord Sunset League, which began in 1909. They are included in the Discovering New Hampshire exhibit at the society’s Concord location. The exhibit showcases objects, photographs, and documents essential to understanding our state’s story. And part of this story includes items from the Sunset League, such as a circa 1910 uniform, baseball glove, shoes, ball, photos, and more.

The exhibition runs through 2017 and is located at 30 Park Street, Concord. For more information, go to www.nhhistory.org.

Learn more

www.nhhistory.org SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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Above: Sunset League ball game at White Park in the late 1940s.

Right: The Haymakers, 1910 Champions. Front row: Doc Davis and Stub Hyland. Middle row: Delly Callahan, Mug Welch, Jim Kiley, Roy Fraser, Roy Galfetti. Back row: Ging Sullivan, unknown, unknown, Ray Vaughn.

it’s always been ter-Boston Regional Airport. Word had They were good enough to be invited it that this kid had a rifle for an arm. His to the prestigious All-American Amateur and remains great name was Tom DeStefano, and in his first Baseball Association League tournament game in the Sunset League pitching for in Pennsylvania that year. For some playbaseball played down Tommy, he threw a no-hitter. ers, it was the first time they’d left New the street on a warm The Red Sox and Cincinnati Reds both England, but when they got to the tourcame calling, but the Korean War internament, these New Hampshire country summer evening in the rupted his baseball career, and then the boys did well. Playing against talented start of his new family became bigger than teams from around the country—Washsoft light of dusk. baseball. In 1959, a minor league team ington, DC; New Orleans; Philadelphia; based in Florida offered Tom a spot, but Brooklyn; and others—they advanced instead, he took a job here and kept playthrough the double-elimination tournament, finishing in third place after losing ing in the Sunset League for fourteen years. to the eventual winners.

Today, his son, Steve DeStefano, is the SunThe guys played together for three set League president. years, but they went to that tournament for each of those seaThe League continued to provide some of the best baseball sons. “I think it’s the greatest team to ever come out of Conaround and offer a chance for some truly talented ball players cord,” said Conky O’Connell. to make their marks. Cedric Tallis became a successful baseball That may be true. executive. Beginning in 1968, he helped build the Kansas City Royals into a force to be reckoned with as their general manPOST-WORLD WAR II HEYDAY ager. In 1974, he joined the front-office team of the New York The years during and immediately after World War II could Yankees, and then in 1978 he was named the Yankees general manager working directly under George Steinbrenner. Most have been the best for the Sunset League. “When the boys Red Sox fans will remember that as the year the Yankees came came back from the service we had some great games,” Edson back from a fourteen-game deficit to win the American League “Red” Eastman, president of the Sunset League for forty-two years, told the Monitor in a story published in the late 1970s.

East pennant.

“The cars would be parked up and down Beacon Street and Joe Lefebvre played outfield in the major leagues for the YanWhite Street, and you couldn’t get a parking place anywhere kees, Padres, and Phillies until a knee injury forced his retirement after a six-year career in 1986. After that, Joe coached with near the park.” the Phillies, then beginning in 1990, with the Yankees. He curIn the early 1950s, former star player Tommy Hardiman was rently coaches with the San Francisco Giants. managing a team when he heard about a young soldier staAnd Rick Lancellotti, who grew up in Concord, played outtioned at Grenier Air Force Base—forerunner of the Manches-

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field for the Padres, Giants, and Red Sox beginning in 1982. Though a talented hitter and fielder, he was an itinerant player who, over the course of his seventeen years in baseball, played for fifteen different leagues and multiple teams around the world. These included the Parma Angels in Italy, the Hiroshima team in Japan, and numerous minor leagues in the US. SUNSET FOR THE SUNSET LEAGUE ?

Not long after the Sunset League’s zenith in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, the economic axis of America started to shift and interest in the league began to wane, says Steve DeStefano. More people had cars, so more summer evening entertainment options became available. The baby boom led to a new emphasis on youth athletics. Most recently, organizations like youth soccer and over-forty and over-fifty baseball leagues have drained interest, he adds.

“It used to be all local Concord kids,” Steve says. “Now it’s 90 percent college kids from Dover, Keene, Worcester . . . most are from Division 2 and 3 schools.

They’re just playing until they graduate, and they need to work to keep up their skills for the fall college season.”

Steve admits that it’s a challenge to keep the league going. He reaches out to colleges to find players, then to the local community to find sponsors and coaches.

Some summers there are six or seven teams, others only four.

A few nights after DeStefano edged out Grappone in the Sunset League championship series, the two teams took the field again. And again, the DeStefano boys edged out a gritty win to take the series.

There were only about a dozen people scattered about the park to witness it.

It’s always been—and remains—great baseball played down the street on a warm summer evening in the soft light of dusk.

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We Are Moss Covering Granite POEMS OF NEW ENGLANDERS POEMS AND PHOTOS BY JANET BARRY

A THIN LIGHT MORNING The indoor sounds have cradled me all through the winter The furnace heating The refrigerator persisting in sanctioned cool The dog pawing after phantom squirrels who taunt her dreams And then Today Today the oaken turn of a page Lift of a dried beech leaf to a still distant sun Today a Mourning Dove Calling the light back to roost

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WWW.AROUNDCONCORD.COM

Right: April.

Below: Gleason Bridge.

SKIPPING STONES I have been throwing rocks at the lake all day, a satisfying plop as I lift them from their muddy banks, feel their weight and concave smoothness, their water worn heft, launch towards the teal-gray surface – they arch, a slow-motion ellipsis, a pause almost at their zenith, before accepting their solid descent,

Above: Reflections.

Left: Spring.

not wholly unlike the thin perfections I used to find as a child, Dad leading the way, showing me the best shapes, densities, perfect fit to fingers and palm and then, the slight crouch, elbow cocked, snap of the wrist and a spin and force – those rocks would skim across the blue three, four, five jumps, before finally deciding the time for flying was over.

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OLD STONES In New Hampshire, the dead

Then there’s General Dunstable, up in Henniker,

are always surrounded by

comfortable beneath the great white pines,

granite walls piled or placed,

comfortable beside his two wives, six

walls wrestled from the earth, stacked

dead infants, two daughters married and their husbands,

and perhaps those stones are why so many of the ghosts

the graves dwindle by late 1880 and the lines

prefer the old farmhouses to the cemeteries,

on the gravestones fade and forget to tell all the tales,

knocking about in the rooms in which they were born,

how he grieved for Hannah, gone at twenty-three

wondering about indoor plumbing and big screen TVs.

and him left with four children and a baby, and how beautiful she had been in her wedding dress,

Over at Clinton Grove, named after DeWitt Clinton of Eerie Canal fame and after a grove of chestnuts long gone,

in her coffin, how he had set the stones so carefully around her little grave, how he had laid down granite for the family plot,

lies the old Friends cemetery.

The Quakers came to the New World to protest intolerance, and kept on going till they reached New Hampshire,

so full now with little bones, with old stones.

Boston being still a little tight minded

Always, the dead are surrounded,

when it came to tolerance. They lie beneath moss

here in New Hampshire –

and sugar maples and encourage their descendants

the dead who died in wars were trundled back in boxes,

to keep on – beyond the granite sill,

the dead who died at sea washed back home,

behind the granite pillars, they whisper back time,

stones led the paths for those who ventured West,

knowing their job undone, there being plenty

who knew that death approached

of intolerance left

when they felt their Eastern tethers hard yanked,

for these days.

admirals in stone, adventurers in stone, old women in stone, and slaves and preachers,

And up on Tobey Hill lies old Mr. Tobey and his clan. A corner of the field shelters his little room of the dead, maybe a ten by twelve, room for five and a few babies. There used to be a road through here,

and soldiers and sailors, farmers, housewives, and babies, so many babies, swaddled within the granite.

from Weare to Hillsboro, granite lining each side so that no horses would get in the fields and no cows in the road, Mr. Tobey used to come roaring up that road at midnight, tavern closed and he was drunk and angry and who knows what happened after he roused the household.

In 1998, the cell tower was built, and he must have decided he’d had enough of that old hill, that old farm, maybe even enough of the little walled-in square with its little walled-in graves.

No one’s seen him for years now.

T Old Stones.

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the potatoes and onions anytime now, she said.

Most likely, he said.

She shut the screen door, pulled down the shades.

He rustled the evening paper.

They ate the final jar of canned tomatoes as the spring peepers sang their way through the darkness.

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30 Manchester Street, Unit 1 Concord, NH | (603) 715-1695 SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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EVENT CALENDAR

|

THEATER

•

MUSIC

•

What's Happening In & Around Concord

DANCE

•

LECTURE

•

ART

June 19

Birding with Bob Ridgely Castle in the Clouds, 8:30am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

June 21

Simply Shaker Summer Celebration: Annual Dinner & Auction Canterbury Shaker Village, 5pm WWW.SHAKERS.ORG

June 22–24

Market Days Festival Programming includes concerts in Eagle and Bicentennial Squares, family-friendly activities on the State House lawn, a beer and hospitality tent in the center of the festival, and much more.

Downtown Concord, 10am–10pm daily INTOWNCONCORD.ORG June 22

Parsonsfield

June 23–25

Market Days South Stage, 7:30pm CCANH.COM

Expanding Horizons

June 16–25

June 18

One Act Wonders

Dance Inspirations

New World Theatre presents an evening of three one-act plays written by regional playwrights.

Hatbox Theatre, Fri & Sat 7:30pm; Sun 2pm HATBOXNH.COM

Audi, 2pm WWW.CONCORDCITYAUDITORIUM.ORG

This workshop series cosponsored by Kimball Jenkins School of Art and the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen offers a unique learning experience designed for the working artist and working craftsman. Visit the website for more information and to register.

Kimball Jenkins Estate WWW.KIMBALLJENKINS.COM/EXPANDING-HORIZONS

June 24

June 17

Turning Pointe Center of Dance Audi, 2pm WWW.CONCORDCITYAUDITORIUM.ORG

Miss Robin’s Dance Etc. Audi, 2pm WWW.CONCORDCITYAUDITORIUM.ORG

June 24

June 17, 18

Open House Featuring an Artisans Fair with En Plein Air Artists Local artisans will be offering their wares, including jewelry, paintings, ceramics, wood pieces, and more. Artists will be painting works on-site. There will be music from 12–2pm on Saturday by Dale’s Jazz Lab. Bedrock Gardens, Sat 10am–4pm; Sun, 12–4pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

National Theatre Live HD Rebroadcast: Peter Pan Capitol Center for the Arts, 7pm CCANH.COM

Through July 7

Exhibit: Bruce McColl: The Color of Seasons McGowan Fine Art WWW.MCGOWANFINEART.COM Bouquet of Roses & Lemon, Pear, Orange, by Bruce McColl.

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www.aroundconcord.com

INTOWN CONCORD PRESENTS ITS 43RD ANNUAL:

June 14–24

The Rocky Horror Show The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, midnight performance on June 17 WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

June 28–July 15

High Society The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, matinees at 2pm on June 29, July 6 & July 10 (no performances July 3 & 4) WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

June 30, July 14 & 28, August 4

Open-Air Landscape Art Surround yourself in nature as you paint your own masterpiece.

Castle in the Clouds, 10am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

JUNE 22-23-24

Music & Entertainment!

Shopping at 190 vendors!

10 AM TO 10 PM DAILY DOWNTOWN CONCORD Free admission

Strong Man Challenge• Sat. 3-6pm PLUS! Multicultural Festival• Sat. 2-6pm Family Fun, Mini Golf, Touch-A-Truck Concord Arts Market

Food!

Food! Food!

July 1, 2

Open House Featuring Antique Cars and Ballroom Dance Class The Granite Region Antique Automobile Club will put on an antique car show on Saturday (rain day is Sunday). On Sunday there will be a Ballroom Dance class.

Bedrock Gardens, Sat 10am–4pm; Sun 12–4pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

July 2

David Blaine Live Tour 2017 q Capitol Center for the Arts, 8pm CCANH.COM

DETAILS & SCHEDULES: WWW.INTOWNCONCORD.ORG June 28

Quest for Happiness Can money buy happiness? We welcome Maria Sanders to help us kick off our Wellness Wednesdays series as we embark on a Quest for Happiness.

Castle in the Clouds, 7pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

65

CALENDAR July 31

Gardening for Wildlife Castle in the Clouds, 10am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

announced at the end of the evening.

Hatbox Theatre, 7:30pm HATBOXNH.COM

July 12, August 9

Andrew Pinard: Discovering Magic Hatbox Theatre, 7:30pm HATBOXNH.COM

July 15, 16

Open House Featuring Threads: A Fiber Art Festival Watch folks spin, weave, quilt, and dye.

See some of the unusual end products. There will be installations throughout the garden and music from 12–2pm on Saturday by Dale’s Jazz Lab. Bedrock Gardens, Sat 10am–4pm; Sun12–4pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

Harmony in Black & White, by Stephanie Bush.

Through August 27

July 24

Group Painting Exhibit

What’s Underfoot?

Stephanie Bush, Ella Delyanis, Tamara Gonda, Dustin Knight, Soo Rye Yoo, and more.

Millbrook Gallery & Sculpture Garden THEMILLBROOKGALLERY.COM

Castle in the Clouds, 10am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

July 5–August 30, Wednesdays

July 11, August 8

Wellness Wednesdays: Yoga

Tales Told

Castle in the Clouds, 5:30pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

Inspired by The Moth series, audience members will put their names in a hat and be called up at random to tell a true, original story. Audience members will act as judges with a winner to be

July 10

What’s Living in Our Pond?

Castle in the Clouds, 10am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

July 10–August 14, Mondays

Solar Gazing Castle in the Clouds, 1pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

July 19–29

The Hound of the Baskervilles The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, matinees at 2pm July 20 and 24 WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

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W W W. A R O U N D C O N C O R D . C O M

www.aroundconcord.com

Dining Out In & Around Concord

DINING GUIDE II

most entrées under $10 most entrées $10–$25 most entrées over $25

ITALIAN KITCHEN

Smokeshow BBQ

Veano’s II Italian Kitchen

The Grazing Room

89 Fort Eddy Road, Concord, NH (603) 227-6399 www.smokeshowbbq.com catering@smokeshowbbq.com A little bit of the South with a lot of New England attitude.

Serving lunch, dinner, and take-out. Having a party, graduation, wedding, or quinceañera? Take the show on the road; contact us for catering! Sun–Thu 11am–8pm; Fri & Sat 11am–9pm

30 Manchester Street, Unit 1, Concord, NH (603) 715-1695

at Colby Hill Inn 33 The Oaks, Henniker, NH (603) 428-3281 www.colbyhillinn.com Serving exceptional dinners year-round to inn guests and the public. Our Chef’s Menu features the freshest from each week’s local harvest; seatings are available Wed through Sat from 5:30–8:30pm and Sun from 5–7:30pm. We are closed on Mon and Tue. Reservations are encouraged.

Revival Kitchen & Bar

Makris Lobster & Steak House

11 Depot Street, Concord, NH (603) 715-5723 www.revivalkitchennh.com @revivalkitchennh Casual upscale dining with farm to table influence. Reviving Old World classic dishes using local meats, produce, and dairy. Unique and classic cocktails and every wine available by the glass.

Open Tue–Thu 4–9pm, Fri–Sat 4–10pm; closed Sun & Mon.

Operated by George Georgopoulos and family, Veano’s II offers all the traditional Italian favorites you love plus seafood, pizza, and more. Serving lunch and dinner, and now breakfast from Mon–Fri 7am–11am, Sat–Sun 7am–noon. Stop in for superb customer service, great food, and a warm friendly atmosphere—and don’t forget to check out our daily dinner specials!

Route 106, Concord, NH (603) 225-7665 www.eatalobster.com An experience you wont forget! Enjoy fresh seafood and steak at an affordable price. Comfortable setting for all ages.

Banquets and catering available!

Open Tue–Sun, 11am–9pm (8pm on Sun)

Alan’s of Boscawen 133 No. Main Street, Rte. 3, Boscawen, NH (603) 753-6631 www.alansofboscawen.com Alan’s of Boscawen, a family-owned restaurant, has been a local favorite in the Concord area for over 25 years providing great food, catering, and dining experiences. Featuring live entertainment Fri & Sat 8:30pm–12am. Open daily, including breakfast Sat & Sun. Celebrate your wedding, shower, or graduation with us.

Call for details!

Arnie’s Place 164 Loudon Road, Concord Heights, NH (603) 228-3225 www.arniesplace.com We make our own ice cream on the premises every day. Great BBQ menu, St. Louis ribs, sausage, pulled pork. Five sizes of hand-made ice cream cakes. Classic car cruise night every Tuesday!

Open Daily 11am–10pm

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CALENDAR

July 8

Antique & Classic Auto Event Castle in the Clouds, 10am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

July 25, August 15

Stargazing Castle in the Clouds, 8pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

July 26

Looking to Nature for Stress Relief Castle in the Clouds, 2pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

August 2

The Land Before Lucknow

August 2

August 5

Amos Lee with Opener Bailen u

Shaker Inspirations: A Day of Music and Dance

Capitol Center for the Arts, 7:30pm CCANH.COM

Canterbury Shaker Village, 10am–5pm WWW.SHAKERS.ORG

August 7

Yoga Hike

August 2–12

The Graduate The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, matinees at 2pm August 3 & 7 WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

Castle in the Clouds, 9am WWW.CASTLEIN THECLOUDS.ORG

Castle in the Clouds, 7pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

August 20

Tj Wheeler and Charlie Jennison Concert Enjoy blues master Tj Wheeler and master saxophonist Charlie Jennison.

Ayan Imai-Hall, a widely respected tap dancer, will add his percussive tap to the festivities. Bring lawn chairs, blankets, picnics, and beverages and enjoy a concert in the garden. Or take advantage of our food truck.

Bedrock Gardens, 5pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

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W W W. A R O U N D C O N C O R D . C O M

www.aroundconcord.com

Shop Local In & Around Concord

UNIQUE SHOPPING

Veronica Delay

League of NH Craftsmen Concord Fine Craft Gallery 36 North Main Street Concord, NH (603) 228-8171 www.nhcrafts.org/concord

Wedding registry & graduation gifts available!

Marketplace New England

Goldsmiths Gallery, LLC

7 North Main Street Concord, NH (603) 227-6297 www.marketplacenewengland.com Unique Gifts – Locally Crafted

2 Capital Plaza - 57 North Main Street Concord, NH (603) 224-2920 goldsmiths-gallery.com facebook.com/GoldsmithsGalleryNH

Mon–Fri 9:30am–6pm, Sat 9:30am–5pm

Open Mon–Sun; check website for hours

Marshall’s Florist

Fuller’s Sugarhouse

151 King Street, Boscawen, NH (603) 796-2272 Find us on Facebook

267 Main Street Lancaster, NH (877) 788-2719 www.FullersSugarhouse.com

Family owned and operated thirdgeneration, professional, full-service florist.

Mon–Fri 9am–5:30pm Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 9am–4pm

Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10am–3pm

Tue–Fri 10am–5:30pm Sat 10am–4pm, Closed Sun & Mon

Duncraft Wild Bird Superstore 102 Fisherville Road Concord, NH (603) 224-3522 www.duncraft.com Mon–Sat 9am–5pm

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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in g

ne

CALENDAR O i l s & Pr o

H.R. Clough, Inc.

Four Generations of Dependable Expert Family Service

WHEN IT COMES TO HOME COMFORT WE ARE YOUR SPECIALISTS. • Pure Comfort heating oil & premium propane • Complete HVAC systems – including oil, gas, & solid fuel – design, installation and service

• Alternative energy systems • Water treatment & UV air purification systems • Generator sales, installation and service • 24-hour emergency service available • Over 75 years in the home heating industry!

76 Pine Street | Contoocook | 746.3456 29 Depot Street | Warner | 456.2426 800.730.2426 | www.hrclough.com

Through October 15

20th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit Millbrook Gallery & Sculpture Garden THEMILLBROOKGALLERY.COM Sanctuary, by Lindley Briggs.

August 12

Family Fun Day Castle in the Clouds, 11am WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

August 16–26

Round and Round the Garden

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Share the wonder of our beautiful area and the latest news all year long with an Around Concord gift subscription.

Be sure to order a subscription for yourself too!

Send a check for $19.95 for one year (4 issues) to: Around Concord 30 Terrill Park Drive, Concord, NH 03301.

Or purchase online at www.aroundconcord.com.

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The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, matinees at 2pm August 17 & 21 WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

August 19, 20

Open House Featuring Weird and Wonderful Wildlife On Sunday, Wildlife Encounters will bring a collection of reptiles, mammals, and birds from around the world. There also will be music from 12–2pm on Saturday by Dale’s Jazz Lab. Bedrock Gardens, Sat 10am–4pm; Sun 12–4pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

Discover more of what's happening

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ADVERTISERS INDEX A&B Lumber .............................................. Outside back cover

Independence Financial ...........................................................51

Able Insurance ...........................................................................31

Intown Concord ........................................................................27

Alan's of Boscawen ............................................................ 67, 71

Johnny Prescott Oil ..................................................................... 1

Annis & Zellers...........................................................................21

Kimball Jenkins ......................................................................... 19

Arnie's .........................................................................................67

Landforms ...................................................................................15

Banks Chevrolet ............................................ Inside back cover

League of NH Craftsmen .................................................39, 69

Better Hearing ...........................................................................45

Makris .........................................................................................67

Bow Plumbing............................................................................23 Centennial Inn ...........................................................................35 Century 21 Circa '72.................................................................63 Charter Trust ............................................................................... 9 Cobb Hill Construction ............................................................21 Colby Hill Inn ...................................................................... 37, 67 Concord Farmer's Market ......................................................59 Concord Orthodontics .............................................................. 3

August 5, 6

Concord Pediatric Dentistry ...................................................13

Open House

CRW Landscaping....................................................................70

The gardens offer peace, tranquility, horticultural expertise, and artistic awareness.

Bedrock Gardens, Sat 10am–4pm; Sun 12–4pm BEDROCKGARDENS.ORG

August 23

Lecture: Long-Distance Hiking Castle in the Clouds, 7pm WWW.CASTLEINTHECLOUDS.ORG

Duncraft ......................................................................................69 Easterseals ..................................................................................12

Marketplace New England .....................................................69 Marshall's Florist ............................................................... 37, 69 Merrimack County Savings...................................................... 8 Mill Falls Marketplace .............................................................29 NH Music Festival ....................................................................27 Revival Kitchen ..........................................................................67 Rowley Agency..........................................................................45 Rumford Stone ..............................................Inside front cover Serendipity Day Spa.................................................................23 Shaheen & Gordon ...................................................................59 Smokeshow BBQ ...............................................................39, 67

Endicott Furniture ....................................................................... 7

Sugar River Bank .......................................................................35

Exit Realty ....................................................................................71

Tasker Landscaping ................................................................... 11

Fuller's Sugar House ......................................................... 27, 69

The Hodges Companies .........................................................29

Galleria Stone & Tile .................................................................17

Upton & Hatfield ...................................................................... 19

Goldsmith's ................................................................................69

Valpey Financial .......................................................................... 5

Granite State Glass ...................................................................31

Veano's.................................................................................63, 67

Hopkinton Fair ............................................................................51

Vintage Kitchens .......................................................................17

HR Clough ..................................................................................70

White Mountain Attractions ................................................... 2

For more information about print and online advertising opportunities, contact (603) 538-3141 or publisher@aroundconcord.com.

August 29

National Theatre Live HD Rebroadcast: Salome Capitol Center for the Arts, 6pm CCANH.COM

August 30–September 9

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance The Winnipesaukee Playhouse, Mon–Sat 7:30pm, matinees at 2pm August 31 & September 4 WWW.WINNIPESAUKEEPLAYHOUSE.ORG

GREAT BEGINNINGS REQUIRE A FIRST STEP. IF YOU’RE CONSIDERING BUYING OR SELLING, CONTACT US FIRST.

KATHLEEN AHLIN

FRANCHISEE, BROKER OF RECORD

EXIT REALTY GREAT BEGINNINGS

6 GARVINS FALLS RD. | CONCORD, NH 03301

603.856.7169

September 1–4

Hopkinton State Fair Fri–Sun 8am–11pm, Mon 8am–7pm WWW.HSFAIR.ORG

www.aroundconcord.com

Alan’s of Boscawen 133 No. Main Street, Rte. 3, Boscawen, NH (603) 753-6631 | www.alansofboscawen.com Alan’s of Boscawen, a family-owned restaurant, has been a local favorite in the Concord area for over 25 years providing great food, catering, and dining experiences.

Featuring live entertainment Fri & Sat 8:30pm–12am.

Open daily, including breakfast Sat & Sun.

Celebrate your Wedding, Shower, or Graduation with us. Call for details!

SUMMER 2017 | AROUND CONCORD

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LAST WORD

W

hen you’re sick of complexity— family moving in ten directions at once, recipes that require a lowhumidity atmosphere, and too many guests for too few rooms—there is always the simplicity of lemonade: 1.

Squeeze the juice of as many or as few lemons as you want.

2. Mix with ice-cold water.

3. Add something sweet, to taste.

4. Finish with a little mint.

5. Grab a good book and sit with your feet in fresh, clear water.

SUBMIT YOUR WORK We are looking to showcase the talents of local photographers, artists, poets, and creative souls who call the greater Concord area their home. Submit your work for consideration for this page in a future issue.

editor@aroundconcord.com 72

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