Yankee Magazine September/October 2018

shorelines,

124

Reading Emily

To describe the experience of reading Emily Dickinson’s poems, you probably wouldn’t use a word like grueling ... unless you’re reading all 1,789 of them, aloud, in a single day.

By Julia Shipley

128

The Big Question

We ask Gary Bimonte of the much-revered Frank Pepe’s Pizzeria Napoletana: What’s the meaning of pie?

130

Port in a Storm

Since the start of the opioid epidemic, the fishing town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, has found itself on the front lines of a war seemingly without end. By Ian Aldrich

Photograph by Mark Fleming; styling by Chloe Barcelou. Vintage truck courtesy of Eric and Alice Roper. Model: Waffles. Photographed in Kent, Connecticut.

ON

Fall colors blanket the slopes of Mount Battie as it rises over the harbor in Camden, Maine.

I can hear it now. “Where have you guys been?” A complicated question, certainly. We had a destination in mind, at least at first. But really the “where” is constantly changing as you peer out over Route 15. And our destination – our goal – turned out to not be a place at all. Our goal was appreciation. Everywhere we stopped, images were emblazoned on our minds. Independent of route and time, it was beautiful. This is me.

JOURNEY NO.52

DOWNEAST & THE MAINE HIGHLANDS

home

28 /// Beacon on the Water

From 3,000 miles away, a lakeside cottage calls out to a writer in need of solace. By Joyce Maynard

40 /// Open Studio

New Hampshire’s Jon Gibson transforms pewter into instant heirlooms. By Annie Graves

48 /// House for Sale

At a classic 1750s farmstead in New Salem, Massachusetts, each passing era has left its own mark (or mystery). By the Yankee Moseyer

54 /// Her Own Sweet Time

Former Hollywood exec Gesine Bullock-Prado is baking up a storm in Vermont—and savoring life like never before. By Amy

Traverso

66 /// Cooking at Cottage Farm

Enjoy the first flavors of fall with a colorful, healthy apple and squash salad. By Krissy O’Shea

travel

70 /// Could You Live Here?

A perennial foliage favorite, the hill town of Kent, Connecticut, pulses with culture, history, and a timeless community spirit. By Kim Knox Beckius

80 /// The Best 5

Polish up your windshield for these glorious drive-to foliage views. By Kim Knox

Beckius

82 /// Out & About

From country fairs to city festivals, we round up regional events that are worth the drive.

DEAR YANKEE, CONTRIBUTORS & POETRY BY D.A.W. 12

INSIDE YANKEE

14

MARY’S FARM

Honoring the faithfulness of a beloved boat. By Edie Clark

16

LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

Compression wood inspires a meditation on the gifts of resilience. By Ben Hewitt

20

FIRST LIGHT

How the birch tree makes artists of us all. By

Castle Freeman Jr.

KNOWLEDGE & WISDOM

A primer on jumbled geography, love advice from Late Night host Seth Meyers, and a look back at the Merritt Parkway’s road to landmark status.

Affectionately dubbed the Eiffel Tower of Boston, the Citgo sign shines on.

of Rhode Island boat designer N.G. Herreshoff.

Cruise the Columbia & Snake Rivers in complete comfort aboard our elegant new riverboats. Each stop along the epic route forged by Lewis & Clark has its own story, embodied in the history, culture, and beauty of the region. Small Ship Cruising Done Perfectly.®

1121 Main St., P.O. Box 520, Dublin, NH 03444. 603-563-8111; editor@yankeemagazine.com

EDITORIAL

EDITOR Mel Allen

ART DIRECTOR Lori Pedrick

DEPUTY EDITOR Ian Aldrich

MANAGING EDITOR Jenn Johnson

SENIOR EDITOR/FOOD Amy Traverso

HOME & GARDEN EDITOR Annie Graves

ASSOCIATE EDITOR Joe Bills

PHOTO EDITOR Heather Marcus

SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER Mark Fleming

DIGITAL EDITOR Aimee Tucker

DIGITAL ASSISTANT EDITOR Cathryn McCann

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Kim Knox Beckius, Edie Clark, Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Krissy O’Shea, Julia Shipley

CONTRIBUTING

PHOTOGRAPHERS Kindra Clineff, Sara Gray, Corey Hendrickson, Joe Keller, Joel Laino, Little Outdoor Giants, Michael Piazza, Heath Robbins, Carl Tremblay

PRODUCTION

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS David Ziarnowski, Susan Gross

SENIOR PRODUCTION ARTISTS Jennifer Freeman, Rachel Kipka

DIGITAL

VP NEW MEDIA & PRODUCTION Paul Belliveau Jr.

DIGITAL MARKETING MANAGER Amy O’Brien

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Travel: Best Foliage Train Tours

Where to find a railway adventure that takes you into the heart of fall color.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ FOLIAGE-TRAINS

Recipes: Yankee’s Favorite Pumpkin Dishes

We round up a dozen sweet and spicy recipes, from pancakes to whoopie pies.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ PUMPKIN-RECIPES

Travel: Quiet Fall Drives for Leaf Peepers

Discover four lesser-known routes that offer big color and smaller crowds.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ QUIET-DRIVES

Food: New England’s Top Apple Orchards

Our guide to the prime picking spots for fall’s most beloved fruit.

NEWENGLAND.COM/ APPLE-ORCHARDS

Rolling through autumn in the White Mountains on the Conway Scenic Railroad.

View from Buzzard’s Bay looking to Dartmouth with a Portuguese whale boat and schooner Shennandoah in the bay • image by Sergio Dabdoub

CHLOE BARCELOU

The fashion editor for Yankee ’s sister publication, New Hampshire Magazine, Barcelou brought her eye for styling to this issue’s cover shoot. Together with her partner, Brandon Batchelder (shown at left), she owns B&C Productions, which does set design and styling for film and photography. The two live in a handmade “tiny home” on wheels, residing around New England with a pair of rescue bunnies.

ROWAN JACOBSEN

After his first-ever visit to the Isles of Shoals [“The Essence of Appledore,” p. 114], Jacobsen—who’d “always thought they sounded like the most romantic place in the world”—fell so hard for the islands that he returned the next summer to teach a nature writing workshop. A native Vermonter, he has published seven books, including A Geography of Oysters, and is a recent MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow.

JOYCE MAYNARD

A Granite Stater transplanted to California, the bestselling author made a deeply personal homecoming when she bought a little lake house near Crotched Mountain [“Beacon on the Water,” p. 28]. This fall, fulfilling a long-held dream, she’s back on the East Coast for another reason: “I’ll be returning to the college I dropped out of 46 years ago, Yale University, where I’ll resume my studies as a sophomore.”

ANDREA BRUCE

An award-winning photojournalist, Bruce knew that some might shy away from her camera when she went to Gloucester, Massachusetts, for a story on the opioid crisis [“Port in a Storm,” p. 130]. “But in this community, as in many, addiction affects everyone— that’s what I concentrated on,” says Bruce, who is currently working on a project in partnership with the Pulitzer Center about how the U.S. sees democracy.

JIM SALGE

Immersing yourself in peak autumn color is an “amazing experience,” says Salge, a New Hampshire photographer and Yankee ’s resident fall foliage expert. “I have to make sure I step back from the camera from time to time and just take it all in!” In addition to enjoying Salge’s photography in our travel feature “Peak Perfection” [p. 99], you can find his foliage reports and tips on NewEngland.com all season long.

JULIA SHIPLEY

Saying it felt a bit like “a cross between a séance and a birthday party,” contributing editor Shipley recently joined in a marathon reading of Emily Dickinson’s complete works at the poet’s former Massachusetts home [“Reading Emily,” p. 124]. The whole time, she recalls, “I couldn’t help wonder what the famously reclusive poet would have thought of all these people celebrating her once-secret poems ... in her living room.”

With Gratitude

I write with tears in my eyes, having just finished Geoffrey Douglass’s exquisite article about his late stepson [“Searching for Alexander,” July/August]. What an extraordinary young man he was. It was brave of Geoffrey and his family to share their story, and I am so grateful they did. The gentleness and unconditional love they had for Alexander, so vivid in Geoffrey’s telling, is a reminder that we cannot control the outcome of our loved ones’ lives, but we can walk beside them and be sure they know they are loved and not alone.

Marjorie Matthews

Hanover, New Hampshire

Editors’ note: “Searching for Alexander” proved to be a keenly moving article for so many readers that we’ve posted additional letters with the online version of the story, at newengland.com/alexander.

Fresh Reminder

Your article about the Tuttle family farm [“Corn Season,” July/August] brought back cherished memories. Our local farmer, Warren, lived less than a mile away from us in New Milford, Connecticut, but he would not pick corn until we phoned him to tell him we were on the way to pick it up. And when we pulled into the dirt driveway, he would appear in his not-so-clean overalls and first ask if we had put the water on to boil before we left the house. Anyone who hadn’t would get a lecture about the importance of cooking corn within minutes of picking. There was no better taste, and the best of today’s corn is a weak comparison.

Sally Rinehart Keene, New Hampshire

Mail Cull

As a longtime Yankee subscriber, I savor every issue and have saved several (or parts of several) in files I keep for “Places I Want to Visit,” “Gift Ideas,” and “Inspiration/Interesting People.”

PAT PIASECKI (BARCELOU); MARK FLEMING (MAYNARD, SALGE); JEFF HUTCHENS (BRUCE).

INDIAN HILL PRESS (“SEASON’S GIFTS”)

SEASON’S

I recently decided that it was time to cut down on the 18 (yes, 18!) magazine subscriptions that I had delivered to our home; I had to pick four and let the others go. These are the ones that made the cut: Mother Earth News, Real Simple, Food Network , and Yankee. An eclectic bunch to be sure, but all of them have one common thread: I smile every single time I see them in my mailbox.

Thank you for putting together such a wonderful publication time and time again. As a former freelance journalist, I know better than most readers the challenges you face, yet in spite of them Yankee continues to rise to the occasion.

Lori Joyal Sudbury, Massachusetts

What Autumn Teaches

am writing this during the third week of July. On this day I will enjoy about 15 hours of daylight. By mid-September, when the first foliage seekers visit the mountains and lakes of northern New England, the light will have lessened by two and a half hours. When the roads fill with tourists in mid-October, sunrise to sunset will be just a shade over 10 and a half hours. I will miss those hours of sun I have today, but the timeless paradox of autumn remains: The colors that give us this signature season could not happen without the coming darkness. As the light wanes and the nights cool, trees absorb less energy from the sun; the chlorophyll that gives its green chemical to the leaves softens its hold, and reds and yellows and shades of orange seep through. The most exuberant foliage in the world now takes the stage.

Writers often describe fall in fierce language. Colors “erupt,” “explode,” “blaze,” “catch fire.” When we view foliage when colors are at peak, the feeling is one of dramatic change, as if, indeed, they’ve erupted. In reality, the change comes quietly, subtly, with some trees clinging to green while others in the same landscape are laced with gold and scarlet. In “Peak Perfection” [p. 99], we offer a road map of sorts, from north to south, highlands to sea, a journey through seven distinct New England regions where fall finds its footing. The traveler can use it for a day trip, or an odyssey. (Wherever you go, check in with Yankee ’s online color finder for maps, photos, and weekly updates: newengland.com/fall-foliage.)

The paradox of light and dark emerges also in “Beacon on the Water” [p. 28]. Novelist and essayist Joyce Maynard fell in love in her 50s, only to see her husband fall seriously ill. In the depths of winter, she found solace by imagining the life they could have in a New Hampshire lake cottage she had discovered for sale online.

The lesson that author and baker Gesine Bullock-Prado imparts [“Her Own Sweet Time,” p. 54] is familiar to anyone who has nurtured a dream and refused to settle. On a visit to Vermont, Bullock-Prado saw her own light, and followed it from Los Angeles to launch a bakery and a new career.

A theme that resonates throughout Ian Aldrich’s account of the opioid crisis in Gloucester, Massachusetts [“Port in a Storm,” p. 130], is how hope and despair can exist in the same space, at the same time. He spoke with those who are committed to the struggle to stop the downward spiral of lives derailed by addiction. It is a story that reminds us how fragile and precious life can be.

Every year autumn makes this clear. Six weeks is too brief to waste. It’s why the people who enjoy the season most are the ones who drive slowly, their windows open. They stop often. And more than anything, they know that when they come across one single gorgeous tree, they have

Mel Allen

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The Winter Mooring

Honoring the faithfulness of a beloved boat.

he first house I owned in this area was a small Cape in the woods. When the leaves were off the trees, from the upstairs bedroom window I could see the sparkle of Seaver Pond, part of a chain of lakes that passes through the town. In between the lakes, the streams ebb and flow with the action of the dams. I can only imagine all the factories that ran on the power of this water. I know that one made clothespins. Another belted out woolens. I’ve heard that back then a thick residue and the brilliant colors of industry accumulated on certain ponds. People of that era understood the purpose of the waters around them, but they probably didn’t have much chance to enjoy them or worship their beauty. This is our privilege. When my husband was alive, we used to put our boat into Silver Lake just about every night after work. Often we’d go out at sunrise as well. It didn’t matter that we didn’t have a house on the water. Our boat gave us all the proximity to the lake we could hope for. As long as the water was free of ice, we’d set forth. We’d row past the cottages, smell the bacon cooking, see smoke rising from a chimney, and keep rowing until there was just open water and trees at the edge. No one else but us. There we’d swim or drop a line in and let the boat drift. Great blue herons would startle up out of the bog. Loons would cry and, once or twice, surface next to the boat, fixing a red eye on us.

The boat was made by a boatbuilder on Cape Cod for an elderly man who went blind soon after taking possession of the little craft. We bought the boat from him with a mixture of excitement over our purchase and sadness for the man who had never been able to use what he obviously had wanted. I often think of him and all the peaceful evenings he missed out on. The boat is flat-bottomed and stable, painted white on the outside and dark gray inside, a color scheme we kept like the tenets of a religion. I still have the boat, but I don’t go out in it as often. When I do, the experience is just as magical. On good evenings, I sometimes push off, dropping oars into water so clear you can see 20 feet down to the bottom. The rhythm of the rowing, lift and drop, lift and drop, can soothe just about any anxieties I have ever had.

In the fall, I reluctantly bring the boat home, imagining a summer when I will once again go out every night and early mornings, too. It takes two to carry the boat to the barn, so I always enlist the help of a friend. Together we lift the upside-down pram from the back of the pickup. The oarlocks dangle from their chains as we walk through the wide-open doors of the big barn. In the back, a set of sawhorses awaits. We sidestep into position, eyeballing the proportion of boat to sawhorse until it’s balanced just right, and bring her to rest on her wooden winter mooring. I run my hand over the bottom, the paint flaky from a summer of sun and water. I think about the spring, when I’ll scrape and smooth her, apply the special marine paint and then the spar varnish to her gunwales. It’s a special kind of love that paints a good boat, and it’s a good boat that can take you so many extraordinary places within the circle of a modest lake and a life so short.

This essay originally appeared in the September 2002 issue of Yankee . To learn more about Edie Clark, read her selected articles and essays, or order her books, go to edieclark.com.

Lessons from the Scrap Pile

Compression wood inspires a meditation on the gifts of resilience and being OK with imperfection.

y friend Ross is a bit older than me, which is a nice way of saying that I’m pretty sure he’s on the wrong side of 70, though he makes the wrong side of 70 look as if it might not be the absolute worst thing in the world. Ross is a semi-retired forester, a man who knows the woods as only a person who’s spent better than half a century in the woods can know them. He’ll tell you the difference between a black ash and a white ash from 50 paces, or where to find a basswood tree. He talks about trees the way most of us talk about old friends, as if living wood were a sentient being. Which, for all I know, it is.

I’ve seen a lot of Ross lately because he and I have both been teaching at Sterling College, a small school (student body: 135) in the village of Craftsbury Common, about 15 miles west of my home. I’d wager that Craftsbury Common is one of the most picturesque villages in Vermont: It’s all white clapboard and green shutters, a few-dozen-strong cluster of old farmhouses in good repair. Many of these structures belong to the college, which makes up a goodly portion of the town. There’s an expansive green in the center of town, a well-appointed library, and a small public school serving elementary through high school students. Because of the college, which is oriented around environmental stewardship and sustainable agriculture, it’s not uncommon to see a yoked team of oxen sauntering down Main Street. Indeed, I once witnessed a team of oxen being passed by a student shuttling between classes on his skateboard. This pleased me no end.

Working at Sterling was my first formal teaching experience, and I loved it. I didn’t know I’d love it or even if I’d like it, or what to expect at all, but I figured I could gut out the semester no matter what. Ross would see me on campus, usually in the dining hall, and he’d ask me how it was going, and when I told him how much I enjoyed my class and especially my students, he’d smile his big smile and say, “Oh, good.” Then he’d say, “I’ve gotta get you a copy of ‘Compression Wood.’” He’d been after me to read that Franklin Burroughs essay all semester, though he never really said why. But I could tell from the way he smiled that he loved the essay, and that he was pretty sure it’d speak to me, too.

Ross finally delivered “Compression Wood” to my school mailbox. It’s a long piece, nearly 20 pages, and the first time I read it, I read it slowly, over a period of days. The essay centers on Burroughs’s friend Rod McIver, who has schooled him on the qualities of compression wood, which develops in a leaning tree as a response to the force of gravity. Compression wood, as McIver explains, is not useful wood; when sawed into lumber, it always wants to twist and warp and bend. It’s of little economic value. McIver sorts it into the scrap pile but figures it might not be worth even that. “I waste nothing,” McIver tells Burroughs. “Except my time.”

Maybe just appreciate compression wood for what it is. Something unique. Resilient. Even a little defiant.

Compression Wood , 2011, a relief print made from a cross-cut trunk by the late Connecticut artist Bryan Nash Gill.

To Burroughs, of course, compression wood is something more than lowgrade lumber. It is a metaphor for that which does not fit in, for that which is imbued with strength and character but, for reasons beyond its control, lacks sufficient market value. Perhaps, Burroughs muses in his essay, the character of compression wood, the way it forms in response to a particular set of circumstances in a particular tree, and the very lack of extrinsic value, was actually proof of another type of value altogether. Call it artistic, or intangible. Or think of it in relation to the living tree, for which compression wood is plenty valuable; it enables the tree to survive, after all. Or maybe don’t call it anything or think of it at all. Maybe just appreciate it for what it is. Something unique. Resilient. Maybe even a little defiant.

My Friday class met in the mornings; by the time I returned home, it’d

be 12:30 or 1 p.m., and I’d warm up the tractor while I changed clothes, then ride into the woods, the tires churning through the deep snow. The urge to be in the woods—and not just in the woods, but working in the woods—was particularly strong on the days I taught. This was a response, I suspect, to the relatively sedate and cerebral nature of the classroom. It was also a response to the fact that the next winter’s firewood wasn’t going to cut itself.

So to the woods I went, and there I experienced, as always, the bone-deep satisfaction of labor, the sensation of my muscles strengthening in response to stress, like the fibers of a leaning tree. And, concurrently, the less physical but no less tangible satisfaction of maintaining a connection to the raw ingredients of my family’s well-being. “People who don’t work with primary resources don’t understand reality,” says McIver

in “Compression Wood.” Maybe he’s right; maybe he’s not. But I understand what he means. It does feel a little crazy to be so disconnected from the fundamentals.

Next time I bump into Ross, I’m going to tell him how much I liked “Compression Wood,” how it spoke to so many aspects of my life, and in so many ways. And I’ll tell him that my favorite lines are these:

You cannot ask yourself what you are doing here, or why you are doing it, because those questions lack answers that would fit anybody’s definition of sanity. You can only keep doing it, doggedly, deliberately, scrupulously, as though in obedience to something, or in honor of it.

As though in obedience to something, or in honor of it. I think of Ross, and his relationship to the forest, and the way he makes it seem as if a tree is never just a tree, but an actual being. I think of my own work in the woods, every step of it in defiance of economic sensibility. For if I allocated even a modest wage to my time, and calculated the true cost of operating saw and tractor, surely I could purchase firewood far cheaper than I can cut it. I think of the chores that bookend our days, and how from the outside they must seem burdensome, and even boring, always the same routine of water and feed and fencing. Our last family vacation was in 2007. That’s not a lament, just a statement of fact.

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Finally, I think of being in class, and telling my students one of the hardest truths about writing: that most of what anyone writes—and I’m talking about even good writers, the very best, probably even Franklin Burroughs—isn’t worth much. It belongs in the low-grade pile, right there with McIver’s compression wood . Just forget about that stuff, I said. Besides, you gotta get through the bad to get to the good. It’s part of the process. You’re not wasting anything.

And here I paused before finishing, already pleased with myself: Well, except your time

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First LIGHT

The Artist’s Tree

There’s a reason that photographers and painters are drawn to the white birch.

BY CASTLE FREEMAN JR.

f the forests of the North had lacked the white birch tree, then the painters, printmakers, watercolorists, photographers, and other visual interpreters of New England would have been obliged to invent it. No tree, no other part of our outdoor setting, has been of more use to art. Through all four seasons and in a variety of surroundings, the white or paper birch ( Betula papyrifera ) reliably supplies what landscape designers call “visual interest.” It’s by no means a flamboyant, show-offy tree, but by its unique coloration and habit of growth, it makes its pale, slender presence very welcome. It’s not for nothing that the white birch is New Hampshire’s officially designated state tree.

Birch trees don’t so much add to an outdoor scene as construct it. If you’re on a bushwhack in the woods of southern Vermont, where I live, you may find the forest around you hard to grasp: a shifting, blending, flickering curtain of greens, shading into one another, largely unrelieved save by the birches, whose familiar white trunks mark out the perspective that lets you know where you’re going.

Some of America’s best-loved painters, especially of the 19th and 20th centuries, made good use of the white birch’s aptitude for creating focus in landscape: Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Frederic Remington, John Singer Sargent, Georgia O’Keeffe. Their affinity for the birch tree is easy to understand. The alabaster trunk, white and smooth as schoolroom chalk, with its black bands and patches

Massachusetts artist Julia S. Powell says her 2016 painting Autumn Hill, like much of her work, was inspired by her frequent rambles through the New England countryside.

PAINTING BY JULIA S. POWELL

where the bark has been removed or injured, makes a sharp and vivid stop for the eye. It makes a contrast —and contrast is where art begins, or near enough. Isn’t it? However that may be, the birch, like a kind of natural plein air still life, seems to insist on being painted. This tree makes impressionists of us all.

The tree is a mainstay of art classes. Students and instructors have found it the ideal subject. It’s hard to get a birch tree wrong.

None of this is to say that the white birch’s value is confined to the artistic. Not at all. We are talking about one of the most useful, most versatile trees in our woods. The hard, pale, closegrained wood of the birch is popular with woodworkers for its natural satiny finish and fancy grains similar to the maple’s. Birch wood gives us house -

hold ware from bowls to spoons to toothpicks. For its light weight, it’s an unexpectedly strong wood that makes excellent veneer and interior plywood, including for skateboards, kitchen cabinets, even light aircraft.

The best-known of the birch tree’s many products, however, must be the legendary bark canoes built by the forest Indians of North America going back to prehistory. These remarkable vessels, miracles of Neolithic naval engineering, take advantage of white birch bark’s singular flexibility and tensile strength. Sheets of bark were stripped from the birch’s trunk, cut to shape, stitched together, fastened down onto a wooden frame, and caulked tight. The result was a light, graceful structure of extraordinary strength, able to float bearing a burden many times its own weight.

Today, the making of birchbark canoes figures mainly as a traditional craft. More up to date is another of the birch tree’s beneficial applications: as food and medicine. Birch trees can be tapped like maples and their sap enjoyed as syrup or as birch beer. To many, the syrup is heavier and closer in taste to molasses than maple syrup. It’s not as sweet as maple, and therefore needs more refining. Sugar maple sap boils down to syrup at a ratio of 40 gallons of sap to one gallon of syrup; the ratio for birch sap is 100 gallons to one. Good, sound New England Yankees that they are, the birches make you work a little harder for your treat.

Herbalists use and praise every part of the tree: leaves, twigs, bark, root. Various preparations of birch leaves have been used as a sleeping draft, a diuretic, a wash for skin lesions, a solvent for kidney stones, and a specific for gout, rheumatism, and arthritis. The white birch is the apothecary shop of the north woods.

But although the birch tree is generous in its gifts to us, it’s not alone in bestowing those gifts. Other trees supply wood for our many projects; still others please our palates and minister to our complaints. To conclude our celebration of the white birch tree, we pass by the utilitarian and come around again to considerations of art.

The white birch is not a rich maker of autumn color. Its leaves turn a pale, subdued yellow. They concede the brightest display to the sugar maples, poplars, and sumacs that dominate the hillside palette. It’s when other trees’ leaves have gone that the birches’ shining trunks show forth to do their work of perfecting the season by repeating in the woods the classic white clapboards and black shutters of our hamlets and villages. The white birch tree is much loved in New England because it shows New England to itself.

We go to great heights to capture a story.

nhpbs.org

Road Test

Going round and round the Hub of the Universe.

oston’s jumbled geography makes it hard to figure out which end is up. South Boston is east of downtown and north of more than half of the city. East Boston is north of downtown, and the South End is far north of West Roxbury, which itself is almost at the southern end or bottom. Compass directions are almost useless in Boston.

Hardly anywhere do parallel streets run north-south and east-west. When paths were needed to get across town, many of them followed uneven curves to connect radial streets. As a result, Washington Street and Congress Street begin a short block apart and are six blocks apart when they reach Summer and High streets only about five blocks south.

Visitors are shocked to see so many repeated street names. Forty-seven street names appear three or more times. Washington Street appears five times. It ties for second place with six others: Everett, Franklin, Mt. Vernon, Park, School, and Walnut. Lincoln appears six times. Ten street names show up four times each.

Some street names change midcourse. Atlantic becomes Commercial and then Causeway, and Stuart turns into Kneeland. Visitors springing along through Boston might fall down in amazement when they discover that Summer becomes Winter in Downtown Crossing.

—“Jumbled Geography” by Judith Cohen, January 1990

(born December 28, 1973). Raised in Bedford, New Hampshire, host marks his five-year wedding anniversary this September. Of his wife, Alexi Ashe, he says he’s “in awe”: She has a tough job as a human-rights lawyer, “and yet I’m the one who comes home in a bad mood if a show doesn’t go well, and she’s

“My mother has laughed at everything my dad has said for the last 40 years. My brother and I both learned that if you can make a beautiful woman laugh, you can do way better than you should be doing.”

Compiled by Julia Shipley

37.5 Length in miles of the Merritt Parkway (Greenwich to Stratford, CT)

1

Number of direct routes through Connecticut before the Merritt Parkway (U.S. 1)

6/29/38

Date that the parkway’s first portion opened to the public

140

Number of cars in the openingday procession, including one carrying former U.S. Rep. Schuyler Merritt, the parkway’s namesake

$21M Cost of parkway construction in 1940 dollars

$360M

Cost of parkway construction in 2017 dollars

69

Number of unique bridges designed by architect George Dunkelberger for the parkway

1991

Year the Merritt Parkway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

47,700

Number of mountain laurels planted to landscape the parkway

ZERO

Number of commercial trucks, trailers, and buses allowed

The High Sign

A look at the landmark affectionately dubbed the Eiffel Tower of Boston.

t would make a great quiz show question: Which Boston icon has been in attendance for more than 4,000 consecutive Red Sox home games? Need a hint? This American-bred celeb became a Venezuelan national in 1990…. Still stumped? Perhaps the cameo in Field of Dreams caught your eye? Or the star turn in a 1968 short film featuring music by the Beatles? Or the 1983 photo essay in Life ?

The winning answer, of course, is Kenmore Square’s Citgo sign, which first pulsed to life on a Beacon Street rooftop in 1965.

Its prominent perch between Fenway Park’s Green Monster and the Charles River had been occupied for 25 years by the green-on-white Cities Service sign. Cities Service grew from a holding company for regional gas and electric utilities in 1910 into the largest oil producer for the Allied Forces by the end of World War I. In 1965 the company adopted Citgo as a trademark and later took it on as its corporate name. Citgo was purchased by the Venezuelan government in 1990.

The 60-by-60-foot sign, with its flashing red triangle on a flashing white background, was designed by Massachusetts native Arthur King. It soon became a favorite target of Red Sox power hitters, who renamed it the C-It-Go sign.

Countless people recognize the Citgo sign, but none know it more intimately than its daredevil caretaker for 53 years, Marty Foley of Foley Electric. Suspended in a wooden chair swing, he hoists himself from side to side using a perfected technique that grants him access to nearly 9,000 feet of LED tubes.

The sign’s future has been in doubt on several occasions, most recently in 2016, when the site was purchased by developer Related Beal. In 2017, Related Beal and Citgo announced an agreement to ensure that the sign “will continue to shine brightly for years to come.” —Joe Bills

FROM 3,000 MILES AWAY, A HUMBLE LAKESIDE

beacon on the

water

BY JOYCE MAYNARD

WHEN I LEFT MY NATIVE NEW HAMPSHIRE FOR NORTHERN California at the age of 42, I traded in my down jacket and my Sorel boots and embarked on a love affair with the state. Driving over the Golden Gate Bridge to my new home in Marin County, I never failed to register a little shiver of amazement. I was a small-town girl who skated on ponds, not rinks, and skinny-dipped in swimming holes. What was I doing sitting on the grass in Golden Gate Park taking in a concert? Standing on a beach in Point Reyes and watching the sun come down over the ocean, instead of rising there? Hiking in my T-shirt and shorts in December?

Then I fell in love with Jim, a Midwesterner by birth who’d lived in California since age 4. He’d visited Boston one time, but that was the sum total of his knowledge of the

place I still called home. (A place I missed pretty sorely, I had begun to realize. Particularly the part about the seasons. And the part about swimming in natural bodies of water. And the part about roots, and history.)

One of the things I loved about Jim was his openness to learning about the parts of my life that had come before this one. During our first summer together, he took the only major vacation of his adult life—for the purpose of letting me show him where I came from. We shipped his motorcycle back east, rented a cabin on a lake, and spent the next two months riding the back roads of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. By the end of the summer, Jim had come to love those places the way I did. When we got married the next summer, we held the ceremony on a New Hampshire hillside in one of my favorite towns: Harrisville, a few miles down the road from Mount Monadnock, which I’d climbed at least once every year of my adult life. For our honeymoon we hiked the Presidential Range of the White Mountains.

The following summer we returned to New Hampshire, and once again we rented the little lake house where the two of us had enjoyed so many of our happiest times the year before—me in the water, Jim on the dock with his feet up, smoking a cigar. A fishing line in the water, maybe.

Photographs by MARK FLEMING

Styling by HEATHER MARCUS

COTTAGE SPOKE TO THE AUTHOR IN THE MIDST OF SORROW.

Not long after our return home to California—15 months after the wedding—Jim suffered an attack of back pain so bad it sent him to the hospital. The scans he got that day revealed a tumor in his pancreas. The doctor who delivered the news offered little hope.

By the next year, Jim had undergone seven rounds of chemotherapy and a 14-hour surgery, but within months it seemed pretty clear the cancer had come back. By the fall, my husband’s weight was down to 100 pounds and dropping daily. By winter, I knew he was unlikely to make it to another summer. We tried hard to locate moments of joy—and we did—but the knowledge of what lay ahead was sometimes almost too much to bear.

Late that fall, a year into our struggle, I did an odd thing. I created a Google search on my laptop. I typed in the

words “lake house New Hampshire.”

It was a fantasy, my search for a lake house. I didn’t say this out loud, but I know where it came from: I was trying to summon an image of beauty, tranquility, and comfort, and the idea of a little cottage on the shore of some body of water I could dive into on a hot summer day. A place, 3,000 miles away, that whispered to me of what I loved, that would endure, and reminded me of the days when Jim was well and our time seemed endless.

A lake house is about as far removed from a hospital waiting room, or an infusion center, as a person can get. When I launched my quest for a lake property, our days were filled with doctor visits and frantic middle-ofthe-night trips to the emergency room, and sometimes-weeklong hospital stays. In between there were surger-

ies and CT scans. I wasn’t going anywhere, but I could dream.

And my dreams always featured a lake.

Within minutes of registering my search, I saw real estate listings begin to show up in my email. Every day a new one appeared—sometimes several. Because I had given no parameters of price to my search (who names the cost of her fantasy, anyway?), the listings I received included multimillion-dollar estates on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee (I could have been Mitt Romney’s neighbor!) and 4,000-square-foot mansions up north. Those places were so far beyond anything we could afford that even clicking on the listings seemed ridiculous, but there was something comforting in looking at the pictures. Maybe there was even something vaguely reassuring in knowing—when

I did this—that I wouldn’t have wanted to spend my summer in any of those places, anyway. The lake house of my dreams wouldn’t feature granite counter tops or air conditioning. Just an old kitchen table and a screened-in porch, with the breeze passing through.

Then one day a very different listing showed up in my queue. This house was a lot older than most of the others I’d seen, and the lake on which it sat was a very small one I’d never heard of. Built in 1900, with a wraparound porch— part of it open, part screened in—the house overlooked water that didn’t allow motorboats or Jet Skis (welcome news to a swimmer). The house sat on 2½ acres on a dirt road with only a few other houses, none close enough to make skinny-dipping a problem. Inside: a living room with a bay window and fireplace, a big old-fashioned

kitchen, a downstairs bedroom and another upstairs, with high ceilings and exposed beams. The bathroom had old maple paneling. The shower was just where a shower should be, for an unwinterized summer cottage: outside.

At the very top of the house, looking out over the lake, was a little tower with a widow’s walk. Inside was a window seat, and a pantry, and a propane cook stove, and old pine paneling I could almost smell. And one more thing: Though the main house sat on a rise a few hundred yards from the lake, there was a boathouse right on the water, with a deck in front. In the pictures online, it appeared that the boathouse was filled with old hardware and junk, but I knew what I’d do with that structure if the place were mine. I’d clear it out, put in a bed and a writing desk, and throw the windows and doors open. I’d sleep there

summer nights, and when I woke up at dawn I’d dive straight into the lake.

At the time the house was listed for sale, the same family had owned it for over 40 years—the first letter of their last name (“F”) attached to the front in an enormous plywood cutout, painted white against the red of the clapboards. The photographs on the real estate listing (which made clear this house had definitely not been staged) featured exactly the kinds of mismatched couches and chairs you’d expect in an old family camp,

Late that fall, a year into our struggle, I did an odd thing. I created a Google search on my laptop. I typed in the words “lake house New Hampshire.”

PREVIOUS SPREAD : The boathouse at author Joyce Maynard’s New Hampshire home. It looks out on Whittemore Lake, where she begins most summer days with a swim.

THIS SPREAD : Details of the interior and deck of the boathouse, including the desk where Maynard wrote The Best of Us, her memoir about her late husband, Jim.

along with linoleum and curtains that appeared to have been new sometime in the 1950s—right around the time I was born, probably.

Two more things about this house. Though it was hands-down my favorite of any lake house I’d seen, it was

also the cheapest by far. And the town where it sat—population roughly 1,400—was just down the road from the very farm stand where I used to buy my corn, back when I lived in New Hampshire, and only a 15-minute drive from where my daughter lived.

Three summers earlier—that glorious summer Jim and I rode his motorcycle all around New England—we had stopped at the farm stand just when the Silver Queen corn came ripe, and because we had no saddlebags I’d stuffed my motorcycle jacket with a

I’d memorized every picture in the real estate listing. I had studied every mismatched dish on the kitchen shelves. Looking at that lake house calmed me down, in my grief.

baker’s dozen to throw into the pot back at our little rented cabin.

Now the Triumph gathered dust, and its driver was fading. Still, when I showed Jim the pictures of my dream New Hampshire lake house, he smiled and said it looked like just our kind of spot, and if we got it, he’d light up a cigar on that porch, and drop his line into the water off the boathouse dock.

Our days grew darker. We didn’t leave home much anymore, except to fill prescriptions, and mostly I stayed close to my husband’s side. But once a day, I’d make my way, alone, up to the desk where I no longer did any writing, and click on that real estate listing. I’d memorized every picture by now. I had studied every mismatched dish on the kitchen shelves. Looking at that lake house calmed me down, in my grief.

On New Year’s Eve—5 p.m. California time, 8 p.m. on the East Coast— a thought came to me. What if one day, when I clicked on the real estate listing, my lake house (that’s how I thought of it now) had been sold to someone else?

I didn’t even think more than a minute, just dialed the real estate agent. “I’d like to make an offer on the red lake house with the tower on top and the little boathouse,” I said. Then I quoted a price so far below the asking price (but still so far above what was in my bank account) that I should have blushed.

Maynard’s home as seen from the lake. Friends helped convert the shed behind the boathouse into a wood-fired sauna, which she uses almost every night.

For three generations, the builders, blacksmiths and cra smen at Country Carpenters have put their hands and hearts into designing and building the nest New England Style buildings available, using hand-selected materials, hand-forged hardware, hand-built and hand- nished by real people. You can feel the di erence in your heart.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP : The living room, with artwork by Maynard’s friend Daniel Thibeault, a Peterborough artist; a view of the house showing its wraparound porch and the widow’s-walk tower (“I’m still working on figuring out a way to get my chair and a little writing table up there,” Maynard says); the kitchen’s vintage stove, whose propane heater is most welcome on chilly mornings.

He got back to me 10 minutes later with the news that his clients had accepted my offer. I made my way downstairs to tell my husband.

“Jimmy,” I said, “I just bought a house on a lake in New Hampshire, just down the road from where we bought the corn.”

My husband’s response was so like him. “That’s great, baby,” he said.

Over the months that followed, spending more days at the hospital, caring for Jim, as I scrambled to come up with the down payment, and talked

I had still not even seen the house in real life—just those pictures on my computer screen—but my friend Danny hiked in through the snow and assured me (though I already knew this) that there was not one thing about

Jim died that June. Ten days later, I

LEFT : Joyce and Jim at their wedding in Harrisville, New Hampshire. It was a Fourth of July weekend, and right after they were pronounced husband and wife, fireworks displays in three nearby towns got under way.

BELOW : A cheerful mix of front-porch chairs welcomes visitors to the lake house.

closed up our house in California and flew back to New Hampshire. Danny picked me up. We headed straight for my lake house.

The sun was just going down when we turned off the two-lane blacktop onto the bumpy dirt road where the lake house awaited me. For almost half a mile, no houses, only towering pine trees and a few falling-down old camps.

Then we rounded the last bend, and I saw it. There was the big plywood “F” (later I’d take it down and return it to the previous owners) and the red tower—the smallest widow’s walk you’ve ever seen, but big enough for one medium-size woman to set down one small chair. There was the porch, and around the side, the screen porch, with a row of lilacs, though their bloom was past. There was the clothesline, with a couple of wooden clothespins still clipped on, and a rocking chair, and a tree just right for a hammock.

Down by the water I caught sight of the boathouse, and beyond it, the water dappled in the way it does when trout are feeding. Then came the long, low, mournful call of a single loon.

I set my bags on the grass and looked out at the water. Then headed up the steps to the front door. I put my key in the latch. I was home again.

Joyce Maynard’s memoir about falling in love in her late 50s and losing her husband four years later, The Best of Us , will be published in paperback this September.

Redefining the Experience of Aging

A New Generation of Retirees Finds Independence in Unexpected Places

When was the last time you considered “60” as old? Today’s 60- and 70-year-olds are running marathons, starting second careers, and generally bashing the traditional idea of “aging.” Yes, it’s finally happening —our youth-focused culture is acknowledging that there is a lot of life in what many call “the third chapter,” or retirement.

Part of the reason for this trend is the “silver tsunami” that is closer every year. By 2030, we will have more 65-year-olds than at any other time in U.S. history. In addition to the sheer magnitude of people, this group has a longer life expectancy than any prior generation —and will live longer with more complex diseases, thanks to improved medical care. This means their medical costs will be greater.

Not only that, but this group of retirees also has greater expectations of their retirement than any prior generation. After all, boomers have redefined every other social institution they experienced: marrying later, having children later, moving more often, etc.

Today’s retirees are significantly more active than any previous generation. They are physically and mentally more active, and they want to travel more, start new

projects, and find new purpose in life.

Unlike their grandparents, this group can’t count on their children living around the corner. Most adult children are more far-flung than ever, sometimes living across the country. No longer is there the reliable daughter across town—today she may be heading up a company in California. So the traditional 1950s family support model that served for the previous generation is becoming defunct.

Given that people are living longer, and seeking more from their retirement years, and given that social dynamics have changed, how can someone stay independent and still ensure their health care is covered?

Independence with Benefits

There is one solution that has been quietly operating for the past 100 years in the U.S., and whose structure and practices are uniquely positioned for this generation. Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) could be described as “retirement communities with benefits.” There are 1,900 across the country, but just a handful in New England, and they are often misunderstood.

CCRCs, which are also called Life Plan Communities, provide three levels of care: independent, assisted living, and skilled nursing. The critical difference is that people enter the community when they are independent, and can live safely on their own. They enjoy active, independent lives, free of the worries and time-consuming work of home maintenance.

Life as You Like It

With the addition of housekeeping services, inside and outside maintenance, transportation, a meal program, fitness activities, and 24-hour emergency call service, residents have more time to enjoy life, meet friends, and pursue new interests. They create fast friendships, and enjoy the benefits of community living. Meanwhile, they have the assurance that if and when their health needs change, they can transition within the community. Although CCRCs look like beautiful retirement communities, complete with gyms, pools, libraries and arts rooms, moving there is not a real estate decision. CCRCs are an insurance product, and they are governed by each state’s regulatory body. Therefore, a percentage of a resident’s entrance fee and monthly service fee is considered a tax deduction as a prepaid medical expense—a real advantage for many.

Most CCRCs in New England are not-for-profit, and offer a Benevolence Clause, which states that if a resident has outlived their assets (and has not intentionally impoverished themselves) they will not be asked to leave due to lack of funds. The pricing varies by organization, but on the whole, the larger the apartment or cottage you prefer, the more costly the entrance fee and monthly service fee.

Within CCRCs there are contract differences. Some are Type A, which are all-inclusive plans, meaning that as you move from one level of care to the next, your monthly fee does not increase (except for two additional meals per day). Type B or modified contracts offer targeted insurance, typically providing a portion of your health care fee at a discount off of market price, when you need health care. Type C contracts provide independent living at a lower rate, and then offer health care at full market rate.

The solution that CCRCs offer to the next generation of retirees is clear—peace of mind for you and your family, a home where you can be as independent as you like, where you can build a community of friends, secure in the knowledge that if anything changes in your health down the road, you have chosen where you will receive your care.

CCRCs disc ing

To learn more about CCRCs, start by investigating these communities.

Vintage Craft, Modern Polish

From tea sets to martini glasses, New Hampshire’s Jon Gibson transforms pewter into instant heirlooms.

BY ANNIE GRAVES

omething about pewter evokes more than a whiff of colonial history. The early metal conjures up molten threads pouring into molds, the dusky smell of heated tin, the imagination of craftsmen wearing Paul Revere–style billowy shirts and buckled shoes.

“I’ve always loved pewter and the history of this craft,” says Jon Gibson, who practically whispers in the presence of molds from the 1800s at his Washington, New Hampshire, workshop. Confessing he would “travel to the edge of the earth looking for antique tools,” the 58-year-old artisan points to heirlooms for sale alongside his own work at Gibson Pewter: a London Beefeater flagon from the 1640s, squat tankards, a lighthouse-style coffeepot from the 19th century. These pewter ancestors sit on high shelves overlooking Jon’s own dazzling Queen Anne tea sets, spoons, and porringers.

Partly, Gibson’s reverence might be his way of acknowledging loss—too many molds were melted down during the Civil War, their bronze used for armaments. But it might also be a nod to heredity: There’s a black-and-white photo of him, age 8, scowling as his dad,

Raymond, leans over the workbench. “They made me put on a clean shirt for that picture,” Gibson says, smiling.

He kicks the switch on an 1885 lathe that’s roughly the size of a small horse, dominating a corner of his workshop, and guides it with the expertise of someone recognized as one of the country’s top traditional craftsmen. Gibson’s thick pewter spoons rest in the hand like tangible chunks of history. His Queen Anne tea set is elegance itself. And he can’t keep up with demand for his sharply modern martini glasses.

I watch as Gibson takes a thin, flat disk of pewter—slightly larger than a CD, and containing absolutely no lead—and clamps it onto the lathe. He

then teases out a shape, elongating it with an old pointed tool called a hand spinner, working the metal much the way a potter draws a vessel from a lump of clay. Disk transforms into cup. Mesmerizing. On the bottom, the maker’s mark, called a touchmark, identifies this as a piece of Jon Gibson pewter.

Across the room, a dipper rests in a vat of molten pewter. An adjacent worktable holds assorted hand tools and a rubber mold of maple leaves, Gibson’s design for the 2018 Christmas ornament, both delicate and enduring. I catch a glimpse of what this obsession is about, passed down from generation to generation. It’s what led Gibson’s father to create Gibson Pewter in 1966,

PHOTOGRAPHS BY GRETA RYBUS

OPPOSITE , CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : Jon Gibson trims the edge of a pewter bowl on his antique lathe; a sneak peek at his 2018 Christmas ornament design; an unfinished pewter spoon cast from a c. 1750 mold; the Gibson Pewter barn/workshop. ABOVE : A replica of the fruit bowl made by Gibson’s father that is now in the permanent collection of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

as a seasonal business, in Hillsborough, New Hampshire.

“We hauled this lathe back and forth from our home in Providence every summer when I was a kid,” Gibson recalls as he eyes the machine, which weighs roughly 1,000 pounds. “It’s a monster, but we couldn’t leave it in an unheated barn all winter.”

Yet pewter was never a career for his father, a Congregational minister, who “didn’t think it was possible to make a living doing this work.” So when Gibson grew up, he sold commercial real estate in Manhattan; his wife, Camille, worked on costumes at the New York Shakespeare Festival.

“We were in the thick of it,” Gibson recalls. “But real estate was tanking in the city in the early ’90s, and we didn’t want to raise a family there. I wanted to get back into pewter, at least part-time.” They moved to New Hampshire, and Gibson kept his real estate license while he “relearned” what his father had taught him. Memory and many hours kicked in.

Five years ago, Gibson relocated his pewter operation to a former general store in Washington. He’s excited about the workshop/learning center he’s now creating in the adjacent barn, which promises to be an inviting space for his museum of antique tools and pewter, a display of some of his father’s work, and a place to pass on his knowledge.

“I would love to know there’s someone who will keep it going,” he says. “There aren’t a lot of Jon Gibsons out there, just a handful of us. I feel duty-bound to keep the craft alive, to keep people’s eyes open to history.”

He inspects the cup resting in his hand. There are at least 10 more steps to go before he deems it finished. But the look is unmistakable—pewter is a metal that seems to link old worlds with new. “We take the trouble to smooth the edges,” he says. “There is nobody doing anything like this.”

For information, go to gibsonpewter.com.

The Gull Fair Winds & Following Seas

Rent Mother Nature® Lease A Sugar Maple Tree Or Sap Bucket For One Year

A truly memorable CHRISTMAS GIFT. First, we’ll send each person on your list a personalized parchment document — a copy of an authentic 1890 TREASURY DEPT. lease, plus a GIFT CARD from you. During the harvest each lessee receives PROGRESS REPORTS full of facts & folklore, thus sharing in the adventure of sugaring. In Spring, when the sap has been processed, each Tree Tenant will get at least 60 oz. of the finest 100% pure wood-fired MAPLE SYRUP in decorated jugs (30 oz. guaranteed to Bucket Borrowers) – even more if Mother Nature is bountiful. We do all the work, your friends get the delicious results, and you get the raves!

Tree Lease $69.95 + S/H

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100% satisfaction guaranteed since 1979. Please visit our new website:

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Phone

(800) 232-4048

Yankee likes to mosey around and see, out of editorial curiosity, what you can turn up when you go house hunting. We have no stake in the sale whatsoever and would decline it if offered.

Where Stories Dwell

ucked at the end of the upstairs hallway in the farmhouse at Hop Brook Farm is a little architectural enigma that one could easily walk past without noticing—as we did, twice.

Having guided us through the grounds and the low-ceilinged, 4,000-square-foot post-and-beam house, owner Robert Cox was pointing out a few of his home’s historical quirks. He is the head of special collections and university archives at UMass Amherst, and his eye is drawn to details. There’s the “1798” chalked onto a chestnut beam in the east parlor, and a fragment of what seems to be 18th-century newspaper adhering to another beam across the room. “And did you notice the doors upstairs?” Cox asked.

We hadn’t, so moments later we were back at the end of the hall. And there they were: two fully framed doors, side by side, right up against the outer wall, both opening into the same bedroom.

While this may not be a Voynich manuscript–level mystery, it is the kind of sneaky brain-tickler that just won’t leave you alone. Why would anyone install sideby-side doors? Was it a joke? An oddball

remnant of years of overlapping renovation? Was there a time when the doors led to different rooms? We surveyed from one side and then the other, as if we might find a clue that would crack the case. “I’ve got no idea,” Cox says, anticipating our question. “It’s a mystery I wasn’t able to solve.”

Hop Brook Farm is located on a sugar maple–lined dirt road in picturesque New Salem, Massachusetts, which was incorporated in the 1750s, the same decade the house was built. The village landscape is dotted with apple orchards that feed the annual Cider Days festivities, and from the Old Home Day celebration on the town common to the beautiful Quabbin Reservoir Overlook, New Salem could be a stage set for an idyllic New England scene.

At first glance, the farmhouse is unassuming: yellow with white trim, situated behind a white picket fence and accented by a prominent stone chimney and an attached red shed, with a barn beyond. Just off the back porch, a clothesline spans the space between an apple tree and an ornamental cherry tree.

The farmhouse at Hop Brook Farm ( ABOVE ) began as a simple four-room dwelling more than two centuries ago, and some of the details of those early days still linger in the east parlor ( OPPOSI T E ), one of the original rooms.

To locals, this place may always be the Paige Farm, in deference to the eight generations that lived here from the 1750s until the 1950s. The property’s history is

At this classic 1750s farmstead in New Salem, Massachusetts, each passing era has left its own mark—or mystery.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY HEATHER MARCUS

well documented, all the way back to its four-room origins, and the Swift River Valley Historical Society has collected records and artifacts of the Paige family, including the wedding gowns worn by three daughters who all married at Hop Brook on the same day in 1906.

When the last of the Paiges moved out, Hop Brook Farm attracted a variety of owners, each bringing intriguing stories. First there was naturalist and historian David Wetherbee and his family. Then, in the 1970s, a gay men’s commune took up residence; in time, it morphed into an organic farming commune. Eventually the property was bought by Dean Cycon, who launched Dean’s Beans, his fair-tradecoffee roasting business, from here.

Cox, a self-described “recovering paleontologist,” grew up in California and was enamored of old houses early on. “I wanted to live in New England and I wanted a house that was built before the 1800s,” he recalls. “My first book was about spiritualism, so when I heard that the barn here [constructed in the 1930s to replace one that had burned down] had been built using beams salvaged from a spiritualist church, I was hooked.” He bought the house from Cycon in 2004.

Under Cox’s stewardship, the kitchen, bathrooms, and septic, plumbing, and electrical systems have all been brought into the modern age. There has never been heat except on the first floor, although Cox was making plans to install the home’s first-ever upstairs heating when we visited.

The upgrades create more comfort, but the most remarkable aspects of the house are the historic details that remain from each of its eras. “At first I was put off by that,” Cox admits. “I wanted a place that was 1750 and looked 1750. It’s nice that there are generations of rooms that show its whole history, but it took me a little longer to appreciate that. Now it’s what I love most.”

From the original feather-edge wallboards that run vertically rather than horizontally to the ceiling vents and remnants of coffee bins that still line the back wall of the connected shed where Dean’s Beans was born, every

room has some aspect that sparks contemplation.

An array of outbuildings have come and gone through the centuries: a horse-powered shingle mill, a wood-press cider mill, a blacksmith shop, and even an elementary school. Cox has amassed a collection of artifacts, including sheep and cow bells and tools likely forged in the blacksmith’s shop. “I may take a piece or two as mementos,” he says, “but most of this stuff belongs here.”

Although he’s moving on in a new direction—recently remarried, he lives with his wife in an 1890s house about an hour away, in Easthampton—Cox hasn’t been quick to let go of Hop Brook Farm. “It’s hard to walk away from the projects and the mysteries and the treasures that haven’t been found. Hopefully someone else comes along who is just as intrigued by the possibilities.” —Joe Bills

Comprising a four-bedroom farmhouse, a barn, and a storage shed on about 15 acres, Hop Brook Farm is being offered for $409,000. Contact Michael Seward of Michael Seward Real Estate at 413531-7129 or email michael.seward@ comcast.net.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : The barn at Hop Brook Farm, which reputedly was built with beams from a spiritualist church razed before the flooding that created the Quabbin Reservoir; a woodstove in the west parlor, which hosted a triple family wedding in 1906; a view of the barn’s interior; Cox in the east parlor, his favorite room in the house.

“It’s hard to walk away from the projects and the mysteries and the treasures that haven’t been found,” Cox admits.

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MY New England

MY New England

MY NEW ENGLAND SUMMER

MY NEW ENGLAND SUMMER

Yankee recently teamed up with the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston for #MyNewEnglandSummer, an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Copley Square Farmers Market. The day began with a guided tour of the market’s food vendors led by Edith Murnane, interim executive director of Mass Farmers Markets, and featuring market tips tricks from Yankee senior food editor and Weekends with Yankee cohost Amy Traverso and chef Graham Lockwood of the Fairmont Copley Plaza’s OAK Long Bar + Kitchen. After a scenic picnic in Copley Square and a floral arranging class with Field & Vase by Stowe Greenhouses, guests gathered at OAK Long Bar + Kitchen for a cocktail demo followed by a dinner inspired by market-fresh ingredients.

Yankee recently teamed up with the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston for #MyNewEnglandSummer, an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Copley Square Farmers Market. The day began with a guided tour of the market’s food vendors led by Edith Murnane, interim executive director of Mass Farmers Markets, and featuring market tips and tricks from Yankee senior food editor and Weekends with Yankee cohost Amy Traverso and chef Graham Lockwood of the Fairmont Copley Plaza’s OAK Long Bar + Kitchen. After a scenic picnic in Copley Square and a floral arranging class with Field & Vase by Stowe Greenhouses, guests gathered at OAK Long Bar + Kitchen for a cocktail demo followed by a dinner inspired by market-fresh ingredients.

Guests received custom Yankee welcome bags with curated products from Garnet Hill, Skinner Inc., Anchor Toffee, Gutsey Bars, E. Frances Paper, Badger, Lightning Willow Farm, and EHChocolatier, in addition to the new travel book Yankee’s New England Adventures: Over 400 Essential Things to See and Do, published by Globe Pequot. Select apparel courtesy of Garnet Hill.

Guests received custom Yankee welcome bags with curated products from Garnet Hill, Skinner Inc., Anchor Toffee, Gutsey Bars, E. Frances Paper, Badger, Lightning Willow Farm, and EHChocolatier, in addition to the new travel book Yankee’s New England Adventures: Over 400 Essential Things to See and Do, published by Globe Pequot. Select apparel courtesy of Garnet Hill.

Photo by @stephstell

Photo by @stephstell

Photographs by Mark Fleming except where noted

Photo by @domestikateblog

BY AMY TRAVERSO

OWN

PUMPKIN MACARONS WITH PUMPKINCARAMEL FILLING

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK FLEMING

Here’s how Gesine Bullock-Prado describes her conversion experience, her on-the-road-to-Damascus (or rather, Norwich, Vermont) moment, when she transformed from an unhappy Californian to a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander.

“On an innocent getaway to Hanover, New Hampshire, to catch the homecoming football game at [my husband’s] alma mater,” she writes in her cookbook-memoir My Life from Scratch, “something peculiar happened.... Just as we crossed the state line ... as we drove over the upper Connecticut River on the Ledyard Bridge and headed into Norwich, Vermont, I subconsciously began to pull up stakes everywhere else and started planting them in the Green Mountains.... Small towns kindly introduced themselves and courteously disappeared from view as we drove along the thick pine-lined roads. I’d found home.”

Before that trip, Gesine (pronounced “Geh-ZEE-neh”) was an attorney living in Los Angeles, plodding through her days as vice-president of Fortis Films, attending glamorous parties, flying first-class. With her famous sister, Sandra Bullock, she was producing movies and launching television shows, and she knew she was living the dream. But it was someone else’s dream. She hated the fake-friendly chitchat with sycophants, the growing pile of bad rom-com scripts to read, the friendships that soured with the phrase “I have a script that I was hoping you could pass along.”

Then one day her mother, Helga, was diagnosed with cancer. As Helga got sicker, Gesine turned to her most reliable comforts: butter and sugar. She baked sticky buns, apple pies, and French-style macarons, kneaded her frustrations into danishes and focaccia, learning as she went. She relished the simple exchange of handing someone a homemade pastry and receiving a genuine smile in return. She began talking about baking everywhere—

in script meetings, on sets. And after her mother died in 2000, the idea of “someday” being happy, of “eventually” doing what she loved, made no sense in a world where longevity isn’t guaranteed.

Her baking skills had progressed to the point where she knew she had talent. And all the practice was making her a better person. “My base personality is incredibly impatient,” she says, “but in order to become a great baker, I had to learn patience.” The macarons she made as Christmas gifts for clients and associates at Fortis Films had created a following around Hollywood. And the work of learning and perfecting each recipe soothed her grief. “My mother collected recipes,” Gesine says. “She was an opera singer, so her thing was to wow people, and she was going to find the hardest thing there was and master that. I have some of that in me. I really enjoy the great tasks, like laminated doughs and elaborate cakes, but my approach to them is to figure them out, perfect them, and show people that they can do it, too.”

Then Gesine and her husband, Ray, made that fateful visit to Vermont. In short order, they packed up their things, flew across the country, and simply settled in. Ray, a storyboard artist for films such as X-Men and The Hunger Games , traveled back and forth to L.A. for work. They acclimated to seasons even more extreme than the ones she’d grown up with, first in Germany (Helga’s homeland) and later in Virginia.

The ultimate plan was to bake professionally—maybe open a mailorder macaron operation. But Gesine needed a commercial kitchen, and when Ray found a small shop at the edge of downtown Montpelier in 2004, the mail-order-bakery idea morphed into the full-service Gesine

Confectionary, an instant-hit pastry shop that provided a gathering spot for a recurring cast of regulars, plus a growing stream of passers-by. Between rising daily at 3:30 a.m. to turn out croissants, tarts, cakes, and cookies and managing a small business, Gesine wrote My Life from Scratch, which brought the attention of national magazines and television. But now when she found herself in TV studios, she was doing work that she actually loved.

“My temperament is far better suited to New England,” she says. “Even the weather. The not-easy part appeals to me. The history, the forthrightness.” Looking back at her old life in light

of Hollywood’s current moment of reckoning, she says, “It shows I wasn’t totally off-base. I was rightfully perturbed by the whole system.” With pastry, she says, she’s working in a more elementally joyful medium.

After five years of running Gesine Confectionary, when the rigors of ownership began to interfere with her love of baking, she closed her shop to focus on writing books and teaching. She and Ray bought a 1794 farmhouse near Hanover that had once served as a tavern and stagecoach stop. They renovated the kitchen; planted sugar pumpkins, currants, and strawberries; and turned the carriage house into a baking studio called Sugar Glider Kitchen. Since then, Gesine has produced five more books; the latest,

“I’m a professional baker, but I love that I’m also still a student. Always.”

MAPLE TOFFEE POPCORN WITH SALTED PEANUTS

“In order to become a great baker, I had to learn patience.

MAPLE TOFFEE POPCORN WITH SALTED PEANUTS

TOTAL TIME : 50 MINUTES

HANDS - ON TIME : 35 MINUTES

DIFFICULTY LEVEL : BEGINNER

How much better would Halloween be if at least a few of your neighbors gave out bags of this buttery treat every year? The only trick to making toffee is employing a candy thermometer and keeping a close eye on the temperature as you cook. Once you do that, you’ll find it’s even simpler than making caramel.

¼ cup popcorn kernels

1 cup salted peanuts

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

½ cup maple syrup

1 teaspoon table salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda (sift out any lumps)

Pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Let cool.

Line a rimmed sheet pan with parchment and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Sprinkle the popped popcorn and peanuts in an even layer onto the parchment. Set aside.

Set a 5-to-7-quart heavy-bottom pot over medium-high heat and melt the butter. Add the light brown sugar, maple syrup, and salt. Stir constantly until the sugar has melted completely. Clip on a candy thermometer and continue stirring over medium heat until the temperature reads between 295° and 301°. Remove from heat, immediately dust the baking soda evenly over the toffee, and quickly stir until completely incorporated.

Pour the toffee evenly over the layer of popcorn and peanuts, and allow everything to cool until firm, about 30 minutes. Break the toffee into small pieces and store in zip-top bags. If well sealed, the toffee will keep at room temperature for up to three weeks. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

CRANBERRY CRUMBLE BARS

TOTAL TIME : 1 HOUR , 10 MINUTES

HANDS - ON TIME : 30 MINUTES

DIFFICULTY LEVEL : BEGINNER

Here’s a great use for those cans of cranberry sauce in the back of your cupboard: Stir them into a fruit filling for these sweet-tart-buttery bars. We love their bright ruby color and ease of preparation. And Gesine loves just about anything with a crumble topping.

FOR THE SHORTBREAD

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon table salt

1 cup unsalted butter, chilled

FOR THE FILLING

2 (14-ounce) cans jellied cranberry sauce

FOR THE TOPPING

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed light brown sugar

2

½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon table salt

1 cup unsalted butter, melted Powdered sugar, for garnish

Use parchment paper to line a 9-by13-inch baking pan so that the paper hangs over the sides of the pan. Spray with nonstick cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350° and set a rack to the middle position.

Make the shortbread: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt for 30 seconds. Using the largest holes in a box grater, grate the cold butter onto the flour mixture. Use your fingers to massage the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles cornmeal and holds together when you

CRANBERRY CRUMBLE BARS

squeeze it. Pour the dough into the baking pan and press it into an even layer. Bake until just set, 15 to 20 minutes, then remove from the oven (leave the oven on).

Make the filling: Purée the cranberry sauce in a food processor or smash it with a fork in a large bowl until it has a spreadable consistency. Spread in an even layer over the shortbread crust.

Make the topping: In a large bowl, whisk together the sugars, flour, and salt. Pour the butter over the flour mixture and stir with a spoon. You’ll likely have to switch to using your fingers to ensure that all the ingredients are evenly distributed and the mixture forms large clumps.

Sprinkle the topping evenly over the cranberry filling. (If you like a lot of crumble, use the entire batch; otherwise, you can freeze any remaining crumble for up to a month and sprinkle it on baked apples, muffins, etc.)

Transfer the pan to the oven and bake until the crumble starts to brown, 30 to 40 minutes. Allow to cool completely, then dust with powdered sugar and lift from the pan using the overhanging parchment. Cut into squares, which can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week. Yields 12 bars.

PUMPKIN MACARONS WITH PUMPKIN-CARAMEL FILLING

TOTAL TIME : 2 HOURS

HANDS - ON TIME : 1 HOUR , 20 MINUTES

DIFFICULTY LEVEL : ADVANCED

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT : DIGITAL SCALE , INSTANT -READ THERMOMETER , PASTRY BRUSH

First, a note about names: Macaroons are chewy coconut cookies; macarons are meringue-like French sandwich cookies. “Macarons can be intimidating, but honestly some of the best results I’ve seen have been from compete novices, because they have no bad habits,” Gesine says. Nevertheless, the shells are made from a simple but finicky batter. If you haven’t made macarons before, it may take a

couple of tries to get a feel for it. One tip: Measure your ingredients as accurately as possible—which is to say, by weight. A digital scale makes this easy. And an instant-read thermometer will ensure good results when it’s time to boil the sugar syrup (a closely watched candy thermometer also works).

For best results, follow the traditional French method of “aging” the egg whites. We recommend separating the egg whites and refrigerating them for two days, then letting them come to room temperature before using.

FOR THE SHELLS

150 grams finely ground almond flour

150 grams powdered sugar

¼ teaspoon pumpkin spice blend

110 grams egg whites, at room temperature

1⁄ 8 teaspoon table salt

4 grams orange gel food coloring

40 grams water

¼ teaspoon lemon juice

150 grams granulated sugar

FOR THE FILLING

¼ cup maple syrup

¼ cup light brown sugar

¼ cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons light corn syrup

½ teaspoon table salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

¼ cup pumpkin purée

½ teaspoon pumpkin spice blend

Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. Sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar, and pumpkin spice into a large mixing bowl, and set aside.

Add the egg whites to the bowl of a stand mixer, then remove 1 tablespoon and put into a small bowl. Add the salt to the large bowl of egg whites and give it a quick stir.

Add the reserved egg whites and the food coloring to the almond mixture but do not stir. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the water, lemon juice, and granulated sugar. Stir very gently over medium heat, brushing down any sugar granules that are clinging to the side of the pot with a damp pastry brush. When sugar has completely melted, stop stirring. Keeping close tabs on your thermometer, bring up the temperature. The goal is to hit 240° and immediately remove the pan from the heat, but just before that, when the syrup reaches 230° to 235°, start the mixer on high to beat the egg whites until they are nice and foamy. When the syrup hits 240°, slowly and carefully pour the syrup down the side of the bowl, avoiding the moving whisk to prevent splatters. Whisk on high until the whites are bright white and shiny, but not stiff. They should curl just at the tip when you lift the whisk from the whites.

Add the meringue to the bowl with the almond mixture and fold together until the batter is smooth and shiny and reaches the flowing consistency of ketchup (this will take between 30 and 40 strokes). Transfer the batter to a pastry bag fitted with a large open tip. Pipe round, quartersize dollops about ½ inch apart on the prepared sheet pans. To remove any air bubbles, carefully bang each pan twice on the counter.

Let the shells sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes to form a skin. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 275° and set the racks to the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

Bake the shells until they are cooked but not browned, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through for even baking. Allow shells to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the caramel filling: In a large saucepan, combine the maple syrup, brown sugar, heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, corn syrup, and salt. Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture reaches 248°. Take the caramel from the heat and stir in the butter and

pumpkin purée. This will cause the temperature to drop. Return the pot to the heat and stir until the temperature reaches 235°. Turn off the heat and stir in the pumpkin spice blend. Allow the caramel to cool completely.

Once the filling has cooled, use a teaspoon to scoop out a dollop of caramel (coat the spoon with nonstick cooking spray to make the process easier). Gently flatten the caramel with your fingers and place it on the flat side of a macaron shell, then top with another shell to create a sandwich. Repeat with the remaining shells and caramel. For best results, refrigerate the macarons overnight in an airtight container to let the flavors meld before serving at room temperature. You can store them, sealed and refrigerated, for up to a week Yields about 40 macarons.

PISTACHIO-CHOCOLATE BABKA

TOTAL TIME : ABOUT 4 ½ HOURS , PLUS AT

LEAST 2 HOURS CHILLING TIME

HANDS - ON TIME : 1 ½ HOURS

DIFFICULTY LEVEL : INTERMEDIATE

Babka, a layered sweet bread with Eastern European Jewish roots, is “one of those things I’ve always been enamored of,” Gesine says. “It’s just so glorious.” The steps aren’t difficult, just numerous. A terrific project for a rainy weekend day, it produces two loaves, so you can eat one and freeze the other.

Since an enriched dough like this takes longer to rise, you need to use an instant yeast—also called rapid-rise or quickrise— rather than the “active dry” variety. And while some gourmet markets carry pistachio flour, the most reliable sources are online (or you can substitute almond flour, available at most supermarkets).

FOR THE DOUGH

4½ cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon table salt

1 tablespoon instant yeast

1 cup whole milk, at room temperature

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, cut into 8 pieces

FOR THE PISTACHIO CREAM

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

½ cup granulated sugar

1 cup pistachio or almond flour

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 large eggs

¼ cup heavy cream

Generous pinch salt

1 drop green gel food coloring (optional)

FOR THE FILLING

1 recipe homemade pistachio cream

1 cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate

½ cup roughly chopped raw pistachios

Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the milk, eggs, and vanilla to combine. Add the dry ingredients. Mix on low with the dough hook until the dough comes together, then add the butter, a piece at a time, and mix until the dough is smooth but still a bit sticky, about 7 minutes.

Transfer the dough to a large bowl sprayed with nonstick cooking spray; spray the top of the dough as well. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise and double in size, about 1 hour.

On a parchment-lined sheet pan, gently press the dough out into a rough rectangle about 12 inches long (it should be smaller than the dimensions of the sheet pan). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to overnight.

Use parchment to line two loaf pans so that the paper drapes over the sides of the pan (this makes it easier to lift the loaf out of the pan). Set aside.

Make the pistachio cream: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar and mix just until smooth.

Add the pistachio flour and all-purpose flour and stir to combine. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula and add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each. Add the cream, salt, and food coloring (if using) and mix until smooth but not whipped.

Assemble the babka: Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll it out to a clean 13-by-18-inch rectangle. Spread the pistachio cream in an even layer over the dough and sprinkle with chocolate and nuts, pressing lightly to adhere.

Starting from the long side, roll the dough up tightly, as if making a jelly roll, then turn the roll seam-side down on the sheet pan. Cover with parchment and refrigerate for 20 minutes (this makes the dough easier to handle).

When the roll has chilled, first cut it in half crosswise, so you have two equal rolls. Then cut each roll lengthwise down the center, exposing the layers of filling. For each roll, twist the two halves around each other, keeping the cut sides facing up as much as possible. Tuck the loaves into the prepared pans, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 45 minutes to an hour.

About 15 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 350° and set a rack to the middle position. Bake until nicely browned and cooked through, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer the pans to a wire rack to cool, then remove the loaves by lifting the parchment paper. Serve at room temperature. Loaves can be frozen, wrapped well in plastic wrap, for up to a month. Yields 2 loaves.

TUNE IN FOR MORE!

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Treasure Hunt

and what we are discovering in the Western Mountains of Maine

Just twenty-eight miles north of our Portland, Maine store, on the banks of the Little Androscoggin, beneath a meadow, lies the richest part of the world…gems. Gem tourmaline has been found: tourmaline the color of spring and the color of the sky, two distinct colors commingled in a single crystal

From these crystals, our gem cutter has coaxed out their true light and life, creating a gem and a unity of color we call SparHawk Mint Green Teal This is the color of life; color that moves with swiftness of thought; color that sweeps, darts, and soars; color so precise, so graceful that once chosen it alights upon your hand or nestles safely near your heart

We are privileged to have the opportunity to offer the new SparHawk Mint Green Teal tourmaline To see our most recent pieces of SparHawk jewelry, visit us on-line or stop in

Mountain Laurel

Tide’s Edge

Ancient Celts

So Much To Do...

So Much To Do...

So Much To Do...

And Time To Enjoy It.

And Time To Enjoy It.

And Time To Enjoy It. your retirement...

Enjoy

207-338-2332 | penobscotshores.com

207-338-2332 penobscotshores.com

10 Shoreland Drive, Belfast

10 Shoreland Drive, Belfast

207-338-2332 | penobscotshores.com

207-338-2332 penobscotshores.com

10 Shoreland Drive, Belfast

10 Shoreland Drive Belfast, ME

Whether just take is with Take ownership

Whether you want to stay active or just take it easy, retirement living is better with stunning bay views. Take advantage of home ownership without property maintenance at Penobscot Shores.

Whether you want to stay active or just take it easy, retirement living is better with stunning bay views. Take advantage of home ownership without property maintenance at Penobscot Shores.

Whether you want to stay active or just take it easy, retirement living is better with stunning bay views. Take advantage of home ownership without property maintenance at Penobscot Shores. Apartments in the Ocean House for sale or rent. Private cottages for sale.

Apartments in the Ocean House for sale or rent.

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A Member of MaineHealth

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•

She

Carolyn will be the first to tell you that she was hesitant to move into a retirement community, but she soon found good friends and a second home at Thornton Oaks. In the winter months, she has the benefit of snow removal, cleaning services, a top-notch maintenance team, delicious meals in our dining room, and a large array of activities from in-house concerts, art shows, and guest speakers to fitness classes.

In the summer, Carolyn returns to her island home where she volunteers at the local yacht club, plays golf, and entertains friends and family. She has created a retirement lifestyle that is very fulfilling— both on the island and in-town

25 Thornton Way, Suite 100 Brunswick, Maine 04011 ThorntonOaks.com • 207-729-8033

• Delicious, Home-Cooked

•

Autumn Apple and Squash Salad

As the seasons change, so do our cravings. Enjoy the first fall flavors in this colorful, healthy salad.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY KRISSY O’SHEA

y watch over the sugar maples has begun. At the bottom edge of the field is a stand of twiggy trees, a dozen or so thick, whose leaves always display the first few streaks of red and gold. There isn’t much color yet, but this morning I saw a few ruddy orbs hanging beneath the leaves of our old apple trees. The garden, still producing in abundance, shows fewer signs of fall. I still fill my picking basket with lettuces, tomatoes, and beans, along with a few cold-hardy squash, carrots, and Brussels sprouts. In these fleeting weeks, when crisp mornings unfold into warm afternoons and I alternate between sweaters and rolled shirtsleeves, I can feel summer slowly releasing its grasp. Soon, it will be time for leaf peeping and apple picking in the autumn sunshine.

I’m beginning to crave fall flavors—especially apples, which are a perfect excuse to get to your local farmers’ market or pick-your-own orchard. Try seeking out tart varieties such as Cortland, Suncrisp, and Empire, which don’t brown as quickly when cut.

Granny Smiths also do the job nicely.

AUTUMN APPLE AND SQUASH SALAD

TO TAL T IME : 50 MINU T ES

H ANDS- ON T IME : 40 MINU T ES

Apple cider syrup, also called boiled syrup, is made by boiling cider until it thickens

and turns dark brown. It’s an essential ingredient in cider doughnuts and tastes great over pancakes. You can find it online (we love Carr’s Cider House brand) or at farm stands and gourmet markets. Or make your own by boiling 1 cup cider in a small saucepan until it’s reduced to ¼ cup. Substitute this for the water and cider syrup in the dressing recipe.

FOR THE SALAD

¾ cup pumpkin seeds

½ cup sweetened dried cranberries

2 tablespoons cider vinegar

2 medium delicata squash, unpeeled

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for baking sheet

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 pound Brussels sprouts, ends trimmed

3 tart apples, cored and roughly chopped

¾ cup loosely packed mint leaves

FOR THE DRESSING

4 tablespoons Greek yogurt

3 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon apple cider syrup

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

Yankee contributing editor Krissy O’Shea shares stories, recipes, and home style tips at cottagefarmblog.com.

INDEPENDENCE TRANSFORMED

1 teaspoon honey

1 small clove garlic, minced

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400° and set a rack to the middle position.

First, prep the salad: In a dry skillet over medium-low heat, toast the pumpkin seeds until they begin to turn golden and pop in the pan. Remove from skillet and set aside to cool.

In a small bowl, combine the dried cranberries with the cider vinegar. Leave them to soak about 20 minutes.

Cut each squash in half crosswise and use a spoon to reach in and scoop out the seeds. Slice the squash into ½-inch-thick rings, then toss them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread evenly on a lightly oiled rimmed baking sheet and roast until tender and lightly browned, about 15 minutes.

Next, make the dressing: Put all the dressing ingredients into a lidded jar and shake vigorously to combine.

Finally, make the salad: Using a food processor, shred the Brussels sprouts and transfer them to your serving bowl. Add the apples and soaked cranberries. The salad can be made up to this point a day ahead and stored in an airtight container.

To serve, add ½ cup dressing, pumpkin seeds, and fresh mint leaves, and toss well. Taste and add more dressing as desired. Arrange slices of roasted squash over the top. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

FLAME FREE AND SMOKELESS 550˚F+ IN UNDER 7 MINUTES

Kent, Connecticut

An unbeatable pick for fall foliage, this rustic hill town pulses with culture, history, and a timeless community spirit.

BY KIM KNOX BECKIUS

hen sharp exhales of steam are interrupted by a toot-toot blast, you’ll know the 1925 Baldwin locomotive is about to make its squeaking, swaying way down the tracks. Behind a curtain of brink-of-autumn-burnished hillsides, hit-and-miss engines putt-putt-BANG in time with a sawmill’s tuneful whine. The blacksmith shop emits percussive clanging; industrial flywheels whoosh and click; the rock crusher delivers its metallic, hammering crunch. It’s the music of pre-electric-age rural America: a bygone symphony of raw power, replayed the last weekend of September at the Connecticut Antique Machinery Association’s ever-expanding, three-day fall festival in Kent. Soon, golden and ruddy colors will glaze the Berkshire foothills. In the eight years since Yankee named Kent—this iron-rich town that once cradled America’s mining industry—New England’s best for fall foliage, something approaching the miraculous has occurred. Even as shops and restaurants clustered around a lone traffic light have stepped up in sophistication, the landscape has hopscotched back toward 1781, when George Washington’s horse tumbled off Bull’s Bridge. More wooded, more agrarian, more alluring for autumn seekers, Kent has benefited from a spike in land

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARK FLEMING

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT : Mist floats above the Housatonic River as it runs past a time-weathered farm near downtown Kent; a hiker sculpture at the welcome center is a nod to Kent’s proximity to the Appalachian Trail; a Haflinger at Willow Brook Farms, which is devoted to this sturdy European breed; visiting New Hampshire stylist Chloe Barcelou and her dog, Waffles, take in the scenery along Muller Road, off Route 7.

trust acquisitions and agricultural enterprises, including Connecticut’s first farm brewery, Kent Falls Brewing Co. Walk the crackled road into the 263-acre, trail-laced East Kent Hamlet Nature Preserve, and you can watch nature regain its hold. Weeds ensnare the structural remains of this abandoned Girl Scout camp. Hydrangea shrubs run amok. Trees seem determined to earn reforestation merit badges.

Kent’s location—80 miles from New York City—creates just the right conditions for a distinctive way of life to thrive, for a back-in-time aura to permeate Connecticut’s first small town to launch its own app. Almost everyone here seems to be from somewhere else. They crave a quiet country life but can’t quite sever the urban umbilical cord. They want their legacies written in lands forever preserved

and antique homes restored, not in the tabloids. There are no barriers to being yourself in Kent, where people are known for their talents. As “guitar guy” Charlie Gelber says: “You’re part of the town as soon as you’re in the town.”

The Setting

Motor past Treasure Hill Road’s neat stone walls, red barns, and tilted silos, and you’re inside a scene splashed across tourism brochures for western Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills. Yet from Kent’s energetic center, at the intersection of Route 341 and Housatonic River–chasing Route 7, it’s a mere 10-minute drive across the New York line to a Metro-North train station. Call it faux isolation, but over the years the blend of rural beauty and modern sophistication has lured writers, fashion designers, diplomats, actors, and musicians to take

up residence here. Every weekend, its famous state parks, waterfalls, covered bridges, and hiking trails bring visitors seeking a quiet retreat or outdoor adventures—or both.

The Social Scene

Local color doesn’t fade as leaves fall. On October’s final Sunday—one week after Kent wraps a three-day stint playing fictional town Stars Hollow for the Gilmore Girls Fan Fest—spectators line the five-mile Pumpkin Run course to cheer for 600-plus competitors, many in costume. It’s a spectacle with a charitable purpose, like so many events that define this community of nearly 3,000 year-round residents. With more than 30 nonprofits angling for support, volunteerism fuels deep friendships and camaraderie. When Annie Bananie Ice Cream’s Anne McAndrew was diagnosed with cancer in 2007,

Kent is home to the oldest and largest land trust in Connecticut, the Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust, whose properties include the Smyrski Farm in New Milford.

OPPOSITE , FROM LEFT : A replica of a pioneer cabin at the Eric Sloane Museum; musician Charlie Gelber at his shop, OK Guitars.

ABOVE AND RIGHT : Elissa Potts, owner of the Fife ’n Drum; the restaurant’s filet au poivre and baked grain-crusted French chicken breast.

BOTTOM ROW : Snapshots from Kent Falls Brewing Co. Founded on an old dairy farm in 2015 by Barry Labendz ( CENTER ), the brewery grows its own hops and sources fruit and other ingredients from local producers.

“this town fed my family for eight weeks,” she says.

Eating Out

The duality of chef-owner Joel Viehland’s fine and casual dining ventures, Ore Hill and Swyft, befits Kent’s alter egos. Side-by-side in an exactingly renovated 18th-century homestead owned by philanthropist Anne Bass, they’re the only restaurants sourcing meats, dairy products, vegetables, and even citrus from her nearby Rock Cobble Farm. Nab a stool at Swyft’s white oak bar, sip Multiverse (Kent Falls Brewing Co.’s rich and roasty stout), and order a woodfired, all-from-scratch sourdough pizza. You’re as likely to hobnob with local celebs here as you would be on the building’s upscale side, Ore Hill, where the James Beard Award–nominated chef conjures multicourse tasting experiences.

The diner-ish Villager stuffs the breakfast crowd with hash brown burritos; J.P. Gifford Market cranks out toasty sandwiches perfect for picnics beside shimmering Kent Falls. And the Fife ’n Drum, with its tableside flambés and 7,000-bottle wine cellar, marches on, feeding locals and wanderers including loyal alumni of Kent’s three private schools. In her crisp striped shirt, Elissa Potts keeps the 45-year-old business humming. After her dad, legendary piano man Dolph Traymon, passed away, “the silence was deafening,” she says, but serendipity brought pianist Roger Young to the Fife and the keys back to life.

Shopping

There are seven hard-core art galleries to explore… eight if you count OK Guitars. In a red caboose, Charlie Gelber hangs polished vintage Gibsons with all the care of a conservator. Blood, Sweat & Tears guitarist Steve Katz was the first customer through the door. You don’t need rock cred to ask to play; Gelber might jam along.

It’s an interactive treasure hunt when every Main Street shop is independently owned. Credit oldest store Foreign Cargo with blazing this path. Second-generation proprietor Jeff Kennedy fills every nook with imported antiques, clothing, and traditional handicrafts. “Things we sold for $500 could be worth $500,000,” he says of items that have been swept up since his well-traveled mother, Olga, set up shop in 1970. “They’re so rare. They’re in museums.”

Shopkeepers’ collaborative spirit adds to the fun. Thousands of Champagne Stroll ticketholders will sample bubblies at 30 festive stores on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Uniquely Kent

A hedge fund manager and an Appalachian Trail hiker walk into a bar. In

Kent, that’s a routine occurrence, not some punchline setup. The five-mile River Walk is a worthy day trek and a stretch beloved by hikers tackling the Appalachian Trail’s entire 2,190 miles. A life-size stainless-steel hiker by local sculptor W. David Herman is depicted in full stride in front of Kent’s new welcome center; at the coinoperated shower in the back, two bucks buys four minutes of hot water.

Getting Your Bearings

Fall nights sell out fast at the Fife ’n Drum’s 13-room in-town inn and at the Inn at Kent Falls, a colonial-era stunner up the road. Airbnb supplements the town’s limited lodgings with a slew of options. Invite friends to share a unique retreat like Spirit Horse Farm, whose handsome converted post-andbeam barn sleeps six or more.

If You Could Live Here

It’s hard not to be smitten with listings such as a Revolutionary War general’s 1795 home on nearly two acres. Priced at $425,000, it comes with original features: hand-hewn beams, chestnut floorboards, and a beehive oven. Meanwhile, a $550,000 log cabin has 38 private acres, plus 270 land trust acres in its backyard.

To see more photographs from our visit to Kent, go to newengland.com/kent-2018.

from left : The covered bridge at Kent Falls State Park; a baby elephant statue by local sculptor Denis Curtiss graces a historic barn at the artist’s home, aka Sculpturedale.

PUT YOUR HANDS ON HISTORY and be inspired!

Experience the triumphs, trials and textures of everyday life in the 1830s – a period driven by agriculture, industry, family and the seasons. Find relevance from their stories, put your hands on history, and be inspired!

Historic Setting. Modern Amenities. New England Hospitality. Call 508-347-5056 for a Yankee Magazine subscriber discount.

Old Sturbridge Inn and Reeder Family Lodges

Historic Setting. Modern Amenities. New England Hospitality. Call 508-347-5056 for a Yankee Magazine subscriber discount.

SEPTEMBER 26 – NOVEMBER 4

OLD STURBRIDGE VILLAGE

www.osv.org/sleepy-hollow

Q&A WITH JIM SALGE

FALL FOLIAGE EXPERT FOR NEWENGLAND.COM

LOOK FOR JIM ON SEASON 2 OF WEEKENDS WITH YANKEE

What will the fall color be like this year? Starting every summer and extending well into October, that’s a question that Yankee ’s resident foliage expert, Jim Salge, hears quite a bit. Salge knows autumn, New England, and leaves as few others do: A former meteorologist at the Mount Washington Observatory, he’s long been a keen observer of the progression of the seasons in our region.

All through the year, this New Hampshire resident, photographer, and high school science teacher can often be found outdoors, exploring and documenting the landscape, but he’s busiest in fall, when he files his popular weekly foliage reports on NewEngland.com. We recently caught up with Salge, who is featured in season 2 of Weekends with Yankee

WWY: Your work is rooted in your love of the outdoors. Did your passion for New England’s landscapes spark your initial interest in photography?

JS: Absolutely. I moved to New England when I began working at the Mount Washington Observatory and was living in the alpine zone. Witnessing some of the most spectacular landscapes in the

region definitely inspired me to share my experiences through words and photographs. But when I started I had no experience in photography, so what I was able to capture initially was far from what I was actually seeing. Thankfully, working at the observatory and being part of the outdoors community put me in contact with so many people willing to share their talents and experiences. I owe my growth as a photographer not only to my drive to accurately portray what I saw, but also to the kindness of the community.

WWY: What keeps you coming back to outdoor photography?

JS: A lot of it is the same thing that keeps me coming back to the outdoors in general. I love watching a sunrise from my kayak, or a sunset from a ledge. I look forward to seeing spring flowers in the woods and the first snow on a mountain peak as much as I do the changing autumn leaves. I could go on. I have a long list of scenes that I’m waiting on perfect conditions to shoot— and that list is only getting longer!

WWY: With your NewEngland.com reports, you’ve managed to do the impossible: present foliage in a new

way each year. What’s your secret?

JS: I’ve made it a point to really see how different people and communities experience autumn, and to try to find ways to experience and share that. Fall is a season of great change, and a lot of work goes into the transition and preparation for winter. This looks very different for farmers and boaters, for hikers and rail enthusiasts, for bird-watchers and shop owners. We often think of autumn as just one thing, and it’s not. There are so many different ways that it’s represented, and I love showing that.

WWY: So forgive us, but we have to ask: What will the color will be like this year?

JS: We need more information to make a full picture, but early markers are favorable for a great pageantry of colors. But as always, time will tell!

TUNE IN FOR MORE!

To join in on the ultimate trip through New England, from the people who know it best, go to weekendswithyankee.com

FOLIAGE PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIM SALGE // PORTRAIT OF JIM SALGE BY MARK FLEMING

Yankee ’s favorite events this season

CONNECTICUT

CONNECTICUT MARITIME HERITAGE FESTIVAL

SEP. 5–9

Returning for its sixth year with fresh wind in its sails, this nautical party on New London’s waterfront has grown from three to five days of free, family-oriented fun. Among the highlights: tours of Navy and Coast Guard ships, a chowder cookoff, a schooner race, and a “Swingin’ on the Pier” dance party. 860-4472519; ctmaritimefest.com

MAINE

NORTH AMERICAN WIFE CARRYING CHAMPIONSHIP

OCT. 6

Head to Sunday River to see couples put an athletic spin on the vow “To have and to hold” as each man totes his female partner over a 278-foot-long race course featuring, among other obstacles, a water hazard nicknamed “the widowmaker.” The top pair wins beer, cash, and a chance to compete in the world championship in Finland—the country that first gave us this unusual spousal sport. sundayriver.com

MASSACHUSETTS HEAD OF THE CHARLES REGATTA

OCT. 20–21

Only the Boston Marathon draws more sports spectators to the city than this, the world’s largest rowing regatta. Founded in 1965, it now attracts 300,000-plus people to the banks of the Charles River to watch both novices and champions navigate the famously tortuous three-mile course (and dodge seven bridges along the way). 617-8686200; hocr.org

NEW HAMPSHIRE AUBURN DAY

SEP. 8

The good folks of Auburn offer a big dose of small-town fun, all wrapped up in a tidy one-day package. Come for the apple pie contest, square dancing, kids’ games, Civil War encampment, and homemade crafts and goodies from local makers, but most of all for the spectacle of 3,000-plus rubber duckies bobbing over the Griffin Dam in the 26th annual Duck Race. auburnday.com

RHODE ISLAND JACK-O-LANTERN SPECTACULAR

OCT. 4–NOV. 4

The only thing more magical than walking through the seasonal display of 5,000 lighted pumpkins at Providence’s Roger Williams Park Zoo? Flying over it on the zoo’s Soaring Eagle Zip Ride, which for a modest extra fee will carry you up to 115 feet high on a side-by-side bench seat (which for our money is far comfier than a broomstick). 401785-3510; rwpzoo.org

VERMONT MOUNT SNOW OKTOBERFEST

OCT. 6–7

German culture comes to a head at West Dover’s Mount Snow Resort with this beer-centric weekend, which offers not only fine brews but also a stein-holding contest, a keg toss, and a “Gulp and Gallop” beer run. There’s plenty to amuse tots and teetotalers, too, from oompah music and yodeling to face painting, games, and hearty German fare. 800-245-7669; mountsnow.com

For more best bets around New England, see p. 84

It’s been joked that Head of the Charles competitors who fail to make the sharp turn at the Weeks Footbridge, foreground, will end up rowing right through Harvard Square.

CARLOS RIDRUEJO/COURTESY OF HOCR

CONNECTICUT

AUG. 31–SEP. 3: SOUTH WOODSTOCK, Woodstock Fair. Animals and exhibitions, entertainment on multiple stages, amusement rides, contests and family fun, plus more than 100 food vendors offering everything from treats to rib-sticking meals. 860-9283246; woodstockfair.com

SEP. 7–9: NORWALK, Oyster Festival. Oysters may be the headliners, but the festivities go far beyond shucking and slurping. Veterans Park will rock with day-to-evening musical performances, international foods, kids’ activities, a lumberjack show, and a juried arts and crafts show featuring more than 100 exhibitors. 203-838-9444; seaport.org

SEP. 28–30, OCT. 5–7: SOUTHINGTON, Apple Harvest Festival . Join in the family fun, including a parade, toe-tapping musical performances, an arts and crafts show, carnival rides, and fireworks. And come hungry: There will be apple crisp, apple pie, apple fritters, apple slushies, and fresh raw apples aplenty. 860-276-8461; southingtonahf.com

SEP. 29: WETHERSFIELD, Old Wethersfield Arts and Crafts Fair. Peruse the wares presented by 100-plus artisans and crafters—clothing, furniture, seasonal decorations, jewelry, and more—while soaking up the fall weather, live music, and tasty food at scenic Cove Park. 860-529-7656; wethersfieldhistory.org

SEP. 30: WESTPORT, Chowdafest. With participants from every New England state and beyond, Chowdafest has become one of the largest culinary competitions in the Northeast. Vote for your favorites at Sherwood Island State Park as chefs and restaurants compete in the categories of classic New England clam chowder, traditional chowder, creative chowder, soups and bisques, and— new in the lineup—vegetarian chowder. 203-216-8452; chowdafest.org

OCT. 6–7: BETHLEHEM, Garlic & Harvest Festival. Spice up your life with a trip to the Bethlehem Fairgrounds, where garlic lovers will find goodies showcasing their favorite allium, from garlic dips and spreads to deepfried garlic, garlic sausage, and even garlic ice cream. Also on tap are cooking demos, crafts, rides and games, and live entertainment. 203-266-7810; garlicfestct.com

OCT. 7: SCOTLAND, Highland Games Festival. Immerse yourself in the sights, sounds, and flavors of Scotland as the Edward Waldo Homestead hosts a day filled with entertainment and education. There’s something happening everywhere you turn: live folk music, dancing, piping and drumming contests, sheepdog demonstrations, and, of course, the fabled Highland athletic competition. Cabers away! scotlandgames.org

OCT. 26: HARTFORD, Hallowed History Lantern Tour. Established in 1864, Cedar Hill Cemetery welcomes nighttime visitors to its graceful grounds just once each year. Starring in this evening of spooky fun are actors portraying some of the dearly departed (many with dark tales to tell). Space is limited, so reserve your spot well in advance. 860-956-3311; cedarhillfoundation.org

Travel | OUT & ABOUT

MAINE

AUG. 31–SEP. 1: CAMDEN, Camden Windjammer Festival. Midcoast Maine’s famous cruising fleet gathers to say good-bye to summer with a last blast of maritime excitement. Visitors can take in a parade of sail, fireworks show, lobster crate race, build-aboat contest, nautical dog competition, fish relay, and more. sailmainecoast.com

AUG. 31–SEP. 9: BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Boothbay Region Harbor Fest. This lively mix of music, food, and activities includes a 5K run and a half-marathon, a fashion show inspired by the sea, a restaurant crawl, wellness events, art sales, a vintage market, and live musical performances at venues all around the harbor. 207-671-7676; boothbayharborfest.com

SEP. 5–9: BAR HARBOR, Acadia Night Sky Festival . Come see the Milky Way shining bright in the largest expanse of naturally dark sky east of the Mississippi. This annual community celebration is full of options for soaking up the celestial sights, from cruises on Frenchman Bay to guided night hikes. Take advantage of the chance to learn from and with scientists, park rangers, photographers, artists, and fellow stargazers. 207801-2566; acadianightskyfestival.com

SEP. 7–9: EASTPORT, Eastport Pirate Festival. Hark back to days of yore, when pirates were no strangers to the Maine coast. Come in costume—if you’d like to blend in—and enjoy wacky activities including bed races and pirate reenactments, along with live music, lobster boat races, and kids’ games. 207-853-4343; eastportpiratefestival.com

SEP. 8: STATEWIDE, Open Lighthouse Day. This popular event offers the public the rare opportunity to explore more than two dozen of Maine’s historic lights. The lineup changes annually, so check out the website for updated info on this year’s locations. 207594-4174; lighthousefoundation.org

SEP. 21–23: UNITY, Common Ground Country Fair. Hosted by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, this annual get-together pays tribute to the rural and agricultural traditions of Maine with animal exhibits, cooking demos, blacksmithing, farm and fiber marketplaces, a social and political action area, tasty food, and kids’ programming. 207-568-4141; mofga.org

SEP. 30–OCT. 7: FRYEBURG, Fryeburg Fair. This venerable fair (c. 1851) fills its eightday run with livestock shows, races and competitions, and an array of garden and craft exhibits, plus midway rides and entertainment across five stages, all at the Fryeburg Fairgrounds. Don’t miss the Woodsmen’s Field Day, which draws lumberjacks and lumberjills from across the U.S. to test their mettle. 207-935-3268; fryeburgfair.org

OCT. 5–8: DAMARISCOTTA, Pumpkinfest & Regatta. A giant-pumpkin contest, pumpkin catapult, pumpkin derby, pumpkin drop, pumpkin pie eating contest—perhaps you’re detecting a theme? Don’t miss the great pumpkin boat regatta finale. 207-677-3087; mainepumpkinfest.com

Maxfield Parrish.

The Lantern Bearers 1908. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. Photography by Dwight Primiano.

Exhibition supported in part by Dena M. Hardymon and TD Bank

NRM.org Stockbridge, MA 413.298.4100 open daily café studio KIDS & TEENS FREE!

Fall Event Planner

MARK YOUR CALENDAR AND CELEBRATE OUR REGION AT SOME OF THE BEST EVENTS OF THE SEASON.

FOLLOW ALONG @YANKEEMAGAZINE #MYNEWENGLAND

FREEPORT FALL FESTIVAL (ME)

OCTOBER 5-7, 2018

Join artists and musicians on the L.L. Bean Campus in Freeport for family fun and artisanal goods. freeportfallfestival.com

A COUNTRY DAY AT PARDON GRAY (RI)

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018

This country day of family fun promises games, hayrides, delicious food, and much more at the scenic Pardon Gray Preserve in Tiverton. tivertonlandtrust.org

NEWPORT MANSIONS

WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL (RI)

SEPTEMBER 20-23, 2018

Don’t miss the celebrity chefs, seminars, tastings, dinners, and parties at this Newport festival. newportmansions.org

DEERFIELD FAIR (NH)

SEPTEMBER 27-30, 2018

Now in its 142nd year, the Deerfield Fair is an authentic agricultural celebration with animals, vendors, food, and fun around every corner. deerfieldfair.com

NEW CANAAN NATURE CENTER

HARVEST FESTIVAL (CT)

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Spend the day exploring stunning trails and enjoy an evening of beer, wine, and bites at this seasonal celebration. newcanaannature.org

MOUNT SNOW

OKTOBERFEST (VT)

OCTOBER 6-7, 2018

Enjoy games in the Kid’s Zone or indulge in beer, sausage, and schnitzel at this German celebration in West Dover. mountsnow.com

HARVEST ON THE HARBOR (ME)

OCTOBER 18-21, 2018

This premier Maine food and wine celebration in Portland features a number of appetizing activities. harvestontheharbor.com

MARTHA’S VINEYARD

FOOD & WINE FESTIVAL (MA)

OCTOBER 17-21, 2018

Join Yankee and Kendall-Jackson Wines at this quintessential food and wine festival on one of New England’s most beautiful islands. mvfoodandwine.com

HARVEST PARTY (MA)

OCTOBER 25, 2018

Sample regional food and beverages at the Boston Public Market’s annual celebration, featuring demos, dancing, auctions, and more. bostonpublicmarket.org

CIDER DAYS (MA)

NOVEMBER 2-4, 2018

Explore bucolic orchards, taste a variety of ciders, and celebrate all things apple in scenic Franklin. County. ciderdays.org

Photos (clockwise from top left): Paul

MASSACHUSETTS

SEP. 14–30: WEST SPRINGFIELD, The Big E. When it comes to big fairs in New England, it’s impossible to top this, the sixth largest agricultural fair in the entire country. Its mind-boggling array of food (barbecue brisket sundae, anyone?) keeps fairgoers fueled up for fun that ranges from agricultural competitions to midway rides, topnotch musical acts, and those amazing butter sculptures. 413-737-2443; thebige.com

SEP. 22–23: DEERFIELD, Old Deerfield Fall Craft Fair. The historic village of Old Deerfield provides a picturesque setting for browsers as they peruse jewelry, furniture, and more on the grounds of one of New England’s oldest museums, Memorial Hall Museum. 413-774-7476; deerfield-craft.org

SEPT. 28–OCT. 8: TOPSFIELD, Topsfield Fair. The country’s oldest continuously operating fair—which hits its 200-year anniversary this fall—just keeps getting better. Enjoy headline entertainment and shows, 4-H competitions, midway rides, games, tempting treats, and more. 978-887-5000; topsfieldfair.org

OCT. 4: SALEM, Haunted Happenings Grand Parade. Though Salem’s Haunted Happenings festival runs throughout the month of October, the big costume parade is the

PHOTO CREDIT: MASSACHUSETTS OFFICE OF TRAVEL & TOURISM

Photos: Salem W itch Museum & Salem Trolley, Salem © T ina Jordan

Be gin a tradition in the heart of Ogunquit .

town’s time-honored kickoff for the Halloween season. This year’s theme is “The Magic of Hocus Pocus ,” so expect to see witches, wizards, and magicians galore. 978-7440004; salem-chamber.org

OCT. 6–7: WAREHAM, Cranberry Harvest Celebration . Hosted by the A.D. Makepeace Company, the world’s largest cranberry grower and a founder of the Ocean Spray growers’ co-op, this event invites you to come see cranberries being harvested and learn how the fruit is incorporated into cooking and crafts, all while enjoying live music, a farmers’ market, paddleboat rides, and the varied offerings of area craft and

New Harbor, Maine 04554

OCT. 11–14: BOSTON, Taste of WGBH Food and Held at the WGBH studios in Boston’s Brighton neighborhood, this extravaganza of flavors brings together New England’s top chefs, producers, wineries, and breweries, creating a sampling bonanza. Further spicing things up are live music tions that in past years have included such PBS favorites such as Mary Ann Esposito

OCT. 13: BOSTON, ebrating the “power of words to stimulate, agitate, unite, delight, and inspire,” this free Copley Square festival marks its 10th year with a schedule chock-full of author readings and panels, plus a street fair, in the 857-259-6999;

New Harbor, Maine 04554

OCT. 13–14: WELLFLEET, Give a nod to the town’s famous bivalves and fishing traditions with hometown fun and flavor. Lures include local cuisine (heavy on the seafood), arts and crafts, a marinethemed spelling bee, walking tours, live music, a 5K road race, and the must-see 508-349-

OCT. 17–21: EDGARTOWN, Martha’s Vineyard in toasting the island’s rich tradition of farming and fishing with local culinary talent, and the farmers, fishermen, oyster producers, and artisans they work with. 508-939-0199; mvfoodandwine.com

New Harbor, Maine 04554 At

NEW HAMPSHIRE

SEP. 7–9: HAMPTON BEACH, Hampton Beach Seafood Festival. Live music and a fireworks show punctuate the seafood-eating frenzy as festivalgoers sample delicacies from 60-odd local restaurants. Also on tap: chef demos, arts and crafts booths, a sidewalk sale, and a lobster-roll eating competition. 603-9268718; hamptonbeachseafoodfestival.com

SEP. 13–16: PLYMOUTH, White Mountain Storytelling Festival. Feel the power of the spoken word at Plymouth State University as accomplished tale-spinners hold forth. Don’t miss the Friday-night slate of hairraising ghost stories. nhstorytelling.org

SEP. 15: ENFIELD, Harvest Festival. Among the old-school diversions on offer at the Enfield Shaker Museum: Take a wagon ride; make cider, churn butter, and crank your own ice cream; and dip handmade candles and learn other traditional crafts. 603-632-4346; shakermuseum.org

SEP. 21–23: LINCOLN, New Hampshire Highland Games. Don your tartan and step lively as Loon Mountain hosts more than 30 pipe bands and competitions in dance, fiddle, and harp, plus athletic contests, a clan village, sheepdog trials, and special ticketed events like a whiskey tasting and a harp concert. 603-229-1975; nhscot.org

SEP. 27–30: DEERFIELD, Deerfield Fair. Dating back to 1876, the Deerfield Fair bills itself as “New England’s oldest family fair.” It’s also one of the biggest fairs in New Hampshire, with livestock pulls and exhibitions, a demolition derby, sheepshearing, midway rides, live entertainment, and all your favorite fair food. 603-463-7421; deerfieldfair.com

OCT. 6: DOVER, Apple Harvest Day. More than 400 vendors, artisans, and organizations make for a busy scene downtown during this family-focused event, which comprises a craft fair, five stages of live entertainment, a 5K, an apple pie contest, and dozens of kids’ activities. 603-742-2218; dovernh.org

OCT. 6–8: MONADNOCK REGION, Art Tour. Enhance a foliage drive through this picturesque region by picking up a map and following the “Art Tour” signs leading to the homes and studios of artists in towns including Dublin, Harrisville, and Peterborough. Have a visit, ask questions, and view a variety of fine artwork. Studios are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. monadnockart.org

OCT. 12–13: LACONIA, New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival. In addition to the obvious draw (20,000 carved pumpkins clustered around downtown, including those lined up on a 34-foot tower), offerings include fair foods and rides, live musical performances, and don’t-miss events such as a pumpkin pancake breakfast, a pumpkin cook-off, and a zombie walk. nhpumpkinfestival.com

OCT. 26–27: PORTSMOUTH, Ghosts on the Banke. Long-dead sea captains, 17thcentury shopkeepers, and wayward privateers haunt the streets of Strawbery Banke, Portsmouth’s oldest neighborhood, as you trick-or-treat by jack-o’-lantern light. 603433-1100; strawberybanke.org

RHODE ISLAND

AUG. 31–SEP. 3: CHARLESTOWN, Rhythm & Roots Festival. With more than 40 musical acts on the roster—including the Taj Mahal Trio, Asleep at the Wheel, and CJ Chenier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band—this Ninigret Park festival promises a rocking Labor Day weekend. rhythmandroots.com

SEP. 8: PAWTUCKET, Chinese Dragon Boat Races & Taiwan Day Festival. Watch the colorful dragon boats—crewed by both professionals and amateurs—as they race along the Seekonk River, and then join in the fun on land (think: cultural performances, an arts and crafts display, and a dumpling eating contest). 401-724-2200; dragonboatri.com

SEP. 21–23: BLOCK ISLAND, Taste of Block Island. More than just a culinary event, this weekend aims to give the full flavor of Block Island. Over 50 local businesses join together to host a variety of gallery openings, wine and beer tastings, and tours, while offering discounts and specials at a number of shops, hotels, and restaurants, too. 401466-2474; tasteofbi.com

SEP. 22: LINCOLN, Great Road Day. Nine historical sites along the 17th-century highway Great Road (today’s Route 123) welcome the public with free admission today, including “the house that love built,” Hearthside; the architecturally rare “stone-ender” Arnold House; and the c. 1812 Moffeet Mill. 617227-3956; historicnewengland.org

SEP. 29–30: MIDDLETOWN, Harvest Fair. If you’ve never been to the natural treasure that is the 325-acre Norman Bird Sanctuary, this long-running old-timey fair is a great excuse to visit. Among the highlights are barrel train rides, pony rides, a mud pit, midway games, and a crafters’ tent—with plenty of food and music, too. 401-8462577; normanbirdsanctuary.org

OCT. 6–8: NORTH SCITUATE, Scituate Art Festival. What began as a way to pay for restoring the handsome 1830s Congregational church on the village green has evolved into a major event that draws 200-plus exhibitors from across North America. Proceeds go toward town nonprofits—as well as the maintenance effort to keep that old church sparkling. scituateartfestival.org

OCT. 13–14: BRISTOL, Coggeshall Farm Harvest Fair. A traditional autumn event with 18th-century flavor comes to the bucolic grounds of Coggeshall Farm Museum. Perfect your aim in the seed spitting contest, take sides in a tug-of-war, see artisans at work, visit with some farm animals, and generally unplug from the 21st century. 401-253-9062; coggeshallfarm.org

OCT. 13–14: NEWPORT, Bowen’s Wharf Seafood Festival. Savor the bounty of the sea as presented by area restaurants and fishermen’s associations. There’s lobster, chowder, stuffed quahogs, clam cakes, shrimp, scallops, raw oysters, and clams, as well as dishes tailored for kids and/or landlubbers. Local-favorite bands keep the beat while you eat. 401-849-2243; bowenswharf.com

VERMONT

AUG. 24–SEP. 2: ESSEX JUNCTION, Champlain Valley Fair. Expect loads of classic fair fun with 4-H events, horse pulls, cooking contests, and the judging of everything from home-brewed beer to Christmas trees. Headlining the music lineup on Aug. 31: ’80s hitmakers Rick Springfield, Eddie Money, Greg Kihn, and Tommy Tutone. 802-878-5545; champlainvalleyfair.org

SEP. 2: RANDOLPH, New World Festival. A spirited tribute to the vitality of small-town Vermont and the Celtic/French-Canadian heritage of northern New England, this fullday event offers continuous music, storytelling, and dance at various venues around town. 802-728-6464; newworldfestival.com

SEP. 7–9: BURLINGTON, South End Art Hop. Visit the city’s original arts district and discover thousands of works of art as well as outdoor sculpture, performance art, live demos and workshops, kids’ activities, and a fashion show. 802-859-9222; seaba.com

SEP. 13–16: TUNBRIDGE, Tunbridge World’s Fair. Head to the fairgrounds to explore family-farm traditions from the past, view antique machinery and implements, and tour an authentic one-room schoolhouse. Also on the lineup: pig races, harness racing, livestock and gardening competitions, fair

Download Yankee’s Free Leaf Peepr Foliage App

September 15, 2018–January 13, 2019

In a curated biennial series’ inaugural exhibition, contemporary artists explore the region’s evolving identities and complex beauty through paintings and photographs.

Over 100,000 works in 39 buildings on 45 beautiful Vermont acres.

Find and report on fall foliage! Leaf Peepr helps fall-foliage fans nd and report on the best and brightest colors in New England.

11 a.m.

Thursdays

7:30 p.m.

foods, and an old-fashioned carnival. 800889-5555; tunbridgeworldsfair.com

SEP. 29: BURKE, Fall Foliage Festival. Autumn in a small town doesn’t get any better than this. Come enjoy horse-drawn wagon rides, a rubber duck race, a parade, a petting zoo, live music, a tag sale, and more. 802-626-4124; burkevermont.com

SEP. 29–30: TUNBRIDGE, Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival. Small farms and natural fibers are the focus as more than 70 vendors offer fleece and yarn, fiber crafts, and other homespun wares. Check out the classes and workshops, herding and shearing demos, and local music—and don’t forget the maple creemees! 802-685-3267; vtsheepandwoolfest.com

OCT. 5–7: STOWE, Foliage Arts Festival. More than 150 juried artisans will bring their creations to Topnotch Field for the area’s biggest autumn arts festival, complete with food, wine, beer, and entertainment. 802316-5019; craftproducers.com

OCT. 11–14: BRATTLEBORO, Brattleboro Literary Festival Here’s a must-attend event for writers and readers—and a great excuse for leaf peeping in scenic southern Vermont, to boot. Venues throughout town will host readings, panel discussions, and other events with emerging and established authors. 802365-7673; brattleboroliteraryfestival.org

Historic Theater: 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, NH

Loft: 131 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH

Historic Theater: 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, NH Loft: 131 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH B2W Box Office: 603.436.2400 • TheMusicHall.org



Historic Theater: 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, NH

B2W Box Office: 603.436.2400 • TheMusicHall.org

Loft: 131 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH

/MusicHall @MusicHall /MusicHallNH

B2W Box Office: 603.436.2400 • TheMusicHall.org

/MusicHall @MusicHall /MusicHallNH

Historic Theater: 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, NH Loft: 131 Congress Street, Portsmouth, NH B2W Box Office: 603.436.2400 • TheMusicHall.org /MusicHall @MusicHall /MusicHallNH

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

WRITERS

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE

ON

A

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE

NEW

Fri., September 28 • 7pm • Historic Theater

ENGLAND STAGE DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN

Historic Theater

Fri., September 28 7pm Historic Theater

Fri., September 28 • 7pm • Historic Theater

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

In this culmination of five decades of acclaimed studies in presidential history, Pulitzer Prizewinning author Doris Kearns Goodwin offers an illuminating exploration of the early development, growth, and exercise of leadership.

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE IS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN:

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE IS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN:

WRITERS ON A NEW ENGLAND STAGE IS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN:

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

PRESENTING SPONSORS:

MEDIA PARTNER:

SERIES SPONSOR: Piscataqua Landscaping & Tree Service

MEDIA PARTNER:

SERIES SPONSOR: Piscataqua Landscaping & Tree Service

SERIES SPONSOR: Piscataqua Landscaping & Tree Service

MEDIA PARTNER:

SERIES SPONSOR: Piscataqua Landscaping & Tree Service

Photo: Annie Leibowitz

Photo: Annie Leibowitz

Photo: Annie Leibowitz

Photo: Annie Leibowitz

Award winning analysis of the stories that shape our world and inform public policy.

Photo: Katie Pritchard

EDITORS’ CHOICE

Peak Perfection

WHEN IT COMES TO FALL FOLIAGE DISPLAYS, NEW ENGLAND IS A RARE SMORGASBORD: YOU CAN WHET YOUR APPETITE IN THE NORTHERN HIGH ELEVATIONS, FEAST ON THE COLOR AS IT ROLLS DOWN INTO THE VALLEYS, AND COME BACK FOR DESSERT ALONG THE SOUTHERN SHORES. FROM LATE SEPTEMBER ALL THROUGH OCTOBER, GORGEOUS COLOR IS NEVER FAR AWAY— AND IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES, YOU’LL DISCOVER SOME OF OUR FAVORITE PLACES TO HIT THE PEAK.

The Wild Heart of Autumn

NEW HAMPSHIRE’S GREAT NORTH WOODS IS A PLACE FOR BEGINNINGS. As early as mid-September, the first signs of leaves tinged with color nudge into view along mountain ridges and the waterways that thread through the forested villages. Famously, this is where the mighty Connecticut River begins its 410-mile journey to the sea from a remote beaver pond just a few hundred yards from Canada. The towns are small and inviting, from Lancaster, then north to Colebrook, and beyond to Pittsburg. Here, wilderness sporting lodges that have attracted outdoors lovers for generations stand along shorelines, and a native’s prowess with a paddle and a fishing rod is a birthright. Hikers set off along the 170 miles of the Cohos Trail, and ATV enthusiasts explore over 1,000 miles of backcountry trails. This is a region of twisting two-lane roads, with the promise of moose around every bend—and when one emerges, you know you will remember this. It’s where scarlet-and-orange-drenched trees rim the Swiss-like Lake Gloriette in Dixville Notch, and where a logging museum in Berlin awakens an echo of the frontier legacy of river drives and the men who steered the lumber to the pulp mills. The North Country may be a place for beginnings, but when loons cry and eagles soar over the water, and you listen to the slap of fish on the lake, a love of the wild will come over you, one that may never end. —Mel Allen

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route Drive slowly with open windows north from Colebrook to Pittsburg on Route 145, a National Scenic Byway, and soak in views of water, mountains, forest, and possibly moose.

Photo Op

At Beaver Brook Falls in Colebrook, water tumbles 80 feet over rocks, while evergreens and hardwoods lush with color frame every shot. nhstateparks.org

Refueling Stop

The Rainbow Grille & Tavern at Tall Timber Lodge in Pittsburg shows that sporting camps that thrive after 70-plus years know how to please hungry anglers and foliage day-trippers. talltimber.com

Fun for Kids

On an ELC Outdoors pontoon boat tour of beautiful Lake Umbagog, kids will likely spy eagles, ospreys, and (if lucky) black bears at play. elcoutdoors.com

Shopping Break

Just north of the Lancaster Fairgrounds on Route 3, Potato Barn Antiques stuffs an impressive array of vintage wares into (you guessed it) a 7,500-square-foot former potato barn. potatobarnantiques .com

Though Route 3—New Hampshire’s so-called “Moose Alley”—may be the better-known North Country drive, Route 145 also has plenty to offer leaf peepers, as seen in this roadside shot taken near Clarksville. Photograph by Jim Salge

ISTOCKPHOTO ICONS: AVICONS (BINOCULARS); LUSHIK (CAMERA, UTENSILS); VICTOR (CHILD); DACIAN_G (BAG)

Feasting Through the Foliage

THOUGH FILLED WITH CLAPBOARD VILLAGES AND RUGGED MOUNTAIN BEAUTY, the tricounty northeastern corner of Vermont is no mere drive-though postcard. It rewards those visitors who stop and bide a while—whether it’s to spend a day mountain biking on East Burke’s famed Kingdom Trails, or an evening camping at Brighton State Park’s Spectacle Pond, a sheltered gem that fully lives up to its name in autumn. ¶ But the most compelling reason to tarry in the Northeast Kingdom might just be the food, as the onset of fall foliage marks the bountiful end of the region’s growing season. Everywhere you look, there are farm stands and markets offering an edible rainbow of red-orange tomatoes, jewel-like yellow raspberries and emerald brassicas, giant blue Hubbard squashes, and enough purple cabbages to feed an army. Even better, this homegrown abundance—as well as world-class cheeses from Kingdom standbys Jasper Hill Farm and Sweet Rowen Farmstead—is baked into restaurant menus and showcased on the shelves at general stores and grocers. In these parts, small farms feed each village, and locals buy in—not because it’s trendy or “sustainable,” but because supporting one’s neighbor is a community best practice. Luckily, you don’t have to be one of the region’s 65,000 year-round residents to partake in these pleasures … just stop the car, pull up a chair, and dig in. —Hannah

Palmer Egan

Vermont is the kind of place where things are built to last, and one of its favorite long-lived creations is the Northeast Kingdom Fall Foliage Festival (9/30–10/7): Founded in 1956, it keeps the fun going for a full week as the focus shifts to a new town each day. From craft sales and church suppers to parades and live music, the lineup changes—but the appeal remains the same. nekchamber.com

SIGNATURE EVENT

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route

Cruise by bike or car from Brighton to Westmore via Route 105 and Hinton Hill Road, where Lake Willoughby, Vermont’s deepest lake, appears as a blue ribbon from the high open fields.

Refueling Stop

For a delicious double play, stop in at Greensboro’s world-renowned beer mecca, Hill Farmstead Brewery, then grab a pizza at the Parker Pie Co. in West Glover. hillfarmstead.com; parkerpie.com

Fun for Kids

Lose yourself for an hour (or three) in the Great Vermont Corn Maze in Danville. vermontcornmaze.com

Shopping Break Railroad Street in St. Johnsbury is an antiquespicker’s delight. discoverstjohnsbury .com

Photo Op Snap a selfie with the stately double row of maples on Darling Hill Road in Lyndonville.

FROM LEFT : Andy and Mateo Kehler, owners of the acclaimed cheese maker Jasper Hill Farm; the signature Green Mountain Special pizza at the Parker Pie Co.; a family-and-foliage trip on the Kingdom Trails.

Photographs, from left: Colin Clark; Bob M. Montgomery; Corey Hendrickson

Setting a Course for Color

AUTUMN ON PENOBSCOT BAY IS A SAILOR’S DELIGHT, as cooler, drier winds chase away the clammy ocean fogs of summer. These same crisp breezes nip at the heels of warm-weather vacationers heading home, convinced that they’ve seen the Midcoast at its best—and that to stay any longer would require a much fleecier set of clothes. And it does. But it’s worth donning an extra layer to linger in this place where the mountains meet the sea, and to claim the procrastinator’s reward: elbow room and eye-popping color. ¶ Even without the sparkling lure of the Atlantic at its doorstep, the region that rolls west from the bay to the St. George River would be a worthy foliage visit. Mostly farmland in the 1800s, it’s now 70 to 80 percent forested with everything from birches and aspens to maples, oaks, and beech. Catching fire in early fall, blueberry barrens contribute some brilliant reds, while Maine’s omnipresent evergreens provide a cool contrast to all. And an agrarian spirit still shines here, in small farms and creameries and even a handful of awardwinning wineries (including the terrifically scenic Cellardoor in Lincolnville). ¶ The call of the coastline, though, is impossible to resist—especially along the stretch of Route 1 that hugs the bay, linking the destination towns of Rockland, Rockport, and Camden with Belfast and Searsport to the north, now emptied of the summer throngs. You can stretch your legs wandering streets and waterfronts salted with history, or kick back at a seafood shack and claim some of the best lobster of the year. And when you see the season’s last day-sails and windjammer cruises swanning around against a backdrop of fiery leaves, you may even be tempted to cast off into the color yourself.

—Jenn Johnson

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route Climb Mount Battie in Camden Hills State Park and—with Penobscot Bay spread out below—you will have achieved the literal pinnacle of Midcoast leaf peeping. maine.gov/dacf

Photo Op Hike out onto Rockland’s nearlymile-long breakwater for an uninterrupted view of the harbor and coastline, including the crown of Owls Head Light. rocklandharbor lights.org

Refueling Stop

The Red Barn Baking Co. in Camden excels at oven-fresh breads, pastries, cookies, and, of course, whoopie pies—perfect for enjoying on a bench by the harbor. theredbarnmarket place.com

Fun for Kids

Find a tricky corn maze and a 20-foot-high hay pyramid—plus pumpkins, apples, and lots of homemade treats—at Beth’s Farm Market in Warren. bethsfarmmarket.com

Shopping Break

An afternoon can easily slip away on Rockland’s Main Street, but do make time for the artistic, all-local wares at the Island Institute store, Archipelago. thearchipelago.net

FROM LEFT : Scenes from Beth’s Farm Market in Warren, which in autumn is home to pumpkins aplenty and a giant pyramid of hay bales; windjammers lend their timeless presence to the Camden waterfront.

Photographs by Mark Fleming

One Majestic Mountain

FOR THOSE OF US WHO LIVE IN THE SOUTHWESTERN POCKET OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, we know we’re home when we see our mountain, our Monadnock, on the horizon. It rises only 3,165 feet, modest enough compared with many in the Whites, or Maine’s Katahdin. Yet Monadnock’s prominence stems from what’s not around it. It stands alone, with no other geological formation to distract the eye—it’s an only child who receives undivided love. Each year, some 125,000 hikers scamper up its well-worn trails. They come in part because Monadnock is accessible (Boston is only 65 miles away), but also because of what they’ll see: On clear autumn days, the view takes in all six New England states in one single, circling gulp. ¶ From the peak, the foliage rolls down to the 40-odd towns and villages that claim kinship with Monadnock while offering beauty on a smaller scale: a lush center green in Hancock, a lively general store front porch in Harrisville, a sloping field of apples in Walpole. Just beyond lies a wealth of streams, lakes, ponds, waterfalls, and tree-lined back roads connecting other tree-lined back roads. Nature is not something one goes to in the Monadnock Region, like some exhibit. It’s there, embedded in the very fabric of life. If you come here, do what the locals do: Take your time, drive slowly, stop often. When you do, chances are you, too, will discover the secret of Monadnock’s hold.

—Ian Aldrich

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route Follow the 1.3-mile toll road up the other Monadnock—Pack Monadnock, in Peterborough— and soak up the 360-degree panorama you’ll find at the top. nhstateparks.org

Photo Op Route 124 between Marlborough and Jaffrey offers a stop-the-car view of Monadnock.

Refueling Stop Duck into the Harrisville General Store for a coffee, or sit down to a grilled cheese with tomato and the most delectable kale salad you’ve ever tasted. harrisvillegeneral store.com

Fun for Kids

At Alyson’s Orchard in Walpole, pick-yourown apples, wagon rides, and freshly made cider are all a part of the familyfriendly itinerary. alysonsorchard.com

Shopping Break

Crafters, artisans, foodie stops, and one impeccable bookstore round out the scene in downtown Peterborough’s Depot Square. shoppeterborough nh.com

With Mount Monadnock looming in the background, the lovely little town lake in Dublin is too tempting a picture to pass up. Photograph by Dave White

College Towns to Fall For

IT’S A POSTCARD-PERFECT FALL MORNING. A bluebird sky. A slight chill in the air as the rising sun tickles the Pioneer Valley’s undulating swath of woods and farmland along the Connecticut River. Breaking the spell, the bells at Mount Holyoke College’s Mary Lyon Hall peal to announce Mountain Day: a surprise day each autumn when classes are canceled and students head for the hills, Mount Holyoke being the obvious choice. The tradition, dating back to the late 1830s and also celebrated at Smith College across the river, is a nod to how profoundly the landscape shapes life in the so-called Happy Valley for both residents and the 30,000 students at the five famed local colleges: Mount Holyoke, Smith, Hampshire, Amherst, and UMass Amherst. ¶ In turn, the schools keep the region—centering on the towns of funky, bohemian Northampton and bookish Amherst—awash in arts and culture. It’s college-town charm, cranked up to 11. As the fall semester gets under way, “all of a sudden, there are a million things to do and choose from,” says Northampton poet laureate Amy Dryansky, who works at Hampshire College. “The students bring their own energy.” This isn’t the place for leaf peepers looking for languid walks and sleepy B&Bs. Here, stunning foliage and panorama-laden hikes come with a side of indie music, film screenings, book readings, and, to keep it all humming, artisanal coffee. —Courtney Hollands

Even as October fades into November, the Pioneer Valley gives autumn lovers one last bite of the apple with Franklin County CiderDays (11/2–11/4). Held in towns throughout the county, this hidden-gem harvest festival pays tribute to the ultimate fall crop with cider workshops, orchard tours, apple cooking demonstrations, hard cider tastings, and more. 413-773-5463; ciderdays.org

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route Hit the Norwottuck Rail Trail, which offers bikers and walkers a nine-mile canopy of color from Northampton to Amherst. mass.gov

Photo Op Drive or climb Mount Sugarloaf in South Deerfield, where the observation tower affords sweeping views of the Happy Valley and beyond. mass.gov

Refueling Stop

Gourmet picnic nibbles—washedrind cheeses, pâtés, crispy baguettes, local brews—can be had at Provisions, just off the main drag in Northampton. provisionswine.com

Fun for Kids

Ooh and aah over the slew of whimsical illustrations by William Steig, Maurice Sendak, and others at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, an Amherst landmark. carlemuseum.org

Shopping Break

New York Times best-sellers, Tibetan crafts, Brooklynmade handbags— Northampton’s beloved Thornes Marketplace has it all (and Herrell’s hot fudge sundaes). thornesmarket place.com

FROM LEFT : Strolling the graceful campus at Mount Holyoke College; a Pioneer Valley riverscape, seen from Mount Sugarloaf; a pumpkin carver signing her creation at the Easthampton Fall Festival.

Photographs, from left: Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism; Meg Haley

An Urban Blaze of Glory

AUTUMN FINDS RHODE ISLAND’S CAPITAL BURNING AT BOTH ENDS:

On select evenings the bonfires of long-running art installation WaterFire are set aglow along the rivers downtown; meanwhile, daytime hours erupt with a fall foliage display that transforms the city’s otherwise muted palette of brick, concrete, and steel. ¶ A haven for leaf peepers looking to ditch their car, Providence offers walkable, tree-lined neighborhoods dotted with dining and shopping stops. Fall foliage reaches its crescendo in College Hill, where restored colonial homes and grand mansions line Benefit Street near the cast-iron filigree gates of Brown University. Take a guided stroll with the Rhode Island Historical Society to learn how this architectural treasure chest was saved from the wrecking ball, and check out the John Brown House Museum, home to 100-year-old-plus elm trees. Over on the East Side, the showstopping red maple—Rhode Island’s state tree—can be seen in abundance, while Hope Street invites browsing with a farmers’ market, excellent restaurants, and independently owned stores. Downtown, colors run amok as street art and large-scale murals by artists from around the world vie for attention with the changing leaves. ¶ Meanwhile, a ramble along Wickenden Street, in Fox Point, brings you back to a time before big corporations took over neighborhoods. Here, an old-school hardware store still thrives in an eclectic business lineup that includes an independent coffeehouse, a record store, antiques shops, and watering holes that have existed for decades. For leaf peepers craving urban comforts, it doesn’t get much better than this. —Jamie

Coelho

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route

You can’t beat the East Side’s Blackstone Boulevard, a 1.6-mile path bordered by two roads and crowded with mature trees that put on a show.

blackstoneparks conservancy.org

Photo Op

Join the granite statue of city founder Roger Williams in surveying the entire city from the height of Prospect Terrace Park. goprovidence.com

Refueling Stop

For upscale fall flavor, head to New Rivers, a tony College Hill bistro that spotlights produce and meat from area farms. newriversrestaurant .com

Fun for Kids

Check out the resident elephants, giraffes, and snow leopards at the venerable Roger Williams Park Zoo. rwpzoo.org

Shopping Break

From clothing boutiques to home decor purveyors, “small” and “locally owned” are the retail watchwords on Hope Street. hopestreetprov.com

Often hailed as one of America’s best small cities, Providence is custom-made for leaf peepers who don’t want to stray too far from Wi-Fi, great restaurants, and other urban amenities.

Photograph by Richard Benjamin

Lower Connecticut River Valley | CT All Aboard the Hues Cruise

RIGHT THROUGH OCTOBER, THE RIVER-VEINED CORE OF CONNECTICUT

clings to a fall stage that can only be called … denial. Virginia creeper vines slithering up tree trunks are caramelized red; the river banks shine gold, signaling upland maples it is time they, too, relinquished their green. Yet water and sky are as frenzied and alive as ever. The Connecticut—New England’s mightiest river—gets a shot of saltwater from Long Island Sound as it nears the end of its 410-mile run, creating an estuarine environment that sees a flurry of wildlife activity in the fall. Book a riverboat cruise from East Haddam or Deep River and enjoy nature’s show, from ocean-bound baby shad leaping in silver streaks to a bald or golden eagle soaring overhead. Hundreds of winged species migrate through each fall, but the tree and barn swallows are an autumn phenomenon unto themselves: When nearly a million of these birds swirl in a funnel before plummeting en masse to roost among amber reeds, their flapping creates a vortex of energy you can actually feel. ¶ The rush is magnified if you paddle into the melee in a kayak or canoe. Low to the water, which snaps so crystal clear after the first frost you can spy on the tens of thousands of blue crabs that march downriver just as foliage color peaks, you’re no longer an impartial observer. Old Lyme–based Black Hall Outfitters offers kayaking ecotours into the 500-plus pristine backwater acres of the Great Island salt marsh, where you can banish civilization from sight and immerse yourself in an autumn splendor that feels as if it could go on forever.

—Kim Knox Beckius

YANKEE ’S ULTIMATE FOLIAGE ADVENTURE

Pie eating contests! Giant pumpkins! Killer views! And battles over music choices!

This fall, Yankee deputy editor Ian Aldrich and senior photographer Mark Fleming are hitting the road together to see, do, taste, and otherwise discover everything that should be part of the ultimate New England foliage road trip. To follow their adventure—and even send in ideas for their to-do list—go to newengland.com/yankeefallroadtrip. And who knows? You just might see them out there.

TRIP

FALL ROAD

WHEN YOU GO

Scenic Route From Old Saybrook, take Route 154 north to Route 148 east straight to the Connecticut River: The ChesterHadlyme Ferry, in service since 1769, is there to catch you. ct.gov/dot

Photo Op

Gillette Castle State Park in East Haddam offers a lofty view of the Connecticut River and the fall colors that shimmer in its waters. ct.gov/deep

Refueling Stop

Call ahead, and Simon’s Marketplace in Chester will have your custom gourmet picnic (try house-roasted beef on a fresh-baked baguette) ready to tote on a boat or car ride. 860-526-8984

Fun for Kids

All ages will be enchanted by the Lilliputian architecture of the Wee Faerie Village, a seasonal art installation at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. florencegriswold museum.org

Shopping Break

Walkable, waterside

Essex Village has clothiers, galleries (including the state’s oldest artists’ co-op), and the “goods and curiosities” of the Griswold Inn Store. essexct.com

Lynde Point Light in Old Saybrook marks the entrance to the Connecticut River, whose lower stretch is among New England’s most scenic spots for wildlife-watching during fall migration season.

Photograph by Carl Tremblay

THE ESSENCE OF APPLEDORE

Eating what you gather on an island can change how you look at food— and even life itself.

By Rowan Jacobsen

Photographs by Mark Fleming

A luxuriantly mustachioed 20-something with no culinary experience, he’d talked his way into a position as the cook for Cornell University’s new Shoals Marine Laboratory, which was still under construction on Appledore, as a way of getting himself out of Ithaca, New York. He’d visited the Maine coast and fallen in love with it, but Appledore surprised him. “It wasn’t what I’d imagined,” he recalls. “This was not another Maine porcupine island, spruce-covered and grassy. It was peaty and more or less barren.”

In that assessment, Sam was following a long line of people who had arrived at the Isles of Shoals—a handful of tiny islands shared by New Hampshire and Maine, of which Appledore is the largest—and failed to see the charm. Few trees, thin soil, angry gulls, zero comfort. On a snotty day, wind spitting sleet across the water, they can be bleakness itself. In terms of arability, or natural resources, or strategic value as a port, or any of the usual ways we measure value, the Isles of Shoals are pretty worthless.

But what Sam did not know on that day in 1974 was that he was about to follow another tradition, one of people—from the early fishermen who discovered teeming shoals of cod (and named the islands for them), to the impressionist painters dazzled by a kind of light they’d never seen, to the generations of biologists who found in the isolation a perfect living lab—who’d come to see abundant riches in these rocks.

First, he had to get ashore. The only person living on the island was the engineer, who was building the marine lab literally from the ground up. He hadn’t gotten to the dock yet. The boat on which Sam had hitched a ride out of Kittery pulled as close as it could to the seaweed-slicked rocks, and the pilot told Sam to jump. “I was wearing smooth-bottomed leather moccasins made for me at the local hippie haberdashery,” he remembers. “The waves were pounding the rocks.” Sam jumped. “Boom, down I went.”

Soaked and humiliated, Sam wondered if he was in over his head—a feeling that only grew as he realized the lab facilities were mostly theoretical. The plumbing barely worked, the kitchen was a shell, and they had to dig decades of muskrat poop out of the only well.

But he stuck with it. The rest of the staff arrived, and together they launched a uniquely hands-on marine lab. “There was a pioneering spirit,” he says. “In that freewheeling, creative environment, almost anything was welcome.”

Cooking meals for 100 students and staff with limited facilities, he got his culinary boot camp. But he also learned to see food in a way few people did in 1974.

“Weird fish was the air you breathed out here,” Sam says. “The fishing boats out of Gloucester and New Bedford passed right by the island. We got the reputation for being the crazy guys who’d buy anything they dragged up off the bottom. We’d hand out fileting knives to the students, and in the

name of gross morphology they’d prepare dinner service.”

Nothing is hidden on Appledore. Whether you’re a marine bio student or a young chef, you get to see all the pieces of the puzzle. For Sam, it was a crystallizing moment. “We’d slit open the stomachs of these huge cod and what would spill out but hundreds of one-inch baby lobsters. I started realizing that cod and lobster are connected, that when you’re eating a cod you’re not just eating a cod, you’re eating everything that the cod has eaten. I started wondering about the whole ecosystem of the Gulf of Maine. Where are the baby lobsters hiding? Where are the kelp forests that the baby cod hide in? Are the urchins so sweet because they’re eating the sugar kelp? And I was fortunate to be surrounded by scientists who could answer my questions. Those are the things that stayed with me and continue to inform my cooking.”

Sam cooked for the Shoals Marine Laboratory through the 1976 season, then embarked on a series of restaurant adventures that would culminate in his famed Portland eatery, Fore Street. But he never forgot Appledore.

Fast-forward 40 years. I’ve come to Appledore with Sam Hayward and two dozen other brave souls for “Take a Bite Out of Appledore,” a weekend of foraging and fieldwork dreamed up by Portsmouth chef Evan Mallett and the marine lab’s executive director, Jenn Seavey. Meet the ecosystem, then eat it.

Appledore Island is a glacier-raked lump of granite six miles off the New Hampshire coast. In shape, color, and smell, it resembles a giant oyster shell.

When Sam Hayward, who would go on to become one of Maine’s most celebrated chefs, first saw Appledore from the deck of a shrimper in the spring of 1974, he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake.

From left, top chefs Evan Mallett and Sam Hayward on Appledore with the next generation of culinary talent, Shoals Marine Laboratory chef Cam Heins.

previous spread : Scenes from the “Take a Bite Out of Appledore” weekend, including a view of the marine lab campus and a pile of mackerel caught right offshore.

Gulls scream at me. A lonely buoy clangs in the fog. Sea meets shore in a frothy mess of coves and spits. Abundance is not the first word to come to mind.

Launched in 2015 by Evan Mallett and Shoals Marine Laboratory executive director Jenn Seavey, the annual “Take a Bite Out of Appledore” retreat brings together chefs, scientists, and food lovers to explore the natural gifts of the Isles of Shoals. It also spotlights the work of the lab itself, a seasonal field station run by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire.

Foraging knows no bounds during the Appledore retreat, as participants head out to sea with rods and reels, wade into tide pools in search of crabs and periwinkles, and canvass the island for fruit, herbs, and edible plants—all of which will be transformed within hours into an ultralocal feast.

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m walking through the scrub to join Evan on an intertidal hunt for crabs and periwinkles, and I’m just not seeing it. The day is a gray drizzle. Gulls scream at me. A lonely buoy clangs in the fog. Sea meets shore in a frothy mess of coves and spits. Abundance is not the first word to come to mind.

I’m definitely not seeing whatever Childe Hassam saw. America’s leading impressionist, Hassam first came to Appledore in the 1880s at the invitation of poet and local resident Celia Thaxter, whose summer salons drew a who’s who of artists and writers. Cod fishing had collapsed on the Shoals long before, but they’d been reimagined as a place for Victorians to escape the summer heat. Grand hotels appeared on Appledore and Star islands, while Smuttynose hosted the Mid-Ocean House of Entertainment.

Hassam had already become famous for his street scenes of Paris and New York, but those paintings feel programmed, as if he had a buyer in mind.

crabs’ movements, catch a few, and lose myself in the metallic light of the pool.

When I finally raise my head from the water, lips so cold I can’t talk, the world feels different. People splash out of the water with their treasure, shaking and laughing. We’ve got the raw stuff of Appledore, and we’re ready to make something out of it.

As we head back to the lab’s kitchen, Evan confesses that part of him wishes cooking could always be like this. “On an island, there’s no time for trial and error. You find an ingredient, you gotta use it. You just ask yourself, How am I going to put this in front of people in a way that’s delicious and that helps tell the story of this place? To me, the most important ingredient in a chef is the ability to adapt on the fly. Culinary school teaches you to try to control everything, but your greatest asset is what you do when those systems break down.”

Appledore broke him open. As I walked, it wasn’t hard to see why. Less than a mile from end to end, with few trees to get in the way, Appledore is a funhouse of vistas. Hassam painted them all, more than 250 paintings, returning to the island almost every summer from 1886 to 1916.

Jenn Seavey, whose ancestors came to the Shoals in the very beginning and founded Seavey Island, a stone’s throw from Appledore, makes a game of matching Hassam paintings to their exact vistas. He was faithful to every rock.

“But he made up the colors!” I protest. Pastels dance out of Hassam’s granite. His seas swell with purple. The island ripples with sentient energy. It’s as if he transplanted Appledore to the Caribbean—a dreamy illusion.

“No,” Jenn insists. “It’s real. You’ll see.”

Down at the tide pool, Evan and a few others are suiting up for foraging. A cold rain pelts us as we strap on snorkel gear, already starting to shiver. Evan, who has a reputation as not only New England’s best wild-ingredients chef but also the one least likely to have a fallback plan, needs crabs and oysters and periwinkles for dinner, and there’s only one way he’s going to get them.

“Look for really small crabs,” he advises us as he wades into the water. “The smaller the better.” And with that he plunges into the four-foot-deep pool.

Evan grew up playing on the beach in Rye, New Hampshire, gazing out at the Isles of Shoals. “They’re my unicorn,” he tells me. “On days when it’s too foggy to see the islands, if the lighting is right they actually cast a mirage of themselves that you can see from anywhere on the New Hampshire shoreline. That’s part of my mystical association with the islands. I could go to the beach on a foggy day and see an image of the Isles of Shoals flickering on the horizon.”

Having failed to squeeze myself into any of the lab’s wetsuits—apparently marine science students are built like whippets—I pull on my mask and snorkel and trudge into water so cold my breath shudders. The bottom of the pool is covered with periwinkles and tiny crabs scuttling across rust-colored cobble. They scatter like cockroaches as I glide over. After five minutes I have just two crabs in my net sack and I’m shaking wildly. This does not bode well for dinner.

I switch to periwinkles, and then I find a nice patch of oysters. My bag starts to feel heavier. I’m also numb, which is an improvement. I start to anticipate the

Evan tells me that when he proposed “Take a Bite Out of Appledore” to Sam, “I thought it was going to be a difficult sales pitch. But he responded with a resounding yes. There’s a risk dragging a legendary guy into something that doesn’t even have a definition yet.” He flashes a wild grin, teeth chattering, as rain sluices off the bridge of his nose. “It’s a darn good thing it’s going so well!”

Iwon’t lie. We had a lot of help with dinner. It takes a village of marine biologists and chefs and fishermen to make a spectacular dinner on a lonely island. Sam led a fishing expedition in a marine lab boat that came back with buckets of mackerel. We scored lobster from the last Isles of Shoals lobsterman, and cod and cusk from Tim Rider, the last commercial rod-and-reel fisherman in the Northeast, who hand-delivers his catch to the lab just as the boats used to do for Sam 40 years ago.

Cam Heins, the current Shoals chef, was foraging like a madman before our arrival and is able to augment our meager take. Straight out of culinary school, Cam is the Sam of 2018. This is his first real gig. He’d worked one summer at Evan Mallett’s Black Trumpet and got the job on Evan’s recommendation, for

“On an island,” Evan says, “there’s no time for trial and error. You find an ingredient, you gotta use it. You just ask yourself, How am I going to put this in front of people in a way that’s delicious and that helps tell the story of this place? ”

which he was incredibly grateful. “I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity,” Cam tells me when I join him for a last-minute berry run. “I can order whatever I want. I can make whatever I want. I have full creativity.”

As we walk back toward the kitchen with baskets of serviceberries and chokecherries, he still seems a little stunned at his good fortune. “I’ve known Evan since I was pretty young,” he says. “I’ve always been inspired by what he does. You see five new ingredients every time you walk into the Black Trumpet. He’s always been my mentor. So having the opportunity to work with him and his mentor is really amazing.”

Like Sam years earlier, Cam took Appledore’s lessons to heart. “You’re not just buying an ingredient that’s being delivered to your restaurant. You’re going out and looking for it, and picking it, and processing it, and deciding what it’s going with. It just adds so much more heart to the dish.”

Cam slips away to the kitchen to start infusing some of that heart into things. When we gather for the meal a few hours later, it’s there. We sip elderberry cordials and beer made with hops from Celia Thaxter’s garden while nibbling on the periwinkles and crabs, fried crisp as potato chips. We eat grilled mackerel and raw oysters spiked with sea lettuce. There’s a salad of red goosefoot, calendula, and peppery wild radish pods as vibrant as any Childe Hassam watercolor. Sam makes a shaved “apple snow” meringue from gnarled apples growing near the

this island, and it has done nothing but expand and grow since that time. I know that sounds quasi-mystical, but that’s what cooking has been for me.”

marine lab, and Cam makes cake rolls with swirls of blackberry and serviceberry. There’s lavender ice cream, courtesy of Celia’s garden, and chokecherry syrup on the side. We toast the chefs and the fishermen and the artists who long ago set a tone of paying attention to the world around them—a lineage that leads straight to the Shoals Marine Laboratory today.

After the meal, Sam and I duck out so he can show me his favorite spot on the island. It goes by the unromantic name of Transect 18—this is a science lab, after all—but it’s a stirring sweep of rock on the exposed east side with clear views across the Atlantic. Sam says he’d come out here to watch the sun rise or to trace the constellations at night. To him, it’s the essence of Appledore. “This island is experiential,” he says, “it’s direct, it’s transcendent, it’s beautiful. It’s wonder and mystery and love of the environment—everything that’s become important to me in the intervening decades.”

It was here that he saw his path unfolding. “I started asking myself, How can I experience that interconnectedness? How can I bring diners into that same sense of mystery and awe, which food hasn’t had in the era of industrial agriculture? It’s a way of connecting with the world that never occurred to me until I got to

I nod in understanding, and for a while we silently watch the waves churning against the rock as clouds tumble overhead. Suddenly, a ray of sun lights the foaming sea in tropical streaks, and we are in a Childe Hassam masterpiece. I turn and gaze across the island at the lichen-splotched rocks and dancing goldenrod, and I stand corrected. Hassam didn’t make up a thing. He discovered in Appledore’s wild light and raw experience some fleeting yet irreducible truths, and he keenly mined them for 30 years.

And in a way, I guess, we’ve all come here for that clarity. The artists, the scientists, the chefs, the hungry wanderers. Appledore had plenty to give, if you did what we’re doing now. Stand on the edge. Shiver a little. Keep looking. And wait for the light to break just right.

This year’s “Take a Bite Out of Appledore” event will be held 9/1–9/3. For details, go to shoalsmarinelaboratory.org.

We sip elderberry cordials and beer made with hops from Celia Thaxter’s garden while nibbling on the periwinkles and crabs, fried crisp as potato chips.

from left : Hayward and Heins at work in the lab kitchen; looking west across the marine lab campus toward the New Hampshire coastline. To see additional photographs, go to newengland.com/eating-appledore.

EVERY FALL, PEOPLE COME FROM HUNDREDS—

EVEN THOUSANDS—OF MILES AWAY TO READ ALOUD ALL OF EMILY DICKINSON’S

1,789 POEMS IN ONE DAY. FROM DAWN UNTIL DARK, THE AUTHOR JOINS THIS SINGULAR BAND OF POETRY FANS TO FIND OUT WHY.

BY JULIA SHIPLEY

READING

collage by JOHN MORSE

It’s 6:03 a.m. on a Saturday in mid-September, and I’m seated in the parlor of a dandelion-yellow house near downtown Amherst, Massachusetts, along with eight other literary athletes. I’ve come from 200 miles away for the annual Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Marathon, which is hardly far at all. The man sitting next to me, Wang Liyan, has arrived from China. A literature professor, he obtained a contingent worker visa to fly 6,000 miles to Boston, the city closest to his favorite poet’s home. Then, earlier this morning, when it was so dark out it still seemed like night, Liyan mounted the electric unicycle he’d hauled with him from his homeland and, balanced on its single wheel, cruised the remaining dozen miles down the interstate from his boardinghouse in Greenfield to the Homestead—a museum dedicated to Emily Dickinson’s life, family, creative work, and enduring relevance.

When I arrived at 5:45 a.m., Liyan’s unicycle was already leaning against the wall in the front hallway, an incongruous item amid the 19th-century architecture. Ostensibly, Liyan’s feat should have entitled him to marathon bib number 001. However, a recently retired English teacher from New Jersey named Roxanne approached the sign-in table at the same time as Liyan. She slipped the first bib off the stack and pinned it to her sweater. He gracefully collected the second. I picked up 003. Five more participants arrived, pinned on bibs, fetched copies of The Poems of Emily Dickinson —the official text—and took their seats in the parlor, as we prepared to read all 1,789 of

Emily’s poems in the order that she wrote them, from first to last.

The slight, bespectacled program coordinator, Elizabeth Bradley, had explained to me in the weeks leading up to the annual event what was in store. “Our marathon is more casual. Participants do not register for a time slot, but sit in a circle and take turns reading. Not that all attendees are held captive—readers can drop in and out whenever they wish.” Otherwise, the marathon—which can last anywhere from 15 to 18 hours—includes just two short breaks when readers transition between the parlor and an outdoor tent. “The idea,” she emphasized, “is to make sure that someone

is continuously reading her poetry.” Although visitors might pop in to read a poem, the event depended on fans with stamina—“a core group [that] will commit to the entire day.”

At 6:04 a.m., Roxanne, sporting the coveted 001 bib, leads us off with Dickinson’s first poem, which begins Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine —lines written in 1850, when the poet was only 19. After Roxanne’s recitation, the gentleman next to her reads the second poem. And the person next to him reads the third. Soon everyone has taken a turn uttering one of Emily’s poems. The parlor absorbs the words composed by its former occupant, words now spoken by a flat, nasal voice; a young, squeaky voice; a mature, sonorous voice; a voice with a clipped British accent; a low, plodding voice; a voice with a Middle Eastern lilt. We’re a choir of jittery soloists, as motley as any jury.

Next to me, Liyan anticipates the poem he’ll be expected to read by counting the number of participants ahead of him and correlating it to the book’s sequence of verses. Finding the one destined for him, he consults the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary on his cellphone. He checks the correct pronunciation of “bobolink” and “behooveth.” Perching the phone on his knee, he practices the poem silently until his turn.

On my other side sits Everett, a lean man in his mid-50s with steady brown eyes. I’d met him the day before at the Emily Dickinson Poetry Group, a monthly meeting featuring scholars and poets who take turns leading a discussion. We’d gathered in the Amherst College library conference room to discuss the topic “Enigmatic Riddling: How to Accommodate Multiple Understandings in Experiencing an Emily Dickinson Poem.” For two hours we’d considered the nature of koans and riddles and whether Emily’s poems resembled either. (Spoiler: They do.) (Sometimes.) A spread of cookies, brownies, cider, and tea sat untouched as the group’s two dozen attendees leaned forward and instead supped on the intellectual fare of the

THE SUN RISES AND MORNING PROGRESSES AND THE CIRCLE WIDENS TO INCLUDE MORE READERS. THE POEMS ARE NOW BREATHED TO LIFE BY A CREAKY VOICE, A COMMANDING BARITONE, A TENTATIVE, BREATHY VOICE.

spinster’s poems. This was the 13th year of the poetry group, which meets every month, although in recent years members have whittled it back to a May-through-September schedule. Can there really be that much to say about a woman whose legacy amounts to one (substantive, but singular) book of poems? The answer appears to be affirmative. As Everett informs me, “She’s inexhaustible.”

Everett works the late shift as an electronics technician at the U.S. Postal Service’s network distribution center in Springfield— he’s inexhaustible. After the poetry group and throughout the night, while Roxanne, Liyan, and I were resting up for the

big day, Everett worked a 12-hour shift; then he returned home to collect his folding chair, a canteen of water, and a bag of tangerines and other snacks for the marathon. Each time it’s Everett’s turn to read a poem, he pronounces each word carefully, soulfully, as if he were divining every possible meaning.

Days after the marathon, Everett will email me a picture of his eight consecutive years of marathon bibs laid out on his kitchen table. In 2012, he’ll tell me, the program’s format was changed. Organizers broke up the traditional one-day event into three days, and accordingly changed the tag line from “1,789 poems, one great day” to

At the Homestead, Emily Dickinson’s bedroom still looks much as it did when the poet lived here in the second half of the 19th century. Most of her nearly 1,800 poems were written in this room.

“1,789 poems, one superior weekend,” thinking this might allow for greater participation from a wider audience. However, Everett and other diehards argued that the change diminished their sense of accomplishment, as well as eliminated their long day of accrued camaraderie. Besides, they claimed,

(continued on p. 146)

Gary Bimonte carries on the family tradition of superlative pieslinging at Frank Pepe’s, famed for its crisp, charred-crust pizza cooked in coal-burning ovens.

WE ASK GARY BIMONTE OF FRANK PEPE PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA:

What’s the Meaning of Pie?

The pizza business is a family business at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana. What began in 1925, when Italian immigrant Frank Pepe opened his small takeout shop on Worcester Street in New Haven, Connecticut, has grown into a bucket-list destination for thin-crust fanatics, with nine shops spread across southern New England and another in Yonkers, New York. Today, Frank Pepe’s seven grandchildren head the restaurant, including Gary Bimonte, who began washing dishes at 12 years old and is now the public face of the Pepe brand. We talked shop over pizza—what else?—with Bimonte at his West Hartford location.

y grandfather came from Italy twice. He first arrived with my uncle in the teens, but when World War I broke out, he was called back to fight. He met my grandmother back home, and he returned with her to America and ended up in New Haven, where he worked at a macaroni factory and a bakery. Eventually, he started flattening out the bread dough, putting sauce on it, and peddling his flatbread pizzas around town. But he had trouble keeping track of who owed him what. My grandmother finally said, “Let’s open a place for you to sell your pizzas.” So in 1925 he opened a small takeout place called Francisco Pepe Bakery.

He was an extremely generous man, my grandfather. He didn’t want anybody to go hungry. He started work at 6 in the morning and often didn’t finish until midnight or so. But even after he closed he wouldn’t turn people away. He lived in an apartment above the restaurant, and at 3 in the morning it wasn’t unusual for a hungry customer to throw pebbles at his window. My grandfather would get up, go back into the kitchen, and make them a pizza.

My mother and my aunt took over the restaurant from my grandparents. When I was little, I’d go in with my mom and then go upstairs to be with my grandparents. Later, I started wash-

ing dishes at the restaurant. I liked the idea of working for the business, but my mother had higher aspirations for me. “ I want you to use your brains,” she’d say. I ended up going to a technical college, but I only lasted a month. Classes started and I thought, I can’t do this. So I went back to New Haven, and my mom put me to work. She said, “Do it for a year, and then we’ll talk.” That was nearly 40 years ago. I haven’t left.

I have great memories of those early years. All the cousins worked together. We were all around the same age and just having a ball. We worked hard, but it was the late ’70s and early ’80s. I mean, come on. What do you expect?

We’ve grown a lot, but we’ve also tried to honor my grandfather’s commitment to quality. We still use the same imported Italian cheese he used. Our tomatoes are from the same region. We serve the same locally produced soda, Foxon Park, my grandfather did when he first opened. The sausage comes from the same New Haven family we’ve always bought it from. That kind of continuity is important to us.

There isn’t anyone from the fourth generation who wants to take over from us. They’ve all gone on to do their own thing. They know it’s hard work, and to do it you have to love it. It’s just how it is. I understand it, but it’s bittersweet.

The popular storyline is that three famous New Haven pizza shops are

by IAN ALDRICH PORTRAIT BY CARL TREMBLAY

fierce competitors. But there’s no animosity. Sal’s was started by my grandfather’s nephew—we’re family. We’ve helped each other out. Back in the day, we used to coordinate our days off with the other stores. When Sal’s and Modern closed, their customers would come to us. We could always tell who they were. They were more demanding and gave us a hard time.

I still love pizza. I had one the other night. I like to make specialty pizzas for personal consumption. My favorite is a hot dog pizza. It would blow you away. It’s white, no sauce, with watered-down mustard, hot dogs, sauerkraut, onions, peppers, bacon, and just a little grated cheese. I call it the All-American.

Making the dough, cooking the pizzas—it’s an art form. You have to be the dough, you know? I no longer work the kitchen, but I can still jump in there. I’m still just as good as I was. The other day I had to make a couple pizzas for a TV commercial we’re making. Someone said, “You made those pizzas in two minutes.” I said, “Two minutes? That’s slow. I was taking my time.” What can I say? It’s a gift. I have my grandfather’s hand on my shoulder. He’s still here with us. I really believe that.

NOWHERE IN OPIOID EPIDEMIC NEW ENGLAND. FROM GLOUCESTER, HAS BEEN ON THE A WAR SEEMINGLY

PORT IN

AMERICA

HAS THE BEEN SO DEADLY AS THE BEGINNING, MASSACHUSETTS, FRONT LINES OF WITHOUT END.

A STORM

BY IAN ALDRICH

Early Saturday morning of last year, on Labor Day weekend, Tito Rodriguez picked up his phone and saw an urgent text that snapped him awake. The message was from Sefatia Romeo Theken, the mayor of Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Five overdoses last night, four saved on Narcan, one died! read the text.

Rodriguez, an addiction care advocate in Gloucester, had long feared the possibility of a night like this. Over the past two years, illicit concoctions of fentanyl—a cheaper and more potent opiate than heroin—had hit the streets of his city. Typically, the drug was disguised as or mixed with heroin, and often users simply weren’t sure what they were taking.

For the rest of the morning, the 68-year-old Rodriguez, whose connections in the local addiction community include some 20 people he sponsors in Narcotics Anonymous, remained on his phone, texting and talking with police, city leaders, and worried users. “People were really scared,” Rodriguez said later. “They were worried about their friends and what might happen to them.”

Tito Rodriguez, right, shares a light moment with a visitor outside the Grace Center, a day shelter in Gloucester, Massachusetts. After early struggles with heroin abuse and homelessness, Rodriguez today is an addiction care advocate and recovery coach.

In all, emergency personnel responded to six overdoses, the most Gloucester has ever recorded in a single 24-hour period. The 911 calls included one from a 36-year-old woman who frantically dialed on behalf of her unconscious fiancé. She watched as first responders revived him with Narcan, a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, then rode with him by ambulance to Addison Gilbert Hospital. It was his second overdose in less than a week. As a medical team examined the man, she slipped into a bathroom, locked the door, and used the couple’s remaining fentanyl. It was at least an hour before her body was discovered.

A few days later, on a muggy Tuesday morning, I met with Rodriguez in downtown Gloucester. Like so many on the front lines of the city’s opioid crisis, he was still trying to make sense of the weekend’s overdoses, including that tragedy at the hospital. “The boyfriend was in bad shape,” he told me. “I’m just speculating, but I think she thought he wasn’t going to make it and decided to take her own life.”

Rodriguez’s insight into the world of addiction is both professional and personal. A Bronx native, he watched his mother struggle with heroin, then picked up the habit himself during an Army tour in Vietnam in the late 1960s. Over the next decade and a half, his wife left him, he lost contact with his oldest son, and, after moving to Boston in 1976, he bounced in and out of homelessness. He got sober in 1982 and embarked on a career in juvenile justice. His specialty: helping people get into recovery. He remarried and now lives in Rockport with his wife and two children, ages 18 and 22.

Two years ago, Rodriguez took a job with the city’s Angel Initiative, a pioneering program founded in 2015 that works with the police department to get people into treatment. The program’s downtown office sits across the street from the PD, in a converted department store building that it shares with a nail salon, a tae kwon do school, and a yoga studio.

On this morning, Rodriguez made the short walk from his office to the Grace Center, a day shelter housed in the basement of a Unitarian church that serves breakfast and lunch to the city’s homeless and low-income residents. In the wake of the fentanyl overdoses, a somber mood hung over the center. As Rodriguez entered, a teary-eyed woman named Georgia* approached him. A pair of sunglasses was perched atop her long brown hair, which fell past her shoulders, and a set of small green hearts were pinned to her ears.

Rodriguez put his hands on her shoulders. “You doin’ all right?”

Georgia nodded and blinked hard.

“You know it’s not you,” Rodriguez said. “You’ve got to remember that.”

She cleared her throat and looked down at the ground, then back at him. “They were my friends,” she said. She started to cry and leaned closer to Rodriguez. “Every time I turn around….” Her voice trailed off.

“But it’s not you,” Rodriguez said.

“I know,” she said, exhaling deeply. “I’m not that stupid. Not that it’s stupid. But too many of my friends are going.”

“You tell them to come see me,” Rodriguez said.

“OK, I will,” Georgia said. She gave him a hug and returned to her lunch.

About 20 minutes later, Rodriguez and some volunteers tried to rally those at the center, maybe 30 in all, to come together to talk about what had happened over the weekend. But nobody was ready to do so. Several headed outside for a smoke. Others restlessly picked at their chicken and broccoli. The emotions were still too raw.

GGLOUCESTER IS A WORKING-CLASS CITY OF 29,800 THAT SITS on the northern edge of Massachusetts Bay, on Cape Ann. The earliest European explorers marveled at the abundance of cod found just off its shores, and by 1623, English business interests, including a group of Pilgrims from the Plymouth Colony, had established the foundations of its fishing port. By the 1880s, nearly 400 vessels sailed from the city. Fish and money flowed, drawing young immigrants from Italy, Canada, West Indies, and especially Portugal, who relished the chance to find steady work and build new lives. From one industry, others grew: box factories and canneries, a glue factory that made use of the trash fish that couldn’t go to market.

Gloucester flourished deep into the 20th century. In 1925, local resident Clarence Birdseye perfected food freezing, allowing fresh Gloucester cod and haddock to reach dinner tables throughout the country. By the 1970s, a day’s catch might bring more than a million pounds of fish landed to the city’s wharves. The harbor buzzed with action— offloading, processing, cutting, cooking, freezing—from 4:30 a.m. to late at night. Locals joked: Manchester by the Sea, Gloucester by the Smell

But when fish stocks declined, the federal government imposed an evolving set of controversial restrictions and quotas. In 2013, when a new round of catch limits was implemented, just 70 commercial groundfishing boats operated out of Gloucester. Today, the number is a third of that.

Gloucester has fared better than some other New England communities that have lost much or all of their core industry. The city is still home to several large foodfreezing plants, its three industrial parks remain nearly full, and increasingly the harbor has become home to expensive pleasure boats. Just two years ago, a 94-room boutique hotel overlooking the harbor opened its doors. Beyond the water, a Main Street facelift has pushed out the tough bars that police once responded to nearly every night. As its fishing identity has waned, Gloucester has become a place that generally attracts more fortunes than it makes.

And yet drugs have long found a kind of traction in Gloucester that they haven’t elsewhere. Since the 1960s, heroin has plagued pockets of the community—so much so that The New York Times took note in 1988 with an article headlined “Massachusetts Port City Fighting Heroin Problem.” At the time, police were responding to around six overdose deaths per year, “far more often than in other

*An asterisk indicates that the name has been changed to protect the individual’s privacy.

The oldest fishing port in the country, Gloucester has seen its fleet dwindle over the decades, but its seafaring tradition is still a point of pride for many city residents.

FISHERMAN. “IT ALLOWED US TO HANDLE ADVERSITY,

“WE WENT OUT IN LITTLE BOATS AND BUILT LIVES

OUT OF SOMETHING VERY UNPREDICTABLE,” SAYS ONE

BUT IT BUILT IN US THE DESIRE TO TAKE RISKS .”

Massachusetts cities of similar size,” the Times observed.

This recent history combined with Gloucester’s identity as a fishing port may explain both the city’s current opioid problem and its resiliency in dealing with it, says Tony Gross, a Gloucester native and longtime fisherman.

“We went out in little boats and built lives out of something very unpredictable,” he told me. “There were no guarantees, and I think that allowed us to handle the unexpected, to handle adversity. But it built in us the desire to take risks.

“People used to say the reason heroin was an issue here was because it was shipped in from Afghanistan or wherever,” he continued. “That’s not what contributed to it. We didn’t have some pipeline—there was simply demand for it.”

NOT SINCE THE AIDS EPIDEMIC IN THE EARLY 1980 s HAS THE United States been gripped by such an intractable health crisis. More than 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids. Since 1999, some 200,000 have died from overdoses related to prescription opioids, and it is estimated that all opioids will claim the lives of half a million citizens in the next decade.

“It’s not like any other kind of addiction,” Rodriguez told me. “To this day, when I smell the sulfur from a lit match, or even just say the word heroin , my taste buds start to churn. Even now.”

New England has been hit especially hard by the crisis. According to a recent Centers for Disease Control report, in 2016 only Vermont had an overdose death rate statisti-

cally similar to the national average (19.8 per 100,000). The region’s other five states came in higher, and New Hampshire (39 per 100,000) was surpassed by only West Virginia and Ohio. Last year the Granite State’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Thomas A. Andrew, no longer content to merely catalog the crisis, retired to enter seminary school so that he could approach the problem in a new way: by ministering to young people. “It’s almost as if the Visigoths are at the gates, and the gates are starting to crumble,” he told The New York Times. “I’m not an alarmist by nature, but this is not overhyped. It has completely overwhelmed us.”

No place has been spared. In Maine, opioids have driven a surge of drug-related fatalities, from 34 in 1996 to 418 in 2017. Rhode Island’s governor, Gina Raimondo, called the epidemic the “single greatest public health crisis of our time.” Fentanyl is now the leading cause of fatal opioid overdoses in Massachusetts, which is behind only New Hampshire and West Virginia in per-capita deaths from the drug.

But death rates tell only part of the story of how opioids have affected communities. Gloucester fishing boat captains struggle to find deckhands who aren’t battling addiction, while more and more residents here are seeking training in how to administer Narcan, in case they are called upon to save the life of a loved one or even a stranger. As the situation has worsened, it’s put a strain on budgets, social services, and, sometimes, even the compassion required from those on the front lines.

“When it’s 2 a.m. and you have to help somebody to the hospital, and maybe you’ve already helped them three or four times that month, or maybe even earlier that day, it beats you up. You’re dealing with pretty traumatizing work,” Sandy Schultz, Gloucester’s longtime emergency medical services coordinator, told me shortly before he resigned his position last summer to go “back online” as a firefighter paramedic. “Then there are the domestic issues. Maybe they have kids, or maybe they overdosed in front of those kids. [For some

FROM LEFT : Police Lieutenant Jeremiah Nicastro talks with Rodriguez and Grace Center manager Christine Bobek about a young opioid addict who has decided against checking into a detox center; downtown streetlights glow through the fog; a man who says he is homeless and struggling with opioid addiction sits by the sea, a day after being released from jail; responding to overdoses has put added strain on Gloucester’s fire and rescue workers, who must handle a rise in drug-related calls while still assisting in emergencies such as this one, a woman suffering a nonfatal seizure.

first responders] it’s possible these issues have surfaced in their own families. You can get crispy.”

I had come to Gloucester, however, not just because its storyline tracked with what was happening elsewhere, but also because it’s proven innovative in dealing with the opioid crisis in ways that many cities have not. In 1989, Gloucester opened the doors to Massachusetts’s first statefunded methadone clinic, and later the city used state and federal dollars to expand social services and make Narcan more widely available. In 2011, Gloucester became the first municipality in Massachusetts to equip all police, firefighters, and other first responders with Narcan. Six years later, all city buildings were equipped with it, too.

and recovery” and place them in treatment “on the spot.”

The Angel Initiative launched the following month, and its immediate success put a spotlight on the need to increase access to treatment. Within its first six months, Angel placed 391 people into recovery. Today it works under the Gloucester-based Police-Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI), which builds and supports Angel programs across the country. To date, the Gloucester approach has been implemented at 414 police departments across 32 states, from the Northeast to the deep South.

an end to the war on drugs. The first four months of the year

Then, in early May 2015, Gloucester essentially called for an end to the war on drugs. The first four months of the year had been gut-wrenching: four fatal overdoses, more than in all of 2014. A public forum brought together the health department, the city council, the mayor’s office, and police leaders to rethink how the city approached addiction.

Within hours of the forum, the police chief at the time, Leonard Campanello, announced a stunning policy change on Facebook. “Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc.) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged,” he wrote in a post that would be viewed by more than 2.4 million people over the next month. “Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox

“Your mind-set, being a policeman, was always to arrest for drugs,” current police chief John McCarthy, a Gloucester native who joined the force in 1980 at age 21, told me. “I’m old-school, and that was always the philosophy. [But as Chief Campanello would say] ‘you can’t arrest yourself out of this problem.’ We fought the war on drugs for decades and decades and didn’t win.”

OONE DAY LAST DECEMBER, I MET UP WITH LIEUTENANT

Jeremiah Nicastro at the PD’s downtown headquarters. Hailing from a long line of Gloucester fishermen, Nicastro, 43, knew even as a young boy that he didn’t want to follow his father and grandfather out to sea. “You could see the writing on the wall,” he said. “All these fathers under so much stress, just struggling financially.” Hooked by the TV cop shows he watched growing up and by a desire to make a difference in his community, he went into police work.

RESIDENTS FEEL COMPELLED

As the face of his department’s Angel program, Nicastro works closely with Rodriguez to follow up with residents to whom emergency personnel had recently responded for an overdose. There were two visits scheduled for this morning.

As Nicastro waited for Rodriguez, he sat at a conference table and banged away at his phone. On the other end of his texts was a relative whose 30-year-old son, John*, had barricaded himself in a shack on a friend’s property and was presumed to be using fentanyl with a buddy. The young man’s addiction issues had been discovered five years ago when Nicastro arrested a Percocet dealer: When searching through the dealer’s phone, Nicastro found a text from John that said he was willing to sell 100 pills.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “[John] said he was just doing it for a friend. But then he admitted he was using the pills and worked with a dealer in Beverly. Later I found out he was doing heroin, and I had to tell his father about that.”

Nicastro showed me a photo of John that had been taken during a stretch of sobriety. “Here we are five years later, and he’s hooked on fentanyl.”

After years of failed treatment programs, Nicastro was now trying to get John’s father to agree to seek involuntary court-ordered treatment for his son. “I’m just afraid of the phone call we’re going to get if he overdoses,” he said.

Rodriguez appeared, wearing a Rockport Basketball warm-up jacket and toting a purple bag filled with Narcan kits and a notebook he uses to log phone numbers and observations from the visits. Soon, we were making our way along narrow downtown streets in a large black pickup. Remnants of the season’s first snow clung to lawns.

First stop was a third-floor apartment in a three-family home across the street from a house that Nicastro’s family once owned. Its tenant, Sean*, was in his early 20s with unruly brown hair, a patchwork beard, and thick blackframed glasses. His skinny frame was draped in baggy sweatpants and a green sweatshirt with “Southie” across the front. He led us to his living room, where a few Santa figurines and some holiday cards were displayed on a table. On a wall was a plaque that read: Home is where my dog is. The room smelled of cigarettes. A cat circled Nicastro’s feet. Sean took a seat on a couch, and Rodriguez joined him.

“You from Southie?” Rodriguez asked.

“Nah, it’s just a sweatshirt. I’m from outside of Boston.”

While Nicastro stood quietly off to the side, Rodriguez tried to gain a portrait of Sean’s life. Where did he work? Whom did he live with? How long had he lived in Gloucester? Then: “You mind if I ask about the event?”

“I thought what I had was a Xanax bar,” Sean said,

running his hands through his hair. “I crushed it and sniffed it. I guess I just [passed] out.”

“Was it Xanax or fentanyl?” Nicastro asked.

“It was definitely fentanyl,” Sean said. “It wouldn’t have worked on me if it was just Xanax. That’s the thing that freaked me out the most.” He added, “My [buddy] just died today from that in Vermont.”

The three men were silent for a moment before Rodriguez spoke again. “Is Xanax your drug of choice?”

“No,” said Sean. “I smoke a lot of weed but I just take Xanax because I have wicked bad anxiety. And wicked bad ADHD. Like, through the roof.”

Rodriguez asked if he needed to go into detox. Sean laughed. “No, I’m good.”

“If you ever need help, you can come to the police department,” said Nicastro. “And if you’re not comfortable coming to us, you can go across the street to PAARI. We’ve done more than 600 of these. We won’t judge you. There’s no stigma. We’re going to treat you like one of ours.”

Rodriguez then asked if Sean needed any Narcan. Sean waved him off. “It was really just one Xanax bar,” he said. “That’s why my mind was blown.”

A few minutes later, Sean walked his guests to the door and shook their hands.

“You let us know if you need anything, OK?” said Nicastro. “Have a good holiday. Watch what you buy.”

Back in the truck, Nicastro gripped the wheel and looked at Rodriguez. “That’s scary,” he said.

“The Xanax?”

“Yeah. But I do believe him.”

“He would have taken the Narcan otherwise.”

“Yeah, that was my thought right away.”

T“I don’t think he’s a regular user,” Rodriguez said. “But what’s good is that if he knows somebody who is using, he might be able to tell them about us and get them help.”

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE IN HOW CIVIC LEADERS ARE discussing and approaching this crisis compared with past drug epidemics. There’s less blaming of moral shortcomings, and more talk of addiction as a disease. Something that needs to be treated rather than penalized.

Why the shift? It’s partly the result of time and experience, of seeing the many failures of the war on drugs. But race also plays a role. The truth is, the opioid crisis cuts across every ethnic and socioeconomic group. There can be no “othering” it away, as with inner-city heroin use in the 1970s or the crack epidemic a decade later. In 2016, white users accounted for nearly 80 percent of fatal opioid over-

THE TRUTH IS, THE OPIOID CRISIS CUTS ACROSS EVERY ETHNIC AND

GROUP. THERE CAN BE NO “OTHERING” IT AWAY .

doses in the U.S. The increased volume of media coverage and talk of policy change can be attributed to the fact that now the users look a lot more like the journalists and politicians who frame how this issue is discussed and managed.

“This is just my opinion, but if this was really just happening with African-Americans or Hispanics, I don’t think we’d see the kind of response we’re seeing now,” Rodriguez said. “But the important thing is: People are getting help.”

After leaving Sean, we drove to North Gloucester and pulled up in front of a new duplex. It had a farmer’s porch with views of a saltwater marsh; neatly manicured small trees framed the lawn. Several days earlier, emergency personnel had responded here to administer Narcan to a middle-aged man, Jeff*, who had collapsed inside the house.

After several rounds of knocking, a woman in her mid20s opened the door to greet Nicastro and Rodriguez. Her name was Sarah*.

“Sorry,” she said with a laugh. “I was sleeping.”

Nicastro smiled. “Is Jeff your dad?”

She nodded. “He’s at work.”

“Do you have a phone number?” Nicastro said. “We just want to reach out to him.”

“Hold on, he just got a new number. I’ll go get it.”

After she left, Nicastro turned to Rodriguez with a concerned look. “I’m not sure she knows,” he whispered.

When Sarah returned, Nicastro asked if she had been home the previous Friday.

“I was.”

“So you know what happened, right?”

“I do.”

Sarah seemed unfazed by the questions, as though Nicastro was asking her for directions. After he explained the purpose of the visit, she invited us inside. In the kitchen, Rodriguez taught Sarah how to use Narcan. As she fiddled with the nasal spray, Nicastro gently pressed for more details about her dad. “Did he relapse?” he asked.

Sarah shrugged. “I’m not sure. [My parents] don’t tell us much. They tried to hide it for a while.”

“Would he be upset that we talked to you?”

“I don’t think so. But honestly, I don’t care if he was mad.”

Nicastro’s eyes fell on a family portrait hanging over the kitchen table. “I know your mother,” he exclaimed.

During a one-on-one with a young woman who is addicted to opioids, Nicastro tries to find a detox bed for her at a local hospital.

“She worked at the drugstore.” He looked again at the photo and smiled. “She knows who I am. She won’t be mad that we talked.”

A few minutes later, Nicastro and Rodriguez headed to the door. Rodriguez left Sarah with one of his cards. “You let us know if you need anything,” he said.

THE CURRENT ILLICIT DRUG CRISIS IS REALLY A MORE virulent strain of several older ones.

At the time of the American Revolution, various forms of opium had found a foothold in the colonies as a medical tool. By the middle of the 19th century, Americans were treating everything from teething pain to menstrual cramps with medicines whose lead ingredient was opioids.

But it was the Civil War that ushered in the country’s first significant drug crisis. With the advent of the opiumderived painkiller morphine, doctors were able to make battlefield injuries more tolerable. Addiction rates soared among veterans, and this “soldier’s disease” soon spread to the wider population. By 1870, opium was more available in the U.S. than tobacco would be a century later.

In 1898, a new “addiction-free” cough syrup called heroin was introduced to remedy the morphine problem. But even as understanding of this new drug came into focus and laws tightened, U.S. addiction rates soared at different times, among different populations, during the 20th century—no more so than in the ’60s and ’70s, as soldiers like Tito Rodriguez returned from Vietnam dependent on the drug.

Nearly a century after heroin’s introduction, its cycle— from a sanctioned medicine to a popular street drug—was repeated on a much larger scale. In 1996, Connecticutbased Purdue Pharma debuted OxyContin, which it touted as a safer kind of opiate pain reliever. The new medication featured oxycodone, typically used with terminal cancer patients, in a formula that slowly released the drug into the digestive system.

Now a new era in pain management began, as more pharmaceutical companies starting bringing other oxycodonebased medications to the market. Between 1996 and 2002, Purdue funded more than 20,000 pain-related educational programs and pushed its lobbying dollars to groups like the American Pain Society to help doctors overcome what it dubbed “opiophobia.”

“If you could go back in time, to the early ’90s, you’d find that textbooks would say, ‘Don’t give opioids, don’t treat back pain with narcotics,’” said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, codirector of opioid policy research at Brandeis University’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. “If you were to talk about this with doctors then, they would tell you they’re worried about their patients getting addicted. That the doses would have to get higher and higher to get pain relief. [The pharmaceutical campaign] reframed these very good reasons for being cautious with opioids as barriers to compassionate pain care. You started hearing that the fears of opioids are unrealistic or irrational and can lead to suffering. I think the emotion of the medical community was: We’ve been letting

people suffer, and I’m going be different. I’m going to understand that opioids are a gift from Mother Nature and that real addiction is very rare. I’m going to be a good doctor and not like those stingy, puritanical doctors from the past. That was the feeling. And once that sunk in, it became very difficult to unlearn.”

Purdue touted its star drug as being nearly addictionproof—but it wasn’t. Users realized the pills could be crushed into powder to be injected or snorted. Abuse of OxyContin and competitors like Vicodin and Percocet became rampant. Eventually, the evidence and the hammer of the federal government forced Purdue to accept some responsibility for the crisis. In 2007, after making billions in profit, the company agreed to pay $634.5 million in fines to resolve criminal charges of “misbranding.” A portion of the money was then directed to states to help fund prevention programs.

In 2010—the same year that prescription opioids accounted for 43 percent of all overdose deaths in the U.S.—Purdue released a reformulated capsule that is harder to crush. The easy flow of doctor-prescribed pain meds also began to tighten. From 2011 to 2017, opioid prescriptions fell in the U.S. by 29 percent.

But those changes came too late for a population of addicted Americans who scrambled to meet the increasing street price of oxycodone. Opportunistic drug cartels flooded many communities with cheap heroin. The switch from pills became easy and economical. Today, a single pill of Percocet goes for $30 on the street. Some users will require eight to ten capsules a day. An equivalently potent amount of fentanyl can be picked up for $50. “Every single person I’ve interviewed who was hooked on heroin [or fentanyl] started with Percocets or OxyContin,” Nicastro said.

AAS NARCAN HAS BECOME CHEAPER AND EASIER TO administer in recent years, trainings on how to use it have become more frequent in Gloucester. They’re a mix of larger, formal gatherings—PAARI has hosted several for fishermen’s groups along the North Shore—and smaller, looser sessions. One November afternoon I attended one of the latter kinds of meetings, held at the Grace Center.

The session was headed by Angela Mae Burnham of OneStop Harm Reduction, a small agency that offers counseling, disease screening, and Narcan distribution and education, as well as access to a needle exchange program. Gloucester roots run deep with Burnham, who is 26 with a slight build and a preference for attire that leans heavily punk. The local middle school is named after her greatgrandfather, and the statue at the center of the city’s annual Saint Peter’s Fiesta was donated by her family.

Burnham brings to her work a surprisingly deep understanding of synthetic drugs that calls back to a childhood obsession with chemistry. She also brings an appreciation of the drug user’s mind-set: She has an app that shows to the second the time since she herself last took heroin. “I stopped doing dope on July 1, 2015,” she told me proudly, displaying her phone.

As Burnham unpacked the Narcan kits for the session, a young man named David* rushed to take a seat. “I’m here for my brother,” he announced. “He’s coming back to Gloucester soon, and I want to keep him safe.”

A few others followed him: a middle-aged woman, Elizabeth*; a man about the same age, Jim*; and a homeless couple, Sam* and Darlene*, who had recently left their camp in the woods for a hotel room. As Burnham finished her setup, David glanced at his phone.

“I gotta go,” he said, getting up quickly. “Just got a message from my buddy. Sorry.”

Shrugging off David’s departure, Burnham started the session with a question: “Anyone here experienced with an overdose?”

Everyone was.

“I overdosed two weeks ago, and she saved my life with Narcan,” Sam said, looking at Darlene, who stared at the ground.

“What are some of the reasons we do opioids?” Burnham asked.

“Boredom,” said Jim.

“Not to feel your pain,” said Elizabeth. “You want to forget for a while.”

Burnham’s gaze turned toward Sam. “Honestly, you wanna know why I get high?” Sam said. “So I don’t have to feel the feelings for life.”

“It’s all of that,” said Burnham. “When we talk about this stuff, we have to be really mindful of the fact that we’re not consuming this for no reason. Nobody ever woke up and shot up [drugs] for no apparent reason.”

At the Grace Center, these Narcan training sessions can take different forms. Sometimes Burnham does most of the talking, as she demonstrates how to effectively use the drug. But other meetings turn toward talking about the vicious grip of addiction. More therapy than information sharing. When that happens, Burnham adjusts.

“Two weeks ago, I did fentanyl,” said Sam. “I thought it was heroin. I did a shot, then did another shot. Then I don’t know what happened. I woke up and [Darlene] was crying. What’s going on? I asked her. I just Narcaned you , she said. You were friggin’ dead.”

Angela Mae Burnham, program director and outreach educator at OneStop Harm Reduction, whose name was inspired by its core services: Outreach, Needle Exchange, Sexual health, Testing, and Overdose Prevention.

He turned back to Burnham. “Here’s what scares me. We’re in the woods. If I died there, she’d have to go get a cop and bring him into the woods and find me dead. For three hours I was walking around, thinking about it. Was this really worth it? I go to the Suboxone clinic, and I won’t lie: Most of the time, I sell those things. And here’s why. Suboxone keeps you from getting sick and all that other shit, but the feelings I have of life right now, I just don’t want to feel them because it destroys me. I have so many responsibilities right now. Like getting my kids back. I’ll act like a tough guy and pretend it doesn’t matter, but I’ll break down and cry. And I don’t want to feel that.”

“You’re better off crying,” Elizabeth said, finally.

“I’m sorry, guys,” Sam said, looking around the room. “Honestly, I haven’t talked to people like this for a long time. I just want it to be done.”

Burnham steered the conversation forward. She touched on what puts people at risk for an overdose and how to identify if someone needs resuscitation or is simply in a deep high.

“Let’s get into Narcan,” she said, pointing to the kits. “It’s an opiate receptor antagonist. It goes and knocks the opiate off the receptor and sits on top of that receptor.” She made a fist, then covered it with the open palm of her other hand. “It will stay there from five to 90 minutes and tell the body to start breathing again.

“But what you’ve got to be cautious of,” she added, “is that when the person comes to they’re going to be very confused. They may not know where they are or what happened. You need to be patient and calm. For them it’s like being in a cozy bed, with a warm blanket. Now you’ve come and ripped that blanket off and thrown cold water on them. I’ve known people who’ve come out swinging.”

The Narcan training centered on the nasal spray canisters that users empty into each nostril. When Burnham held one up, Elizabeth laughed. “It goes in your nose? I thought it went into your chest. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You’re thinking of the movie Pulp Fiction ,” Burnham said, smiling.

Jim, who had stayed mostly quiet, spoke up. “I wish I’d been with my friend and had some of this,” he said. “But I wasn’t. I think he was alone in his apartment.”

Burnham looked at him. “Mine was, too. Best friend. Last year.”

A brief silence fell before Burnham spoke again. She assured the group that Narcan can be picked up without a prescription at most drugstores and then emphasized that it’s allowed in the homeless shelter. “I can enroll everyone today and get you Narcan,” she said, wrapping up the session.

“But first,” she said, raising a finger in the air, “I need a smoke.”

Outside, Darlene and Sam sorted through what was swirling in their heads. They were speaking to everyone, themselves, or maybe nobody in particular. “The truth is, if I keep using, I’m gonna die,” Sam said. “I know that.”

Darlene shuffled her feet and took a few drags on her cigarette. “We’re looking for an apartment, but our best option is going into a program,” she said. “I can get a place, but that’s not going to stop all those feelings and emotions. I’ll have to go through the courts to get my kids back and it’s going to be emotional and it’s going to tear me apart. I’ve got all these emotions from the past. I’m going to continue to use, and using is going to affect me.”

IShe looked at Sam. “I know we can get clean at some point,” she said, her voice tight. “It’s gotta stop at some point.”

IN AUGUST 2011, A GROUP OF GLOUCESTER-AREA FAMILIES who had lost loved ones to addiction began an annual tradition. In the shadow of the Fisherman’s Memorial, which honors the Gloucester men and vessels lost to the sea, they gathered to pay homage to another population that’s passed. They made luminarias to line the walkway between the sea and Stacy Boulevard, they sang, and, as the sun dipped below the horizon, they read aloud the names of the dead.

Like the crisis itself, the Overdose Vigil has grown every year; last year 300 people turned out. Old and new lanterns flickered with life, each one inscribed with personalized messages such as For all the women who didn’t make it to recovery and I will always love you

For years, Gordon and Colleen Bullard were fixtures at the vigil. But last summer was too emotional for them to attend. Just three days before the vigil, the Bullards, who live just over the city line in Rockport, had buried their 30-year-old son, Cory.

I met Gordon, an environmental scientist, and Colleen, an activity coordinator at a Gloucester adult day center, a few weeks before Christmas at their four-bedroom Cape on a quiet tree-lined street. The home, where they raised Cory and his two younger siblings, was decorated for the season. A tree draped with white lights stood in the corner of the living room, Santa figurines lined the stairs, and a collection of miniature holiday trees adorned a side table.

Framed pictures of Cory hung on the walls, and the Bullards moved between past and present tense when they spoke of him. As they talked, Colleen fiddled with a heartshaped silver charm that hung from her right wrist that

THE BULLARDS WONDERED IF THEIR SON’S STRETCHES OF SOBRIETY

WOULD LAST. AND IF NOT, WHAT WOULD THE ENDING LOOK LIKE ?

read, Always in our hearts. On the same hand she wore a ring that contained a bit of her son’s ashes.

At St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, Cory had played football and was an honor roll student. But the years that followed his 2005 graduation were difficult ones. College came in fits and starts. “He had a hard time figuring what he wanted to do,” said Gordon.

In fall 2011, Cory enrolled at the University of Southern Maine in Portland to resume a political science degree he had cut short four years before at James Madison University. He found an apartment in the city, moved in with his girlfriend, and settled into becoming a full-time student again.

A few years before he started at USM, Cory had begun taking medication for anxiety, which he had suffered from for much of his life. At its worst, it brought on unexpected and unexplained panic attacks. But one of the prescription’s rare side effects was seizures.

In October 2012, Cory suffered a seizure at his apartment that induced such severe spasms that he fractured five vertebrae. He was prescribed 90 days of OxyContin. The meds helped his pain, but when he finished, the Bullards noticed he still wanted more. By then Cory had broken up with his girlfriend, left college, and returned home.

Cory’s struggles with addiction weren’t as destructive as they were for other families. He didn’t steal to pay for a hidden habit, or isolate himself from his parents. He didn’t resist going into treatment, and at his lowest point he had asked for a longer-term stay. But the ups and downs, the fears of what might come next, plunged the family into the world of opioid addiction. Gordon learned to use Narcan, and the Bullards attended regular meetings of others, mainly parents, who had loved ones dealing with the same issues.

Their life became framed by Cory’s. Even stretches of sobriety were sometimes clouded by angst. Would it last? the they wondered. And if not, what would the ending look like?

Cory’s death came after he’d finished a long treatment program and completed course and clinical work to become a substance-abuse counselor. A little more than 24 hours before he was slated to begin a new job with a company in South Weymouth, paramedics were called to Cory’s apartment, where they found him unresponsive.

Gloucester police and EMS workers responding to reports of disturbance at a hotel, reportedly caused by a guest with substance-abuse issues.

Gordon got the call from the hospital during an earlymorning walk with his two dogs.

“I’m thinking he had a car accident … or maybe it’s something about his bad back,” Gordon recalled. “And I’m told, no, when he came in he wasn’t breathing, they were doing CPR on him, and he had alcohol and fentanyl in his system, and it was an overdose.”

Gordon said he could barely register what the doctor was saying. “He keeps talking, and I finally said, ‘Wait a minute, what did you just say? You mentioned something about an overdose?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, you didn’t know?’”

Gordon’s eyes welled up, and he paused for a moment. “It was out of nowhere.”

The Bullards are navigating their new life by not ignoring their old one. Within days of her son’s death, Colleen knew she had to find something to do that honored who Cory was and what he wanted to do with his life. A few weeks after I visited them, the Bullards announced the creation of the CCB Foundation, a charitable organization that provides financial support to small treatment and recovery programs. They’ve also organized a support group for families who’ve lost loved ones to addiction. They lead the monthly meetings, and sometimes as many as 18 people show up.

I“It can feel like a second full-time job, but if I wasn’t doing this, [Cory’s death] would be a lot harder for us,” Colleen told me. “In the beginning, you go through a lot of firsts— the first birthday without him, the first holidays—and you get through those, and then you’re left with a new normal. It never gets easier, but that’s just what it is: a new normal.”

IN MAY, I SPOKE AGAIN WITH TITO RODRIGUEZ BY PHONE. It had been a bruising time for Gloucester. Since January there had been seven fatal overdoses. Two had died just the week before, and Rodriguez knew them well. One was a man he’d helped on and off for the past 20 years. The man had had his struggles, but he’d found steady work and seemingly embraced being sober. Then Rodriguez received a text from the Gloucester police that his friend had passed.

“I thought, Man, not him,” Rodriguez said. “But all it takes is one bad thought. One bad decision. As I’ve told people, that could have been me. You can be living sober for a long time, but then you get this idea that maybe it’s OK to just do it this one time. That it will be OK. You can handle it.”

As we spoke, I heard a kind of fatigue and frustration in Rodriguez’s voice I hadn’t heard before. I said as much to him, and he didn’t disagree. “Other people have said the same

thing,” he said. For a guy who reminds himself every day of his own past battles with addiction, it had made his own selfcare especially important. “I’m going to my meetings, going to the gym, doing stuff that makes me feel good.”

It was a reminder of just how emotionally taxing this work is, of how you have to struggle to balance successes and setbacks. To show up every day as Rodriguez does demands a hardheaded confidence in the power of small victories. I asked him if, at this moment, he was optimistic that society would one day prevail against this implacable illness.

“I am,” he said. “I just have to remember not to personalize it. A lot of people are doing a lot of good stuff. People and agencies are collaborating now in ways they didn’t before. But you have those stretches where the shit hits the fan. There’s been stuff going on with the guys I’m sponsoring and what’s been happening in Gloucester, and it gets to a point where I look at my phone and think, I don’t want to answer this.”

After we hung up, I wondered if he would be OK. And then, 10 minutes later, he phoned me back. There was a sudden spark in his voice.

“I have good news,” he said. “It’s Courtney. I talked to her last week and she’s doing really well.”

Courtney was a 21-year-old woman whom I’d watched

Rodriguez get into treatment six months earlier. She’d been using heroin for several years and had bounced in and out of treatment programs, including two previous stints that Rodriguez had helped arrange that she’d cut short.

This third time, though, Courtney didn’t stray from her program. In May she graduated and moved into her own room in a sober house in eastern Massachusetts. She found work as a telemarketer and talked frequently of pursuing her dream of becoming a music teacher. For maybe the first time as a young adult, Courtney was excited about her life.

As Rodriguez talked about Courtney’s success, he sounded as thrilled for her as he would have been for his own daughter. “She sounded good,” he said. “You never know what tomorrow will bring, but she’s succeeding today and that’s all you can ask for.”

I asked him how this news squared with recent events in Gloucester and what he’d been feeling.

“It makes it all worth it,” he said.

from left : Gordon and Colleen Bullard on the beach near their Rockport, Massachusetts, home; photographs of their son, Cory, who was poised to embark on a new life as a substance-abuse counselor when he passed away last year of an overdose.

Reading Emily

(continued from p. 127)

no one conducts a running marathon that way. The one-day marathon was eventually reinstated.

Responding to the table of bibs— which represent 130-plus hours of marathoning—I will ask Everett (whose email handle is “Zengenie”) what he thinks people gain by completing this event. What’s the value of articulating all of Emily’s words, all day?

Zengenie’s reply: I think it plants a seed.

On a parlor wall hangs a painted portrait of the Dickinson children: 9-yearold Emily with younger sister Lavinia and older brother Austin. The doeeyed trio supervises our proceedings as the sun rises and morning progresses and the circle widens to include more readers. The poems are now breathed to life by a creaky voice, a commanding baritone, a tentative, breathy voice. Susan has driven from a town 40 minutes away for the fellowship and community. Alif, a high school senior who lives with her parents near Boston, loves Dickinson’s poetry; this is her second marathon. Liyan reads poem no. 389: My Holiday, shall be / That They- remember me- / My Paradise- the fame / That They- pronounce my name.

Despite Emily’s disdain for publication (she called it “an auction of the mind”), despite her reluctance to socialize in her later years, despite the fact that she’s been dead for over a century and has no immediate descendants, this poet, who lived her adult years at the Homestead with her sister, enjoys a robust following. The museum hosts about 15,000 visitors annually, ranging from the mildly curious to the reverent devotees.

“We have a lot of pilgrims,” museum program director Brooke Steinhauser told me. Pilgrims? “That’s what they call themselves—people who feel Emily’s lyrics are speaking directly, specifically, perhaps even exclusively to them.”

Though Everett does not consider himself a pilgrim, during a

snack break he confesses, “I’ve always thought of Emily as my sister.” When he was 12, he set out on his bicycle to pedal the 25 miles between his house and the Homestead, but upon arriving he found it closed. Undeterred, he’s visited hundreds of times since. Throughout the weekend of the Emily Dickinson Festival (which includes the marathon), Everett shuttles back and forth between his late-night shifts and the various events. In other words: work, sleep, Emily. It’s unsurprising, then, that he also found time to compose and publish Haiku Emily!, a collection of haiku-inspired poetry based on the works of Emily Dickinson, which he completed on May 15, 2011, the 125th anniversary of her death. To celebrate, he cut lilacs from his backyard and brought them (by car) to the Homestead, requesting the bouquet be delivered to her bedroom. Next, he cut some lilacs from the Homestead property and delivered them to her grave in West Cemetery, a quarter mile away.

Everett’s not an anomaly. Others also mark occasions—birthdays, anniversaries (Emily’s or otherwise)—by spending an hour alone in what the museum calls a “Mighty Room,” an experience that costs about $200. Visitors travel from as far away as Michigan, Wisconsin, and California, and some arrive attired in white—in honor of Emily’s signature garment—to dwell in the poet’s chamber, which contains her single bed, a bureau, a tiny desk, and the room’s sole source of heat, a woodstove.

Earlier in the week I spent an hour in this room, mostly staring out the window overlooking the side lawn, watching the squirrels cavort and sprint and scamper and pause. I tried to imagine Emily at her desk, its surface no bigger than a laptop, taking her scraps and developing them into poems. Here? I kept thinking. She found her lines here? And she kept them here? In these bureau drawers? It reminded me of how once I’d opened a storage closet to find one of my rarely worn dress shoes entirely filled with seed—an unseen creature’s labors,

hours and hours of work, stored up for an imagined eternity.

By 11 a.m. we have shifted the recitation to a circle of chairs beneath a white tent near the garden, so that docents of the Homestead can conduct their hourly tours unobstructed. Now there are 23 participants, and the various voices are sometimes obscured by the guttural thrumming of a HarleyDavidson, or a passing bus, or barking dogs. A catbird issues its queer meow from a nearby limb. In addition to the microphone that is passing from hand to hand around the tent, Everett’s bag of tangerines is making the rounds.

At poem no. 466, which begins I dwell in Possibility , Brooke, the program director, interrupts and presents a bottle of “Dwell in Possibility”—a stout beer produced by Amherst Brewing—to the reader. The woman stashes the bottle under her chair, and the baton of Emily’s text continues its relay from voice to voice to voice.

An hour later we reach page 232, Emily’s 513th poem. Although the circle remains stocked with readers, 1,276 poems remain. But we’re not just running down the poems, flipping pages, advancing into the afternoon of a fall day. There is another progression. As the town clock bongs noon, signaling the sixth hour, 13 years of Emily Dickinson’s life have transpired since we commenced.

Every once in a while, a reader recites a famous lyric, one we’ve learned in school. Because I could not stop for Death- / He kindly stopped for me. Or, I’m Nobody! Who are you? (widely taught in China, this poem first prompted Liyan to discover more of Emily’s work, which eventually lured him here). When these familiar poems are read, their specialness ripples through the audience as they resound perhaps a robin’s hop from where they were first jotted down on scraps of paper. At other times, readers commit mispronunciations, omissions, or accidental rewordings—consequently there’s an inaudible but palpable flinching among the listeners.

By 4:20 we’ve moved back into the parlor, the tours finished for the

day. There are 16 readers; we are approaching poem no. 866. Emily is in her 44th year. The same sun that shone on her and features prominently in her poems continues to light the room, sliding down the parlor’s panes as we publicly speak her private lyrics, lines that were once bound in little packets (called “fascicles”) and stored upstairs in a drawer, lines that might have vanished if not for three miraculous things.

The first stroke of luck was that her fascicles were not fed to the woodstove, a move that would have abolished a life’s work, and an American legacy, in less than 10 seconds. Upon her death, Dickinson requested that her saved correspondence be burned. Lavinia, who fulfilled her sister’s wishes, might have easily added the fascicles to the flames. But she refrained.

The second was that Emily’s brother, Austin, had an extramarital affair. This led, improbably, to two women—Austin’s daughter with his wife, Susan Dickinson, and the daughter of Austin’s mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd—cooperating on a project to turn the handwritten, hand-bound poems into a typed, hardbound book.

The third was the stewardship of Harvard University Press. It brought out a three-volume edition called Poems of Emily Dickinson in 1955. The book, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, includes all the transcripts of all the versions of all the verse she left behind. In 1998 the press brought out another important collection, The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition , edited by Ralph W. Franklin, which provides a single version of each of her 1,789 poems. This is the book the marathoners use.

By 5:10 p.m. there are 19 participants in the parlor as we read her 1,000th poem. A basket of singly packaged Life Savers lozenges circulates. Soon, the air smells like wintergreen. I watch Catherine, a woman in her early 60s wearing track pants and running shoes, as she gobbles down crackers at a snack table to replenish her energy for the event’s remaining hours. When I ask why she’s devoted

her whole day to this activity, Catherine asserts (with mouth full), “She’s on par with Shakespeare.”

By poem no. 1,176, it is dark outside, again.

By poem no. 1,225: I want to quit.

By 7:15 p.m. there are 18 participants, and then 17, as someone leaves to put her child to bed. Liyan left on his unicycle two hours ago to get back before nightfall.

Through the open windows, we can hear the crickets engrossed in their own recitations. Inside the parlor there is a sense of community: Participants distribute extra bottles of water, pass around copies of the book, orient newcomers to the correct page. Some have been here for more than 14 hours. Had we boarded a plane at Logan Airport upon uttering the first poem, we might now be landing in China.

By 8:37 p.m. we’re reading poem no. 1,577. There are 16 people, it’s 1882, and I begin to fantasize what it might be like to hear all of our voices—the meek voice, the strident voice, every voice—speaking in unison. What’s left to read amounts to a pamphlet.

The morning after the marathon, at Everett’s encouragement, I’ll visit Emily’s grave behind the Mobil station. Past the iron gates, the unkempt graveyard is part forest, part field, its 18th-century headstones jutting out like a forgotten crop. The cemetery is both vacant and full of life: alder saplings, a crow alighting in an oak, long grasses and blooming asters, the chanting crickets.

I’ll bear to the left along a dirt road, past the huge oak with limbs reaching every direction, then more graves, and then see what must be her site (“You’ll know it because it’s the only one with bars around it,” Everett says). A family will approach by another entrance, and we will arrive at the grave simultaneously. A mother and father with their children: two girls and a boy, ages 5, 7, and 8, I’d guess. The eldest daughter will pluck a dandelion and hold the stem as she gazes at Emily’s grave. Pebbles, a penny, and a shell adorn the headstone. A fresh hibiscus blossom basks next to a marigold, which, gauging by

its wiltedness, was left the day before. Scattered upon the grass are 12 pens and pencils.

When the eldest girl asks how old Emily was, the father will prod her to do the math: “Take 1886 and subtract 1830.” The girl will consider this, then carefully tender her flower beside the others, inspiring the younger sister to contribute, too, by snapping off a clover. “You’re not even old enough to read,” the father will chide her. Undeterred, she’ll select and place another offering, a dandelion whose flower has become a globe of seed—something a breath could disperse.

In the parlor beneath the gaze of the young Dickinsons—two sisters and a brother—our day giving breath to Emily’s oeuvre nears its end. The parlor now seems a shaken snow globe of spoken words, and time feels disheveled and unruly. It’s autumn in the town of Amherst, but it’s spring in the spoken poem; it’s the second millennium among those gathered, but it’s 1886, the final year of Emily’s life, in the book. Although these are the poems of a 56-year-old woman, they’re enunciated by a 27-year-old man, a 15-year-old girl, a 70-yearold man, a 45-year-old woman. And whereas I was joyful and excited at the beginning, and then exasperated and panicky through the interminable middle, I now feel giddy realizing the book’s heft rests on the left side of its spine, and only a few pages remain on its right, until even those are turned.

Twenty of us listen as the woman with the clipped British accent utters the last poem, which begins The saddest noise, the sweetest noise .... What was for the diehard readers a single day—15 hours and 10 minutes total—has encompassed a single life’s work. An hour later the dandelionyellow house sits silent and dark, its parlor emptied, the poet’s pilgrims scattered. Or perhaps: sown.

This year’s Emily Dickinson Museum Poetry Marathon will be held on 9/22. For more information, go to emilydickinsonmuseum.org.

“END OF THE DAY”

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Uncharted Waters

As a world-class designer, builder, and sailor, Rhode Island native N.G. Herreshoff pushed the limits of what boats could be.

Among the most remarkable things about the 1903 America’s Cup defender Reliance , the largest racing yacht that had yet been built, was that they ever found 64 sailors crazy enough to crew it. With the power of 16,000-plus square feet of sails counteracted by a keel weighing 102 tons, it would be subject to an ungodly amount of torsion—and in ocean waves, no less. The creaking of the rigging alone must have been hair-raising.

“It’s not a boat form that I think is wholesome,” its designer, N.G. Herreshoff, admitted to one of the owners, “but it’s what is necessary to win.”

And win it did, sweeping Shamrock III in the best-of-five series and becoming the fourth Cup winner in a row from Bristol, Rhode Island–based Herreshoff Manufacturing Co. (A fifth winner, Resolute, would come in 1920.)

Impressive as that is, dreaming up unbeatable racing yachts was only part of N.G. Herreshoff’s genius. “He was one of the world’s most prolific boat designers, yes,” says Kurt Hasselbalch, curator of the Hart Nautical Collections at the MIT Museum. “But he was also in charge of the construction of his designs—around 400, all told— and he trial-sailed them all. He even helmed one of the America’s Cup yachts to victory.”

This fall the MIT Museum spotlights the legacy of the so-called “Wizard of Bristol”—as well as his brother and partner, John, an innovator in his own right—as it debuts both a major exhibit, “Lighter, Stronger, Faster,” and a sprawling online archive of Herreshoff designs, which span rowing, sailing, and power vessels of every stripe.

You might find another tribute to this New England icon, though, just by checking your pockets: The yacht sailing toward the Pell Bridge on the Rhode Island state quarter is none other than Reliance. —Jenn Johnson

“Lighter, Stronger, Faster: The Herreshoff Legacy” opens 10/18 at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA. To learn more about the exhibit and online archive, go to newengland.com/herreshoff-MIT.

Carrying a mast as tall as a 20-story building, Reliance charges upwind in this 1903 photograph. Though the behemoth was scrapped in 1913, it lives on as a one-sixth-scale model at the Herreshoff Marine Museum in Bristol, Rhode Island.