Month: March 2022

Nasty Little Falls

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

That’s how the Native name Machias translates.

The bridge carries busy U.S. 1 traffic that’s oblivious to the landmark below.
The water charges down in two parallel sets of falls that reunite in the tide below.
You wouldn’t want to go over these in a canoe.

The tranquil city of Machias at the falls is the Washington County seat.

Chopsticks, ultimately, with or without a piano

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

the repeated but unreal seasons of pork chops with browned potatoes, peas, and Jell-O salad, the next night’s meatloaf with Spanish rice and green beans followed by fish sticks with scalloped potatoes and corn et cetera, always the same combinations back then, even Chinese would intimidate in dim rooms some at the edge of town on a Sunday night away from campus in the galleys of perdition, as if soy sauce would fix anything ketchup wouldn’t

Keeping a clean desktop?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Here’s one filing system I used, back when dealing with piles of paper:

File

Toss

Act

Delegate

Haven’t quite figured out an alternative for online “piles” yet. Guess they’re “files” on the screen that’s erroneously called a “desktop.”

Last time I looked, my laptop was sitting on the real desktop.

And I’ve still been getting by without a printer.

Any ideas on how to keep those incoming emails and texts from getting lost in the clutter?

 

The settlement isn’t named for a town with white cliffs

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The name of the settlement kept bouncing around.

Cochecho or Piscataqua plantation, for a while Bristol or Bristow, and even Northam, but the one that stuck was Dover.

Just as the names Hilton Point and Dover Point keep bouncing around, for the same place, though the latter has also largely replaced Dover Neck.

Neighboring Strawbery Banke did get renamed Portsmouth, after the harbor town in Devonshire, but Dover was never named for the village with the famed white cliffs in Kent.

No, the inspiration’s better than that.

The name comes through Dover’s second minister, George Burdet, who was more Anglican than Puritan, though apparently not outwardly. The proprietors of the colony at the time, Lord Saye and Lord Brooke, are both staunch Puritans, and the cleric works for them. In fact, he even manages to become the colony’s governor, or agent – a dual role forbidden to ministers in Massachusetts. Some even see him as trying to become a little pope in his power.

In calling the settlement Dover, Burdet pays honor to the anti-Puritan wit and attorney Robert Dover, who created the Cotswold Olympick Games near Cambridge in the heart of the Puritans’ East Anglia.

Meet Robert Dover.

As my upcoming book details, there’s a long list of reasons the neighboring Puritan landlords forbid their servants from attending the pagan festivities. Besides, Dover was likely a secret Roman Catholic while openly ridiculing the Puritans. We can imagine what he would have said of Quakers.

Burdet, however, winds up fleeing Dover amid sexual scandal, only to generate more where he lands in Maine. Yes, the plot keeps thickening.

As for, “Roll over, Dover,” if we put it up for a vote, which inspiration would you chose? The picturesque cliffs or the scoundrel in the pulpit?

Welcome to Dover’s upcoming 400th anniversary.

 

A big comfy place for reading?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As we anticipate the renovations to our new old house, one of the big touches I realize I’m missing is a really comfy place to sit while reading. I’m admitting I never really had that in our old place, not until we got the lights above the pillows in bed, but even those were too hot for comfort and the lack of back support took a toll.

So here are the specifications:

  • The seating has to be comfy, for starters. A puffy chair with good backing heads the list, likely with an ottoman.
  • It has to have a small table or other service to hold a cup of coffee or glass of refreshment, plus pencils and maybe a notebook.
  • Lighting is crucial – my wife hates table lamps, at least the ones with lampshades, as well as floor lamps. I hate overhead lighting, in general. So I want something that brightens the page while making the space intimate. We’ll see what we come up with.

I’m assuming it will be in the parlor where the wood-fired stove will sit. The big question now is just, where, exactly they’ll fit.

~*~

I do wonder, by the way, why nobody sells dental chairs as home furniture. These days, they’re quite cozy and seem to contort themselves to everyone’s fit. Any ideas? I’m not sure they’re exactly what I envision for reading, but in front of that giant home screen? Or just for a snooze?