How to end a most memorable summer

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When last summer ended, I proclaimed it my best one ever – in part because there were no complications from an employer or romantic upheavals. Instead, it was filled with new adventures, explorations along the Bold Coast and out on the waters, introductions to fascinating characters and geezers (both positive terms, in my estimation) who live here at least a goodly part of the year, plus a sequence of fascinating artists in residence combined with local painters and photographers and their galleries as well as a world-class chamber music series by mostly resident performers. Whew! And, oh yes, I had plenty of time to devote to a new book and setting up posts for this blog. I even got a new laptop, which meant importing and tweaking everything.

This time around has simply amplified everything.

The temperatures are generally cool on the island – often ten degrees less than what’s happening on the mainland even just seven miles to the west – so I rarely suffered from sweltering. On the downside, heritage tomatoes are rarely found here. Remember, in Dover I lived on tomato-and-mayo sandwiches from the beginning of August into October, some years, though in no small part due to global warming. Even so, the ocean temps here are too cold and the currents too treacherous, for any swimming, though inland lakes and streams provide a welcome alternative.

Well, that’s only half of it. Summer is when Eastport comes into its full glory. The streets are swarming, like a big party. To think, I’m experiencing the ideal of summering on a Maine island, combined with a lively artistic dimension! Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have expected that.

But all good things must come to an end.

Three-quarters of the Eastport’s population is what Mainers call Summer People. Now they’re mostly going-going-gone and we’re on the verge of getting back to our more essential state, something akin to a ghost town.

Not that we go down that easily.

This weekend featured the annual Salmon Festival, a delightfully low-key event highlighting local musicians, galleries, and crab rolls served by the senior center and Episcopal Church on Saturday and salmon dinners on Sunday, as well as tours of the salmon farms at Broad Cove.

The Salmon Festival is a low-key event, centered on the waterfront..
Historian Joe Clabby tells a circle at the amphitheater about the region’s rich past. One local wag calls this our “NPR festival,” in contrast to what’s coming next weekend.
Celebrating local seafood, there are crab rolls on Saturday and a big salmon dinner on Sunday.
And, of course, live music.

The event honors what was once the Sardine Capital of the World in its current incarnation as a center of aquaculture in the form of salmon.

But it’s also a prelude to next weekend’s blowout, the Pirate Festival.

On Saturday, a mini-flotilla, armed with water balloons and squirt guns, sailed down to invade neighboring Lubec. Next week, they’re expected to return the favor, all in good spirits.

 

What’s made your summer special?

 

Chorro Ferdy

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

with neglected stretches afoot this past so jammed with rocks juts up between ferns and trees tensing into some ongoing anxiety of unseen opportunities in the day and a traipse around the Quaker burial ground in Ellicott City perceives the stone meetinghouse now a private residence : suspect it was called Elk Ridge Meeting but no proof yet : even boulders where elk roamed or buffalo now a stone enclosure under fieldstone forest before a floating worship the midweek turn here tomorrow night’s a blessing while my suburban exile draws to some close : humbly all we still share

Ahoy, oh boy, what a surprise

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Popped into the Chamber of Commerce the other afternoon, thanks to the Public Restroom Inside board set up out on the street, and immediately found myself awash in pirates.

They were assembled for some kind of banquet, which I later learned was one of the fundraising murder mystery dinners in advance of our pirate festival.

I can report it was well attended.

The very important network of Friends

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Early histories of Friends in New England generally overlook Dover, Hampton, and Salem, apart from fleeting references. The focus is instead on Rhode Island, Buzzard Bays, and Cape Cod, in part because of their relative wealth and influence and in part because of their cache of surviving records.

My investigation, prompted by the 400th anniversary of the British settling of Dover, has convinced me that the three northernmost Quaker Meetings of the late 17th and early 18th centuries were equally as important, and their stories need to be told.

One thing I’ve found is that these Friends were not ignored by traveling Quaker ministers. Some of them, especially from England, essentially “set up camp” on the Piscataqua, and their journals offer candid insights into the community and its struggles.

Friends were also connected through New England Yearly Meeting and, closer to home, through Salem Quarterly Meeting, before the creation of Dover Quarterly Meeting in 1815.

We see that in the assistance industrial pioneer Moses Brown of Providence, Rhode Island, provided Dover Friends in the manumission of their slaves in the years leading up to the American Revolution.

Today the Moses Brown School in Providence, Rhode Island, is a highly respected prep academy. Dover Friends who could afford to sent their children there.

The Friends Boarding School in Providence, later renamed in his honor, became another way for Quakers to become integrated into the wider Society of Friends – especially when it led to marriages with other Quakers. Much later came the prestigious Quaker colleges at Haverford, Swarthmore, Guilford, Earlham, and more.

Facilitated by the traveling ministers, who likely also conveyed business information and perhaps even money, along with the counsel of financially savvy elders, some Friends prospered in the industrial revolution. Some Dover Friends did find success in Philadelphia or Massachusetts, and others spread up the Cochecho River and across Maine.

Today, we also connect through alliances like the American Friends Service Committee, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends General Conference, Friends United Meeting, the Friends Historical Association, the Quaker Theological Group, and much more.

Well, as Jesus said, wherever two or three more are gathered …

But it’s also how we stay recharged and focused in the work we’re called to do. Heaven knows, we can’t do it alone.

~*~

Check out my new book, Quaking Dover, available in your choice of ebook platforms at Smashwords.com.

Welcome to Dover’s upcoming 400th anniversary.

 

Just listen to some powerful lines from the bared heart

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The best poem I’ve ever read in nearly six decades of the New Yorker is one that wasn’t even presented as one of its two weekly poetry selections.

Instead, it appeared recently within a theater review, where the play under consideration reminded the critic “of the late poet Essex Hemphill, a master of frank desire whose smart, life-hungry speakers toss of lines like these:

I am lonely for past kisses,
for wild lips certain streets
breed for pleasure.
Romance is a foxhole.
This kind of love frightens me.
I don’t want to die sleeping with soldiers
I don’t love.”

A bit later comes a couplet from a different Hemphill poem:

I am beautiful.
I will endure.

~*~

My, how I admire the directness of those lines, their acerbic observations unencumbered by literary aspirations.

Yes, he skirts the imagist realm of so much of my own verse but somehow, to my eyes, averts any preachiness that can come from the subjects he’s examining.

What hits me the most is the clarity and intensity of his self-examination.

Yes, each time I return to these.

Reflecting on the character of New Hampshire

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When I arrived in the Granite State 35 years ago, I expected to be spending a lot of my time in the mountains to the north, but that never really materialized. I’ll blame my quest for love, usually found down in Boston, in the opposite direction, back before I met the woman I adore.

Contradancing soon claimed a lot of my social attention, with regular events across the state, across the border in Maine, and especially in Concord and Cambridge, Massachusetts. Add to that all of my time hunkered down in my literary endeavors or Quaker activities, even before I started singing in an incredible choir weekly in Watertown, just outside Boston, or swimming laps daily once I’d retired from the newsroom.

Whatever the character ultimately is, I found sufficient nurture and inspiration to do some good work. Gee, that’s starting to sound like Garrison Keillor.

Each of the six states, by the way, has its own character despite the overall New England identity. In general, those New Englanders are friendlier than their reputation for aloofness contends. It’s just that they’re more reserved – respectful of your privacy – but open up with a sparkle, for the most part, given a hint.

So here’s what I learned while residing in Manchester and then Dover.

  1. New Hampshire isn’t as archconservative as I had expected. Not that it doesn’t have a lot of blockheads, but the place was definitely shifting, especially along the border with Massachusetts.
  2. A large portion of New Hampshire residents have roots in Quebec, and others in Ireland, providing a significant Roman Catholic presence. Both reflect the textile-mills workforce in the 1800s. But other ethnic minorities have thrived, too.
  3. At heart, the population is largely blue-collar in outlook, generally practical, but these days, half of them come from other states, especially Massachusetts.
  4. Some of us used to joke that the stereotypical New Hampshire male had a Harley and his wife or girlfriend had big hair. That wasn’t far off the mark. Add a snowmobile, more than downhill skis or hockey skates.
  5. Agriculture isn’t a major economic factor. There aren’t many large commercial farms these days. And what farming exists is typically diversified.
  6. There are relatively few large employers. The commute to Greater Boston and back each day is huge – that’s where the paying jobs are.
  7. That also means few deep pockets for the arts and charitable action.
  8. It’s the most perfect test market for presidential candidates we have. Forget trying to find the ideal demographics, this delivers.
  9. Avid Red Sox and Patriots fans abound, with Celtics and Bruins supporters close behind. Keeping up with the teams’ developments is socially important. College sports, on the other hand, hardly matter.
  10. It might not have a sales or income tax, but you still have to pay for public services somehow. And so your property tax or apartment rental rate will be a whopper.

How about a good dose of humility instead?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

On one hand, they’re proud of having voted for the candidate and want you to know they did, but on the other hand, they want to distance themselves from any culpability for his actions.

Will somebody tell them, “You can’t have it both ways,” as a citizen?

Grow up and take responsibility for your choice, which includes the possibility of repenting in the light of reflection or otherwise being party to the vulgarity, insults, lies, and the general mess he’s left the nation and world to endure. (Reflection? We’ve never heard him admit he’s ever done anything wrong, which means he’s never even said he’s sorry for anything he’s done. Mistakes are always someone else’s fault. That would put him a bit higher than Jesus.)

There’s no denying the loser’s the king of blame, casting censure on everyone but the one-and-only he faces admiring himself alone in a mirror. I, for one, am exhausted by the gush of blame that’s been poured on what we’ve treasured and join.

So, yes, be prepared to be blamed or praised.

Voting is a serious responsibility, folks. Embracing what your candidate has done, in and out of office, ultimately reflects on your own values and character – and we’ve all had to face the ugly consequences.

Before blaming Biden for things like higher fuel prices, see instead how they stem from the Donald’s encouragement of his Russian pal, Putin. As for inflation, how about those fat checks the fed government handed out with Donald J. Trump as the signature?

Running deeper in this is the denial that the American political system is based on a multi-party dynamic, with the minority serving as a loyal opposition. There’s been nothing loyal about this GOP, not since it turned obstructionist back before Obama. Instead, it’s been trying to wreck the machinery of a just republic. That identity is anything but conservative.

If you’re proud of his true record, stand up. But face it all, not just the cherry-picked Fox version.

And don’t think you’re above blame or shame.

A good dose of humility is a virtue.

Shame on you, if you’re trying to shirk off the consequences of your vote.