Tag: New England

The changing face of downtown Dover

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
The Robbins Block storefronts are now gone and a five-story Orpheum is rising in their place. The hardware store, lower right, is still there. From the top left are the library, community center, and district court.

When I moved to New Hampshire 32 years ago, downtown Dover – like many other city centers across northern New England – had definitely seen better days. The old textile mill dominating the heart of the city was largely boarded up, and the retail stores that remained did so out of faith and loyalty and family tradition. How could they hold out against the big-box stores at the mall?

And then along came some visionary developers like the late Joseph Sawtelle and David Bamford, as a turnaround slowly took hold. Sawtelle restored the mill as it welcomed offices and incubated entrepreneurial businesses, while Bamford rebuilt mixed-use retail and housing on Central Avenue – some of it tastefully looking more natively New England than what it replaced.

Now that I’ve been a Dover resident the past 19 years, let me say it’s wonderful living within walking distance of a living downtown, one with a small-town feel. As I tell my wife, when we venture out for a weekday brunch, many people drive halfway across the continent for this.

Big change is in the air, though. That center is shifting from being primarily a financial, retail, and office center to more of a residential destination, presumably for young adults, child-free couples, singles, and retirees – people looking for an urban setting close to the ocean and mountains.

Part of the shift has already happened with the top floors of the two biggest mills being converted to apartments, a reflection of soaring residential demand in our part of the state. But now it’s getting serious.

For a city of 30,000, having four significant and mostly residential buildings going up in the central business district is exciting, even before we get to the waterfront development about to unfold across the Washington Street bridge. (Admittedly, some of us do miss the quaint covered bridge for children and other pedestrians that was there when I moved to town 19 years ago, but I’ll go with the tradeoff – landing the children’s museum was a definite coup.)

This doesn’t just happen by accident. A lot of incremental steps over the past two decades have made this a more desirable place to live. And now it’s kicking in big time.

The former Strafford Bank building sits at the corner of Lower Square. The Barley Pub is gone, replaced by the Thirsty Moose.

On seeing pileated woodpeckers

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

The pileated woodpecker is one of the largest members ot the family, rather comical and awkward looking, at that. It’s also not commonly seen, so sightings are always exciting, at least if you have an eye for birds. (Pronounced PIE-lee-ay-tid or PILL-ee-ay-tid, by the way.)

I remember one of my first encounters was while having dinner with the Ostroms at their house perched atop a wooded ravine outside Bloomington, Indiana. One alighted just outside the window, to our shared surprise and wonder.

More recently, as I was driving with my elder daughter down a road in Maine, one was flying just ahead of us but veered off before she could look up.

A week later, on a different road, the same thing happened.

She accuses me of making those up.

So the other day, after a meeting at the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship in Durham, I noticed two people in the parking lot who were staring at something in the trees just beyond. I caught the red head and then the full bird. Yup. Amazing, considering this was an urban neighborhood.

And then, on another trunk, I spotted on more red head and big body, which then swooped down to join the first.

The pileated ‘pecker is a large bird – 16 to 19 inches long with a wingspan up to 30 inches, as I’m reading, likely the largest of its family in North America – and they can do some serious damage to trees they decide to nest in. Think of a beaver with wings. Again, from some quick referencing online, I’d guess you can look for a nest based on the pile of wood chips below.

My companion, in her early 90s, apologized that she’s never been able to really see birds, not even as a child. “My eyesight’s always been poor,” she apologized. So much for a witness. At least she could attest that two others were also commenting on the birds before us.

As for said daughter? She insists I’m making this up, too.

For the record, I don’t think I ever seen more than one classic redheaded woodpecker in my life. Hairy woodpeckers and downeys and flickers, of course, are another matter. Old friends, I’d say.

Of course, the Woody Woodpecker cartoons don’t count, do they?

Not my picture, alas. Bird photography is truly a specialty.

Singing over beers

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

So there we were after choir rehearsal, more than 20 of us gathered for what’s called a pub sing.

It’s commonplace in England and Ireland, I suppose, but a rarity in the States.

In fact, this was my first encounter. One of our members had reserved a room at a tavern down the street.

Our Boston Revels organization hosts public versions of these during the year, but this was more impromptu. Yes, we had a stack of the organization’s songbooks, just in case. As our motto states, “Where tradition comes to life.”

Two of those present had birthdays, so we belted out in the traditional Happy Birthday song, in glorious four-part harmony – maybe more.

And then one basso voice continued in a dark melody with lyrics like “long ago your hair turned gray, now it’s falling out, they say,” or “it’s your birthday, never fear, you’ll be dead this time next year.” He was quickly joined by a soprano across the table in what became a competition to see who could remember lines the other didn’t know.

For those with a mordant sense of humor, it’s (UHH!) great fun. You can even Google it under the “Happy Birthday Dirge.” For the record, we sang it much better than any of the versions you’ll hear there.

Fortunately, my birthday had slipped past unnoticed just a few weeks earlier.

Maybe next year?

Lamprey River Band

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
This country dance band has been together since 1983, performing principally in the Seacoast Region of New Hampshire. Its first-Thursday-of-the-month New England contradances in Dover’s city hall welcome sit-in musicians and guest callers. That event started out in a neighboring town as band practice … and if the band was practicing, so could the callers … and if they were calling, why not have dancers? It’s a great event, and beginning dancers are always welcome.

Winter heating costs in historical perspective

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

In earlier times, so I’ve heard, a normal house on Cape Cod used forty cords of hard pine firewood a year. That was back before chain saws or splitting machines, so felling the trees and cutting them to fit a fireplace or stove was largely handwork, even before getting around to stacking. My muscles and back ache just thinking about it.

Mind you, a typical Cape was not a large dwelling – two over two, as they say – or two rooms downstairs and two under the rafters above.

Like many New Englanders, we heat part of our house with wood. It also functions as backup for energy outages, just in case. Since we live in a small city not far from forests, obtaining firewood is rarely a problem. I have no idea what it’s like in a city like Boston or Providence, but the going rate here, delivered, is $300 a cord.

Imagine needing forty cords to get through a year – that would cost $12,000 a year … for a small house! And we think $2,500 a year for natural gas is excessive? I’ll have to ask around to see what folks using fuel oil or propane are shelling out, but it’s still bound to be cheaper than the Colonial alternative.

Two cords of new firewood sit stacked inside a seasoned shell in early September/ Stacking it was a lot of work, but not nearly as much as earlier generations put in on their yearly supply.

THAT VICTORIAN APARTMENT WAS REAL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The once grand dame of an apartment house turned shabby that I describe in my novel Daffodil Uprising was real, though situated in Upstate New York rather than southern Indiana. A little bit more poetic license, if you will, in my relocating the blocky building.

I use the past tense, because satellite searches inform me the structure has been demolished, no doubt because of some of the health and safety issues the story relates. Bringing everything up to code would have cost a fortune.

Well, maybe a fire did it in. That, too, feels quite plausible.

When Kenzie and his two buddies flee their dorm, they have such high expectations. So did I, in what was supposed to be a haven after college. Look, this was what a professional journalist could afford – slum housing.

Still, the moldy manse was memorable and possibly haunted. I certainly heard rumors to that effect.