NOTES FROM
AMERICA'S SMALLEST SEACOAST (SM)
SeacoastNH.com Update 
February / March 2008

History Feature
LAFAYETTE WAS FIRST AMERICAN IDOL
Soldiers wept and women swooned. Countless towns, schools and streets took his name. Lafayette visited all 24 united states as a conquering hero half a century after the American Revolution. He came here too in September 1824 – and Portsmouth still remembers the day.

FILM: THE JESUS GUY
He wanders the world barefooted with only a robe and a prayer book. Carl Joseph doesn’t think he’s Jesus. He just wants to live like the man he most admires. Portsmouth filmmaker Sean Tracey tracked this determined man for three years. His award-winning documentary is a fascinating study in faith and human nature.

NEWS:  PORTSMOUTH NAMED DISTINCTIVE NATIONAL DESTINATION 
This one hits where we live. We’ve been promoting Portsmouth as a cultural destination since the Web was born. Before that we did the same in videos, slide shows, books and essays. Finally the pieces are coming together, and even Washington DC is getting the message. See the story.

TRIVIA: OLD STONE FACE TO BE AUCTIONED  
One thin dollar gets you one raffle ticket to win a chip off the roof of the old Merrimack, NH town hall. But look again. This is no ordinary slate roof tile. In the right light, with a lot of imagination, it looks oddly similar to our beloved Old Man in the Mountains. Or does it?  Click to see.

SPORTS: TUBELESS TIRES FOR BIKERS  
It’s not too icy to plan for the coming thaw. The Great Balkini, our guru on wheels, does exactly that. He says the time has come to rise up and end the danger of blowouts on the road. He knows. He had a big one recently – and was saved by his costly tires.  Read on.

ANTIQUES:  THE HALEYS THAT GOT AWAY  
Someone out there bought these two great paintings of, we think, Richard and Lucy Haley. They ran the White Island lighthouse in the mid-1800s, but until now, we’ve never seen them. SeacoastNH launched and lost a movement to bring these portraits to Portsmouth. Here’s what happened.

CONTEST: THIS BOOK NOT SOLD IN STORES 
We’re still waiting to hear from Stan Boulware who won last month’s prize. (Stan, we sent a notice, and need to confirm your snail mail address!) This month we have one more book available by editor J. Dennis Robinson and co-author Lynne Vachon. RICH WITH CHILDREN is the story of a Sicilian- American family in the harsh textile mills of Lawrence, MA. You can’t buy this one in any store, although it is available on Amazon.com. To get your rare copy, enter our February contest today.

BLACK HISTORY:  THE SLAVE TRADE IN NH  
This classic short essay by historian Valerie Cunningham outlines the Portsmouth connection to the Triangle Trade. Remember, its Black Heritage month.

NEWS: SEACOAST NH AFRICA VISIT UPDATE 
Black Heritage Trail members recently made another trip from Portsmouth to Ghana and sent along this update.

CALENDAR: TOP EVENTS  IN WINTER

HUMOR: HILLARY’S PORTSMOUTH MOMENT
Why wait 100 years to memorialize an historic event when we can do so right now? When presidential candidate Hillary Clinton almost broke out in tears, the world sat up and noticed. To keep the moment alive – and to boost tourist dollars – we offer the following modest proposal.

ARTS:  CELIA’S TYPEWRITER 
Like most writers, our “Island Poet” earned money any way she could get it. If that meant flogging new office products or cigars, so be it. Another eBay auction led to this footnote to history. See rare photos.

ROBINSON LIVE EVENTS
JDR will sign his new history book on March 5, 7 pm at Riverrun Books in Portsmouth, NH with Strawbery Banke president Larry Yerdon. Dennis will speak on “John Paul Jones” to the Portsmouth Yacht Club on March 29. He will then present “Lively Boys! Lively Boys! to the Exeter Historical Society in the evening on April 1. This slide lecture focuses on the rise of the “bad boy” novel created by Portsmouth, NH authors and later perfected by novelist Mark Twain. And stay tuned to NH Chronicle for an upcoming TV interview. Or read a recent article by Patrick Law in THE WIRE.  

PHOTOS: MORE HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH PIX 
This month’s featured photos include restoration carpenters in the 1756 Walsh House, preservationist Muriel Howells as a young girl, a Water Street patrolman and his son “Ransom”, and Prince Charles meets “King” Arthur Brady in 1973.

MAILBAG: READ OUR FEBRUARY MAIL 
Yes, we read every single email. And we’ve posted the best online. 

FILM: GO TELL THE SPARTANS
Based on one of the most stirring novels on the Vietnam War, Go Tell the Spartans appeared in 1978. It stars Burt Lancaster in one of the most stirring roles of his long career. Created by Seacoast NH author Daniel Ford, this often-ignored film is now being hailed as one of the most truthful of its genre.

From the Editor
OBAMA TO DOOM BOOMER DOMINATION
We’re happy to see Barack Obama doing so well on the road to the presidency, but there is a downside. Obama is young. His candidacy is lighting a fire under young Americans like nothing since the 1960s. Pundits have been predicting for decades that teenaged and twenty-something voters own the power to steal the election, but so far, they have squandered it. This year they may cash in.

A youthful revolution is great, of course. We need it badly. Obama says he wants to write a “new chapter” in American history. If he does, however, an earlier chapter is coming to a close.

Generations come and go, but for decades we Baby Boomers have kept a tight grip on American culture. Baby Boomers labeled the younger wave that followed as “Slackers” and “Gen-Xers”. Tom Brokaw, one of our own, dubbed our parents The Greatest Generation. But lately, we seem to be losing our grip. Sixty-year old Hillary is faltering and her husband Bill is looking as snow white as 70-something John McCain.

If you’re my age, you can feel the revolution rumbling like an over-spiced curry. TV commercials, for example, make no sense, any more. I can’t even tell what these post-modern ads are selling. This year I didn’t recognize any of the winners at the Grammys. I find new TV shows like “The Whitest Kids U’ Know” on MTV to be unfunny and downright offensive. Little girls used to want to be firefighters and astronauts. Now they want to be princesses again.

You know you’re getting old when the kid at the Kittery Trading Post calls you “Mister” and the girl selling movie tickets offers you a senior discount. I turn my history columns into editors who are half my age. All my friends talk about are their retirement portfolios and colon exams. When I give lectures, young people ask questions with a deferential respect that shouts – “Dog, you are ancient!”

And don’t kid yourself. If Obama wins, we’re headed for a paradigm shift. America will look young and more hip than it has since John F. Kennedy and Jackie took office. We, in response, will look older. The fact that I remember what it was like back then means I’m on the downside of the coming tectonic shift. It was the brief “Camelot” era of the Kennedys that ushered in the Beatles and the “Me Generation” take-over that literally changed the world.

It’s scary, but in a good way. I, for one, was not ready for the compost heap of history. I thought we Baby Boomers had a few more years in power. But I’m not half as scared of growing old as I am of seeing the mess my colleagues have created continue. So bring it on Mr. Obama. We did the best we could, then we screwed up. I can’t wait to see what your tidal wave of hope will bring.  -- JDR

--------------------------------

Copyright © 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.

OUR READERS LOVE ADVERTISERS WHO SUPPORT THIS SITE
Contact us today about affordable online advertising.
http://www.seacoastnh.com/