APTLY NAMED BY ACCIDENT

Sometimes a park is just a park. But sometimes it is a hazy, swirling connection of things past and things present. Who knew that the safe green zone near Portsmouth’s South Mill Pond was once the home of a beloved and prodigious local minister?

HISTORY FOR SALE

You never know what you will find on eBay, which is why we check it almost every day. You can learn a lot about local history by watching the auctions go by. Often you can learn things that are not even true. Here’s one of those stories and how it fixed itself magically with a few friendly emails. Is this a tale of lies and deception or merely the wonders of technology?

EDITOR AT LARGE

Dictionary.com tells us that the word "seacoast" (say 'sE-"kOst) means "the shore of a sea or ocean". If that’s true, then why does the word inevitably refer to New Hampshire. There are tens of thousands of miles of seacoast in the world – right? But "America’s Smallest Seacoast" (sm) wins the search hands down as the new Google Trends software proves

ELEVATED THOUGHTS DEPT.

Usually the best places to view the scenery are places you cannot get to. In a region as flat as the Port City, it doesn’t take many steps to rise to the top. The editor muses on views from above the madding crowd. Hey, we can see your house from here!

EDITOR-AT-LARGE

Americans love monarchy. We miss having a king and queen. It’s in our DNA to be ruled by a higher being. Movie stars used to be the new royalty, but so many of them are just like us. No, what we need is a truly superior being, someone we can worship – and yet dominate.

PORTSMOUTH'S BIGGER YOUNGER BROTHER

Maine’s biggest city is a hub for business, boutique shopping, fine dining, fine arts, waterfront activity and more. Real estate is affordable. Housing is plentiful. The future looks bright, but what about Portland’s past? At first glance – and second and third, etc. – the city’s history is difficult to uncover.

EDITOR AT LARGE

According to our Seacoast guest author, as many as 700,000 legal American immigrants are unable to bring their families "home". Spouses of Green Card holders must wait up to five years to reunite with their loved ones while the bills that could save them are languishing in Congress. Keeping families apart, the author suggets, is bad for families and bad for the economy.

EDITOR AT LARGE

Rebecca Perkins was born and raised in Seacoast, New Hampshire so there was nothing familiar about life in West Africa. Or was there? Rebecca reports on the lessons she taught as a Peace Corps business consultant in Dakar – and the lessons she learned. An exclusive online letter from Senegal to SeacoastNH.com.

OLD TOWN BY THE SEA

It is healthy to enter the New Year with as little baggage as possible. With that in mind we hereby unload the following. Portsmouth is largely lovely city. That’s why most of us are here – for the colonial houses, the swift-flowing river, the purple sunsets and the cozy neighborhoods. And there are those places you love to avoid.

ON THE SEE-SAW OF HELL

The closing of Limbo by the Catholic Church raises a problem for regular visitors of Purgatory. Will it be closed too? The author remembers happy childhood days at Purgatory Chasm in Massachusetts. It was the only Purgatory for Protestants. But eventually, the whole experience turning into a living hell. Read on.