November 8, 2008 #06

The Obligatory Thanksgiving Blast

The first Seacoast history piece I ever wrote was about Thanksgiving. I think it was the mid-1970s and I was living in my first post college apartment on Union Street and trying to make a living as a freelance writer. It was a miserable year for a fresh young ego. My girlfriend was still attending college at UNH. We had toured England the previous year and being back in the States was a drag. I was dead broke, doing odd jobs and driving a Domino’s pizza car. Every day I sat at the kitchen table and banged out story ideas on a portable Olympia typewriter. That was back when we used carbon paper and White-Out.®. I sold a few pieces here and there, but mostly I got back rejection slips that I posted on the refrigerator and eventually used to paper a wall. I got rejected by every major publication you can think of including Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker, even a few sleazy men’s magazines. One day I was killing time in the UNH library and, probably because it was fall, began reading one of the Pilgrim diaries looking for something to write about. The scary thing is, on second thought, this might have happened years later, in the early 80s when I was teaching journalism to high school kids. Okay, I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I do remember that I was stunned to learn that Portsmouth, NH was founded only three years after Plymouth Plantation. I was especially shocked to learn that Miles Standish had actually visited this region looking to purchase fish from David Thomson, New Hampshire’s first settler, and that Thomson then went to Plymouth and that the pilgrims celebrated a second thanksgiving in his honor. This was the dawning of the idea that New Hampshire’s history is often a day late and a dollar short compared to key national events. We are, like Avis, often the next guy across the line – and who remembers second place? That’s when I wrote the story about "Turkeygate", the 400-year cover-up. It appeared in New Hampshire Profiles magazine, probably when Peter Randall was the editor. If you can find a copy of that magazine, you can tell me whether it was the 70s or the 80s. It has appeared in lots of publications since. The New Hampshire history "hook" is to cast aspersions on the textbook historical event using self-deprecating humor, the way Avis made fun of itself in order to make fun of Hertz. I’ve been doing that pretty much since. And every year for decades I pick up on that concept in November, dust it off, and take another tilt at the windmill. Which is what I have to do this weekend. So I am pulling out the files about Thomson, checking my facts, and getting the old Thanksgiving show back on the road.

November 5, 2008 #05

Discover Portsmouth Launches Study

The organizers of the new Discover Portsmouth visitor center met today to kick off a yearlong study supported by the New Hampshire Humanities Council. The first year at the DPC, amazingly, is over. It was scarcely a year ago that volunteers began an effort to save the old library from being sold off as a commercial property. The Portsmouth Historical Society was the only group to propose an alternative use – the creation of a roomy, central, attractive information center for visitors and locals. The Discover Portsmouth Center under Richard Candee immediately launched three art exhibits and attracted over 6,000 visitors in its first season. But the future of the DPC is far from guaranteed. The volunteer group needs to raise a million dollars within the next two years to convince city officials that this is a viable idea. The focus of the organization is to welcome, orient and inform visitors, then send them off to see the scores of cultural events in the Portsmouth area. The NHHC grant is designed, in part, to create a central location for a series of historic tours that will all begin at the DPC. I’m pleased to be among the project scholars with professors Richard Candee, David Watters and Jeffrey Bolster. Roughly a dozen of the city’s heritage tourism experts will meet regularly for the next few months to devise a plan for the DPC. Officially titled "Putting Portsmouth on the Map", the advisory study is administered by the UNH Study for New England Culture and the Portsmouth Historical Society. Our formal goals are to develop a permanent exhibit of the history of Portsmouth, revise and enhance the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail and to create a new trail called "Footsteps of Washington." Since the creation of the Portsmouth Heritage Trail at the local chamber, we’ve been building new self-guided trails, all of them largely overlapping the same downtown area. Besides the Black Heritage Trail, we’ve worked on a Ranger (John Paul Jones) Trail, a Literary Lions Trail, a 1905 Treaty Trail, tours of historic graveyards, and what could best be called an "underbelly" tour featuring the darker side of local history. Can all these and other trails work together? Originate from a central point? Share a database? How will they operate? What mediums are best – cell phones, iPods, paper maps, audio CD? How do other towns accomplish this? How can we develop the DPC as the central stopping point for locals and tourists? These are questions we’ll be exploring.

November 4, 2008 #04

Today We All Made History

How fascinating to go from writing about the past to being scooped up in the transformational change of the election of Barack Obama, a name so new that even my spell checker is confused). After voting late in the evening, we retired to the TV like most of America – like most of the TV-watching world – too see the election returns roll in. No end of ink will be spent dissecting this "historic" event. Historic means an event important to history. And it was clear from the tears of joy and the wild celebrations around the world that something of extraordinary importance has occurred. While detractors attempted to dismiss the election of the first African American president as "merely symbolic", the fact is, that symbols are incredibly important to human beings. We think and write and speak and pray and dream in symbols. Having spent 12 years now promoting the black history research of Valerie Cunningham online here, I have a tiny perspective on how enormous this event is. It will be, for many African Americans, the most important date historical date in their lives. Pundits around the world rushed to praise the USA electorate. What surprised me was how many people, of every race, said they did not believe America was capable of such an act. That goes to just how deep our sense of racial prejudice goes, even in this era of seeming equality. We are functioning as an society of equals, but the damage done by slavery is still too close. The great thing about Valeries efforts to build the Portsmouth Black Heritage Trail here in Yankee, New Hampshire, is that it shows how deeply the prejudice was embedded here in the North. And I assume that we will see an enormous response among visitors who will now, because this symbolic barrier has been broken, will want to learn the story. Now that the "leader of the free world" is black and top color barrier is broken, we can begin telling the story of a black and white America in ways that was never before possible. All this has nothing to do with how Barack Obama will govern. But if he turns out to be a phenomenal president, while at the same time being the only non-white leader of a white-dominated democracy in the world, then walls will fall and change will come in ways we cannot imagine. And with that change, as we all know, will come the backlash. The last gasp of the great bigots of America will be horrible to behold. But for now, simply by standing alone and accepting the presidency, Barack Obama has launched us into an era that feels historic. When was the last time, I ask you, did the whole world weep for joy? Not in my 57 year memory.

November 3. 2008 -- #03

Changes to This Web Site Already  Underway

The decision to revise SeacoastNH.com to an "All History" format has not come easily. Those modifications will begin soon. In fact, they begin today with the elimination of the monthly Contest. As small an item as it may seem, it sucks up a lot of time – and money. With roughly 150 contests completed, the end had come. If you’re reading this site only for the free prize, I must bid you adieu. The bottom line is that, although I am fascinated by many topics, history has become my passion. After 12 years of going in too many directions, I will take Abraham Lincoln’s advice and not try to please all of the people all of the time. Back in 1996 when the Web was young I made one clear decision. The plan was to aggregate historical info about this region onto one web site. I knew instinctively that lots of people would write about the arts, dining, business, politics, housing, sports, weddings, etc. My goal was to gather information that was not current, but to write about it in an engaging way that, as the cliché goes, makes history "come alive" for modern readers. This I did for hundreds, probably thousands of web pages. I never really kept count. I never looked back. We did write about food and books and recreation and movies and for a few years I ran a weekly review of other web sites. The bigger the site got, the more I wanted to please incoming readers, but there are too few hours in the day. So I’m going to drop the Directory. Keeping stats fresh on thousands of local web sites is too much. I had hoped someone would come along who wanted to maintain that section for me – originally SeacoastSearch.com – but I admit that isn’t going to happen. Same for the Events Calendar. I started it because, like the Directory, I was unhappy with what was available locally. But it is possible to work day and night filling in events and still not make a dime. And each day you wake up, yesterday’s hard-won content is valueless. My goal is much the opposite. I want to create an archive that increases its value over time. The value may be esoteric, not commercial, but that is fine with me. The more local history I can post – assuming it is accurate and well written – the more useful this web site will be. In the last dozen years other web sites and publications have grown up. We currently have local web sites devoted to food, to the arts, to events, to home improvement and decorating. History is the one topic that no one does better. That has become my "brand" and I am stepping up to the role. The plan is to discontinue content that you can find elsewhere and spend that time creating new and better web pages about history in the Piscataqua Region and, occasionally, beyond. The changes will be subtle. Some readers may not even notice. But from this end, it is like giving up an old dream in favor of a new one.

November 2, 2008 -- #02

The Paul Harris Portsmouth Rotary Award

How does Paris Hilton handle it? Last week I got more than my fair share of local celebrity and, if you must know, it was both satisfying and frightening. After decades of railing against the machine, it is odd, every now and then, to be invited inside the establishment and toasted. I admit I had my suspicions when Portsmouth Herald publisher John Tabor invited me to lunch with him at the Portsmouth Rotary on its last meeting in October. We’ve both been in the local media biz for the last quarter century, but John had never invited me to lunch before. The upshot was a touching introduction by John and the Paul Harris Fellow medal from the Portsmouth Rotary. The following week I got the full editorial treatment from the newspaper, which was odd since I had recently written a eulogy for the same opinion page about "Penny Poet" Robert Dunn. Authors are forever writing about themselves, but it is a rare moment when we read something on the same topic by anyone else. It’s a humbling experience. The frightening part of any lifetime achievement award, of course, is that it is an indication that your clock is running down. A friend of mine used to tell the story of her grandfather who passed on in his mid-90s after a sudden illness. Surprised to find himself failing, the formerly active gentlemen turned to his family and said with disappointment, "But there were so many things I wanted to do!" That’s how I feel every day. But for one week, at least, it was nice to be reminded that a few of my labors are actually done. My thanks to Ted Alex and others at "New England’s Largest Rotary" whom I suspect were behind this honor. For a few minutes I actually did stop and rest upon my laurels. Then I got back to work with renewed sense of direction.

NOVEMBER 1, 2008 -- #01

Let the Blogging Begin

Someone told me a few years ago that this web site was little more than Robinson’s blog. The speaker intended the comment to be a slap. Blogs were a new concept and represented, at the time, a new baseline for content on the Web. A blog was little more than a few words from an unknown person, an online diary for the masses. You kept a blog if you couldn’t afford a real Web site. Now CNN has staff members who scan blogs around the world to capture the pulse of the planet. Blogs are the voice of the world’s largest army of reporters. Even important people keep blogs. So I guess it’s safe to come out of the closet. Having spent 30 years writing about the Seacoast region of New Hampshire, and the last dozen focused on local history, it appears I’ve developed a certain expertise. It sounds pompous to say so, but it would be silly to say otherwise. My office is packed with books and documents and artifacts about local history. I have, right here beside me, manila folders with hundreds of topics under development. When people ask questions about local history, I often know the answers, or at least, I know who knows. My intention is not to write a diary here, but rather a journal of the mind focused on the topic of local history. I will comment, when there Is value, on history events in the news. I’ll keep you abreast of the projects I’m working on and fill you in on interesting details that might have gone unreported in another form. The beauty of the blog is that it can happen quickly, whereas the writing of history is a slow process in which researching a single article can take months or years. I’ll sprinkle these pages with the seeds of what will sometimes become full-blown articles, and sometimes not. If people read this blog (and thanks to technology, I can literally count the number of readers) then it will remain a regular feature of the site. If not, it will disappear. If you think I’m off base or wrong (or right) then send me your response that may be posted in READ OUR MAIL.

© 2008 J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.