I like living at sea level. It’s practical, predictable, walkable and generally requires less effort. Cell phone reception is pretty good too. I’ve been up the Empire State Building and those space ship-like towers in Toronto and Seattle and stuff, but generally, I’m okay with an elevation that hovers close to zero. I’m a Yankee. I know about gravity. And I prefer not to push my luck.

That’s not to say I haven’t been UP there. In fact, I’ve probably been higher than most people who live around here. For example, I’ve been out on the catwalk of both the New Castle Lighthouse and the one on White Island. There Is no better view in America, I swear, but I was back inside the tower faster than you can say Jack Robinson. Maybe it was the rolling waves or the swooping seagulls, or the fact that those things were built just after the Civil War.

I’ve been on the roof of the Portsmouth Music Hall. Very scary. It’s huge and covered with tiny rocks and there’s nothing to stop you from going right over the edge. I’ve been on the widow’s walk of the Portsmouth Athenaeum too, that thankfully has a sturdy white wooden railing all the way around the central hatch that opens onto the tarpaper roof on the fourth floor. It’s a great place to view Market Square Day or the bicycle race. I’ve been up in the North Church steeple tower too, right up there with the giant bell. Not such a great view from there since the structure extends all around and over your head.

For 10 years I had a downtown top floor apartment two blocks further down Pleasant Street from the church. It was only three stories up, but in Portsmouth, that’s high. It had eight rooms and four dormer windows, all of which leaked. Three of the dormers opened onto the connecting roof where I kept a few lawn chairs and a roof garden with cherry tomatoes. I had a good view of the South Mill Pond and friends gathered annually to watch the summer fireworks. Once I was out there sunning when two Portsmouth policemen jumped up from the alley fire escape. They made a close inspection of my cherry tomato plants, tipped their caps, and climbed back over the edge without saying a word.

The best tall place in the Seacoast that doesn’t require a propeller is the top of that big silo down the river at Sprague Energy. I shot a film up there once. We watched the MV Thomas Laighton gliding all the way from the Memorial Bridge until it turned into Great Bay. It isn’t scenic looking at the tower from the river, but it’s gorgeous looking back.

One time I was on the Memorial Bridge with a bunch of City Council members and TV media watching a tall ship come into town. Someone talked the bridge operator into letting us all stay on the bridge as it was cranked up to let the ship pass below. Now that was cool. Then somebody noted that it was a breach of city law for three or more council members to gather in the same place. That may not be true, but with the TV cameras rolling, they all spaced themselves at equal distances across the length of the lift bridge. When we got down the operator caught hell for letting us go up in the first place.

We also shot some footage from the top of the fire tower at Mt. Agamenticus in York, Maine. That’s the highest point on the highest point in the region. I don’t think you can go up there anymore. The view is dramatic, but it’s largely trees. The fire spotter was just using a pair of binoculars and then plotting the location of things with a mechanical device that looked like something from ancient Egypt. It reminded me of being up in the tower at Logan Airport where the air traffic controllers kept track of the planes with little pieces of plastic. Very low tech. I wish I hadn’t seen it.

Those are all places I’ve been where you probably cannot follow. I didn’t mean to brag. If you know any members of the 100 Club, they have a superb wrap-around view from the top floor patio facing into the city on Market Street. And if you know anyone who lives in the condos at the Rockingham Hotel on State Street, they have a sprawling roof garden. The Warwick Club offers a dramatic look down onto Market Square. Oh, not a member? Sorry. I guess you really do have to know someone to get high around here.

Copyright © 2006 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.