Concord is a hard town to love. The city is flat and worn and disconnected. Nothing seems to go with anything else. New Hampshire has one of the largest democratic governments in the world, yet both the coffee shop across the street where I had breakfast today, and the deli where I had lunch, were largely abandoned. I want to go to Concord more. I try. But every time I go it rains, and yesterday it rained torrents. The dark somber statues of Pierce, Webster, Stark, and Hale were ready to step off their pedestals in disgust and go home. But the brightest and smartest radio station in the state is also in Concord, and I had a show to do. (Continued)

On The Exchange with Laura Knoy

You can hear the hour-long talk show on NH Public Radio (Wednesday) at 9 am or again at 8 pm. Maybe they will stream it online. It’s just me banging the same old drum – about how New Hampshire gets no respect in the history books. And NH history professor Stuart Wallace agrees. He and I were asked to remind listeners that Thanksgiving is not all about the Pilgrims of Massachusetts. The Granite State writer Sarah Josepha Hale created the holiday and then sold it to Abraham Lincoln, who made it official in 1863.

The show opens with a reading of my satirical article "Turkeygate: A 400 Year Old Scandal" NH Magazine picked it off the web and NHPR must have found it there. It is weird enough reviving an essay I wrote three decades ago, weirder still hearing a high quality actor reading the piece aloud on the radio. I laid it on pretty thick back in my youth – bashing the Pilgrims and our Massachusetts neighbors. It was all in good fun – like McCain on Obama – and I never intended to draw blood.

But the point remains – that NH gets no respect. Prof. Wallace agreed. Every time he cracks open a new book about New England history, he says, the author forgets about New Hampshire and Maine. Prof. Charlie Clark made that point in his classic study The Eastern Frontier (1970), but still nobody is listening. We continue to drink the Pilgrim Kool-Aid, bowing to the construct that our pious ancestors at Plymouth founded America in 1620. They didn’t found this nation for religious freedom any more than they stepped onto Plymouth Rock or ate cranberry sauce around a long table spread with white linen. They were brave people, but no more brave than all the other European settlers in all the other towns from Maine to Florida or the enslaved Africans and Caribbean citizens they dragged along, or the Natives they displaced.

I love a good myth, don’t get me wrong, but this one has gotten us into a lot of trouble as we continue to invade foreign nations with God on our side. Better we accept the founding truth that this nation was created by adventurers, merchants, laborers, indentured servants and slaves – all for the financial gain of our founding investors back in England. There’s no shame in that. The shame is in pretending otherwise. Thanksgiving is a wonderful concept, a beautiful symbol and a beloved holiday – but it ain’t history.

Before the taping I made a return trip to the exhibit at the NH Historical Society, intending to brush up on David Thomson, the 1623 founder of NH. Oops. He doesn’t appear anywhere in the museum display that is seen by fourth grade classes from across the state. In 400 years, no one yet has written an authoritative biography of Thomson. There is scarcely a monument, hardly a plaque, no commercialization, no reconstructed Pannaway Manor with its wooden palisade and gun turrets. We know very little about this sophisticated character and, without lots of primary sources to rely on, scholars are hesitant to tell the tale. That means we have no solid narrative on which to build our state story. Steeped in "Pilgrim envy" we capitulate to the Mayflower. Afraid to build our own myths, we’re stuck with theirs.

I think the talk show went well, if you don’t count the technical trouble. NH Public Radio is moving into a brand new facility next month and now I know why. Our recording studio was held together with bailing wire. Prof. Wallace of NHTI and I had to share a microphone. Laura Knoy, host of The Exchange, apologized for each gremlin, snafu, and misfire – but you’ll never notice. Producer Keith Shields will patch it together seamlessly. The show includes a number of readings from talented voice artists. Prof. Wallace of NHTI knows his NH history inside out, and Laura Knoy is the consummate professional. I was happy just to vent my annoyance at our national delusion once again.

With the taping done, I plunged back into the maelstrom. Walking the half-mile back to town, reaching the Capitol building again, I was soaked. Concord is a dull town on a good day, and a bummer in a Northeaster. But, behind the dull gray walls, beats the heart of a unique and lovable state.

I ducked into the Tuck Library where librarian Peter Wallner brought out the Lucy Hale diaries. I’m still obsessed by her, the only woman to see the body of her fiancée John Wilkes Booth as it lay, wrapped in a horse-blanket, aboard the ironclad Montauk on the Potomac 12 days after the assassination in 1865. I was back in heaven.

The Tuck is gorgeous inside. An ancient clock chimes richly every quarter hour. The readers sit on Windsor chairs under green lamps below a glassy dome. I flipped through Lucy’s handwritten journal, struggling with her handwriting, digging for clues to her personality. My novel was writing itself.

There’s a lot to love about Concord, I believe, if one is willing to work at it. I promised myself, once again, to try.

Ic) 2008 by J. Dennis Robinson on SeacoastNH.com. All rights reserved.