A complete archive of mail from July 2005

READ last month's mail

September 14
OKLAHOMA LOVES SEACOASTNH
I just wanted to tell you that I enjoy your site SO much. It is the most interesting thing on the web and I appreciate your perseverance in updating the site regularly. I live in Oklahoma, but I long for the ocean and everything associated with it. So when that need arises again, I visit your site. I looked at your clam chowder recipe but unfortunately, down here in Oklahoma, we don't have the privilege of buying fresh clams. So that is frustrating. If you know of any place that will ship them, please let me know. It would be much appreciated. Thank you so much.
Jacob Stevens

EDITOR’S REPLY: Try Saunder’s Lobsters web site for real SeacoastNH clams or search for places offering Ipswich clams shipped by overnight express. It won’t come cheap, but heaven never does.

September 13
FEMA GOT ITS START IN PORTSMOUTH?
I am a history teacher at Alvirne HS in Hudson and I'm particularly fond of your site for its NH history stories. I've just come across some references on the web to the first federal disaster relief effort. Apparently, it was to provide relief to Portsmouth due to an extensive fire in 1803. One site even credited that act as being the origins of FEMA.
Jim Costello

EDITOR’S REPLY: What a great idea for an article. Wish we had the staff to track down that historic story. It’s on our list, for sure. As always, Portsmouth seems to be the center of the universe.  

September 12
ANNOYING POPUPS? NOT HERE
I was reading your news item about the base-closing panel's report, when someone jumped in and announced that I was tho 100,000,000 visitor and had one free gasoline for a year. I stupidly believed it and started fillinf out their forms, only to find I was in the middle of a big scam with no way out. Were you aware of this stuff on your site? I suppose I'll get emails from them forever. Be sure I won't look and any extranious junk again. I do like the site, and look at it daily.

EDITOR’S REPLY: Actually, that never happens here. We have made it an editorial policy NOT to use advertising pop-ups or "interstitials" that interrupt the flow of article content. We’d make more money with them, but we too find them annoying and we hate to annoy our readers – except with the truth. Many major newspapers, including the Globe and the NY Times use these. In this case, you simply clicked from the NEWS page to one of the sites that offer news headlines. But when you click on the link, you are taken to that web site and off SeacoastNH.com, and are subject to the ad policy of that publication. Readers should note that, in addition to the top local dailies, you can also click directly to NH Public Radio, the BBC, Wall Street Journal, the Wire, the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe from our handy news link page. CLICK HERE for today’s news.

September 11
HOW ABOUT AN EVENTS CALENDAR?
It would be nice to have a page which briefly lists events, concerts, plays etc going on TODAY--to answer the question "what shall we do today".
Will Urban

EDITOR’S REPLY: Sure would. We’ve been tossing that project around since 1996. The problem is that keeping up a calendar is a huge time sink and, each day, great gobs of content has to be eliminated as events end, and new content filled in. Our mission, from the start, has been to post largely content that will remain useful for years, even decades. There are a number of excellent calendars run by local newspapers and independent web sites. We’ll create better links to those and continue thinking about the calendar idea. Anyone who wants to run that calendar is welcomed to volunteer. TOP EVENTS was our intermediate solution and allows us to say a lot about a few special upcoming events in the region.

September 10
QUILTS FOR KATRINA
I'm wondering if anyone you know of might be working together to assemble quilts for the children effected by Katrina? I've begun, on my own, to cut out 6" blocks and stitching them together with the intention of simply tying them off (no fancy hand-quilting this time!) and getting them on their way to children who will find comfort in them. I would really like to work with other women somewhere, somehow. Has anyone you know of planned to do this?
Mary Quayle-Lang, Rye, NH

EDITOR’S REPLY: ABC Quilts is working on just such a project. Here is our article on ABC from a few years back. To reach the organization, simply click on the link.

September 6
NO RANGER -- YET
I've been reading about The Ranger on your web site. A few years ago there was a plan to reconstruct the ship. Do you know if that work still underway?
Charlie Simpson, Kittery Point, Maine

EDITOR’S REPLY: Regrettably, the Ranger Foundation never raised the funds needed to bring the project to life. Since the "call to arms" to build the Ranger originated on this web site, we are doubly disappointed. But the $10 million cost of creating the ship, setting up a museum and an endowment to make sure it could stay afloat was not met. We learned a lot, and continue to believe that Portsmouth needs a tall ship in order to keep the memory of this formerly important seaport alive.

September 3
BIG PISCATAQUA FISH
My name is Matt Richard from Epping, New Hampshire. This morning i went fishing in the Piscataqua River and off the grass flats my fishing pole's drag started to go out. I was really pumped up and i caught a big stripped bass. 34' Inches and 30-31 LBs. It was am exciting experience for me and over my dads life time of fishing there he said it was one of the biggest hes seen caught. I have a pictures.
Matt

EDITOR’S REPLY: Yup, that’s a big fish all right and we’re proud to mount it on the cyber wall of our web site for other less-successful fishermen to admire. Thanks for the photo.

September 2
SHIPYARD IS IN KITTERY
Hello all. I lived all of my adolescent life in various towns in New Hampshire (Reed's Ferry, Merrimack, Amherst and Milford) and during my junior high years in Amherst took a field trip to PNS to tour a WWll Diesel Submarine at the shipyard. This was in 1958 or '59. I always remembered that the shipyard was in Portsmouth, NH not Kittery, Maine. Your website says, in the PNS history, that ' on June 17, 1800, Under President Thomas Jefferson, the fledgling United States purchased two islands in the Piscataqua.' So, the two islands may actually be government property and not 'belong' to NH or ME. Can you clarify whether 'the shipyard' is of NH or ME?
Doug Rood in Granbury, Texas

EDITOR’S REPLY: Yikes! Let’s not go down that road again, not while the shipyard is enjoying a reprieve from the base closure list. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is definitely in Kittery, Maine. It has a business address post office in Portsmouth, NH, but the islands that the shipyard was built on are all on the Kittery side of the river and employees pay Maine taxes, even if they live in NH. Recently the state of NH sued all the way to Supreme Court arguing that early maps indicate that NH owns right up to the shoreline on both sides of the Piscataqua. Seems only fair consiering the size of our coastline compared to Maine. But the court ruled that the boundary runs down the middle of the river and that the shipyard is solidly in the state of Maine.

September 1
HOW IS LIFE DIFFERENT?
Hi, I am a 5th grader in Narcoossee Fl. I am doing a report on New Hampshire History. I have searched through your web site and have gotten a lot of information. I would like to know the differences between colonial NH and modern day NH. Any information that you can give me would be a great help. Thank you very much!
Olivia in FLA

EDITOR’S REPLYL Hmmm let’s see. Well, we don't have wolves attacking our cows anymore, well not as often. There are no Indians living here, for the most part. Most of us don't use wood stoves and there are paved roads and not very many people ride in horse carts and wagons. Iwomen can vote and are no longer dunked in the pond for arguing with their husbands. I'd say pretty much everything is different, thank goodness. Sepcial thanks for dentists, antibiotics, eyeglasses, pasteurized milk, central heating, bug spray and flush toilets. Here's a page on colonial NH that may help.