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Editor’s Notebook: What a year, what a staff, what a state
In most ways, getting older kind of stinks. If I don’t stretch daily, I risk injury while performing such strenuous tasks as brushing my teeth or leaning forward to pick up my phone from the coffee table. It takes all of my self restraint to not do the “slow down” gesture at vehicles I believe […]
Editor’s Notebook: The winter solstice
There’s an old fireplace in our kitchen that’s no longer functional. During a remodel sometime in the early 2000s, somebody decided they didn’t want it anymore – or maybe it needed more work than they were willing to do or pay for – and so they blocked it off. But to their credit, they recognized […]
Editor’s Notebook: Looking skyward, waiting for the wind
“Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn’t get or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn’t explain anything. I don’t think any word can explain a man’s life. No, I guess Rosebud is just a piece in a jigsaw puzzle – a missing piece.” – Jerry Thompson (played by William Alland), “Citizen Kane,” 1941. IT IS 1978 […]
Editor’s Notebook: The barn anthologies
I awoke Monday morning to a New Hampshire wrapped in misty November gray, and so I thought I’d do a little catching up with Nathaniel Hawthorne – a misty November gray kind of guy. But he was nowhere to be found. Like a lot of his contemporaries, Hawthorne resides in my barn. The lucky ones […]
Editor’s Notebook: The things we carry
On Friday, I returned to Boston for the first time since the virus changed everything. There were seven of us in all, including three teenagers headed for a concert on Tremont Street and four adults with plans for a long walk and a quiet dinner. We took leave of the girls once they were safely […]
Editor’s Notebook: ‘Boy With Improbable Ducks’
For the first two decades of my journalism career, I worked nights in the large open space for copy editors and reporters known as the “bullpen.” Not only was it a lot of fun, it’s where I learned how to be a journalist in practice rather than theory. I paid close attention to how reporters […]
Editor’s Notebook: A weather report in mid-fall
Robert Frost tried to warn us about falling into the trap, but we’re just a couple of suckers. “Nothing gold can stay,” he said, but there we were on Sunday afternoon, casually drinking up the sunshine from red camp chairs as if we hadn’t already arrived at the archway to endless gray. I’ve lived in […]
Editor’s Notebook: Guy Clark Magical Music Hour
My older daughter was born six weeks early, arriving on her mom and dad’s first anniversary. And long before she announced her impending arrival in the middle of a quiet celebratory dinner at The Common Man in Concord, I had already started planning her musical education. I would never be able to teach her how […]
Editor’s Notebook: A tumultuous privacy of pandemic
Sometimes a bright red leaf on damp earth is enough to break your heart. I took the photo in August, during a long walk on a quiet road, a full four weeks before the official beginning of autumn. It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and I wasn’t so much caught in the rain as chasing […]
Editor’s Notebook: A new home and lots to be thankful for
This week, the New Hampshire Bulletin team – Annmarie, Ethan, Amanda, and I – will be moving into our new home on North Main Street in downtown Concord, our first time together in a real newsroom, and so I thought I would use this page of the Editor’s Notebook to briefly say thank you to […]
Editor’s Notebook: Cortland apples, afternoon sun, and ‘Ted Lasso’
Like many of you, I’ve embraced every scrap of comfort and joy I can find during this long stretch of hard times. It’s not yet October, and I’ve made more trips to Carter Hill Orchard for Cortland apples, cider donuts, and mums than the last several years combined. On weekend afternoons, I’ve discovered the simple […]
Editor’s Notebook: Nine miles down September Road
After Saturday morning coffee, I load four plastic storage bins into the back of the truck. The two closest to the cab are green and have red snap-on covers, and I wonder sometimes whether the Christmas colors make people think I’m lugging popsicle-stick ornaments, a Gordian knot of multi-colored lights, and artificial garland. They’d be […]