All posts in the ‘ New Hampshire ’ Category

The other day, I went to Musterfield Farms in North Sutton, NH. They had their apples and vegetables for sale in a little shed that smelled delicious, just like fall. The prices were listed up on the wall. Anyway, the system is that you help yourself to the produce and then put the money  you think you owe in a cookie can. I got some apples, filling a bag for $2.  The owner saw me and said, “You …Read More

There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said: “It is just as I feared! Two owls and a hen, Four larks and a wren Have all built their nests in my beard. Edward Lear, Book of Nonsense (1846) I’ve posted tintypes of bare-faced boys and mustachoied dandies in this space; now for a few of the bearded males I found in the biscuit tin. To paraphrase Stephen Vincent Benét: Like Stonewall Jackson, they are wrapped in …Read More

Here are some more treasures from the biscuit box of photographs. I’m wondering whether these three young women were relatives, friends, or schoolmates. To me, the first one looks the youngest and most innocent, with her wide-eyed expression and loose curls. Also, although she wears a lace collar, brooch, and tie, she’s lacking the ribbon around her neck that the other two have on. Her own little rebellion against frippery? Or did she just forget? The third one …Read More

I’ve been cleaning out closets. In a tin biscuit box, I found a pile of tintypes (photos on metal) and other old photographs dating from about 1860 to 1880. With them was a little scribbled note: “James, Keep all pictures in desk until we can look at them together, Mary.” James would be my grandfather (who died in 1958) and Mary was his sister. Unfortunately, almost none of those pictures had names or dates written on them. I’ll …Read More

Our house in New Delhi got flooded, in 1958. It was during the monsoon season, and a drainage ditch near our house overflowed its embankments, leaving a foot or so of water on the ground floor of the houses in our neighborhood. I hate to think of what was floating around in that water, but I ended up wading in it as my dad took pictures. You can see the high water mark on the living room wall. …Read More

I’m looking through my dad’s address book. It’s got a worn green leather cover, and is bulging at the seams with stuff he inserted. He obviously copied some items over from an earlier book, but also taped in addresses from torn off corners of envelopes, return address labels, scraps of notebook paper, stickies of every color. Some things, especially notes to himself, he didn’t tape down, so you have to turn the pages carefully or bits of paper …Read More

I did my first official reading and signing of Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes this week, at the Water Street Bookstore in Exeter, NH. The next morning, I poked around Phillips Exeter Academy, founded 1781. My dad, Everett Woodman, graduated in 1935, and he called the famous preparatory school “the best university in the world.” If he could see the campus today, with its science and art centers, observatories, and Louis Kahn-designed library, he’d be doubly convinced of that. …Read More

Parrots at dusk in Northern India To keep Mr. Ganguly, the parrot in Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes, in good health, I’ve felt very lucky to be able to consult Dr. Cinthia Fulton, who works at the VCA Animal Medical Center in Portsmouth, NH. Cindy is one of those life-long animal lovers who knew from a tender age that she wanted to be a vet, but she’s also a Renaissance woman with talents and interests from classical piano to …Read More

My mother, Ruth Woodman, had studied ballet in New York City before marrying my dad, Everett Woodman. By the time they reached Madras (now Chennai), India, she had two little girls and was about to give birth to a third, and the dance career had been put aside. But, as luck would have it, our family happened to move in next door to a family of dancers. The three daughters—Padmini, Lalitha, and Ragini—were known as the Travancore Sisters …Read More