Editor’s Note: Talkin’ Bout a Revolution
The June issue's editor's note, from the desk of NH Magazine's editor, Mike Cote
Nothing screams “independence” like a bunch of musket-wielding Patriots engaged in a bloody battle for freedom.
That image illustrates a story about the 250th anniversary of the founding of New Hampshire and the United States (page 58), but we featured the painting inside this issue rather than on the cover.
We also considered using a portrait of Gen. John Stark. With all due respect to New Hampshire’s Revolutionary War hero, “Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils” seemed a bit too heavy to kick off the summer season.
The cover we chose, an engraving that underscores the Granite State’s agricultural heritage, is rather tranquil. This is the idyllic countryside where European settlers created new traditions in a new world. Something worth fighting for.
Hoopla for our nation’s 250th birthday seems rather muted. Maybe that’s because while our democracy remains intact, it seems a bit wobbly right now. I recall a much greater sense of joy, pride and hope around the American Bicentennial. That may be fueled by nostalgia: I experienced it as a 12-year-old whose school visited the Freedom Train when it came to town in 1975.
The steam-powered locomotive featured 12 display cars hauling Americana artifacts, including George Washington’s copy of the Constitution, Martin Luther King’s pulpit and a rock from the moon. We explored the exhibit to the sound of Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom.”
And there’s nothing this time around that has captured our culture like the “Bicentennial Minute.” CBS produced the prime-time series for two years from July 4, 1974, through Dec. 31, 1976. Each mini-episode featured a historical fact or person connected to the birth of our nation, including one narrated by President Gerald Ford.
Our tribute to the 250th features a chronicle of early New Hampshire by Justin Shatwell, a selection of “Revolutionary Reads” about books written by New Hampshire authors and a short history of Gen. John Stark.
I should know more about Gen. Stark, but what I remember most about him is letting my high school friend DJ drive my older brother’s car after we met some girls at Happy Wheels roller rink in Manchester. I rode shotgun as DJ tried to impress the girls by doing doughnuts in a city park — named, of course, for our local hero and home to his final resting place.
While I’m forever grateful for the sacrifice of our founding fathers, they haunt me in a reoccurring dream. I’m delivering the Union Leader on the west side of Manchester, and at the end of my route, I have several newspapers left, and I have no idea whose houses I skipped.
The streets of my route included three named for the New Hampshire signers of the Declaration of Independence: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple and Matthew Thornton.
Let freedom ring.
