March Letters
February was Fine
I just received and read the February issue of your fine magazine and just wanted to say thanks for the consistently high quality from start to finish. I read all of your editorials. I particularly liked the articles on Franklin Pierce, Home Sweet Home, Home Design and got a real kick out of “Going February” by Rebecca Rule. Anyone who has spent winters in New Hampshire surely knows where she’s coming from!
Your magazine not only reads well, it feels good. The ads are a joy to peruse. Keep up the excellent work!
Phil Vaughan
New Hampshire Clocks
Canterbury
Yodel-ay-ee-who?
Re: Granite State Yodeler, Feb. 2004, I wish you had sent a copy of the article for me to proofread for historical correctness, as I find the following discrepancies:
1) Kenny Roberts did not “front the Red River Rangers.” That was Yodelin’ Slim Clark’s band and Kenny was a member of it.
2) The Down Homers was a Midwestern group from WOWO Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who came to the area to guest at Lone Star Ranch and wound up on Slim Clark’s program along with Kenny Roberts, briefly.
3) When the Down Homers returned to the Midwest, Kenny joined the band and went with them.
4) Haley wound up in Keene when the Down Homers came back east to Hartford, Conn. (without Roberts, who remained in the Midwest). Haley left the group after a short time and went to Keene, bringing a couple of the Down Homers with him to become the Range Drifters on WKNE.
Gordy Brown, Founder
N.E. Country Music Historical Soc., Inc.
Watertown, MA
Credit Where It’s Due
I read your [N.H. Home Magazine] article, “From Sawmill to Victorian Showplace,” with interest, as my husband, G. Kent Worden, owner of ARENCO, Inc., was the architect who designed and supervised the reconstruction of the entire building when the property was owned by William Korsak. I find it appalling and unprofessional that you attribute my husband’s creativity to the owner alone, and that you did not mention him as the architect in your article. The wonderful “interior layout and many fine details including the grand spiral staircase,” that were mentioned by the present owner, were there because my husband is an excellent designer, registered in several states.
I was extremely disappointed that you would give credit to every little detail of the present decor, from decorators, to artists, to the type of dishes, but not credit the person responsible for the entire building in the first place. This seems to be a negative societal trend, not exclusive to your magazine. I have seen many articles where the photographer of a new building gets credit for the picture, but nowhere is the architect who designed it, nor the contractor who built it, mentioned. I hope in the future you will be more sensitive to crediting all architects and contractors who seem to be the forgotten creators of our built environment.
Joleen Johrde Worden, Architect
Seabrook
Short But Sweet
Gorgeous photos, wonderful stories, that home issue I wait for all year! I generally end up keeping the issues, there is so much information.
Roberta Dubick
Nashua
Time Well Spent
I would like to thank Mr. Broussard for the delightful account [Feb. 2004 Editor’s Note] of the theatre group “Play Among the Stars.” That was an evening well spent. I wish I could have been part of the audience.
Margaret Johnson
Laconia
From the Proud Mother of a VIP
[Regarding] Jeff Feingold’s “Capital Offenses” in February’s New Hampshire Magazine: Last night I showed this to my son, who drives a pump-truck for a septic cleaning business. He read it through silently then read it aloud to his dad and me. When he got to the part about the “funny-looking truck” he broke into a smile. I can’t describe to you how proud he was at that moment, and how proud we were of him too.
You see, my son was never a scholar. Academics were second to party life while in high school. Running away from home, hanging with the wrong crowd, and skipping school were a weekly occurrence. He received his diploma only after finishing summer school for English, the only credit class he needed to graduate. After graduation our good friends, Dan and Paula Marston offered him a job as an apprentice to their septic and excavating company here in Epping. That was almost four years ago. What a turn-around that job did for him! Since the first week, he has worked six days a week, with only an occasional holiday and a week off here and there during the slow winter season. He has his CDL license and he has learned to drive excavators and other heavy equipment. He can back a 25-foot trailer into a space between a rock and a hard place. He knows how to read plans and install leach fields and he can fix any problem a septic system can “percolate” up. He absolutely loves his job!
Not everybody understands his means of employment. He has had more than one girlfriend (or girlfriend’s family) turn up a nose at the prospects of being associated with a boyfriend who “does THAT” for a living. He has put up with more jokes about his work than I could ever tolerate. It’s hard to hear neighbors brag about their kids in college and the good times they are having. It is hard to be proud of what you do when others give you no respect.
I would love it if you could print and sign an autographed copy of “The Real VIPs” so I could frame it for him. It would be a perfect surprise housewarming gift, because you see, the boy who was on the fast track to nowhere is now a young man who just bought a place on two acres along the Lamprey River! Not bad, wouldn’t you agree?
Deb McConnell
Epping
