Your Letters from the February 2015 Issue

Send letters to Editor Rick Broussard, New Hampshire Magazine, 150 Dow St., Manchester, NH 03101 or e-mail him at editor@nhmagazine.com. 

Sweet Memories
Your item re: “sugar on snow” jogged my memory and took me back to the late 1930s when we called them “leather aprons.” I remember that Esther (Mrs. John F.) Weeks, den mother to a group of Cub Scouts, annually took us to the Smith/Weeks saphouse in Gilford, NH, where we devoured an enormous number of said leather aprons plus your mentioned dill pickles and on-the-spot fried doughnuts — as many as we could manage.

Never did earn a badge for spoiling supper.

Ray Lord
Wolfeboro

Partial Politics?
Not sure if Mr. Pindell inked his November issue commentary on Senator Ayotte [“Tough Contest”] before or after his questionable performance as moderator on the Granite State senatorial debate. Either way it is further evidence he is not the impartial political commentator your readers deserve. Please consider finding a more bipartisan political contributor or drop the column.

Dane Drasher
Dover

Got Her Attention
I loved this month’s magazine! My grandkids are moving here from California and have almost no experience of snow. Five-year-old Liam is loving it; shovels my deck every time a flake falls; snowtubes in my hilly yard; and makes snow angels at every opportunity. The article on Granite State sledding was a boon to the parents as they are always looking for new places to introduce the children to.

The series of It List interviews was a true delight. I like nice, short and to-the-point articles and the folks you highlighted are some of New Hampshire’s best. The Water Warrior and the Visionary Quester really got my attention.

Thanks for a beautiful issue.

Pam Dexter
Franconia 

Good Food Ideas
I came across your article “Gift Ideas for the Food Lover in Your Life” while looking for keywords for my website. I enjoyed the article and am going to order some Parker House coffee for my parents. Some of the other options looked great for my Yankee swaps.

I would also like to let you know about our NH-based bakery and e-commerce business. I run the e-commerce website for Triolo’s Bakery (triolos.com) based in Bedford. The bakery has been around for a couple years but I just launched the website today.  I am extremely proud to be NH-based (I am from Sunapee) and believe we offer some fantastic products for the holiday season. I would appreciate any coverage in NH Magazine or NH Magazine could offer in the future. Please let me know if you would like any samples; I would be happy to send some your way!  

Jim Campbell
Sunapee

A Diminishing Word
I cannot tell you how uncomfortable I am with the word “martyr” being applied to a victim of Islamic terrorism [“It List,” December 2014]. James Foley died in a cause in which he believed, that benefited others and for a belief in something bigger than he. The word “martyr” diminishes his work and assigns a kind of choice in his death. Our soldiers are heroes, not martyrs, and Foley was, if you will, a citizen soldier. He did not seek his death as martyrs do. The word also, of course, implies some relativity to his killers, who are suicidal murderers. Bad choice. Uncalled for and unnecessary. I cannot imagine what prompted such a poor description.

Ardath (Jolie) Blauvelt
Hollis

Editor’s Note: It wasn’t without some thought that we applied the word to that caption. Although Foley certainly did not choose his death, he did choose, for idealistic reasons, to continue doing what he was doing under the shadow of a violent death at the hands of a brutal enemy — so it is not inaccurate. I know that words have become tools for various factions and ideologies. We decided not to allow extremists who have twisted the concept of martyrdom to imply acts of violence rather than acts of conscience, to remove a strong and meaningful word from the lexicon of morality. That said, we appreciate the conscience and concern evident in your comments and thank you for taking the time to share them.

An Ambassador Speaks
I am a Granite State Ambassador on duty at the Manchester airport.

In reading your Destination NH magazine, I noticed an error in the listing for Red Sauce Ristorante. While the heading and address block correctly list it as in Nashua, the copy describes it as located on Commercial Street across from WMUR-TV.  It of course moved from that location to Nashua some time ago.

Thank you for a mostly excellent and helpful publication. It is very popular with our visitors.

Maurice Demers
Granite State Ambassadors

Editor’s Note: First of all, thanks for your service at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport. The Granite State Ambassadors have been such a wonderful and enlightening force for New Hampshire’s travel and tourism industry for nearly 20 years. Next, thanks for the correction. Our annual Destination NH publication doesn’t feature a letters section, but I’ll acknowledge the error here and we’ll fix it for future editions.

Sense of Place
I call this photo “Sunapee Silverbacks” — taken just a week ago [early December]. I am a local photographer who has sold over 50 photos on canvas in the past year and am currently in the New London Hospital Art Show. I would love to share my photos with you and your readers. The show is over on January 22, however if you go on lake-sunapee-living.com you will see some of them on an artists’ page. I have done the catalog covers for Adventures in Learning at Colby-Sawyer College for the past eight years. I have discovered “people love local.” When they are from away, they want to bring something back with them and, when they are here, they love to hang them in their homes. It gives people “a sense of place.”

Maureen Rosen
Newbury

Where Her Heart Is
I sure wish I were there in New Hampshire. Spent a lot of time there this summer and last month enjoying the leaves changing. My friend, Kelly, from Texas, came up and she could not believe how beautiful it was. She said, “It just keeps on giving around every corner.” That it does. I am now in North Carolina, which is OK, however the spot I am living does not have near the photographic opportunities that NH, Vermont and Maine have, or even the east and west coast of this state. I’ve attached a couple of nice ones I took in October. Hope you all are great up there and have wonderful holidays. You know where my heart is.

Lyn Scott
Rocky Mount, NC