Your Letters From the March 2017 Issue

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

Sincere Thanks
Thank you for featuring the subject of youth homelessness in the January 2017 issue of New Hampshire Magazine [“Cold Comfort”]. This is a tough subject, rife with challenges, where real lives hang in the balance. It can be a dangerous story to tell if not told by someone of integrity.

From moment one, you and your team approached this subject with care and respect. You took the time, did your homework and partnered with Child and Family Service throughout the process. And, fearlessly going where most others dare not go, your writer and photographer [Maggie Wallace and Jasmine Inglesmith] ventured into a hidden world in order to reveal all the light we cannot see: real youth with real fears, real dreams, realer problems — and a real, fighting chance. 

As you know, last year, Child and Family Services served as a lifeline to approximately 1,500 New Hampshire youth who were experiencing homelessness, providing them with the basic elements for survival and the stuff with which to succeed. While we are unique in our service array, we are not alone in our mission. It takes many allies to redirect lives and reshape our social landscape.

It is our hope that by 2020 we will have put an end to youth homelessness once and for all. To us, this is not just a social imperative, but a moral one. So, thank you, New Hampshire Magazine, for playing your part, using your publishing power to shed light and keen perspective on this issue and on these lives, and for empowering your readers to take action. Thank you not only for caring, but for being a catalyst for change.

Borja Alvarez de Toledo
President/CEO
Child and Family Services of NH

Editor’s note: Want to help? Visit cfsnh.org for information on ways you can get involved with the effort to end youth homelessness. Also, the annual SleepOut is happening on March 24 in the Stanton Plaza in front of the Radisson Hotel in Manchester. Learn more here.

Bookstore Shoutout
I enjoyed reading “The Case For Books” in the January issue. I have been in each of the bookstores featured, and certainly understand why Ms. Thoits chose them. However, there is a wonderful independent bookstore here in Wolfeboro that I feel deserves mention.

The Country Bookseller in Durgin Stables is a place both locals and tourists treasure.  Karen Baker and her helpful, friendly, competent staff have made this shop a great source for books of all genres. Karen has an inventory that seems to rival any library! I suggest that you visit if you haven’t already.

Pam Knapp
Mirror Lake

On to TV
To Susan Laughlin: Thank you for the wonderful article you wrote about us [“Artisan,” April 2016]. A producer at WMUR saw the article and it led to a feature on “Chronicle.” So many thanks are due.

Marcia and Carla Press
The Meshugenah Hat Company

True Pet Tales

Editor’s note: In our February “Pet” issue, we invited readers to submit their own stories. Here are a few of the responses.

Boo
After my wife of 42 years died in Feb. 2016, Boo helped keep me sane, sober and from going into depression. The daily tasks of feeding her morning and evening and walking her three times a day got me out of the house and active. She kept me from sleeping the days away. Having something to do for her made me feel alive again. Now she barks to tell me when to get up in the morning and when to go to bed. She sits on the den sofa to share a taste of my meals. Boo is, truly, the only other “person” left in the house besides me. I love Boo.   

P.S. I read your magazine because my son and his wife live in Goffstown (they are cat people).         

George W. Marchant
Sparta, New Jersey

Suzi & Yancy
I’d like to share this picture of our pups Suzi and Yancy. They live with us at our home, Dragonfly Manor in New Hampshire. They are rescues from Georgia and are both deaf.

They might not hear, but they know when I’m in the kitchen cooking and are always Johnny-on-the-spot to have a taste.

Denise Coll
Raymond

Salty
The attached is a photo of our dog Salty, whom I had the privilege to know from 1979 until she died in 1985. I still miss her. In taking this photo out of the frame to scan it for you, I also rediscovered an old photo of Richard, whom I lost in Aug. 2015 (so thank you for that!).

Salty was an incredibly smart and well-behaved dog. Every now and then, I’d take her to work with me on Boylston Street in Boston, and she never needed a leash.

But the best story that demonstrates that dogs are sentient companions is this one:

I walked into the marine store where Richard was working one evening, and he was busy talking to a customer. Salty emerged from her place under her desk hanging her head. Along her side was a deep, dried-blood-colored smear.

I said, “Salty! What happened!” and turned to Richard, incredulous that he was ignoring her, his dearest friend. I couldn’t imagine what she’d done.

He shockingly laughed and said, “Don’t pay any attention.”

Then he continued: “We were at the boatyard today. She decided to lie down in the shade of the boat we were working on. It’s bottom paint.” That deep-red, anti-fouling paint you put on the hulls of sailboats in the ’70s. “She’s been doing that routine all day.” 

At that point, Salty’s ears picked up and her tail started to wag as if to say, “Who? Me?”

And she got extra ear scratches for her suffering — as Drama Queen.

Stephanie Seacord
Newfields