SPOTTED DICK

December 31, 2023

            Last week in her Facebook comment, Jen Davis-Kay asked, “No mention of a particular raunchy seasonal treat in your Christmas post? Or are you waiting until you’ve had a chance to savor a hearty mouthful?”
            When I stopped laughing, I replied that there would be a post.

            This hilarious experience began with the arrival of a package from Santa. His North Pole address was written in the upper lefthand corner. But, aha, the postmark was in Massachusetts, so I knew my secret Santa must be Jen. Inside the package I found a card that said, “To a very good girl. With love from Santa.” And then I saw that the gift was: Spotted Dick! And I burst out laughing.
            To be precise, the gift was two cute containers of Aunty’s Delicious Spotted Dick Sultana & Raisin Steamed Puds. The instructions told me to peel off the foil and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. I was tempted to do this immediately, but I restrained myself, wanting to save them for Christmas and New Year’s.

            The sight of this gift transported me back to the Dover, NH, upstairs apartment in a big Victorian house where Don and I lived from 1968 to 1971, so I’m guessing that it was circa 1970 that I discovered the Graham Kerr’s Galloping Gourmet cooking shows. In a March 2018 Facebook piece I explained how our TV reception was too iffy for me to watch Julia Child’s PBS shows so I learned about cooking from the Galloping Gourmet, especially British dishes. I mentioned what fun he’d had with Spotted Dick. Santa remembered this mention! And now I remembered how I couldn’t believe my ears when the GG introduced Spotted Dick and proceeded to have as much fun as TV would allow.
            I don’t recall that he explained the name to his startled/shocked/giggling American audience but probably he did. I’ve now Googled to refresh my memory, and Wikipedia told me: “Etymology. ‘Spotted’ is a reference to the dried fruits in the pudding (which resemble spots). ‘Dick’ and ‘dog’ were dialectical terms widely used for pudding, from the same etymology as ‘dough’ (i.e., the modern equivalent name would be ‘spotted pudding.’)” Google then took me to British Food: A History, and I learned that “In Scotland it is often called Spotted Dog Pudding.”
            I also don’t recall that I looked up the recipe in my MRS. BEETON’S big cookbook I’d bought when we were living in England; maybe I figured she was too ladylike. (I’ve now looked, and the recipe is there.) But by coincidence, one day on Dover’s main street I stopped to browse at a used-books table and to my delight came upon a set of little Galloping Gourmet TV Cookbooks. I peeked in the “Old English Pubs” volume and there was the Spotted Dick recipe. I bought the entire set. However, I never did make the pudding, probably because of the daunting process of steaming.
            And now I’ve had the first pudding for my Christmas treat, and what a surprise it was! The first mouthful instantly took me back to my youth and Saturday-night suppers of baked beans and—B&M brown bread, which I loved. In case you’ve never had it, it’s a dark moist bread studded with raisins, and it comes in a can. My mother would cut a hole in the top of the can (so it wouldn’t explode) and heat the can in a saucepan of boiling water. A steamed pudding! Then she’d open the can properly, slide the bread out and slice it. The Spotted Dick is blondish and sweeter but the memory-taste was intense and joyous. I can’t wait until the New Year’s Day second pud tomorrow!
             I am very glad, Santa, that I have been a very good girl.
            Happy New Year, everyone!

            Here’s the Galloping Gourmet’s Spotted Dick and Whisky Butter Recipe:

SPOTTED DICK: 12 Servings

Ingredients:
4 cups cake flour (1 lb. self-raising flour)
1 cup suet
½ cup castor sugar
4 oz. currants
2 oz. sultanas
2 eggs
pinch salt
¼ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter
castor sugar to dust
¼ cup whisky
¼ cup butter
3/8 cup icing sugar (2 oz.)
peel of ½ orange
½ teaspoon coriander

Preparation:
Sift flour with salt. Finely grate suet. Wash currants and sultanas. Measure the milk. Make the whisky butter. Place into the refrigerator. Lightly flour boiled pudding cloth. Fill to three-quarters with boiling water 1 large baking dish.


Method: 
Rub the suet into the flour with the finger-tips until well blended. Add the sugar, currants and sultanas and then beat in the eggs. Moisten with the milk and beat to form a smooth batter. Place the mixture in the centre of the cloth and roll the cloth to form a long sausage shape. Secure pudding cloth ends with string and place into the boiling water (to cover) and allow to boil covered for 1 ½ hours. Add more boiling water as it boils away.
Remove from water—cut string and peel off the pudding cloth. Cut spotted dick into 1” slices and fry in the butter 30 seconds on either side. Lay on a serving dish and sprinkle with castor sugar.  Serve accompanied by whisky butter. 

WHISKEY BUTTER:
Place finely chopped orange rind in a saucepan with the whisky—set alight. [!!!] Mix the softened butter with the icing sugar in a bowl and flavour with coriander. Add the whisky and orange rind residue.

            This is a very heavy dessert—ideal on cold days. It has a special place in the English kitchen and is well liked.

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

DASHING THROUGH THE COOKIES

December 24, 2023

                 A couple of weeks ago Wanda brought me a surprise, a festive and scrumptious gift from the Community Church’s Ladies Aid, with a note from them on a handmade pink card featuring a photo of a female cardinal perched on a snow-covered branch.
                 The gift: a red-and-green china plate heaped with all the varieties of cookies you can imagine, made by the members. This sight outdid visions of sugar-plums!
                 The centerpiece is a miniature sleigh. It’s a marvel; the runners are two candy canes, and on them is the “floor,” a KitKat Bar on which are stacked teensy Hershey bars and Mr. Goodbars in diminishing numbers to form a seat but instead of a passenger on top there’s a little square present wrapped in red foil and tied with thin gold cord. Wanda mentioned that the woman who created the sleigh does so every Christmastime for these gifts of cookie plates.
                 And what a joy it has been to have this array to offer folks who stop by—and of course I treated myself, too.
                 Homemade: earlier this month Debbie (Don’s sister) and I had a phone chat during which she asked if I remembered the Christmas-tree ornaments Don and his brother had made with their father, wooden snowmen cut out with a jigsaw and painted. I certainly did remember them in the family Christmas tree; making them had been a happy memory for Don, who loved crafts. Debbie has one of the snowmen, and she said that when she hung it on her tree this year she thought: yes, this is Christmas to me, these treasures saved and the memories.
                 I’ve written here before about the Christmas stocking I’ve saved. Our Grandmother Ruth made one each for Penny and me. Red stockings, white trim, and jingle bells. On Christmas Eve we’d hang them at the foot of our beds, and early the next morning, while our parents were still asleep, Penny would hurry into my room with her stocking and in bed we’d open them together. There was always a tangerine in the toe.                 
                 Last year I wrote here about how I’d realized my favorite Christmas carol is “Jingle Bells.” This year I’m singing the first line a little differently: “Dashing through the cookies . . . ” And in my mind that sleigh has candy-cane runners. Laughing all the way!
                 Happy Holidays, everyone!

 © 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

CHOCORUA

December 17, 2023

                 Recently I mentioned that while Wanda and I were returning to Sandwich after errands, in the view from Wentworth Hill we saw snow on the summit of Mount Chocorua.
                 I’m fond of Chocorua because it’s usually easy to identify in views. As Dan, my father, wrote in his 50 MORE HIKES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
“It is one of the most photographed mountains in the East because it combines a spectacular rock pinnacle with a foreground of blue lakes framed by white birches.”                Chocorua has been on my mind since October when I received a wonderful email from a Dartmouth research librarian. While looking through Dan’s papers at Special Collections, he’d come upon a tape of a local TV program about hiking that included an interview with Dan, circa 1990. (Dan died in 1993, age 79.) In the email he attached the program.
                 So I started watching, and what an emotional shock it was to see Dan sitting at his house up in Jefferson, NH, talking about the history of hiking, his tone as usual light, wry, humorous! Nowadays people are used to seeing friends and families on phone and computer screens. But this from the past!
                 After the interview, the program continued with a hike up Chocorua led by the intrepid Hal Graham, a friend of Dan’s and later a big help to me when I took over the updating of the hiking books. As Hal and his group, the Trailwrights, went up the trail, Hal explained the work they do maintaining trails. Then came the summit, which I remembered almost crawling up when I climbed Chocorua.
                 Dan wrote in 50 MORE, 
“Climbing below the summit’s west rock face, you come to a trail sign at a broken ledge . . . Turn left up the rock. Steep but simple in dry weather, the final climb is 50 yards up to the crags south of the summit. Turn left for this rock platform, where a steel pedestal once supported a steel table remaining from a vanished lookout. The summit is a sky-high perch 10 feet square with a lower ledge extending east another 12 feet or so. You are on a natural rock tower."                 About Dan’s papers at Dartmouth—they’ll be joined by a new addition. My first-cousin-once-removed has sent me a packet of letters that Dan wrote to her father, Rocky, his nephew, from the 1970s onward. With New Year’s Eve coming on, I especially enjoyed a tale Dan told Rocky in a January 3, 1983 letter: Fifty years ago at Christmas in 1933, Dan and Ernie (my mother) and Rocky had been staying with Ernie’s parents in Lexington, Massachusetts. On December 31st Dan and Ernie and Rocky started off to Orford, NH, Dan’s hometown. Dan wrote, 
“The Model A blew a gasket in Enfield or Canaan,” so they spent “New Year’s Eve in a restaurant in West Lebanon, while a kindhearted mechanic changed the gasket before we could proceed to Orford.” 
Dan added a comment about the abundance of memories at his age and “Aunt Dot Hall used to say, ‘Sometimes I lie back before I go to sleep and laugh and laugh and laugh.’                Aunt Dot, by the way, was the inspiration for my AUNT PLEASANTINE novel.

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

SENIOR CHRISTMAS DINNER

December 10, 2023

                My dear friends Wanda and Ray invited me to go with them last Sunday to the Meredith Rotary Club’s 32nd Annual Senior Christmas Dinner. Neither they nor I had been to it before—and I hadn’t even been aware of it through these 32 years. 
                According to the invitation posted on the Community Calendar, “For the first time since 2019, this year’s event will be held in person” instead of takeout. “Senior citizens over 55 years of age from Meredith, Moultonborough, Center Harbor, and Sandwich are invited to reserve a dinner,” which would be served at noon in the Interlakes Elementary School gym. “Reservations are required, and participation is limited to 300 people.” 300!
                When we arrived at the school, the parking lot was busy. Indoors the corridor was crowded but organization reigned with kids taking our jackets, parkas, coats, and giving us different-colored tags that told us which rack they’d hung them in. When one guy displayed a shirt that went far beyond Ugly Sweaters with a wild kaleidoscope of Christmas colors, a woman remarked to him, “I bet you don’t wear that in July!” Laughter.
                We also were given numbered tickets for prizes. Prizes!
                Then on into the gym we went. From the basketball hoop at one end to the kitchen/catering entry at the other, it was lined with two long rows of tables with an aisle down the middle, many people seated, everyone chatting, visiting. One of the women volunteers escorted us to a table at the far end, so I had a fine vantage point. At each place setting there was a red or green gift bag; we investigated: Christmas candies, a jar of strawberry jam from Moulton Farm (whose farmstand-building I’ve written about), and a Christmas ornament from Meredith’s famous Annalee Dolls company.
                Wanda brought samplers from the appetizer buffet (veg sticks, dip, cheese, crackers) and we settled in. At other tables I saw Christmas sweaters; my favorite was populated by snowmen. That first impression of great organizing continued, and we kept commenting on it. The volunteers seated people, checked on people, chatted. I especially admired one woman in high heels—not very high but as high as I wore to proms and the sight brought back that pain and how girls were told, semi-jokingly, “You have to suffer to be beautiful.”
                An enthusiastic master of ceremonies welcomed us to this resumption of the true dinners, not takeout. Cheers and applause.
                Meredith’s beloved Hart’s Turkey Farm Restaurant was catering. I’ve written about Hart’s serving the Keene Alumni Golden Circle luncheons in the restaurant every August, with me marveling at how smoothly they handle a turkey buffet for about 80 people. Here I was stunned. Ray asked a volunteer how many people had come. 225, we were told. And they were being served individually, with the volunteers carrying single plates or trays of plates of Hart’s turkey dinners—turkey (white and dark), stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and squash—to each table! They did it again for dessert, pumpkin pie with whipped cream.
                Then the master of ceremonies began announcing the numbers of winning tickets. Wanda won a gift card from Hannaford Supermarkets. Ray won a poinsettia. And I had already won, invited by them to this merry seniors’ dinner.

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

THE SANDWICH BOARD

December 3, 2023

             When Wanda and I started off to do errands in Center Harbor and Meredith on Wednesday morning, I predicted, “I bet there won’t be any snow in those tropics,” and she agreed. As Don used to say, “Sandwich is a snow pocket.”
             The previous week’s six inches of snow had stayed here, so the scenery was whiteness on lawns, fields, into the woods. Lovely. While the sun was making up its mind about shining, the lakes were gray, the mountains blue-gray. More loveliness.
             Sure enough, as we left Sandwich the snow disappeared and the ground was brown.
             We did our loop of errands, and when we were headed home the ground changed back to snow almost at the Sandwich town line. In the vast view from Wentworth Hill, we saw snow on the summit of Mount Chocorua.
             And we said, as we usually do when we reach Sandwich, “Aren’t we lucky to live here.”
             Folks are apt to say this on the Sandwich Board. Some of the posts on various subjects I found interesting in November are:
             November 16. Coyote. “I was fortunate to be able to watch this coyote hunting (voles?) in North Sandwich yesterday—an amazing animal.” Photo.

 November 17. The Bearcamp Center. “Butterfried gnocchi is the star of this dish with butternut, kale, artichoke hearts, lemon, and garlic sharing the stage. Tossed with Parm! Your favorite pasta you didn’t know you love is calling you from The Bearcamp Center. Enjoy this meal by donation, paying what you’re able or what you feel the food is worth to our community.”

 November 22. “Sledding? Almost? Antique Sled for Sale.” Photos. “Antique Sled. Steers well. $50.” It reminded me of the sled my sister and I had!

November 24. “Available: 1000 pounds of non-gmo hog feed. We have 20 bags of non-gmo hog grower pellets from Green Mountain Feeds left over at the end of our season. This feed is a combination of organic and non-gmo grains. Stored this summer in a dry barn; bags are in great shape with no rips or stains. Asking $20/bag. $25.90 retail.”

November 27. “Dog on the loose. When I was walking my dog today, we were joined by a black doodle of some sort. The pup wouldn’t let me look at him/her ID and when I tried to lure with canned tripe (yes! I keep canned tripe in my car for this reason. LOL) into the car it was a no go. I am concerned because it is hunting season. Seemed to know the hood though.” Photo.
                Reply. November 28. “Photo of dog on the loose. That’s Charlie, Bob M.’s dog. He’s probably home by now.”

             November 28. “Moose in my driveway! What a surprise this morning! Nice, young, very healthy-looking moose!” 

             This brought back memories of the various moose who have visited us, especially the one who swam/waded across the beaver pond and the one who stopped and stared in disbelief at the obstruction in his usual route, the shed that Don was building.
             Aren’t we lucky!

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

NOSTALGIA 

November 26, 2023

               ’Tis the season for nostalgia, isn’t it. I’ve been rereading two PUBLISHERS WEEKLY reviews that I saved about this subject.
               In the October 16th issue’s Poetry section: THE RUINS OF NOSTALGIA, by Donna Stonecipher, published by Wesleyan University in October. The review tells us,

“The beautiful and arresting sixth book from Stonecipher (MODEL CITY) features a series of numbered prose poems . .  . Throughout, descriptions of nostalgia capture its potency, delicateness, and layers: ‘Nostalgia feels personal as a pearl feels personal in its shell . . . Many people remember the downtown of a neighborhood from their youth, with its dowdy department store and its five-and-dime, but one person is nostalgic for the clove cigarettes you could buy one at a time from a glass jar, another is nostalgic for the little blue Bakelite birds that cost a quarter.’”
               In the October 23rd issue’s Nonfiction section: PAST FORWARD: HOW NOSTALGIA CAN HELP YOU LIVE A MORE MEANINGFUL LIFE, by Clay Routledge, to be published by Sounds True in December. The review tells us, 

“Humans can use the pull of the past to build better futures, according to this compact and perceptive study of nostalgia . . . While often couched as an ‘enemy of progress,’ nostalgia helps people strengthen their sense of self as they consciously ‘craft a life story’ out of significant memories . . . Routledge testifies to the value of looking to the past in a progress-obsessed society . . . ”
               Music can be instant-nostalgia. I’ve mentioned here before that I’ve become a Lawrence Welk fan late in life, which I find hilarious. I never watched the show except when I was staying with my grandparents during my Bennington Non-Resident Terms and I only watched it then (hiding my scorn) because they were watching it on this new-fangled thing, a TV set, they’d acquired a year or so earlier, 1956, to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.
               But now on Maine’s PBS channel there are Lawrence Welk and the band and singers every Saturday at 5 p.m. and there I am singing along in my rocking chair to, for example, “I Found a Million-Dollar Baby in a Five-and-Ten Cent Store,” whose lyrics I’d learned while listening to my mother’s Bing Crosby records. Almost all the songs on the Welk show are familiar, the lyrics lodged in my memory. Nostalgia!
               However, once in a while I don’t know a song, and when this happened last summer in Welk’s 1975 show with a “Hooray for Hollywood” theme I was astonished —how did I miss a song called “Take Your Girlie to the Movies”? I would have enjoyed these lyrics so much! Well, of course the next day I Googled. I learned that the lyrics were by Bert Kalmar and Edgar Leslie—and Dean Martin had recorded it. HOW had I not heard it before?
               Here’s a sample of the lyrics:
"Take your girlie to the movies if you can’t make love at home.
There’s no little brother there who always squeals.
You can do an awful lot in seven reels.
Take your lessons at the movies and have love scenes of your own. 
Take your girlie to the movies if you can’t make love at home.
Pick a cozy corner where it’s nice and dark.
Don’t catch influenza kissing in the park.
Take your lessons at the movies and have love scenes of your own."

               And speaking of Bing Crosby, I’m looking forward to a Welk Christmas show when I’ll be singing along nostalgically to “White Christmas.”

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.

HOLIDAY GIFT BOOKS

SOCKS, RELAXATION, AND CAKES

November 19, 2023

           Last week I learned that Monday, November 13, was International Odd Socks Day, an anti-bullying day to celebrate differences. On Maine’s WCSH “Morning Report,” it inspired a Daily Stumper with another meaning, “odd” number of socks: How many socks on average do people lose every year? Multiple choice: (a) 10; (b) 15; (c) 25; (d) 40.
           Sharon, one of the show’s hosts, said firmly, “Forty.” Really? Lee, the other host, and Todd, the meteorologist, were as startled as I was. She said that’s how many she loses and added that she keeps a bag by the dryer, collects the odd socks, and eventually she mostly has matched sets again. I thought of the socks that do disappearing acts in our dryer. I can usually find them right away clinging to the roof of the dryer or hiding inside a sweatshirt, etc., but there have been others that disappeared longer. I was so distracted by these memories that I forgot to guess the answer and didn’t catch what Lee and Todd guessed. The correct answer: (b) 15.
           Whenever I read or hear reports or jokes about how women love shoes, I always laugh at myself because I love socks. I used to have quite an accumulation of socks in colors to match the main color in whatever I was wearing and also socks featuring designs such as flowers, bumblebees, stripes, argyle. But nowadays, alas, I go for comfort, plain white Thorlos.
           Other news that intrigued me recently was this in the LACONIA DAILY SUN: “NH called ‘most relaxed state in America’ by Gambling.com. By Andrew Sylvia. Manchester Ink Link. ST. HELIER, CHANNEL ISLANDS OF JERSEY—The website Gambling.com has released a study naming New Hampshire as the most relaxed state in America.
                      “The study looked at crime rates, air quality, tree cover, disposable income, and google searches for ‘meditation’ and ‘mindfulness.’

           “All of the New England states except for Connecticut were in the top 10, with New Hampshire being followed by Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts in the top five, followed by New York and Virginia in a tie for fifth place.

           “South Dakota was the least relaxed state in the study, followed by Oklahoma, Nevada, Arizona, and Montana.”
           Amused by the “tree cover,” I looked up from the newspaper and out the window at the backyard woods above the beaver pond.
           To continue with relaxation: On last Sunday’s CBS SUNDAY MORNING there was an interview with John Stamos. He talked about his last get-together with fellow FULL HOUSE star Bob Saget, before Bob Saget’s death. They had a very good conversation during their lunch and now it was time to leave, but they hesitated, wanting to linger. Finally Bob said, “Order the cake.” And they continued their talk over dessert. John Stamos said this is his new philosophy: Order the cake.
           This week’s holiday makes us think of pies more than cakes, doesn’t it.
           My best wishes for your Thanksgivings, everyone!

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

HOLIDAY GIFT BOOKS

November 12, 2023

              On our most recent trip that took us past the 104 Diner, Wanda and I saw that their sign said: Don’t Sweat the Fall Stuff.
              It IS still fall. When the October 2nd PUBLISHERS WEEKLY arrived, I noticed it was the “Holiday Gift Guide” issue, but early October seemed too soon to be thinking about Christmas, so I set it aside. Last week, after having encountered snow flurries on that trip, I was ready to read this PW.
              The Gift Guide section begins: “These days, the very act of giving a book as a gift can feel subversive. PW’s editors, undaunted, have selected 220 titles on an array of topics and at a variety of prices, from a taco-shaped board book that rings in at under $10 to a slipcased artist monograph set that approaches $150. We invite everyone, regardless of age, taste, and budget, to celebrate.”
              These reviews got my attention:

Fashion: “POCKETS, Hannah Carlson (Algonquin) $35. Anyone who’s ever uttered the joyful exclamation ‘and it has pockets!’ will understand the worthiness of this subject. Carlson, who teaches dress history and material culture at the Rhode Island School of Design, draws on sources including archival illustrations, runway photographs and scholarly research . . . ”

Fashion: “REAL CLOTHES, REAL LIVES, Kiki Smith (Rizzoli Electra) $60. The director of the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection highlights 300 pieces that, she writes, ‘were made to be worn by real women living real lives’ . . . For instance, the contract handed down by the Cabell Country, W. Va., Board of Education in 1915 mandated that teachers ‘must wear at least two petticoats’ and dresses no shorter than two inches above the ankle . . . ”

Mysteries & Thrillers: I haven’t read any of the new Hercule Poirot series, preferring to reread the originals, but this one tempts me. “HERCULE POIROT’S SILENT NIGHT, Sophie Hannah (Morrow) $30. Hannah’s latest whodunit featuring Agatha Christie’s iconic sleuth is a brainy pastiche for golden age mystery fans. In 1931, Poirot is preparing for a quiet Christmas alone when Cynthia Catchpool, mother of Scotland Yard inspector Edward Catchpool, summons both men to solve one murder and prevent another in a small Norfolk town . . . ”

Poetry: “THE BOOK OF TREE POEMS, edited by Anna Sampson . . . $17.99 paper. This illustrated anthology features work by celebrated poets . . . In a time of climate anxiety, the poems honor humanity’s long-standing connection to trees, featuring a variety of angles on this abiding source of inspiration and putting to rest poet Joyce Kilmer’s doubt that we should ever see ‘a poem as lovely as a tree.’”

Food & Drink: “TIN TO TABLE, Anna Hezel (Chronicle) $24.95. Asserting that ‘there’s never been a more exciting or auspicious time to eat tinned seafood,’ 
EPICURIOUS editor Hezel sets out to prove it in this inspired collection. In addition to more involved recipes . . . she provides plenty of quick and no-cook ideas, such as sprinkling parsley and paprika directly into a tin of octopus. [!!!] Novices and aficionados alike will appreciate the guidance.”

History: “THE DICTIONARY PEOPLE, Sarah Ogilvie (Knopf) $30. Who actually wrote all those definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary? The answer lies in the biggest and most groundbreaking  crowdsourcing effort in history, involving 3,000 ‘dictionary people’ from every corner of society, among them three murderers, Karl Marx’s daughter, and a president of Yale . . . ”

Science & Nature: “WHERE WE MEET THE WORLD, Ashley Ward (Basic) $30. Drawing on evolutionary theory, neurology, and psychology, biologist Ward explains the development and functioning of senses in humans, animals, and even plants . . . Fascinating stories abound—a Scottish nurse could detect undiagnosed Parkinson’s disease by smell; goats can sense impending eruptions hours ahead of time—in this eye-opening work of pop science.”
              So while I’m trying to obey the 104 Diner’s advice about not sweating the fall stuff, such as my worries about when to put away the porch furniture and get out the snow shovel, I’m now also remembering childhood Christmas trees and the enthralled opening of gifts of books over the years. Uncle Wiggily! Laura Ingalls Wilder! Nancy Drew!

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

MAINE

November 5, 2023

               The terrible news from Maine on October 25th. The mass shooting in Lewiston. People across the country—around the globe—have been thinking about Maine, the Pine Tree State up in the northeastern corner of the United States with its images of scenery and serenity, forests and seacoast. Not tragedy.

               Don and I thought of Maine as our home away from home, our home state away from our home state. And it was Penny’s home since the 1970s.

               As I’ve written about, Penny and I first went to Maine when we were kids; our parents decided we should see more of the seacoast than New Hampshire’s scrap, so they took us on a trip along Maine’s coast. Penny and I always remembered the Pemaquid area best, staying at Ye Olde Fort cabin colony on Pemaquid Harbor and especially visiting the lighthouse on Pemaquid Point. That afternoon some artists were finishing up by cleaning their brushes on the rocks, a glorious sight, the rocks becoming another painting, abstract swirls.

               The lighthouse has been voted Maine’s most beautiful. I see it all the time in our house on the dining-room table’s plastic placemats always in use ever since Penny gave them to Don and me. The high white lighthouse; the keeper’s house snug beside it (there’s now a Fishermen’s Museum inside); the lawn where Penny and I often sat watching the ocean, exciting, soothing.

               When Don and I were in our senior year at Keene Teachers’ College we did our first job-hunting on Maine’s seacoast, but nothing worked out in our search for two English-teaching openings in the same school district. Later we began our “collecting” of Maine islands, eventually spending a week or two each autumn on Isle au Haut. (The cover of A BORN MANIAC was created from a photo Don took in front of our rented cottage.) And we visited Penny.

               From the Bangor area Penny moved to the seacoast in the 1990s, to the very place we’d loved since that childhood trip. Her New Harbor house was about a five-minute drive from the Pemaquid Lighthouse. Last week I read over my diary entries for the last two autumns we made the trip, 2013 and 2014. I wrote in 2013, “Phoned Penny when we reached New Harbor and Shaw’s [Fish and Lobster Wharf], and she met us there. Reunion! [On the deck on the harbor] Don had fried clams and I had steamed. [I didn’t mention Penny’s meal because, a fish-and-seafood hater, she had a cheeseburger.] After lunch, Don and I to the Hotel Pemaquid. Our ‘chauffeur’s suite’ lovely with a sun porch. Took a walk to the lighthouse . . . ”

               A while back I wrote here about globes and the small globe in our living room. Sometimes on our trips Don and I stopped in Yarmouth to see the humongous one there. In a recent DOWN EAST magazine there was an article by Nora Saks about this globe titled “It’s a Small World: A brief history of Eartha, the oversize globe that’s still spinning after 25 years.” It starts, “In the beginning—1976, in this case—David DeLorme created the MAINE ATLAS AND GAZETEER, the indispensible book of maps Mainers still rely on for getting around in the absence of cell service . . . In the late 1990s, David, a freewheeling autodidact who prized big ideas, had what was, in a literal sense, his biggest idea yet: to build a 1-to-1,000,000 scale model of Earth that, just like the real thing, would tilt, rotate, and revolve. It would be housed in a three-story glass atrium, at the new headquarters the DeLorme company was building in Yarmouth . . . One summer day in 1998, hundreds of staff and guests gathered in the atrium to fete Eartha’s debut . . .” The article concludes, “Eartha looks particularly beautiful all lit up after dark, leisurely pirouetting into a seeming infinity.”

               Thinking of this globe and last week’s tragedy in Maine, I couldn’t get the chorus of the Disney song out of my head: “It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all . . . ” 

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.  

 

CAFETERIA FOOD; FAST FOOD

October 29, 2023

           Last week I wrote about my first visit to the high-school cafeteria. This has reminded me of news I’d seen on Maine’s WCSH about an innovation in school cafeterias, a “Share Basket” to help prevent waste.
           I Googled to learn more and the University of Maine News told me about the School Cafeteria Food Waste Study: “ . . . In many Maine schools, about three-quarters of the waste in school dumpsters is food . . . In addition to continuing food waste education, key cafeteria interventions will include signage reminding students to ‘feed their bodies, not the trash bin,’ a ‘Share Basket’ to enable students to return packaged items they choose not to eat, and a sorting station to help children separate compostable food from trash.”
           I tried to recall any packaged items on my high-school cafeteria trays but I could only remember them at the ice-cream counter where, like Snowy, I went through a phase of buying ice-cream push-ups for my lunch:
“Snowy would have enjoyed [the cafeteria lunch] but this year she and Bev had found their allowances didn’t match their expenses and they had to skip lunch and save their lunch money. Their allowances were a dollar fifty, and the week’s lunch money came to another dollar fifty. To double their money was worth the sacrifice They did not, however, starve. They spent a dime on ice cream, and most of the time they ate the lunch lovingly packed by Puddles’s mother, who knew that Puddles wouldn’t eat the hot lunch and so made sandwiches, believing that in this way she could be sure Puddles did eat something.”
           Eventually our gym teacher/cheerleading coach noticed my ice-cream lunches and told me that a cheerleader should eat the hot lunches to set a good example. I obeyed. The cafeteria’s meals were indeed hot—and filling and interesting, mostly familiar but different from my mother’s versions, such as meatloaf, chipped beef, American Chop Suey, and on Fridays some kind of “store fish” (as I called fish that my father hadn’t caught) or macaroni and cheese. Years later I learned that an unfamiliar dish, Chinese Pie, was Pate Chinois, a French Canadian version of shepherd’s pie, with corn for the vegetable. Desserts? I remember chocolate and butterscotch puddings.
           From cafeteria food to fast food: I’ve mentioned that I’ve been renewing my acquaintance with Dunkin’ Donuts, thanks to stops with Wanda at the one in Enfield on our travels. A couple of weeks ago I renewed my acquaintance with McDonald’s.
           Wanda and I were doing errands in Meredith and happened to be near the McDonald’s at lunchtime. After this McDonald’s was built in Meredith many years ago, Don and I realized its hillside site had a fine view up over the roads to woods, mountains, sky. What a great excuse to stop there! However, we never got in the habit of doing so; in Meredith at lunchtime we usually went to George’s Diner.
           Thus it had been so long since I’d been to a McDonald’s that when Wanda and I arrived at the drive-through-menu I couldn’t think what to order except a burger. Then I read: Chicken McNuggets. I’d never had any; when we ate out, Don did not order chicken, claiming that he got “over-poultried” at home and I rather agreed. Penny, my sister, wasn’t a McDonald’s fan (she preferred Arby’s and Wendy’s), but she loved chicken tenders, which she cooked often for supper. Nuggets? Tenders? I’d once Googled and gathered that with tenders you could be more sure of what part of the bird was used.
           Anyway! I ordered Chicken McNuggets, so did Wanda, and in the car, facing out in one of the parking spaces, we enjoyed them, the Sweet and Spicy Dipping Jam, the skinny French fries, and the view. 

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.  

 

 HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, DEAR LHS

October 22, 2023

            In THE CHEERLEADER’s first pages I wrote:
“The night was cold. [Snowy and Puddles] walked around to the front of the school and glanced back. Two brick buildings beyond a snow-covered lawn. Gunthwaite High School. Their world.”            And on October 1st I wrote here about an item in Warren Huse’s “Our Yesterdays” column in the September 22nd  issue of THE LACONIA DAILY SUN: “100 Years Ago. The new $225,000 Laconia High School Building on Union Avenue had been dedicated on September 21, 1923.”
            This has been followed by a front-page story in the October 5th issue of the SUN:       “Laconia High School celebrates 100 years. At homecoming festivities this weekend, Laconia High School will kick off celebrations for the 100th anniversary of school at its Union Avenue location, continuing throughout the school year.
      “‘Other communities can mark 100 years of the school or the school system. We are actually marking 100 years of the physical structure and what it means in the community,’    
       LHS Principal Lisa Hinds told The Daily Sun. ‘This is like a flagship piece of Laconia . . . schools come and go, and new schools are built. We have stayed the course.’ . . . Hinds said the school aims to fold historical recognition into major school events throughout the year. . . Renovations rather than rebuilds are the reason the building is still in use. ‘It’s just the love of the building . . . ,’ Hinds said.”
            In honor of this, I couldn’t resist arranging my copy of A GUNTHWAITE GIRL face forward in my reference books, to show the Laconia Historical Society’s photo of that building. Then as I went on into the kitchen, I happened to notice my father’s lunchbox, nowadays an objet d’art atop the refrigerator. It’s a classic style, silver metal, a rounded top for the thermos.
            I started school at the Academy Street elementary school, a brick building that had been the original high school. Our family lived nearby on the street so at lunchtime I walked home. For fifth and sixth grade we had to go to the Batchelder Street School, close enough for walking to and fro but not close enough to do so during the lunch break. Thus I acquired a lunch box! I remember two, first a square flat style, green, and then a small blue version of my father’s. You could get a bus trip to the high school for a hot lunch in the cafeteria, but I only remember doing so once and I can’t remember why. I do remember what a momentous occasion it was. In THE CHEERLEADER I gave the experience to Snowy: 
     “ . . . In one corner [of the cafeteria] was a cluster of miniature tables and chairs where kids from the grammar schools, transported by buses, ate the hot lunch . . . she had come here, scared on the bus and awed in this strange place. In her little plaid jumper and her white blouse-slip, her thin legs in kneelengths that became above the knees long flesh-colored stockings gartered to her underpants, she had sat on one of the tiny chairs and watched the big kids and wondered if it was possible she’d really grow up and go to school here and be like the            Snowy did go to that high school and so did I.
            Happy 100th Birthday, dear LHS!

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved. 

GIRAFFES, ETC.

October 15, 2023

            Israel.
            Heartbreaking, terrible.
            There’s a need to keep watching the scenes on the television set, isn’t there, to try to learn everything that’s happening as if that would help, would assuage grief.
            Whenever I turned off the TV the storm of emotions continued. I tried my relaxation-breathing routine, but it failed me. Then I remembered that a dear friend  mentioned comfort books.
            I  had on hand a new audiobook that Nancy, the director of the Sandwich library,  suggested, WEST WITH GIRAFFES, by Lynda Rutledge. I’m so glad Nancy did. These giraffes helped.
            The back of the CD box says:
“An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.    "Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
            “It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.
            “Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, WEST WITH GIRAFFES explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late          I like this book very much.
            Comfort books led to thoughts of comfort food, of course. Fair food; the Sandwich Fair was held last weekend. As I’ve written about, our father took Penny and me to this fair, where we rode on the merry-go-round and feasted on hot dogs. 
            When Don and I moved here, we went almost every year. We knew the locations of our favorite foods on the fairground and tried to decide beforehand just which two (or three?) we would have. French fries with malt vinegar, definitely. Sausage-and-green-peppers sub, probably. Or a burrito? Cotton candy? How about splitting one of those huge éclairs? Lemonade.
            Remembering, I tried to hear the pure, innocent music of the merry-go-round. 

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.  

 A MONDAY TRIP

October 8, 2023

             The final decision to stop driving seems to be a difficult one for most people to make. In my case, it happened in a split-second. For a couple of years I had been tapering off, so to speak, first by asking my dear friend Wanda to drive me to far-off  appointments, then to nearer ones and to Center Harbor errands. I figured it would be okay if I kept on driving just in quiet little Sandwich to the post office, the library.
             But one morning this winter, about a month before my 84th birthday, as I tottered out to the car lugging the three cushions I now needed in order to see over the dashboard, as I arranged them on the seat and clambered in, that split-second happened. It was a silent yet resounding NO. And a feeling of vast relief engulfed me. I brought the cushions indoors for good.
             Thus nowadays the outings away from the sights of my backyard are like sightseeing trips, and I had one last Monday, when Wanda and I set forth on the two-hour journey to Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital to get my steroid shot. A brilliant October-blue sky. On doorsteps, pots of yellow chrysanthemums beside pumpkins. 
In New Hampton, the 104 Diner’s sign had a New Hampshire accent:

                          Anotha Summa
                          Bites the Crust
            
 In a front yard, a witch and white-sheet ghosts reminded me of the witch and ghost costumes our mother had made Penny and me, the ghost costumes from sheets, the witch costumes from the War’s blackout curtains.
             When Wanda and I reached Enfield, to our delight we were greeted by a Halloween scarecrow, and then our enjoyment increased as we realized that throughout the town there was a population of Halloween figures stuffed with hay or straw or newspapers, wearing costumes or everyday clothes, propped up or leaning against telephone poles and such in front of businesses and homes. We kept pointing and exclaiming. A bride and groom! A hockey player! And we kept marveling, wondering how this project had been organized. Was it done every October?
             As usual after Dartmouth-Hitchcock appointments we stopped in Enfield at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through. Out front were two more Halloween figures, wearing pink.
             Then in Canaan there came the view I’d been anticipating for days, Mount Cardigan with its bare summit. Don and I had climbed Cardigan, and I’d climbed it twice with the Over-the-Hill Hikers. My father wrote in 50 HIKES IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS, “A crown of solid rock forms the top of Mount Cardigan. As you approach the fire tower lookout exposed to the open sky and wind, you are taken by the illusion of climbing on the barren rock of some remote and mightier mountain; instead, you are on an outpost of the White Mountains at only 3,155 feet elevation.”
             And oh, on this Monday sightseeing trip it was Mount Everest to me! 

© 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.   

 

   LACONIA HIGH SCHOOL, ETC.

October 1, 2023

             When I was reading Warren Huse’s “Our Yesterdays” column in the September 23rd issue of THE LACONIA DAILY SUN, I learned old news about my high-school building:

“100 Years Ago: from THE LACONIA DEMOCRAT, 1923. The new $225,000 Laconia High School Building on Union Avenue was dedicated Sept. 21. ‘A gala event which will certainly occupy a conspicuous place in the history of the city’s progress’ was staged with ‘an excellent dedication program followed by a general inspection of the building by city officials and interested citizens.’”
             The old high school became the Academy Street elementary school, which I attended. The building still had its former name on its brickwork, so of course we kids joked about how we were going to high school.
             Other things I enjoyed last week: 
             Maine’s Channel 6 told me that September 25th was National Lobster Day, evoking lobster memories. As I’ve written about, I had my first taste at the cottage on Rye Harbor my grandparents rented each summer (decades later this place became the inspiration for Snowy and Alan’s seaside home), when I was given the lobster legs off the grownups’ plates. From that moment to now, lobsters have brought bliss. This summer a friend and I splurged on lobster rolls and once again I realized that if I got a chance to choose a last meal, it would be lobster.
             On the Sandwich Board:
            •  Q. “ Does anyone know what the white caterpillars are that I see crawling all over the place? New to me.” I had seen one and wondered, too.
             A. “Hickory tussock caterpillars.”
           So I Googled. 

              •   “I mistakenly purchased scented dishwasher pods and am not enjoying the ‘fresh clean’ scent. There are 19 left in the pack. Can anyone use them?”
             A day later: “Detergent has been spoken for.”

              •   “Free House Plants” with photo. “ Big Pothos, Small Spider Plant, Large Spider Plant, Christmas Cactus. All are pot bound. The cactus is just showing off.”
             Less than an hour later: “House Plants Gone. That was fast!”

              •   “Bobcat” with photo. “Look what I just saw in our yard! I have seen tracks, but this is the first time I have actually seen it here, and very close to the house. This was taken through the window.” 
             Replies:
             “Amazing photo! Thanks for sharing!”
             “OMG!!!”
             “I’ve had one come in my backyard a couple of times. It came right up to my slider door one time.”
            ( Don and I had visits from a bobcat, too.)

              •   “Our Lake Today (Moose!)” with photo. “Family members were out on Squam Lake today at 5:30 p.m. and snapped this picture of a MOOSE SWIMMING IN THE LAKE  (just north of Kent Island).”
              PUBLISHERS WEEKLY review: Last Sunday I wrote about the PW reviews of Christmas Romance novels. This past week I read in the September 11th issue a review of a book about a famous romance: HEAD OVER HEELS: JOANNE AND PAUL NEWMAN: A LOVE AFFAIR IN WORDS AND PICTURES, by Melissa Newman, to be published by Voracious in October.
             The review begins: “Newman’s mesmerizing debut gathers together photographs of the ‘achingly beautiful movie stars who happen[ed] to be my parents.’ . . . In black-and-white photos mostly from the 1950s and ’60s, a playful, electric bond emerges that often jumps off the page.” It concludes, “Most affecting is the evident connection between the two, captured in their recurring looks of love, lust, and devotion. Throughout, Melissa Newman’s spare, nostalgic commentary enriches the proceedings. It’s an enchanting tribute to one of Hollywood’s most mythologized couples.”
             I first saw Joanne and Paul together in THE LONG, HOT SUMMER at Laconia’s Colonial Theater and I’ve never forgotten the sight. HOT!

  © 2023 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved.