Author
Ruth Doan MacDougall

Ruth's Neighborhood

Beginning in 2018 "Ruth's Neighborhood" entries were also posted on Ruth's FACEBOOKpage where her entries (usually weekly, on Sunday mornings) lead to lively conversations.

This page's entries: July - September 2026

BACKPACKS

September 27,2026

          Amid our family photos there’s a snapshot taken by our father of my sister and me one morning in the kitchen of our Gilford Avenue home. Penny and I are about to leave and walk to the high school. We’re wearing autumn-winter coats. Against our (ahem) chests we’re holding our textbooks stacked on notebooks, pocketbooks dangling. This is one way we carry our books; the other is slanted on the notebooks against a hipbone.

No backpacks. Our father had a backpack but it was for hiking. I remembered the photo as I began reading an article by Katya Cengel in the September/October issue of SMITHSONIAN magazine, “Leaders of the Pack: A bustle of innovations, beginning after the Civil War, resulted in this back-to-school standby.”

Cengel wrote:

Humans have been carting things on our backs in wraps of some kind at least since we began using tools, around two million years ago—and we have always sought ways to make the load more comfortable. The oldest known backpack ever discovered, in the Alps on the border between Austria and Italy, employed two narrow wooden boards and a hazel rod for a frame. The contraption dates to around 3300 B.C. and is credited to Otzi the Iceman, a glacier mummy unearthed alongside it in 1991.

But what we recognize as a backpack is much newer. In 1865, Henry Clay Merriam led a regiment of Black Union troops in an attack against Fort Blakely, a Confederate stronghold in Alabama. His deeds in this final battle of the Civil War earned him a Medal of Honor “for conspicuous gallantry.” Afterward, the lieutenant had an epiphany: It was burdensome to carry both a knapsack (a pack with shoulder straps but no frame for internal support) and a haversack (a shoulder bag containing his rations).

Based on his time carrying gear for the Army, Merriam devised a solution: a boxy canvas pack with room for socks, a quart of water, a shaving kit and a deck of cards, plus a compartment for rations in a case at the bottom. Sheet-metal braces formed the bag’s frame—and could double as tent poles at night . . .

The modern backpack began to take its true shape in the 1930s, after Gerry Cunningham—a mountaineer who went on to serve with the Tenth Mountain Division—added zippered compartments . . . Styles may change . . . but the backpack remains invaluable to any and all wanderers. Around 450 million are sold globally each year . . .

Don and I acquired and shared an L.L.Bean backpack for travels and hikes. He lugged it! When I began updating my father’s hiking books I got my own L.L.Bean backpack (green, of course) for my hikes with Don, with Penny, and with Sandwich’s Over-the-Hill Hikers.

As well as updating the hikes’ information I wrote prefaces for editions of the books. In the 2013 Seventh Edition I finished the preface with my pack’s contents:

Some thoughts about equipment: I’ve mentioned in previous editions that besides the items Dan [my father] lists in the Clothing and Equipment section of the Introduction, my pack contains, for a day hike, an extra pair of socks, a bandanna, a small flashlight, a small first-aid kit, a whistle, sunglasses, sunscreen, lip balm, notebook and pencil, and a plastic trash bag for a variety of purposes, including having a tarp to sit on. Nowadays I carry a cell phone and use trekking poles. Food of course is a very important item in the pack. Dan advises bringing extra, just in case. As I’m putting it all into my lunch bag I think ahead to lunch on the trail and remember how a hiking friend once remarked as we sat on a summit and he opened his lunch bag, “You know why I hike? Peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.”

And now in 2026 I recall that an important snack in my pack was: a Snickers bar.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

LHS

September 20,2026

The buildings do NOT look like my high-school buildings. And yet when I arrived for a new doctor’s appointment in Concord, I was immediately reminded of Laconia High School.

I decided that what got me was brick and lawn. But the brick was different and the lawn here was a scrap compared with the high school’s expanse. As I wrote at the beginning of THE CHEERLEADER when Snowy and Puddles leave the high school and glance back : “Two brick buildings beyond a snow-covered lawn. Gunthwaite High School. Their world.” Well, no snow here. Not yet. In all ways the scene didn’t resemble LHS.

Nonetheless, when I entered the left-hand-side building I immediately wanted to turn right to go to my seventh-grade homeroom. Instead, I took an elevator to the second floor.

As I wrote about here in September 2023, Warren Huse’s “Our Yesterdays” column in the September 23rd issue of THE LACONIA DAILY SUN celebrated the high school’s 100th anniversary:

“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 but it still had its former name on its brickwork. Our family lived on Academy Street so this was the elementary school Penny and I attended—and we and the other kids joked about how we were going to high school.

When we did go to the new high school we started junior high, seventh and eighth grades on the first floor of the building on the left (on the right, after the Tunnel, was the Practical Arts building).

And thus as I entered the Concord building I had that urge to go into my seventh-grade homeroom.
Speaking of the Tunnel: it led to the school cafeteria. Recently in comments about a Facebook post my dear friend Lynn mentioned THE CHEERLEADER’s frog’s leg scene in the Gunthwaite High School cafeteria. Much giggling from me. To refresh our memories:

“Here,” Puddles said to her [Snowy], squirming into the cluster of kids, “we knew you’d be starving, so we got you your ice cream, too.”

“Thanks, I’ll pay you back,” Snowy said, and took the little carton and sat down.

Bev and Puddles sat on either side of her. Fleetingly Snowy wondered why the kids were still standing around instead of waiting in the lunch line or sitting down eating. Bev said, “We chose sundaes today, for a change, strawberry ones,” and Snowy, indeed starving, unwrapped the little wooden spoon and peeled the lid off the carton. There was a brown thing lying on top of the ice cream. She thought it was a piece of gum, Bev and Puddles being funny, and she picked it up.
She screamed.

It was a frog’s leg.
Bev and Puddles had correctly judged her reaction. She went mad. She jumped up and dropped the carton and screamed and screamed, “Get it out of here! GET IT OUT OF HERE!”

Ah yes, that prank actually did happen. In a biology class (like Snowy I was too squeamish to take the biology course) my friend Gail had been inspired while dissecting. Alas, Don wasn’t in the cafeteria audience to come to my rescue. But decades later as Tom he did.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

PW PLANTS

September 13, 2026

Two PUBLISHERS WEEKLY reviews of books about plants have intrigued me:

In the August 10th issue:

THE ILLUMINATED BOOK OF BLOOMS,  Robin Crofut-Brittingham. Timber, $30. (Publication: October)
Artist Crofut-Brittingham follows up THE ILLUMINATED BOOK OF BIRDS with an enticing bouquet of vividly painted botanical illustrations paired with facts and folklore. The first section introduces flowers by location . . . Readers learn about floriography, the Victorian language of flowers that used type, color, and presentation style to convey meaning; the uses of bloodroot in Native American medicine to treat ailments like whooping cough; and how the Christmas orchid of Madagascar influenced Darwin’s research on evolution. A shorter section explores the unique qualities of plant groups, explaining how poisonous flowers like nightshades can paradoxically be used both to harm and to heal in some alternative and traditional medicines . . . Crofut-Brittingham’s deep, vibrant watercolors pop on the page and her trivia is charming and wide-ranging.
In the August 17th issue:

A BRONTE BOTANY: FLORA IN THE CLASSIC NOVELS OF THE BRONTE SISTERS. Amy M. King, illus. by Tugce Okay. Andrews McMeel, $25.99. (Publication: October)
The flora that appear in the novels of the Bronte sisters—from wild heather to cultivated rose gardens—illuminate fundamental parts of the human experience, according to this enlightening and beautifully illustrated guide from King, an English professor at St. John’s University. Growing up in the wild Yorkshire moors in the Victorian era, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte were intimately acquainted with nature and their novels reflect a deep attention to landscape. [Don and I visited the Bronte Parsonage Museum in 1966 when we were living in England and I recall that we reacted mainly to the landscape; “Aha, yes, no wonder they were the way they were!”] Knowledge of the plants that appear in the Brontes’ novels can lead to deeper understanding of their work, contends King, who identifies the plants referenced in the sisters’ seven novels and analyzes their meaning. In JANE EYRE, for example, a horse chestnut tree—which Charlotte likely knew was lightweight and soft—serves as a powerful omen, as lightning splits it in half the night Mr. Rochester proposes to Jane, foreshadowing their ill-fated engagement . . . Expertly blending natural history with literary analysis, King succeeds in bringing new appreciation to the novels. Bronte fans will be delighted.

Of course I can’t resist quoting from the review that follows THE ILLUMINATED BOOK OF BLOOMS in the August 10th issue. The subject is desserts:

DESSERT CLUB: HOW TO FIND AND TASTE SENSATIONAL GLOBAL SWEETS. Diane Borsato, illus. Kelsey Oseid. Chronicle, $19.95. (Publication: October.)
Borsato (MUSHROOMING) turns her attention to desserts in this delicious survey of the world’s sweet treats. Drawing from across cultures, she provides a profile of each dessert that lovingly describes its origins and rise to popularity, along with tips for seeking it out, like searching for bubble tea shops that use natural flavorings and quality ingredients. But most of Borsato’s attention is lavished on her rapturous descriptions of the desserts she loves . . . Throughout, she also offers earnest musings on how desserts spread “joy and deepen belonging,” as when she recalls sharing sticky, cheesy kunafa with neighbors. Borsato includes a broad range of desserts, from the classic (cannoli) to the trendy (“otherworldly”-looking charcoal ice cream), and whimsical illustrations bring the profiles alive . . .

Charcoal ice cream??? I had to Google this, along with “bubble tea shops” and “kunafa”!

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

FLYERS AND CATCHERS

September 6, 2026

Nowadays when folks talk about having groceries delivered I find myself remembering what happened when Don and I did our weekly shopping at the supermarket and brought the carload home: he became the Flyer and I was the Catcher.

These terms had popped into my mind one day after we arrived at our house and I got out of the car, hurried along the gravel driveway, and opened the ell door into the kitchen; I turned around as Don approached lugging the first armload of grocery bags. I clapped my hands. Then I wondered why the hell I’d clapped.

He asked, “I get applause?”

And then I remembered a movie: TRAPEZE, with Burt Lancaster hanging by his knees from a trapeze and clapping at Tony Curtis about to do a stunt from another trapeze. Burt was the catcher and Tony was the flyer. Thus I was catching  bags of groceries, so to speak. I explained, we laughed. I took the bags to a countertop. Don returned to the car and flew to me again with another armload.
How many decades had TRAPEZE been hiding in my memory to emerge during this chore? I’ve now Googled to refresh my memory. It was a 1956 movie. I was in high school, Don in college. Google told me that the movie was based on Max Catto’s 1950 novel , THE KILLING FROST, and reminded me that “Burt Lancaster actually was a circus acrobat before getting into acting and did all of his own stunts except for the climactic ‘triple.’” Hooray for Burt, who had appealed to me more than Tony Curtis! Burt plays a “trapeze aerialist and former star who now needs a cane to walk, the result of a fall during a performance.” Burt’s character, “only the 6th man to complete the dangerous triple somersault,” has been demoted to catcher; he is helping Tony learn to do the triple.
And there’s also Gina Lollobrigida playing a beautiful acrobat who turns the plot into a triple romance.

Google reveals that “The most dangerous stunts were performed by technical consultant Eddie Ward from the Ringley Brothers Circus.”

After my first time clapping to Don, TRAPEZE clapping became part of our unloading of groceries.
Today’s stores’ deliveries remind me of Walter’s Market in Laconia, the neighborhood store that I’ve mentioned here. My mother did the grocery shopping at Walter’s when we lived nearby on Academy Street; when we moved to another neighborhood she began phoning him with a list and he delivered the groceries there, bringing them into the kitchen.

And during summertime-thoughts of ice cream, especially ice cream I don’t have to scoop, I’ve been remembering Walter’s Market and Hoodsies. I wrote here in 2021:

Last week as I was reading the table of contents in the January-February issue of YANKEE magazine I saw a word I hadn’t seen in decades: Hoodsies. And I was instantly back in childhood, walking down the street from our house to Walter’s Market trying to decide what treat to buy with part of my weekly allowance of twenty-five cents, a candy bar or a Hoodsie.
Quickly I turned pages to the Hoodsie piece: “Prized Cup: In a world of glamorous specialty ice creams, the no-nonsense Hoodsie keeps a hold on New England’s heart,” by Jessica Battilana. She begins by describing New Englanders’ “beloved ritual: Grabbing the paper tab at its edge, we pull the lid from a Hoodsie Cup, lick it, then scoop the chocolate and vanilla ice cream from the paper cup using the paddle-like spoon.” [She tells us that] “HP Hood has been headquartered [in Massachusetts] since its founding in 1846.” And she mentions that “When Hoodsie Cups debuted in 1947, the cups cost a nickel.”

Here in 2026 I’ll clap for the memories of Hoodsies and of Don’s flying our groceries from the car to the house.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

SUMMER FOOD

August 30, 2026

  When the end of August nears I start to panic about the end of summer food even though I know that harvest time can continue into October.

Ah, summer food. This spring I was most desperate for fresh tomatoes. Visions of tomato sandwiches danced in my head. Then corn-on-the-cob. I don’t recall envisioning potato salad but when our summer meals began this summer I was startled by the joy of the cold potatoes’ smooth texture. Childhood memories of summer food from our family’s garden also tantalize, such as sneaking a few very fresh raw peas to eat while shelling them. I remember standing in the sun in that garden’s raspberry-bushes patch, grazing. And for a yummy memory not from the garden: my fisherman father brought home brook trout, which my mother dipped in cornmeal and fried in a skillet in Crisco. To return to tomatoes: Cheese Dreams!

I wrote here on May 30, 2014:

Don and I usually wait until our tomato season to make Cheese Dreams for supper but this year it seems we can’t restrain ourselves and we’ve begun having suppers of them made with supermarket tomatoes. One more thing to blame on the long winter, an extra-urgent hunger for summer food. Cookbooks have umpteen recipes for Cheese Dreams, as does Google. The one that my sister and I grew up with, the one our mother and grandmother made, was this: Cook bacon until almost done. Dip the faces of slices of bread into the frying pan to sop up bacon fat. Put slices of sharp cheddar (what we called “rat-trap cheese”) on the bread, then slices of tomato, then the bacon strips. Broil until the cheese melts and bacon is finished. Serve with mayonnaise on the side. By the time my sister and I reached middle age we had modified this method in order to get rid of the delicious grease. Nowadays I toast the bread, put it on a cookie sheet, add the cheese and tomatoes, and bake it at 375 for about ten minutes. Don heats the precooked variety of bacon in the microwave and adds it when the Dreams come out of the oven. The mayo is low-fat. But still, even if my mother and grandmother might consider this version of their recipe a nightmare, it’s summertime to us.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

DRESSING UP

August 23, 2026

We’ve had some chilly mornings recently. One morning I was about to get   dressed and had readied the undies, T-shirt, jeans, but I paused to consider whether or not to add an extra layer of clothing—sweatshirt?—and suddenly I remembered an article a dear friend sent me a while ago. I decided against that extra layer. It’s still August! Then I found the article in my files and began rereading:
“Dressing Up: Victorian Ladies Wore So Much Elaborate, Weighty, and Cumbersome Clothing That Just Putting It On Was a Complicated Chore,” by Kristina Harris.
She tells us:
“Today, women sometimes remark that they ‘just threw on’ their clothes. Victorian ladies never had that luxury . . . Every respectable woman was swathed in layers of heavy, cumbersome clothing—so many layers, in fact, that women were forced to develop a careful, well-thought-out routine just to get themselves dressed in the morning.

“Because a corset was stiff and made bending so difficult, many items of clothing had to go on before it did.  A woman’s stockings were usually first. They were cotton for everyday, silk for special occasions (or if the lady was well-to-do), wool in winter. Stockings came to just above the knee and were kept in place with a round, elasticized garter, rather like the garters tossed by brides at weddings today. By the 1870s garters that were suspenderlike and attached to the corset were available and by the 1880s they had become the usual wear. The advantage was that they didn’t cut off circulation and were less likely to ‘give’ and let stockings droop; the disadvantage was that they tugged at every move.

“Next came shoes For most of the Victorian era, everyday shoes were generally some sort of boot . . . Most shoes had rows of tiny buttons that could only be drawn through tight leather buttonholes with a metal buttonhook . . . It wasn’t until the 1890s that lace-up shoes became common and even then they were only considered suitable for casual wear or work.
“Drawers, which were almost always open-crotched, were pulled on next. They ended just below the knee and were usually cotton, though the rich sometimes wore silk. Then one slipped on a chemise, again usually of cotton. This was a nightgownlike garment that came to the knees, often with extra trimming over the bustline to aid nature. (Brassieres were not worn but for full-figured women there was something called ‘Solid Comfort Bosom Support,’ which looked like sort of a short unboned corset) . . . By the 1890s, a lady could simplify her dressing routine just a bit by wearing  a ‘combination,’ which combined the top of a chemise with a pair of drawers in a single, loose-fitting garment . . .

“The chemise was worn under the corset . . . Corsets were usually cotton . . . Once [the corset] was on and firmly closed, a corset cover was slipped over it, to help prevent the ridges of the corset’s bones from showing through the fabric of the dress. This garment was usually flimsy silk or cotton and might have additional ruffles or lace over the bosom.

“During some periods of the Victorian era, a hoop came next, with a single petticoat worn over it . . . Later a bustle was worn with several petticoats . . . When many petticoats were worn, or when wool, flannel, or quilted petticoats were worn in cold weather, it was often necessary to button them onto the waistline of the corset to prevent them from dragging and drooping . . .
“After layering on all these undergarments, a Victorian lady could put on her outer clothes. But, since her dress would probably have tightly fitted sleeves, she first . . . put on powder, the only makeup a respectable woman could wear, and dressed her hair. From our vantage point, Victorian coiffures were complicated structures . . .

“When at last a lady was ready to put on her dress . . . she had first to don a skirt, which buttoned or fastened with hooks and eyes at the waist, and then put on a matching but separate bodice that often buttoned up the back or was a maze of hooks and eyes that wrapped around the torso. The skirt was always fully lined with muslin or silk, with stiffening at the hem to help hold the skirt away from the body .

“A hat was considered necessary . . . And gloves . . . ”

Wow! Now when I get dressed in T-shirt and jeans and maybe a sweatshirt I tell myself not to complain come autumn and winter when I’ll definitely be adding layers.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

ICE CREAM FAVORITES

August 16, 2026\

‘Tis the season for ice cream and I am of course remembering scooping at Sawyer’s Dairy Bar.
But this summer my hands have become too arthritic for scooping so if I reach into the fridge’s freezer on my own I don’t take out a pint or quart, I take out packaged ice cream, old favorites such as ice-cream sandwiches and Klondikes. I’ve discovered that Klondikes come in many flavors nowadays, Mint Chocolate Chip, Dark Chocolate, Reese’s, Cookies & Cream . . .

This has led me to remember flavors over the years. On June 14, 2014, I wrote here:

Hooray, Don and I have made our first stop of the season at Sawyer’s Dairy Bar in Gilford, near Laconia, where I worked scooping ice cream in 1955, my first summer job! Back then it was simply a dairy bar built in 1945 on the Sawyers’ family farm. Now it also serves meals and last week we had lunch there with a dear friend from high-school days.
Afterward I got pondering ice cream (which I am wont to do, as A BORN MANIAC attests) and I asked Don, “Do you remember the first flavor you tried after the baby basics of Vanilla, Chocolate, and Strawberry?”
A pause for his pondering. Then he said, “Coffee, probably.”
I’m sure I experimented with something sweeter. I’m betting that Maple Walnut was the first. Then probably Pistachio because green was my favorite color. [I recently read: “Fun Fact. The human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other color.”]  Then sherbets too, Lime, Raspberry. And I remember that when Black Raspberry ice cream first came to the late lamented Weeks Dairy Bar in Laconia (the inspiration for Hooper’s Dairy Bar in THE CHEERLEADER) I went on a Black Raspberry binge. Then there was the Peppermint Stick phase.
When I was working at Sawyer’s, the ice-cream-maker/farmer added two new flavors: Hawaiian Rainbow and Apple Strudel. I was thrilled to be present at such a historic occasion. But those two didn’t last, they are no longer on the lengthy list of Sawyer’s flavors, and when Don and I are at Sawyer’s I choose one or the other of two old favorites that in my childhood had become new favorites: Frozen Pudding and Orange-Pineapple.

Now in the summer of 2026 with packaged ice-cream treats, as I unwrap an ice-cream sandwich I remember the ice-cream counter in Laconia High School’s cafeteria where I bought ice-cream sandwiches and ice-cream push-ups. I wrote in THE CHEERLEADER:

The smell of the cafeteria lunch had been seeping through the school since morning. As usual, it had a special smell of its own, totally unlike the smell of home cooking, yet the result, instead of a gastronomic surprise, was always just something like chipped beef and sick peas. Snowy would have enjoyed even that, 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 . . .

I bite into my 2026 ice-cream sandwich. The flavors are classic, unchanged: Chocolate wafers, Vanilla filling.

 

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

OLD HOME WEEK

August 9, 2026

Today is the last day of Sandwich’s 128th Old Home Week. Don and I went to some Old Home Week events every year after we moved there in 1976. In recent years I’ve attended by reading the program and imagining, and now here in Concord I’ve done the same.
This year I’m especially enjoying these out among many other fine events:

Saturday, August 1. 5-7 p.m. Advice to the Players. ROMEO AND JULIET. Earnest heads collide in our production of this classic tale. Join us as we explore just how awkward two teenagers can be in a story that reveals both new and lasting truths about family, community, loyalty, and love. Directed by Sarah Corbyn Woolf and featuring both new and familiar faces to ATTP’s stage. Quimby Park, 8 Maple Street.

Sunday, August 2. 4 p.m. Meet the Souls of Sandwich Past. Interactive conversation at the Rural and Old Baptist Cemeteries with figures from historical Sandwich. Meet at the Baptist Meetinghouse parking lot.

Tuesday, August 4. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friends of the Library Annual Book Sale. Great selection of adult and children’s books, puzzles, DVDs, CDs. Proceeds support the library’s activities throughout the year. Come support the effort and get some great summer reading! Smith Building Fairgrounds (behind the library). [As I always say, I did my Christmas shopping there each year. The sale continues on Wednesday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.]

Wednesday, August 5. 12 p.m. Cookout on Quimby Field.
3-6 p,m. Summer BioBlitz. Learn how to use the iNaturalist app to help the Conservation Commission build on its inventory of animals, plants, and other species found in Sandwich. In front of Town Hall.

Thursday, August 6. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Artisans on the Green, Centennial Edition! Annual one-day art and crafts fair features local artists selling and demonstrating fine handmade crafts, activities for children, and music. Town Green, 32 Main Street.
10:30 a.m.: Bike, Trike, and Doll Carriage Parade. Starts at Quimby Field. Prizes.
7-9 p.m. Barn Dance with Tom and Annie’s Caravan Band. Sponsored by the  Board of Selectmen. Refreshments provided by Parks & Recreation.  Upstairs in Town Hall.

Friday, August 7. 12 p.m. Water Sports Day with beach staff. Town Beach [on Squam Lake].

Saturday, August 8. 12-3 p.m. 5th Annual Collectors’ Day. An opportunity for Sandwich residents to showcase personal collections (historical, cultural, pop culture). Advance table registration required. Heard Barn, 4 Skinner Street.

Sunday, August 9. Sandwich Historical Society’s Annual Excursion & Picnic. Bring lunch and a chair; desserts and drinks provided. Location: Town Green, Main Street. Program: Celebrating 100 years of the Sandwich Home Industries.

While I was participating in the events in my imagination, my niece and I made our latest short trip to a doctor’s appointment on a sunny blue-sky morning. A contrast, this local scenery: the commuter traffic swirling, the capitol building’s gold dome gleaming. As usual after the appointment my niece picked up sandwiches at the nearby deli—and also the chocolate-chip cookies that remind me of the Toll House Cookies my mother took melting out of the oven.

 

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

PW FALL PREVIEW

August 2, 2026

Now it’s August, which used to mean to me one month closer to September and the end of school’s summer vacation, a feeling of dread I later wasn’t able to shake. I even avoided reading PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’s yearly “Fall Fiction and Nonfiction” previews that arrived in the summers; I stubbornly waited until autumn to read them. But in recent years I’ve overcome this feeling and here are my choices from PW’s June 29 & July 6, 2026 Fall Preview issue:

Art, Architecture, & Photography:
Publisher: Bauer and Dean. AMERICA’S HOMETOWN MOVIE THEATERS: PLEASE REMAIN STANDING by Benita VanWinkle (Sept. 1, $75) pays tribute to the architectural variety of movie theaters and drive-ins built before 1965 with more than 500 photographs from all 50 states.

Cooking & Food:
Publisher: Celadon. THE LOST KITCHEN, VOL. 3, SEIZE THE SUPPER by Erin French (Oct. 13, $40). The proprietor of the Lost Kitchen in Freedom, Maine, offers ideas for well-rounded meals that make the most of seasonal ingredients. 250,000-copy announced first printing.

Publisher: Globe Pequot. NEW ENGLAND KIDS’ COOKBOOK: TASTY FAVORITES FOR YOUNG CHEFS by Jenny Shea Rawn (Sept. 15, $24.95). Dietician Rawn presents kid-friendly recipes for lobster sliders, maple granola, and other New England specialties alongside facts about the region’s culinary traditions.

History:
Publisher: Pantheon. HOW BRIGHT THE PATH GROWS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE WOMEN WHO MADE THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON by Marcia Chatelain (Sept. 29, $35). Pulitzer winner Chatelain profiles the women organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, among them Josephine Baker and Rosa Parks.

Lifestyle:
Publisher: Cool Springs. THE CONTAINER KITCHEN GARDEN by Claus Dalby (Nov. 3, $35) shares step-by-step wisdom for cultivating plants in small spaces, with tips for choosing soil, adapting to the seasons, and simplifying maintenance.

Memoirs & Biographies:
Publisher: Random House. AN UNEXPECTED LIFE: A MEMOIR by Gloria Steinem. (Sept. 22, $30). The feminist pioneer details her book-obsessed childhood, a stint in India in the late 1950s, and her rise to prominence as a women’s rights activist, paying tribute to the writers and thinkers who inspired her along the way.

Mysteries & Thrillers:
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer. THE SHADOW FRIENDS by Tess Gerritsen (Aug. 25, $16.99 trade paperback). In the third installment of Gerritsen’s Martini Club series, a group of retired spies in Maine investigate a murder at a nearby hotel that’s hosting a global affairs conference.

Science:
Publisher: Harper One. START WITH A BEAR: HUMANS, GRIZZLIES, AND THE POWER OF STORIES ON A CROWDED PLANET by Peter S. Alagona (Nov. 17, $29.99) explores the fraught relationship between humans and bears and offers a road map for conservation that heals humans’ severed ties with the wilderness. [This brought back the vivid memories of looking out our back door’s window on two nights several years apart and seeing the back porch filled with dark fur: a New Hampshire black bear. On both occasions the bear entered by politely opening the porch door and left by diving through a porch screen.]

 

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

LIGHT VERSE

July 26, 2026

Since my move to Concord some shelf-loads of books have remained packed away. During a recent unpacking I was reunited with a paperback poetry anthology, THE SILVER TREASURY OF LIGHT VERSE, edited by Oscar Williams, published in 1957.
I suppose I should wait to write about it next April, National Poetry Month, but it’s such fun I can’t wait.
The back cover says, “Entertaining and comprehensive, here is a wonderful one-volume library of the best in light verse—a discriminating sampling of the wittiest poems written during the past five hundred years, selected by the eminent poet and anthologist Oscar Williams.”
I’ve particularly enjoyed the following poems, in authors-names’ alphabetical order. The first one is from the Limericks section. I was intrigued years ago by  Conrad Aiken’s serious “Morning Song from Senlin” poem; I’d forgotten this limerick, titled “Limberick” (yes) —and you can imagine my giggles:

It’s time to make love. Douse the glim.
The fireflies twinkle and dim.
     The stars lean together
     Like birds of a feather,
And the loin lies down with the limb.

I learned this next poem in my childhood, but not the sequel until I read it here.
The Purple Cow
     By Gelett Burgess
I never saw a Purple Cow,
     I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
     I’d rather see than be one.

The Purple Cow
Ah, yes, I wrote “The Purple Cow”—
     I’m sorry, now, I wrote it!
But I can tell you, anyhow,
     I’ll kill you if you quote it.

Next:
Trial and Error
   By Phyllis McGinley
A lady is smarter than a gentleman, maybe.
She can sew a fine seam, she can have a baby,
She can use her intuition instead of her brain,
But she can’t fold a paper on a crowded train.

How I’d enjoyed Phyllis McGinley’s poems! That one reminds me of my grandfather, who not only folded his newspaper compactly to read on his daily train from his Lexington home to his Boston office but also did the same in his armchair in the evenings.
And here is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “First Fig”:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

Ogden Nash has more poems in the anthology than the other poets. This poem I quoted often, his parody of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees”:

Song of the Open Road
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

The one Dorothy Parker poem chosen for the anthology must be her most famous:

News Item
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

I remember that after I read this in my parents’ collection of her poems, I discovered in their Ogden Nash collection that he had written a response:

A girl who is bespectacled
May not get her nectacled,
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fassinets.

Doesn’t that seem a long time ago!

 

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

APPLES AND CORN

July 19, 2026

 

As my driver and I began a recent trip one morning to my doctor’s appointment, I suddenly remembered a trip Don and I made in 1998 from Center Sandwich to Concord, a trip filled with trepidation—no, sheer terror.  Our mission: buying our first computer.

I’d progressed from an electric typewriter to a word processor but now wonderful Marney had designed my website and eek, Don and I had had to go to the Sandwich library’s computer to see it! And sooner or later I MUST write manuscripts on a computer. Thus with Marney’s help we located the name of an office-supplies place in Concord that sold Apples; it seemed easiest to buy the brand of computer Marney used, so we all could figure things out together.

When Don and I arrived at the store we followed Marney’s instructions about what to get. I had to make only one decision: these were the big chubby Apples in various colors and which color should I choose? Of course green was my favorite color, but what about the enticing purple—or or or? I came to my senses and chose green.

As Don lugged the green computer out to our car and set it carefully on the backseat we joked nervously about strapping a seatbelt around its girth. I can’t for the life of me remember if Don actually did.

Now, decades later, here I was settled in Concord, taking one of the various ways to nearby Bow, this one a swarm of highways and turnpikes ahead, overhead, and below, exits, entrances, and Road Work signs (a local saying: New Hampshire has two seasons, the Fourth of July and Road Work).

After my appointment we took a rural way home that was becoming familiar to me.

Sign: Farm Machinery.

Tilled fields were thick with corn already high—but not yet what Oscar Hammerstein described in OKLAHOMA’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” song as “high as an elephant’s eye.” (I’d often wondered why Hammerstein didn’t find a simile less awkward than elephants roaming Oklahoma—or was an elephant’s eye a common comparison I’d never heard before? Now I’ve Googled into a morass of theories about this. Well, that elephant sure is memorable.)
The fields’ corn was “cow-corn,” silage.

Then we were on a dirt-road shortcut. A dirt road in Concord! I remembered how my mother claimed that my father could even find a dirt road in Boston.

We came to a community garden, allotments; here was people-corn. I’ve mentioned before how Don and I eventually gave up trying to grow corn because of raids by raccoons that wiped the crops right out. Two people were working in their garden plots before the day’s temperature got up to the predicted 91 degrees. In addition to corn and the leaves of other vegetables I saw sunny sunflowers—and I recognized Echinacea, the Eastern purple coneflower perennial, its purple more a pretty pink with down-to-earth yellow-orange centers. Penny (my sister the landscape designer) had put some Echinacea plants in a garden at one of the summer places Don and I looked after, so Echinacea and I had got acquainted.
Soon the scenery changed to turnpikes—and I was wondering where in downtown Concord that Apple store had been many years ago.

 

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

TASTE OF AMERICANA

July 12, 2026

 

My dear friend Sandy sent me a Fourth-of-July book titled ALL-AMERICAN SPIRIT. The introduction told me that is a “patriotic collection of stories and photographs from readers of REMINISCE magazine.”

Ah, REMINISCE magazine, which ended in 2022! How I’ve missed it! How I welcomed seeing it again in this book!
The Table of Contents listed these chapters: “Star-Spangled Pastimes; Iconic Sights; Made in the USA; Taste of Americana; Home of the Brave; One Nation; Hard at Work; They Left Their Mark.” Yes, you guessed it, the chapter I went to immediately was the one about food. “Taste of Americana” began, “Hungry? Join us at the table for a look at how Americans filled their plates in days gone by and what we still enjoy eating today.”

The first photo showed cars at a drive-in, each parked beside a striped white box.: “The Track was an innovation for in-car dining, as at this California drive-in in 1948. Customers parked next to the box and placed their order. The box slid along the track into the restaurant, where it was filled with food and sent back to the customer.”

Next came a detailed history of the Green Bean Casserole, beginning at the Campbell Soup Company in 1955. As I’ve probably confessed before, somehow I didn’t pay attention to this casserole and if I read the recipe on the back of a soup can I wasn’t inspired to try making it. Neither did my mother and grandmother, so not until decades later did I finally make it, curious about its popularity..

Next I stared in disbelief at a photo of a store interior with a counter, some groceries, a cash register, a cashier, and, parked alongside the counter, a car. A car indoors, in the store? Yes, dad at the wheel, mom (in a wide-brimmed hat) in the passenger seat, and a teenage boy leaning out a backseat window reaching toward the counter. Caption: “On the Run. Customers shop at an early drive-through grocery in Los Angeles in 1949. The term, later shortened to drive-thru, was added to Merriam-Webster’s the next year.”

Then came California Dip, which Don and I mostly called Onion-Soup Dip. This was a favorite of ours (second to Clam Dip). “The combo of dry onion soup mix and sour cream was first called California Dip in 1954, after a Golden State home cook whipped it up. Lipton’s soup mix, introduced in 1952, and ridged potato chips (about 1948) form a perfect example of midcentury convenience—the starter you make in minutes and eat simply with your fingers.”
As I continued on to frozen TV dinners I read that in “1930 Clarence Birdseye launches the first line of frozen foods . . . after learning about flash freezing from Inuit fishermen while living in Labrador in Canada.” And about Wonder Bread, “The first to bring sliced bread to America was the Chillicothe Baking Co. in Missouri in 1928. It advertised it as ‘the greatest step forward in the baking industry since bread was wrapped.’ Later, Wonder Bread kept up a steady campaign touting the virtues of its pre-sliced loaves. But comedian Red Skelton is believed to be the first to utter the phrase we all know today in a 1952 interview with the SALISBURY TIMES in Maryland. Don’t worry about television, he told the reporter, ‘it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.’”

And speaking of television: After I read this food chapter in which women were wearing dresses and aprons in the kitchen, I began reading other chapters and I laughed out loud over an item in a section about clothes, remembering the little controversy: “The Way of the Bustle. Mary Tyler Moore’s emphasis on showing a ’60s TV character who did her everyday chores in capris instead of a full skirt put sponsors on edge. But viewers identified with the choice of pants, and the look of women on TV changed for good.”

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved

INDIAN STREAM REPUBLIC

July 5, 2026

        While celebrating America’s 250th birthday I’ve been thinking about another republic. In the July issue of NEW HAMPSHIRE MAGAZINE the subject of the monthly “Our Town” section is Pittsburg, NH: “Republic of Indian Stream: Pittsburg’s frontier days included a battle for independence,” by Emily Reily.

        She writes,
        “With its miles of trails, waterways, campsites, cozy lakeside cabins and peaceful vistas, the town of Pittsburg really does have it all—including an origin tale rooted in New Hampshire’s independent spirit.
        “At roughly 281 square miles, it’s also the largest New Hampshire town by area, with a population hovering around 730. It’s the only New Hampshire town that borders Quebec, Canada . . . ”

        Don and I got to know Pittsburg when we were working on the manuscript of my father’s INDIAN STREAM REPUBLIC: Settling a New England Frontier, 1785-1842, which was published posthumously in 1997 by the University Press of New England. The book’s back cover describes the republic’s creation: “In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while governments, politicians, and entrepreneurs argued about the boundary between northern New England and British Canada, a group of hardy individuals were otherwise occupied, carving a life in the wooded frontier that would come to be known as Indian Stream. The Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution set the U.S. boundary at ‘the northwesternmost head of the Connecticut River,’ but with three streams feeding into that head, conflict was inevitable. As squabbling increased among the U.S. and Canadian governments, the New Hampshire legislators, and the two companies claiming land rights, the settlers decided to take matters into their own hands. In 1832 they declared themselves the independent Indian Stream Republic, establishing a constitution, a bicameral legislature, courts, laws, and a militia. The jurisdictional battle escalated, the Indian Stream militia ‘invaded’ Canada, and blood—though only a trickle—was shed.”

        Emily Reily writes, “
       They celebrated independence until international diplomacy stepped in . . . the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of Aug. 9, 1842, officially designated Hall Stream as the international boundary . . .
        “But the tiny settlement still links the two countries. Several years ago, a small group of Pittsburg residents, including some Indian Stream Republic descendants, collaborated with a group from Quebec to enrich their countries’ cultural histories through education and awareness. . .
        “From 2016 to 2019, the ‘cross-border committee’ researched various books and archives to create a series of plaques, maps, historical markers, pamphlets, and interpretive panels . . . ”
Then as I was reading along, my father’s name leapt out at me: “‘Daniel Doan’s INDIAN STREAM REPULIC book became our go-to resource’ . . . David Covill [president of the Pittsburg Historical Society] writes in an email.
        “Their work resulted in an international ‘cultural circuit’ with 16 sites—nine in Canada, seven in Pittsburg.’
        The last paragraph tells us that to learn more, “Daniel Doan’s 1997 book INDIAN STREAM REPUBLIC: Settling a New England Frontier, 1785-1842, the Pittsburg Historical Society, and the New England Historical Society are good resources.”

        To return to the book’s back cover:
Howard Frank Mosher, author of WHERE THE RIVERS FLOW NORTH, wrote, “Scrupulously researched and beautifully written, this is a wonderful study of a little-known American frontier and the incomparable individualists who decided to establish and defend their own government there.”
        Also on the back cover: “
        Daniel Doan, whose books about the White Mountains are premier guides, combines a woodsman’s perceptions, a naturalist’s eye, and a novelist’s craft into a lyrical tale of settlers whose attempt at an impossible independence came dangerously close to precipitating war.”
In the Afterword, Dartmouth College Professor of History Jere R. Daniell wrote, “Readers who have enjoyed Daniel Doan’s historical narrative may want to visit the Indian Stream territory . . . Perhaps most fascinating are the cemeteries. Three should be explored . . . ”
        That’s what I remember most of the trips Don and I made again and again around the territory: those cemeteries.
        And of course, being a foodie, I also remember that at a restaurant near the border we saw a new-to-us word on the menu: poutine. We had to ask the waitress what it was. When she described cheese curds and gravy on French fries we declined because of  Don’s heart problems, his heart-healthy diet. But years later when we were being more lenient and a French-Canadian restaurant opened near Laconia, we did indulge.

        Once.

© 2026 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved