Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, some wry exchange with a stranger or acquaintance… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and strikes a contributor as interesting or funny or poignant—or that makes us appreciate living here.
Dear Daybreak:
When One Has Lived a Long Time (with thanks to GK)
Walking up Dutton Hill in Norwich I remembered a time of regular visits. I’d known the names of dogs and children, watched for deer, listened for the squeaky thrush in the evenings. A few weeks ago, I delighted in fall colors, shimmering trees, autumn odors.
Beyond the last Griggs house the road became a path, covered with leaves. Mostly level at first, it soon started to climb. I ascended carefully, heading for the hilltop with its expansive view. Halfway up I turned around. “It’s going down that’s hard,” I told myself. Lacking phone or walking stick I noted the risk of falling. Once I would have gone up without a second thought. “Life is like that,” I sighed. “Going down is harder than going up.”
— Corlan Johnson, Norwich. Who notes, “The GK I thank is Galway Kinnell, a poet whom I discovered when I read his poem, ‘When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone’.”
Dear Daybreak:
Henry
In the summer evenings of my youth, when the horses sauntered down the lane to eat hay and scratch their necks and chests against the barbed wire gate, (softening the barbs with tufts of bay and chestnut), my neighbor, Henry, would sit on his porch steps, drinking beer from a can, and smoking a cigarette. Some evenings, after chores, (hands welted from bailing twine and wire handled buckets) when I, too, felt only like sauntering, I would make my way up our dirt road, past the rusted Scout and furrow-barked Maples, towards Henry and his tender, raspy greeting: “Dougiemyboy, Whaddayaknow?” (The same greeting he gave my father when he was young). Henry would then sidle to one side of the step, giving me space, a silent invitation to join him in sitting. And there, I listened and learned things about ‘fishin’, ‘wahmen’, ‘cahs’, ‘huntin’, ‘Tratahs’, ‘histahry’, ‘hahses’ and ‘govment’, that I would never learn from school, reading, or catechism, (especially not catechism). Today, with the half light of a mild November afternoon warming this page as I write, I find myself missing Henry, and thankful for the space he gave me. Indeed, particularly now, when softness, sauntering, and tenderness often seem as distant in my life as that time on his steps, I draw strength from his willingness to connect with a young neighbor. Thank you, Henry. What a gift you gave me, a gift I hope to pass in my work, to my friends, and to my daughter. You would like her, and though time has made such a meeting impossible, I still warm to think of you greeting her on a summer evening: “Scoutymygirl, “Whaddayaknow?”
— Doug Heavisides, Hartford
Frank's Bargain Center in Charlestown is a great alternative to Joann's for quilting cotton, apparel fabric, and yarn. Tons of vintage sewing patterns (and so much fun digging through those!) It’s under new ownership and the new owners are trying to refresh the inventory and add classes as well. 3507 Claremont Rd.
— Megan Coleman, Charlestown
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And did you miss the last one? Here it is!
Banner photo above: Paradise Park in Windsor, by Jessica Kim