Yankee Magazine September/October 2025 by Yankee Magazine

features

62 /// Autumn from the Top

Starting just shy of Canada and unspooling down the length of Vermont, Route 100 drops leaf peepers into the heart of fall foliage. By Bill Scheller

72 /// Here in New England

Few have explored the soul of this region quite like former Yankee editor Mel Allen, whose new book says as much about the author as it does about his subject.

80 /// Window on an Island Soul

For Jamie Wyeth, the ability to create art relies on being left alone. Yet he continues painting masterworks in the company of his family legacy, his muses and memories, and his dreams. By Philip Conkling

84 /// The Garden That Keeps Growing

Michael and Kathy Nerrie believe that taking care of their own backyard makes for a better world. And what a backyard it is. By Mel Allen

Small towns meet big views along Vermont’s Route 100, shown here passing by Lake Eden in the Upper Green Mountains region. Story, p. 62

Fall is the best time of year to visit South County, Rhode Island. September is still warm enough for a swim in one of our 20 public beaches. Catch a show or a movie at The United Theatre. Dine, stay or have a photo shoot at The Preserve’s Hobbit Houses. Visit the completed Thomas Dambo Troll Trail. Learn more at SouthCountyRI.com.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE PRESERVE

26 /// Property Values

For seven-plus decades, Yankee ’s wide-roving “House for Sale” column offered readers the chance to dream about moving to the country.

By Bruce Irving

32 /// Made in New England Coastal beauty entwines with artisan weaving traditions at Swans Island Company. By Virginia M. Wright

BEHIND THE SCENES

anniversary special FIRST LIGHT

38 /// Birthday Plates

As Yankee turns 90, we unearth recipes from the archives that have stood the taste-test of time. By Amy Traverso

46 /// Weekends in the Kitchen Fall mornings are sweeter when they begin with apple recipes inspired by our TV show, Weekends with Yankee. By

Amy Traverso

52 /// Weekend Away

A visit to Brunswick, Maine, shows how fall foliage only adds to the abundant local color in this bikeable college town. By Brian Kevin

60 /// View Points

Yankee ’s foliage expert, Jim Salge, makes the case for six less-expected spots for leaf peeping.

A decade before Yankee ’s launch in 1935, this tour company was already getting people revved up about visiting New England. By Ian Aldrich

anniversary special UP CLOSE

How this magazine’s founder built an empire of words, one clickety-clack at a time. By Jamie Trowbridge

112

LIFE IN THE KINGDOM

A father’s journey out west shows that sometimes the best part of an adventure is the chance to return home. By Ben Hewitt

ADVERTISING RESOURCES

Nicknamed the Skiers’ Highway for the way it connects a dozen Vermont ski areas big and small, Route 100 is also worth its weight in foliage gold come autumn. Photo by Oliver Parini

[ COLE HAUSER × THE BARN YARD ]

STAKE YOUR CLAIM

AUTHENTIC POST & BEAM BARNS

Publisher Brook Holmberg

EDITORIAL

Senior Managing Editor Jenn Johnson

Executive Editor Ian Aldrich

Senior Food

Editor Amy Traverso

Senior Digital Editor Aimee Tucker

Travel/Branded Content Editor Kim Knox Beckius

Associate Editor Katrina Farmer

Contributing Editors Ben Hewitt, Rowan Jacobsen, Nina MacLaughlin, Bill Scheller, Julia Shipley, Kate Whouley

Editor at Large Mel Allen

ART

Art Director Katharine Van Itallie

Senior Photo Editor Heather Marcus

Contributing Photographers Adam DeTour, Megan Haley, Corey Hendrickson, Michael Piazza, Greta Rybus

PRODUCTION

Director David Ziarnowski

Manager Brian Johnson

Senior Artists Jennifer Freeman, Rachel Kipka

DIGITAL

Vice President Paul Belliveau Jr.

Senior Designer Amy O’Brien

E-commerce Director Alan Henning

Digital Manager Holly Sanderson

Marketing Specialist Jessica Garcia

Email Marketing Manager Eric Bailey

Customer Retention Marketer Kalibb Vaillancourt

E-commerce Merchandiser Specialist Nicole Melanson

ADVERTISING

Vice President Judson D. Hale Jr.

Media Account Managers Kelly Moores, Dean DeLuca , Steven Hall

Canada Account Manager Cynthia Fleming

Senior Production Coordinator Janet Selle

For advertising rates and information, email jdh@yankeepub.com or go to newengland.com/adinfo.

MARKETING

ADVERTISING

Director Kate Hathaway Weeks

Senior Manager Valerie Lithgow

Marketing Assistant Natalia Rivera

PUBLIC RELATIONS

Roslan & Associates Public Relations LLC

YANKEE PUBLISHING INC.

ESTABLISHED 1935 | AN EMPLOYEE-OWNED COMPANY

President Jamie Trowbridge

Vice Presidents Paul Belliveau Jr., Ernesto Burden, Judson D. Hale Jr., Brook Holmberg, Jennie Meister, Sherin Pierce

Editor Emeritus Judson D. Hale Sr.

CORPORATE STAFF

Vice President, Finance & Administration Jennie Meister

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Facilities Attendants Ken Durand, Bob Sardinskas

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Andrew Clurman, Renee Jordan, Joel Toner, Jamie Trowbridge, Cindy Turcot

FOUNDERS

Robb and Beatrix Sagendorph

NEWSSTAND

Vice President Sherin Pierce

NEWSSTAND CONSULTING

Linda Ruth, PSCS Consulting

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COLUMBIA AND SNAKE RIVERS

Follow Lewis and Clark’s epic 19th-century expedition along the Columbia and Snake Rivers aboard the newest riverboat in the region. Enjoy unique shore excursions, scenic landscapes, and talented onboard experts who bring history to life.

Cruise Close To Home

Freedom 345

All the Joys of Autumn . . .

Right to Your Inbox

LIMITED-EDITION NEWSLETTER! Stunning colors, festive harvests, small-town celebrations—New England’s foliage season packs a lot into its short run. And so does our brandnew Fall Newsletter. Sign up, and each week we’ll send you an up-to-the-minute snapshot of this spectacular season:

■ Exclusive foliage reports from Yankee expert Jim Salge

■ Inspirational fall destinations in every New England state

■ Delicious seasonal recipes & can’t-miss regional events

But hurry! Just as with fall foliage, you won’t want to miss a bit of this special newsletter before it ends. To sign up, scan the code at left or go to: newengland.com/fallnewsletter

Get a Read on New England

From classic novels and children’s books to memoirs by Yankee contributors and New England cookbooks, the Yankee Bookshelf is an editor-curated collection of the very best writing that our storied region has to offer. Discover your next great read at: store.newengland.com/bookshelf

FOOD

 Great Pumpkin Recipes

One of fall’s most versatile ingredients takes center stage in 10 sweet and savory recipes to brighten any meal. newengland.com/pumpkin

TRAVEL

40 Fall Farmers’ Market Destinations

Turning leaves means harvest time, which finds New England farmers’ markets at their colorful autumn best. newengland.com/fallmarkets



Follow in our experts’ footsteps as they explore both hidden and well-known fall destinations, and get their top picks for where to go and what to do. newengland.com/fallweekends

Foliage Train Tours

Make tracks for a leaf-peeping thrill of a lifetime on New England’s historic railroads. newengland.com/foliagetrains

Want more Yankee? Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest: @yankeemagazine

FAMILY OWNED & OPERATED

Our hotels range from luxurious and elegant to charming and retro. Witham Family Hotels offers the perfect lodging options for your adventures in Acadia National Park.

Built to Last

like to think it was a forward-looking Yankee reader who ended up buying the 85-acre lakeside farm in Warwick, Rhode Island, featured in our May 1939 issue for a mere $2,250. Two decades later, a fast-acting subscriber did scrape together the $3,500 for the ocean-fronting home on the Maine island of Matinicus described as being set on “eight acres of spruce, lilac bushes, and an aged apple orchard.” And after Yankee wrote in May 1981 about a sprawling piece of Maine’s moose country that included eight sporting camps (asking price: $150,000), more than 90 readers from 26 states made inquiries—among them, the man who eventually bought it.

These were just a few of the many bargains I unearthed in Yankee ’s archives during the research for Bruce Irving’s tribute to our long-running “House for Sale” column [p. 26] and the big dreams it inspired. Of new beginnings. Of a change of scenery. Of chucking it all and moving to the country. Along with senior food editor Amy Traverso’s

CONTRIBUTORS

this issue’s “Weekend Away” [p. 52], and reports that he’s really looking forward to his next one.

A photojournalist long based in Portland, Maine, Rybus was in the process of moving to a more rural home when she visited New Hampshire’s Michael and Kathy Nerrie [“The Garden That Keeps Growing,” p. 84]. “They told me how they had discovered their own creative practice in gardening and land work,” she says. “That resonated deeply as I did trail work this winter and built my first major garden this spring.”

nine-decade-spanning collection of recipes [p. 38] and an excerpt from former editor Mel Allen’s new anthology of his best Yankee stories [p. 72], it anchors this anniversary issue.

Ninety years. That kind of longevity doesn’t happen by accident. As New England has changed and evolved, so has Yankee. Today it is not just a magazine; it’s also an awardwinning public television show, Weekends with Yankee, and a website, NewEngland.com, and social media channels and newsletters. And on it goes. Yankee now produces more stories and reaches a wider audience than it has at any other time since its founding in September 1935.

Yet even as we engage with our readers and viewers in ever more dynamic ways, Yankee ’s role in the life and culture of New England remains the same. That bond was deeply felt as I sifted through the archives—along with my regret that in April 1962 nobody in my family ponied up the paltry $15,000 for a 23-acre Nottingham, New Hampshire, property that included “one of the best panoramic views” in the region. —Ian Aldrich, executive editor

OLIVER PARINI

Of his fall foliage assignment [“Autumn from the Top,” p. 62], Parini says: “Route 100 has always held a special place for me—it winds through so many of the landscapes and towns I grew up exploring. Photographing it during peak foliage season felt like coming full circle.” Parini grew up in Weybridge, Vermont, and now lives there with his family, working as a commercial and editorial photographer.

met more than 30 years ago, Conkling could see that the artist “was an islander by disposition, as was I.” Conkling cofounded Maine’s Island Institute with Peter Ralston in 1983 and is founding publisher of Island Journal and the author of Islands in Time

Discover The Treasures Along

THE GREAT LAKES

In the comfort of our well-appointed fleet, enjoy the most personalized exploration of the Great Lakes region on a 7 to 15-night journey. Led by our engaging local guides, immerse yourself in the rich history and vibrant culture of charming harbor towns and admire the wonders of nature up close.

Explore Well ™

Mackinac

Road Show

A decade before Yankee’s launch in 1935, this tour company was already getting folks revved up about visiting New England.

BY IAN ALDRICH | ART BY ANDREW DEGRAFF

e were on the hunt for foliage. It was early October, and for several days our group of 40 or so had motored through New England on a bus tour with Connecticut-based travel company Tauck. There had been bucket-list stops along the way—Fenway Park, the Mark Twain House, a Vermont sugarhouse—but the autumn color we were seeking had proved elusive. And depending on who we talked to, local chatter made us feel as if we were either a million miles from our destination or oh so close

“I live 45 minutes north,” one Vermont store clerk told us. “And up there the leaves are amazing.”

Tamping down the foliage anxiety was the Tauck team itself, a guide-and-driver duo who never doubted we’d finally catch the color. Experience helped: Not only had they presided over decades of autumn trips, but they also worked for a company that had been leading these kinds of trips since 1925. Roads changed, sights came and went, but October, we were promised, always delivered the color.

In Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, we got the first whiff that maybe we were on the verge of something special. It wasn’t just the big maples or hashtaggable town centers. There was a nip in the air. Wood smoke curled from chimneys. It felt like fall. Even better: We were headed to New Hampshire and higher elevations.

At the sugarhouse stop in Vermont, one of my fellow travelers emerged from the evaporator room, practically breathless. “I was speaking with a fella who was just up north, and he said the White Mountains are on fire,” he said, opening his hands wide.

At lower left, a Tauck foliage-tour bus in its familiar yellow “Yankee” livery (no relation to this magazine, incidentally, but we approve) plunges into the heart of New England leaf peeping in this 2017 Yankee illustration.

Tauck passengers in 1925, with the company’s advertised “spacious

TAUCK’S ORIGIN STORY IS AN UNUSUAL one. The company’s founder, Arthur Tauck, was an idea man with an entrepreneurial bent. Trained in the banking business, he was in his mid-20s when he struck out on his own with a patented design for a coin tray, crisscrossing New England to sell his invention to banks.

But it was at a scenic lunch stop on the Mohawk Trail in North Adams, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1924, where Tauck observed an absence—and maybe a new opportunity. A glaring uniformity defined the restaurant’s patrons: They were all traveling salesmen like himself. Even with the fall colors out in full effect, there was not a single tourist in sight. Tauck wondered, Would that change if they had an expert guiding their way?

The next summer, the 27-year-old rented a Studebaker wagon and launched his first trip: an ambitious six-day, 1,000mile itinerary on largely dirt roads that cut through three New England states and included side routes into New York and Canada. Six customers paid $69 each to join in the sprawling trek. At a time when most Americans didn’t even own a car, Tauck’s tour was a revelation. Upon returning home, his guests spoke glowingly about the trip, and inquiries about future itineraries soon poured in. By 1929, Tauck had a new business. He bought a fleet of buses, hired staff, and developed several different New England itineraries that showcased the region’s

premier hotels, cultural destinations, and local history. One century after its founding, Tauck now boasts a global footprint. Still family-owned, the company operates out of a gleaming glass-and-steel building in Wilton, Connecticut, where it oversees more than 170 different trips across all seven continents and in 70-plus countries. There are African safaris, land journeys through Israel and Jordan, and an 18-day excursion through Nepal and northern India. Over the past decade and a half, Tauck has partnered with filmmaker Ken Burns to produce a series of guided itineraries through the American West and elsewhere that explore the themes of Burns’s films.

“We truly believe that travel is a force for good in the world,” says Jennifer Tombaugh, Tauck CEO and the first non-family member to head the company. “I remember hearing from one of our guests who had traveled with us to Egypt for the first time about how moved they were at what they saw. Yes, we come from different religions, different cultures, and different backgrounds, but ultimately we have this shared humanity. Travel reminds us of that.”

That holds true for the New England trips, too. Even as Tauck has greatly expanded its lineup over the decades, this region is still at the center of what it does. Every year the company offers four distinct tours—54 trips altogether— including a 12-day “grand” excursion that

would have made Arthur Tauck proud. There are covered-bridge photo ops and general-store stops, of course, but also visits to museums and historical properties. On my tour we visited Ken Burns’s Florentine Films studio in Walpole, New Hampshire. In Vermont, we sat for a lecture on the history of the New England landscape. In Boston, we spent part of an afternoon on a foodie tour of the city.

Then there’s the unexpected pleasure of traveling with a group of strangers. On many vacations, we are often solo actors. We eat at the same restaurants as other travelers, swim in the same pools, go back to the same kinds of hotel rooms. Typically, there’s little engagement with strangers—there’s no incentive to engage. When you’re thrown together with a bunch of unfamiliar faces on a bus, however, there’s no choice but to socialize. You’re exploring together. You’re seeing places and meeting people for the first time together. There’s a shared experience to draw from, and that can also deepen the meaning of what you’re seeing.

IT’S AT THE SUGAR HILL MEETINGHOUSE, on the western edge of New Hampshire’s White Mountains, that we finally find autumn. All the boxes are checked: The white clapboard meetinghouse decked out with pumpkins and cornstalks. The near-peaking maples on the front lawn. The blue-sky day. The tidy farmhouse across the street. Nothing—not even the private tour of Fenway Park—elicits the same excitement in my fellow travelers as this tiny town green.

I remain in my bus seat and watch the others take in the moment. One couple does a quick dance, several people pose for photos with the trees, one woman actually hugs a maple. On the steps of the meetinghouse, a round of selfies is produced. There is euphoria in the air.

Following a solid 10 minutes of picture taking, the crew then files back onto the bus. “That’s the best selfie I’ve ever taken,” says a woman from Florida, pausing in the aisle to look at her phone.

She laughs with approval. “That’s so good.”

touring car.”

BOUTIQUE INN

Your Fall Foliage Itinerary

Autumn in New England is pure magic. From fiery sugar maples to golden hills, there's no better way to witness the season's transformation than on the road-especially with charming inns along the way. Let the Boutique Inn Collection guide your ultimate fall foliage road trip, where every stop invites you to slow down, savor the scenery, and experience true New England hospitality.

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JACKSON

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YOUR BOUTIQUE ESCAPE THROUGH NEW ENGLAND

THAYERS INN

Begin your journey in the heart of the White Mountains at Thayers Inn. With views of golden treetops lining Main Street, this historic inn offers a cozy base for exploring nearby Franconia Notch and the Kancamagus Highway-two of the most iconic foliage destinations in the region. In the evening, return to timeless charm and small-town warmth.

THE INN AT THORN HILL & SPA

Wind your way back into New Hampshire and land in Jackson Village, where The Inn at Thorn Hill sits perched above the mountains. The views? Unbeatable. The wine list? Award-winning. Treat yourself to a couple's massage in the spa, then watch the sunset paint the hills in gold from the comfort of your room.

RABBIT HILL INN

Cross the Connecticut River into Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, where Rabbit Hill Inn welcomes you with candlelit charm and sweeping views. This adults-only inn is the epitome of fall romance. Take a country drive through vibrant hills, stop by roadside farm stands, and return to luxurious comfort, a gourmet dinner, and the flicker of your in-room fireplace.

Experience the charm ofJackson, NH, with access to all three of our boutique inns-featuring spa treatments, fine dining, and seasonal experiences. Our complimentary shuttle makes it easy to explore them all.

THE INN AT WHITNEY'S FARM

Just down the road, The Inn at Whitney's Farm offers a cozy retreat on 12 private acres. Fall foliage hikes start right outside your door, and the slower pace ofJackson lets you really soak it in. This is your go-to for crisp air, forest trails, and evenings by the fire.

CHRISTMAS FARM INN & SPA

Wrap up your journey at Christmas Farm Inn, where families and couples alike can relax and recharge. Enjoy hearty New England fare, unwind in the full-service spa, or take in the vibrant colors from the Adirondack chairs on the lawn. It's the perfect place to end your foliage tour on a high note.

Maine. Forged by Nature

Autumn feels a bit like nostalgia: achingly beautiful yet familiar and comforting, like time is slowing down for you to savor every color, sound and serene moment. This is when Maine transforms into a masterpiece of vivid beauty. Quiet, misty mornings give way to golden-hued afternoons, inviting scenic drives, long hikes and field trips to nearby farms.

Meander through Maine’s mountain towns and seaside villages alive with the energy of harvest season. This is where craft breweries and cocktail bars harness local flavors, from orchard-fresh ciders to small-batch spirits infused with wild herbs, and lauded chefs showcase the best of fall ingredients: buttery lobster, plump mussels, creamy potatoes and just-picked heirloom vegetables. This is where the raw beauty of nature shapes our very experiences—and the stories we bring home.

autumn, the way it should be

As leaves crunch beneath your boots and crisp air carries the scent of woodsmoke and fallen leaves, autumn in Maine casts a cozy kind of spell. Here, the pace is unhurried, and the pleasures are grounded in simplicity. Start your morning with a leisurely drive through forests awash in fiery reds, golden yellows and deep purples, set against a backdrop of evergreen pines and cobalt skies. Hike to panoramic overlooks, pick your own apples in sun-dappled orchards and pull over at farm stands for freshly pressed cider and cinnamonsugar doughnuts. Follow the call of the coast to experience its quieter, more contemplative beauty— rugged vistas, salt-scented breezes and weather-worn lobster boats returning with the day’s catch.

WHERE TO GO

Maine’s regions take on a new glow in autumn, o ering unforge able ways to experience the season.

GREATER PORTLAND & CASCO BAY

This foodie haven celebrates fall with warming cocktails, artisanal pastries and award-winning farm-to-table dining. Don’t miss the vibrant arts and maker scene, on display throughout independent boutiques and galleries.

THE MAINE BEACHES

wander through amber woods and explore 200 waterfalls framed by blazing foliage.

Mount Katahdin and Moosehead Lake o er awe-inspiring hikes to take it all in.

MAINE LAKES AND MOUNTAINS

Mirror-like glacial lakes, sky-high summits and incredible wildlife beckon. Explore several scenic byways to discover hiking trails, mountain villages and perfect picnic spots.

MIDCOAST & ISLANDS

Autumn quiets the coast, revealing its reﬂective beauty. Explore artists’ studios, indulge in freshly caught seafood by the shore and wander coastal trails by foot or bicycle.

The end of summer swaps sunbathers for solitude along the sandy shores. Take a brisk walk by the surf and learn about local history and culture in eclectic museums, antique shops and working waterfronts.

THE KENNEBEC VALLEY

Fall festivals, harvest markets and spectacular drives along the Kennebec River showcase this region’s charm. Hike amid ﬁery foliage and then explore welcoming riverfront towns.

DOWNEAST & ACADIA

Acadia National Park is ablaze with fall color. Quiet hikes, mountaintop overlooks and boat tours o er stunning sights, while local inns welcome leaf-peepers with warmth.

Key Priority

How Yankee’s founder built a world of words, one clicketyclack at a time.

At its start in 1935, one man and one typewriter was all there was of Yankee.

Robb Sagendorph founded the magazine in an act of frustration. He wanted to write for his favorite publications, but his ideas for articles were rejected. So, he tore out the pages of those magazines and used them to insulate the walls of the one-room studio he built next to his home in Dublin, New Hampshire. And if he couldn’t write for other magazines, he’d sit down at his typewriter in that little building and start his own.

He had a good idea for a magazine. Sagendorph worried that the growing homogenization of life in America at that time would overwhelm the characteristics of New England he trea-

sured—“its independence, its wisdom, its humor, and its resourcefulness.” Celebrating the values that make New England distinctive is what Yankee was and is all about.

There was a lot to type. Letters to friends and family, asking for support. Letters to local authors, inviting them to submit articles. Typing and retyping manuscripts, preparing them for typesetting. Volume 1, number 1 of Yankee featured works of fiction and poetry, articles about industries in New Hampshire, instructions for contra dancing (“General grace and willowness are to be sought after as the dances are anything but slip shod”), the script for a short play, and a rambling screed titled “Dreams and Observations” with “The Collector” as its byline.

Today, magazines are designed to be visually engaging. But in 1935 it was all about the words. Sagendorph needed more people—and more typewriters— to produce the second issue of Yankee And after that, even more people and typewriters.

Business success was a long time coming. Sagendorph could never have made it without the family money provided by his wife, Beatrix, a talented artist who also produced Yankee cover art and illustrations. Yet it was still all about the words, pounded out on typewriters until one day in the mid-1980s when Yankee ’s photo editor, of all people, brought the first word processor to the office. Yes, the computer age had arrived—but Sagendorph’s enduring vision would continue. —Jamie Trowbridge

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When

an exclusive sneak peek at the property and garnered national media coverage.

the Maine saltwater farm formerly owned by E.B. White was about to go on the market, Yankee’s “House for Sale” scored

PHOTO BY MARK FLEMING

Property Values

For seven-plus decades, Yankee’s wide-roving “House for Sale” column offered readers the chance to dream about moving to the country.

BY BRUCE IRVING

Starbucks on every corner, a new car in the driveway, an embarrassment of entertainment options out on the town—the pleasures of urban and suburban America are hard to ignore or resist. But every so often, the heart longs for a dirt road and a star-filled night, and one partner turns to the other and says, “Honey, have you ever thought of chucking it all and moving to the country?”

That’s how the “House for Sale” column got its hooks into Yankee readers, sinking deep into this kind of blacktop discontent. It was a part of the print magazine from the early days up until 2023, with hundreds of editions churned out over its long run. That’s a lot of dreams fanned.

The basic concept has been in Yankee ’s DNA from the very start. Founder Robb Sagendorph, though he may have looked the part of “a tall, lean Yankee,” as his New York Times obituary put it, was no rural character himself. He was born in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, the son of a Boston steel manufacturer. After graduating from Harvard, he spent seven years in the steel business in Boston and New York, until moving to Dublin, New Hampshire, to become a farmer and freelance writer. As the Times reported, “He succeeded at neither.” Instead, he started a magazine in 1935 dedicated to limning the rural life.

Even before the column began, Yankee advertised rural properties: In 1939, for example, a “Handsome Home, Equipt Farm” located 55 miles outside Boston came with 110 acres and “13 cows, heifers, bull, machinery, 1½-ton truck, milk route, etc.” for $4,400. For a time in the ’90s, an ad repeatedly exhorted readers to “Escape to an island off the coast of Maine.” But “House for Sale” took all that country dreaming to another level. In the May 1981 issue, the column featured nine acres, a store with an apartment, and eight sporting camps, all under the name Kokad-jo, “up in Maine’s moose country.”

Who were the seekers, these aspiring escapees, that responded to such descriptions? A 1985 update on the Kokad-jo property reported there had been 93 inquiries from 26 states, including seven from California. The first person to call—the day the magazine hit newsstands—was apparently inebriated, according to the seller. A pair of folks from Washington, D.C., said they wanted to move to Kokad-jo because “we are a couple of burnt-out executives.” The man who ultimately bought it had

FROM TOP: The March 1971 issue featuring the entire 19th-century mill town of Harrisville, New Hampshire, for sale; the first-ever “House for Sale,” printed in the April 1950 issue and starring a four-bed, three-bath home in Groton, Massachusetts, for $16,900.

bicycled through the area with his son a year before and thought how wonderful it would be to live there. The day before he arrived in Maine to buy Kokad-jo, he walked into his boss’s office at the Con Edison plant where he’d spent decades working on public relations, and he quit. “You don’t just sever yourself from a corporation after 25 years like this,” said his boss. “You don’t, huh?” he replied. The man and his son embraced and danced for 10 minutes after the papers were signed—the best he’d felt in 48 years. “Free,” he said. “Free at last.”

Through the years, “House for Sale” featured a number of properties that had already been through round one of dreamer-occupation, the sellers’ descriptions of how they found it and what they did to it serving as inspiration, almost daring the next owner to continue the dream. In the July 1990 column (“Chasing Sunbeams at ‘Hidden Wells’”), we meet Bill and Betty Noble at their 1729 Rhode Island Colonial, which, when they first saw it in 1958, was full of cats and had a first-floor ceiling so sagging

that a chandelier was within a foot of the floor. They bought it, and 22 acres, for $10,000 and proceeded to fix it up, more or less by themselves, in a process they describe in harrowing detail (digging silt out of the bottom of the well; dodging snakes; pulling down plaster; modernizing the heating, electrical, and plumbing systems; restoring the grounds; working in the first year “until midnight or beyond”). They even put in a pool. Did they have any advice for young couples thinking of restoring an old house? the writer asked. “Do it!” they said. Unspoken but implied: Or just buy our place for $499,000 and avoid all the grunt work.

“Do it!” was not the answer the magazine got when it paid a follow-up visit to the first-ever “House for Sale,” published in April 1950. In that earlier article, the not-yet-christened Moseyer (as the column writer would come to be known) observed a house in Groton, Massachusetts, that was “a dwelling with rooms blithely located at five different levels” and concluded, after chronicling its many more quirks, “If you’re an imaginative family, this house could be fun.” Returning in 2010, Yankee found the latest owners (it had sold several times since 1950) ensconced in a home they’d spent seven years straightening out, among other improvements. Would they have taken on the house if they’d known the time and money involved?

“Never,” the owner said. “I would have been scared off.”

While the Moseyer stayed incognito, the column bore the firm imprint of longtime Yankee editor Judson Hale. The Moseyer’s pen would go on to change hands a few times, but the basic tone of piqued curiosity—leavened with a touch of Yankee skepticism—remained. Every so often, you can tell he or she is just as tempted to chuck it all as their readers are.

In a rare bylined “House for Sale” in 2017, Mel Allen, then Yankee ’s editor, stepped in to write what would result in the magazine’s closest brush with virality. E.B. White’s house in North Brooklin, Maine, was being put on

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the market, and Allen was given a tour for the September/October issue. The resulting column drew attention from The New York Times, Town & Country, and other media outlets, and went on to be the most-read “House for Sale” in the magazine’s history.

The Charlotte’s Web author had purchased the 44-acre saltwater farm in 1933, doing his own version of chucking it by leaving New York City and moving to Maine permanently four years later. The latest owners were a couple who’d purchased the property on a handshake from White’s renowned boatbuilder son Joel in the early 1980s. They, too, were escapees, seeking a quiet life of gardening and sailing, away from their business life in South Carolina. The tour included the barn where Charlotte may have spun her web, complete with Fern’s rope swing, and “the trim boathouse where, when the weather was right or there was too much going on in the house, E.B. White would retreat with

his black Underwood typewriter,” Allen wrote. “There he built a simple table and bench, placed a barrel for waste and an ashtray by his side, and with the sea breezes for company typed some of the most elegant and memorable sentences in the English language.”

The listing agent was Martha Dischinger of Downeast Properties. “I must have gotten 35 to 40 inquiries a day back then,” she says. “The farm sold for full asking price a week after it came to market, but the phone just kept ringing. I probably got five or 10 calls a year for five or six years afterward.” The phone still rings occasionally, and schoolchildren sometimes write, asking about Charlotte and the barn. The new owners are a family from the Philadelphia area who spend time year-round at the farm. “They’re

great people, well integrated into the community, and the husband sometimes writes down in the boathouse,” Dischinger reports.

Over the decades, “House for Sale” has highlighted stores, inns, and once even a whole town (the brick mill village of Harrisville, New Hampshire, was ultimately acquired by a nonprofit that now hosts living and work spaces in its store, church, and mill buildings). Each sale is someone’s dream come true—and I’ll bet Robb Sagendorph smiles down each time a new owner packs up and, ahem, steals away.

PARADE OF HOMES

Head over to Yankee’s website, NewEngland.com, to read a selection of classic “House for Sale” columns—and if there are properties you remember fondly from years past, let us know in the comments: newengland.com/HFS

During the pre-sale tour of E.B. White’s former home, the rope swing made famous in Charlotte’s Web still hung in the barn. As always with Yankee’s real estate spotlights, it’s the details that inspire the dream.

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Swans Island was founded on the allure of heirloom-quality wool blankets, which remain the company’s signature offering more than 30 years onward.

Dream Weaving

Coastal beauty entwines with artisan technique at Maine’s Swans Island Company.

BY VIRGINIA M. WRIGHT

The people who make Swans Island Company blankets work a quarter-mile upshore from Penobscot Bay in a 235-year-old farmhouse fringed by a border of Solomon’s seal and lady’s mantle. Their daily commute encompasses working harbors, placid lakes, forested mountains, and wild blueberry barrens. “We live in a place where you can open your window, and a cloud will drift in off the ocean,”

says company president Bill Laurita. “Nature is close at hand; it’s part of our lives. This is not a fancy, complicated, plasticized place, and our designs aren’t like that either.”

Swans Island’s handwoven woolen blankets embody the spirit of coastal Maine—its traditions, its timelessness, even the mutable nature of its tides and weather—in subtle ways. The palettes are soothing, the designs classic and

understated: a few stripes of varying widths, perhaps; some softly contrasting checks; or maybe one glorious colorway that on close inspection proves to be not a solid at all, but rather a marbled interplay of uncountable shades. Some references are more direct. The white-flecked Firefly fabrics are inspired by the spectacle of lightning bugs flickering in a field on a hot summer night. A hue called Seasmoke

clockwise from top left:

Dyeing yarn by hand and in small batches ensures optimal color and texture; a weaver at work in the Swans Island studios in Northport; at one of the small family farms from which Swans Island sources its wool, sheep are outfitted in little jackets to help keep their fleece clean and free of chaff.

draws its soft pearly gray from the fog that spirals and drifts over the bay on bitterly cold winter days. Autumn in New England, a limited-edition throw created in collaboration with Yankee for the magazine’s 90th anniversary this fall, deconstructs an October landscape from earth to sky in bands of crimson, orange, sage, gold, and pale gray.

“We aim to capture the complexity of nature and lay down the colors as simply as possible on the loom,” Laurita says. “But—and this may seem like a contradiction—simple is hard to do. You have to start with really good ingredients.”

Laurita’s office is on the Northport farmhouse’s second floor, in one of the low-ceilinged rooms he and his wife, Jody, called home for a few years after he and his partners bought the company and moved it from its eponymous island in 2004. The founders, John and Carolyn Grace, were lawyers from Boston, motivated by a dream of living year-round on the actual Swan’s Island, where they had a summer home. Taking stock of an island neighbor’s prizewinning sheep, the Graces settled on creating a living around that fleece by reviving the kind of heirloom-quality

wool blankets they remembered from their childhoods. They researched traditional New England styles in the Maine State Museum’s textile archives, installed two floor looms in their home, and sold their first blankets in 1992. Within a few years, they had a national clientele and a coveted spot in the annual Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, D.C.

An MBA holder who has worked as a Waldorf teacher, carpenter, and blacksmith, Laurita was drawn to the challenge of scaling up the Graces’ cottage business while maintaining the quality and individuality that distinguished their blankets from massproduced textiles. Today, Swans Island Company employs about 25 people, about half of whom are hands-on crafters: the weavers, dyers, and finishers who annually make about 1,000 woolen blankets, the signature product in a line of goods that includes linen bedding, yarn, apparel, and bags. Swans Island buys its Corriedale fleece from family farms in Pennsylvania and Ohio and sends it to Green Mountain Spinnery in Vermont, where it’s spun into soft, single-ply yarn.

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I live at the shore in a 100-year-old cottage 50 feet above the sea. After the sun goes down every night, I go out to the railing to watch the moonlight on the water, to see the boats with their lights as they sail into the night. I listen for the sounds of the waves on the shore. I wait for something… I’m not sure what, but I wait every night.

The Mysteries of the Sea necklace is the size of an American half dollar, 30 mm or slightly more than an inch in diameter. It’s a glistening mother-of-pearl crescent moon. A blue Topaz star in the night sky hangs above. A white whale tail carved from a 15,000-yearold ancient mammoth ivory tusk dives into the sea. The ocean has four silver ripples on the surface. It’s all out there.

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ENTER TO WIN AN AUTUMN IN NEW ENGLAND LIMITED-EDITION THROW!

Swans Island Company and Yankee are partnering to give away one of these handwoven, hand-dyed wool blankets, designed to capture the essence of New England in the fall. For contest rules and to enter, go to: newengland.com/swansisland Giveaway runs 9/1/25–9/31/25.

Presiding over the dye studio is Riley Smith, who concocts dye baths according to the company’s 180 custom-color recipes, using mostly natural pigments, such as blues from the indigo plant and reds from cochineal beetle shells. Smith swishes skeins around in pots and tubs, then allows them a carefully monitored soak before scooping them onto drying hooks. He’s adept at resist techniques, like tying and twisting the skeins to block sections of yarn from receiving dye (that’s how Firefly gets its

Continuing its tradition of designing a limited-edition collection or piece each year, Swans Island is celebrating Yankee’s 90th anniversary this fall with a vibrant handwoven wool throw called— what else?—Autumn in New England.

“light trails” and Watercolors, another blanket style, gets its washy teal and blue currents). Unlike industrial dyeing, which compresses fibers and produces monochromatic colors, small-batch dyeing maintains the yarns’ loftiness and yields multitonal shades akin to the gradients within flower blossoms.

In the farmhouse’s ell, weavers sit at piano-sized looms, pushing and pulling beater bars to lift and lower warp threads as weft shuttles zip back and forth, propelled by compressed air. A skilled weaver can create a queen-size blanket in about eight hours; setting up the warp, however, remains a two-day process requiring 3,456 hand-tied knots. When completed, the blanket is sent upstairs to the finishing room, where artisans use surgical tweezers to remove any remaining bits of chaff, inspect for and resolve flaws, and embroider custom touches like monograms.

Designs are a team effort. Spring Into Summer, a limited-edition throw, took root during a January thaw that found the staff anticipating the lightness and promise of an awakening landscape still some months away. Smith accepted the challenge of expressing that mood in natural white wool crisscrossed with a fresh green, blue, yellow, and pink windowpane plaid.

That in turn prompted conversations about creating a fall blanket. Creative director Michele Orne studied landscape photographs, experimented with groupings of colored skeins, and shared sketches with her collaborators at Swans Island and Yankee. In keeping with Swans Island’s aesthetic, Laurita says, Autumn in New England is not a literal interpretation, but rather an expression of the mellow season’s fleeting yet ever-renewing splendor, one that will provide warmth and nostalgia for generations. swansislandcompany.com

1930s

Maine Potato Doughnuts with Cranberry Glaze, p. 42

Birthday Plates

As Yankee turns 90, we unearth recipes from the archives that have stood the taste-test of time.

BY AMY TRAVERSO

PHOTOS BY CLARE BARBOZA

STYLING BY GRETCHEN RUDE

f you look at food beyond what’s on your plate, it can be a window through which you learn about history, art, culture, economics, family, and geography. Consider our Yankee recipe archives: Each dish represents a moment in time and offers a glimpse of daily life as it was shaped by forces large and small. In the postwar 1940s, for instance, our editors praised the “wayside inns” serving classic New England fare like chicken potpie. Convenience foods came to the fore in the 1950s, with Ritz crackers being used as the topping for an iconic baked scallops dish. In the 1980s, Yankee ’s recipes became markedly more global, and we see Portuguese dishes like kale and chouriço soup woven into the fabric of regional cooking.

In celebration of the magazine’s 90th anniversary, I’ve compiled a list of favorite recipes from our archives. So join me in a little time travel through the decades, and get cooking! (In the interest of reliability, some recipes did need to be adjusted to appeal to modern tastes, but all remain true to the spirit of the original dish.)

2010s Stovetop Clambake, p. 96

1930s

MAINE POTATO DOUGHNUTS WITH CRANBERRY GLAZE

Potatoes are still the primary crop in northern Maine, and in the 1930s, the state was producing about 15 percent of the country’s spuds. Mainers incorporated potatoes into everything, and in the May 1937 issue alone, Yankee featured 100 potato recipes (albeit written in short paragraph form). If you’ve never tried mashed potatoes in doughnuts before, you’ll find that they create a wonderful texture: lighter and more tender.

Note: The drier your potatoes are, the lighter the doughnuts will be, so I bake or microwave them rather than boil them. Also, running the cooked spuds through a potato ricer gives a fluffier texture.

FOR THE DOUGHNUTS

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 large egg, at room temperature

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup lightly packed mashed russet or Yukon Gold p otatoes (leftover potatoes with salt and pepper are fine)

¼ cup buttermilk, at room temperature

2–2¼ cups all-purpose flour (280–315 grams), plus more for work surface

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon table salt

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Vegetable oil or vegetable shortening, for frying

FOR THE GLAZE

2 cups powdered sugar

5 –6 tablespoons cranberry juice

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with a standing or handheld mixer until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until glossy and pale yellow.

Add the potatoes and buttermilk and beat until smooth. Add the 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg and beat just until evenly combined. The dough should now be fairly easy to handle, but still a bit sticky. If not, add a bit more flour.

Generously dust your counter with flour. Turn the dough out onto the counter and flip to coat with flour.

With your hands, gently press the dough out to a ½-inch thickness and cut into doughnuts and doughnut holes using a doughnut cutter or two biscuit cutters (a large and a small). Gather the scraps and press out again to use up all the dough.

1940s

New England

Skillet Chicken Pie, p. 44

2000s

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie, p. 94

1950s

Baked Scallops with Ritz Cracker Topping, p. 93

1960s MolassesRaisin Bars, p. 93

1970s

Anadama Bread, p. 93

Fill a Dutch oven with oil or shortening to a depth of 2½ inches. Set over medium heat and bring the temperature to 375°F (check with a thermometer). Working in small batches, cook the doughnuts and holes in the oil, turning once, until puffed and nut brown, 2 to 4 minutes per side. As you fry, you may need to reduce or increase the heat to maintain a steady temperature.

Transfer the cooked doughnuts to paper towels to drain and cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, whisk together the powdered sugar and cranberry juice to make the glaze. Start with 5 tablespoons of juice, then add more as needed so that the glaze is thick enough to coat but not too sticky. Dip the tops of the doughnuts and doughnut holes in the glaze, then set aside to dry. Yields a dozen each of doughnuts and doughnut holes.

1940s

NEW ENGLAND SKILLET CHICKEN PIE

In Yankee’s February 1948 issue, longtime “Food and Household” columnist Nancy Dixon wrote, “You’ll surely want to make plans to visit the delightful White Turkey Inn at Danbury, Connecticut. This typically New England inn caters to the discriminating tastes of New Englanders with true Yankee food!” The original recipe lists “pie pastry” as one of the ingredients—back then, Dixon could assume everyone knew how to make a crust. Worry not, modern reader: I’ll explain how.

FOR THE CRUST

1¼ cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon kosher salt

9 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

3 – 5 tablespoons ice water

FOR THE FILLING

4 tablespoons salted butter

1 small yellow onion, diced

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 tablespoons (26 grams) all-purpose flour

2 cups chicken stock

2 ½ cups cooked shredded chicken meat (medium pieces)

¾ cup diced carrots

¾ cup peas

1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves

1 large egg

1 tablespoon water

Fresh parsley leaves and thyme sprigs, for garnish

(Continued on p. 93)

1990s

1980s

Portuguese Kale and Chouriço Soup, p. 94

Louisa May

Alcott’s Fruit Slump, p. 94

Core Appeal

Fall mornings are sweeter when they begin with these apple recipes inspired by our TV show, Weekends with Yankee.

STYLED AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY LIZ NEILY

Morning fog was still blanketing the Contoocook River Valley when we arrived at Gould Hill Farm to begin a day of filming Weekends with Yankee ’s ninth season. With an elevation of about 1,100 feet, this hillside New Hampshire farm commands views all the way to Maine, and on an early October day, with the foliage tipping from green to orange, yellow, and red, it seemed as though we had found our way to paradise.

In nine seasons of filming Weekends with Yankee, we’ve visited three other apple farms in addition to Gould Hill (Poverty Lane Orchards in Lebanon, New Hampshire; Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, Massachusetts; and Scott Farm Orchard in Dummerston, Vermont). We’ve talked with farmers and farm stand managers about the finer points of making cider, growing heirloom apples, frying cider doughnuts, and choosing the best apple for a recipe. Having written a book about apples myself (The Apple Lover’s Cookbook , available in the NewEngland.com Store), I found this to be familiar and fond territory.

But there’s always more apple goodness to discover. My morning at Gould Hill even got me thinking about some new apple recipes—specifically, breakfast dishes. The first, a baked oatmeal pudding, is now a staple in my breakfast repertoire. The second, a recipe for doughnut shop–style apple fritters, is a project bake, but boy, is it worth the effort. Give them both a try. And welcome to apple season! >>

Doughnut Shop

Apple Fritters, recipe p. 48

APPLE-CRANBERRY

BREAKFAST PUDDING

This baked oatmeal pudding studded with apples and cranberries is healthy and hearty. I love to bake a batch on Sunday and eat my way through it during the week, always with a dollop of yogurt and a drizzle of maple syrup.

Butter, for greasing baking dish

3 cups milk

4 large eggs

½ cup packed light brown sugar

¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 cups rolled (old-fashioned) oats

¾ cup halved fresh cranberries

¾ cup diced firm-sweet apples

¹⁄3 cup chopped walnuts

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

Yogurt and maple syrup, for finishing

Preheat your oven to 325°F. Butter a 2-quart baking dish and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add the oats, cranberries, apples, walnuts, baking powder, and kosher salt and stir until evenly combined.

Pour into the baking dish, place into the oven, and bake until the center is set and the top is golden brown, between 50 and 60 minutes. Serve warm with yogurt and maple syrup. Yields about 8 servings.

DOUGHNUT SHOP APPLE FRITTERS

Glazed and studded with bits of tart apple, these fritters have the perfect pullapart texture.

FOR THE DOUGH

– 4¼ cups (480 – 510 grams) all-purpose flour

1 package (2¼ teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast

1½ teaspoons kosher salt

1 cup apple cider

6 tablespoons melted salted butter

2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

Vegetable oil, for coating dough and frying

FOR THE FILLING

2 tablespoons salted butter

1½ large tart apples, cut into ¼-inch dice

¼ cup granulated sugar

½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour (35 grams plus 26 grams), plus more for dusting counter and dough

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

FOR THE GLAZE

3¼ cups powdered sugar

½ cup hot water

Large pinch kosher salt

In a large bowl, whisk together the 4 cups flour, yeast, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cider, melted butter, and eggs. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and stir with a spatula until the dough comes together in a ball. Use your hand to knead the dough in the bowl, adding the remaining flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, as needed to prevent sticking. Knead for a total of 3 minutes. Pour a bit of oil over the dough ball, then turn to coat. Cover and let rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, 2 to 2½ hours. (You can also refrigerate the dough for up to 36 hours.)

Meanwhile, make the filling: Melt the butter in a skillet and add the diced apples. Cook, stirring often, until the apples begin to soften, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar and nutmeg and cook, stirring, for 2 more minutes. Spread apples on a large plate and let cool to room temperature.

When the dough has finished rising, dust your counter with flour, then turn the dough out. (If it has been refrigerated overnight, it should be covered with a towel and allowed to come to room temperature for 1 hour before the next step.)

Dust the dough with flour, then roll it out to an oval that’s roughly 18 inches

long and 8 inches wide. Position the oval with a short end facing you. Spread the apple mixture over the dough, leaving a one-inch top border at the top. Sprinkle with ¼ cup flour and cinnamon. Roll the dough up from the bottom like a jelly roll, sealing at the top. If any apple pieces come out the sides, tuck them back into place.

Starting from the left side, use a knife to cut the roll diagonally into strips. Then, from the right side, cut on the opposite diagonal, forming diamondshaped pieces roughly 1 inch long. (This will look and feel messy, but it’s essential to achieve a classic pull-apart texture.)

Dust with the remaining 3 tablespoons flour, then gather into a loaf about 12 inches long and press it very firmly back together. (If you don’t squeeze tightly, the fritters can fall apart in the oil.)

Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Using a knife or bench scraper, cut the loaf crosswise into 12 rounds. Press the rounds with your fingers to elongate them a bit, then set them on the baking sheet, cover with parchment paper, and let rise for 30 minutes.

Fifteen minutes into the final rise, fill a Dutch oven halfway with oil and set over medium heat, bringing the temperature to 365°F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with paper towels and set aside.

Use a spatula to transfer two or three fritters into the hot oil and cook until nicely browned on one side, about 2 minutes, then flip and cook until the other side is browned and the fritter is cooked through, 1½ to 2 minutes more. Transfer to the baking sheet and blot to remove excess oil. Repeat with remaining dough, checking the oil temperature regularly and adjusting the heat to keep it as close to 365°F as possible.

Transfer fritters to two wire racks set over rimmed baking sheets. When cooled, prepare the glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar, hot water, and salt in a medium bowl.

Dip each fritter in the glaze to coat both sides, then return to the wire racks. Let sit until the glaze has set, about 10 minutes. Serve. Yields 12 fritters.

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Celebrate Yankee

e View from Mary’s Farm Grace and beauty in every season. Clark’s lyrical essays capture New England through weather, landscape, and independent people. By Edie Clark

Here in New England

45 unforgettable stories from Yankee’s beloved editor. Fascinating people and places from nearly 50 years of writing. By Mel Allen

Summer Over Autumn Hidden stories everywhere you look. Essays about neighbors, yard sales, and other facets of small-town life. By Howard Mans eld

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Brunswick, ME

In this bikeable college town, fall foliage only adds to the abundant local color.

BY BRIAN KEVIN | PHOTOS BY MICHAEL D. WILSON

this page: The salmon-pink gables of Bowdoin College’s 1894 Searles Science Building peek through the fiery fall colors in downtown Brunswick. opposite, clockwise from top left: Bowdoin’s Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum; the pineapple daiquiri at The Abbey, a hybrid coffee shop/ cocktail bar; a passion fruit éclair and a yuzu curd tart at ZaoZe Café & Market; Frosty’s Donuts, a Maine Street landmark for more than 50 years.

Squint at Brunswick, Maine, from a few different angles and you may see a historic mill town, a former military base, or a slightly bougie Portland bedroom community. Nestled between Casco and Merrymeeting bays, at the confluence of the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers, the town of 22,000 is all of those things. But whatever else you can say about it, Brunswick is a college town—in the lowest-bar sense of having Bowdoin College smack in the middle of it, sure, but also because it boasts the quintessential college-town trappings: a walkable core, café culture, an arts scene, and nightlife.

And never does Brunswick feel collegetownier than in September and October, when the students are settling back in, filling bars and shops along Maine Street (yep, correct spelling) and idling beneath the increasingly vibrant maples and oaks that shade the Town Mall.

On a recent visit, I opted to tool around Brunswick in classic student fashion, posting up at the white-columned Brunswick Hotel, right across from campus, and going only where the front desk’s complimentary cruiser bikes could take me. The stately 51-room hotel, as it happens, is 500 feet from the Amtrak station, where trains pull up from Boston daily, so a car-free Brunswick weekend isn’t just for middle-aged alums reliving their salad days. (Gorham Bike & Ski, two blocks from the station, rents road bikes and e-bikes.)

It was cocktail hour when I got into town, so I wheeled over to the low-key fireplace pub at OneSixtyFive, an 1848 Federal-style inn on a shady lane of 19th-century mansions, called Park Row. This is best-kept-secret stuff: Plenty of Brunswickers don’t know that the inn’s Pub165 is open to all, that its cocktail menu is on point, and that you can enjoy your drink of choice (and perhaps some rosemary-truffle cashews) on the huge wraparound porch. Live

left: The Brunswick Hotel, freshly spiffed up by a multimillion-dollar renovation. opposite: Spanning the Androscoggin River between Brunswick and Topsham, the Swinging Bridge was designed by the same company that built the world-famous Brooklyn Bridge.

cent Town Mall gazebo. Get another drink and some lobster corn cakes, and voilà, cocktail hour becomes dinner.

The next morning started with strong coffee and a house-baked sticky bun at Dog Bar Jim, just off campus. Narrow and festooned with weird bric-a-brac, including some Seinfeld-themed pieces, it’s the ’90s-throwback coffee shop of your bohemian dreams. Mugs are thrift-store mismatched,

from top: Among the highlights of Maine Street is the revitalized 1870 landmark (left) known as the Lemont Block; made-from-scratch offerings at Wild Oats Bakery & Café include crispy-melty panini and pastries such as classic sprinkle-topped cupcakes.

and espresso drinks are expertly made (just don’t ask for a pumpkin spice latte).

Where did Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne get their joe? The two members of Bowdoin’s Class of 1825 are on a long roster of notable alumni. You’ll find their portraits in the vast collection of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, one of the country’s oldest collegiate museums, dating to 1811. Among other things, it’s big on antiquities—the current “Flora et Fauna” exhibit considers how nature is depicted on an awe-inspiring assemblage of ancient Mediterranean figurines, urns, chalices, and more (on view through March 7, 2026).

But only two Bowdoin alums have a whole campus museum named for them. The PearyMacMillan Arctic Museum was once a glorified gallery, filled with artifacts acquired during the polar expeditions of admirals Donald MacMillan and Robert Peary. In 2023, it reopened in a dramatic three-story space, the public-facing half of the new Gibbons Center for Arctic Studies, with an expanded

IN & AROUND BRUNSWICK, ME

EAT & DRINK

The Abbey: “Some people expect we’re strictly coffee in the day, then switch to strictly bar, but it’s everything all day long,” co-owner Connor Scott says. “The joke is, if you want it, we’ve got it.” theabbeymaine.com

Dog Bar Jim: Expect a little line when chatty owner Ben Gatchell is working the lovely copper espresso machine. Admire the wall art: a framed Calvin and Hobbes strip, a 1971 Hawkwind album cover, and other curiosities. dogbarjim.com

Flight Deck Brewing: Here’s a strong contender for New England’s best beer garden, with heated gazebos and A-frames, firepits, lawn games, and tasty pizzas flying out of a wood-fired oven. flightdeckbrewing.com

Wild Oats Bakery & Café: An anchor tenant of Brunswick Landing, the redeveloped former military base, Wild Oats is known for piled-high sandwiches and a deep menu of soups (if it’s on offer, try the pumpkin-mushroom). wildoatsbakery.com

ZaoZe Café & Market: PanAsian fare that’s casual in vibe, masterful in execution. Craving dim sum? It’s offered only on Sundays but worth planning for. zaoze.cafe

STAY

The Brunswick Hotel: Any closer to campus and you’d be in a dorm. Noble, the in-house restaurant, has its own firepit courtyard, a fine spot for drinks and dessert on a crisp autumn evening. thebrunswickhotel.com

The Federal: Clean modern vibes in an expanded 1810 captain’s home. The inn’s 555 North bistro leans in on cheffy, seasonal comfort food. thefederalmaine.com

OneSixtyFive: The historic Main House was renovated after a fire a few years back. Its eight rooms are crisp New England contemporary, with bold-patterned rugs,

emphasis on arctic ecology and both historical and contemporary Inuit art. Built from eco-friendly prefab mass timber, it’s an airy chapel of exposed blonde wood, tall windows, and angled ceilings from which the occasional musk ox gazes down. Highlight of my morning: running my hand over a gnarly old narwhal tusk.

After a few hours of museums, I steered my cruiser off campus and toward a couple of pillowy steamed pork buns at ZaoZe Café & Market, a mod little cafeteria inspired by convenience stores in China and Southeast Asia. Next, a spin through a couple of Maine Street’s old reliables. Gulf of Maine Books has been a paragon of an indie bookshop since 1979, its well-stocked shelves bordering on cluttered. A short stroll away, Nest has anchored the 1896 Lincoln Building for more than 20 years, a colorful 6,000-square-foot bazaar of home and garden goods. The afternoon’s haul included a copy of Maine novelist Ruth Moore’s Spoonhandle, recommended by Gulf of Maine co-owner Gary Lawless, and a pair of speckled ceramic soap dishes.

Then, wouldn’t you know, it was cocktail hour again, and I headed across the street to The Abbey. Opened by Connor Scott and Lainey Catalino in 2023, it’s the too-rare combo of craft coffee shop and cocktail bar, welcoming the laptop set during the day and a lively dinner-and-drinks crowd at night (with plenty of overlap). The vibe is DIY glam—mirror ball, candelabras, zine-like handwritten specials menus—and befitting a college town, the place stays open most days till the scandalous hour of 11 p.m. I ordered a Korean-inflected margarita, with house-made gochujang-grapefruit syrup, and an oh-so-fall roasted delicata squash salad, then sat back on my upholstered retro barstool for some people-watching. Longfellow and Hawthorne never had it so good.

wallpaper, and upholstery offsetting gorgeous antique furnishings. There’s seven more rooms in an adjacent annex and a dog-friendly cottage, too. onesixtyfivemaine.com

PLAY

Bowdoin College Museum of Art: With its columns and Renaissance-style rotunda, the museum’s 1894 building is itself a work of art. Get a selfie with the stone lions out front. bowdoin.edu/ art-museum

Cabot Mill Antiques: In the massive spinning room of a former cotton mill, some 160 stalls worth of treasures: Victorian salvage, deep-cut vinyl, nautical knickknacks— you name it. cabotiques.com

Gulf of Maine Books: Storied indie bookseller with a crunchy shell. Its nature writing and poetry shelves are uncommonly robust.

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Harpswell Detour: South of town, back roads traverse the islands and peninsulas that make up quiet little Harpswell—worth a scenic drive, especially when the leaves are poppin’. Get a lobster roll with a view at Erica’s Seafood (open until mid-October). Watch the tide filter through the famed Cribstone Bridge at the end of Orr’s Island. Clamber over rugged oceanside ledges at Giant’s Stairs on Bailey Island. hhltmaine.org

Nest: Two jam-packed floors of eclectic home goods and gifts ... let the browsing begin. Facebook

Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum: Among the highlights here are photos, letters, and artifacts relating to Matthew Henson, Peary’s pole-seeking comrade and one of America’s foremost Black explorers. bowdoin.edu/ arctic-museum

Woodward Point Preserve: This Maine Coast Heritage Trust property has the area’s best birding. Watch for great blue herons, bobolinks, ospreys, and more. mcht.org/ preserve/woodward-point

ZaoZe Café owners and chefs Cara Stadler, right, and Emily Topaz. Maine foodies will know Stadler, a frequent James Beard Award nominee, from her two earlier ventures, Tao Yuan and BaoBao Dumpling House.

View Points

Yankee’s longtime foliage expert makes the case for six less-expected leaf-peeping spots.

Jim Salge has been anticipating this year’s autumn since, well, last year’s autumn, when a severe drought diminished New England’s normally brilliant foliage. But 2025 will be different, says Yankee ’s veteran foliage reporter. “We’re in a much different place,” he says. “It’s going to feel extra special.” In Salge’s eyes, however, some parts of New England shine just a little bit brighter than others. If you’re on the road this season, you might just find him at one of these scenic autumn destinations. —Ian Aldrich

Littleton, NH

In addition to a Main Street that’s chockablock with locally owned shops and restaurants, this White Mountains town offers ready access to all things

foliage. “There’s great sightseeing and hiking right in town,” Salge says. “Kilburn Crags is an easy hike that has fantastic views.” Even better: As a regional hub, Littleton can be the starting point for color-filled drives into northern New Hampshire and Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Shelburne, VT

Northern New England isn’t normally associated with late-autumn color, but that’s exactly what you’ll find in Vermont’s Champlain Valley. “This region is pretty much a can’t-miss proposition, because the color is there anytime from late September into late October,” says Salge. “And if you’re looking to go hiking, you can’t do much better than Mount Philo.”

With views of nearby Franconia Notch and Mount Lafayette, the town of Littleton, New Hampshire, is a handy home base for exploring the White Mountains’ spectacular fall foliage.

Newry, ME

“Maine’s coast always gets attention,” says Salge, “but there’s so much beauty in the mountains”—in particular, Maine’s White Mountains region.

“You go to a place like Grafton Notch State Park, and you’ve got these amazing waterfalls and hikes. Sunday River ski resort is right there. And if you want to make a long weekend of it, you’re not far from Rangeley.”

Boston, MA

New England’s biggest city is packed with green space, which in fall comes alive with seasonal color. “People don’t normally think of the Boston area as a foliage destination, but it really is,” Salge says. “You have the Esplanade, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Blue Hills. And at the end of the day, you’re in Boston—you can’t lose.”

Granby, CT

Less than half an hour’s drive north from Hartford is a slice of rural Connecticut that cranks the fall appeal to 11. We’re talking acres of farmland, pumpkin patches, apple orchards, and, of course, foliage.

“There’s also just so much good public land around the nearby Barkhamsted Reservoir,” Salge says. “It’s a place that puts you in the center of it all.”

Exeter, RI

Sure, Rhode Island’s coastal zones offer lovely late-autumn color, but Salge prefers to head inland. “There are miles and miles of pretty scenic roads and lots of biking,” he says. “It’s a beautiful place to visit to extend your fall.”

For Jim Salge’s weekly foliage reports, go to newengland.com/foliage.

AUTUMN FROM THE TOP

Starting just shy of Canada and unspooling down the length of Vermont, Route 100 drops leaf peepers into the heart of fall foliage.

BY BILL SCHELLER ||| PHOTOS BY OLIVER PARINI

Route 100 offers prime viewing of the hillside fall colors surrounding Woodward Reservoir in Plymouth, Vermont.

wanted to drive south through Vermont, the same direction the autumn colors were taking as they trickled down from Canada. Yes, they travel slower than I do; they take longer to get to the Massachusetts border. Still, it seemed the right way to take in the great chromatic event. And there’d be bright surprises here and there. Southbound color sends an advance guard, especially at higher elevations.

Along the way, I’d also travel in another direction, back in time, past places that were part of my own Vermont, in all seasons.

I’d make the trip, border to border, along a single road, and there are three such options in Vermont. There’s Route 7, in the west. There’s the twin set of U.S. 5 and I-91, along the Connecticut River Valley. And then there’s Vermont 100. It’s the longest state highway, and the twistiest; the old telegraph cables that ran alongside it used to “travel each bend,” per the lyrics to the state’s unofficial state song, “Moonlight in Vermont.” It goes through the fewest big towns, and through no cities at all. If Route 66 is America’s “mother road,” as John Steinbeck claimed, Route 100 is Vermont’s.

For some reason, 100 doesn’t quite nick the Canadian border; instead, it begins inconspicuously near Newport Center. Close enough. As I set off, Jay Peak rose to the west, its tram house giving the summit its distinctive bent-beak look. The southern shores of Lake Memphremagog were just east. Canada was right over my shoulder.

Route 100 starts off low and lonely, by way of farm country; the first Technicolor forests are a few miles south. The road doesn’t reach settlements of any size till Troy and Westfield, where there’s little more than a Benedictine abbey where the nuns still wear wimples. It would have been nice to start my drive with Gregorian chant, but it was the wrong time of day.

Lowell, which reveals itself on 100 as a gas station and a bowling alley that looks more like a faceless country roadhouse, was where I took a short side trip into the bright autumn woods. A fragment of the Bayley-Hazen Road—a Revolutionary-era military route into Canada that was abandoned when someone realized it went both ways—wanders

from top left: Picking the fruits of autumn at Waterbury’s Hunger Mountain Orchard; Vermont Artisan Coffee & Tea, just a short drive from the orchard, adds its own splash of red to the fall landscape; the postcard-perfect Old Parish Church steeple in Weston.

off as Route 58 from the town green; I drove it for a few miles and headed back to 100, having had my first good taste of color. There was plenty more to come just south in Eden Notch, a pass in this starkly rumpled stretch of the Green Mountains. It brought me to the western shores of fork-shaped Lake Eden, where I met a man with what must be one of Vermont’s loneliest jobs.

He sat on a folding chair next to the boat launch, shaded by a big beach umbrella and drinking coffee from a thermos. I knew he was some sort of state worker, as he’d opened a locked kiosk to get the chair and umbrella. I asked him what he was there for. “To make sure people with boats don’t bring milfoil into the lake,” he replied. It was the tail end of the boating season—no watercraft were in sight—and I hoped he’d brought something to read.

Morrisville, which used to be a railroad stop between Portland, Maine, and Lake Champlain, is now the principal junction along the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, the longest such trail in New England. This may be the best place to blend a leaf-peeping drive with a leaf-peeping walk or bike ride, and there’s even a trailside brew pub.

If roads could have inferiority complexes, Route 100 between Morrisville and Stowe would be a candidate. It’s a decent enough stretch, but utilitarian: People who want dramatic scenery scoot west on Route 15 to Jeffersonville, where they can approach Stowe by way of Route 108 through Smugglers’ Notch and its hairpin turns.

Much of commercial Stowe lies along the final southerly miles of the Notch Road, leaving downtown a pleasant if busy few blocks of compact Stoweness. Although the place where I used to buy yellow legal pads is now a hip little restaurant, most of what I remembered when I lived just over the Notch is the same. There’s The Green Mountain Inn; Bear Pond Books, where we’d buy all 28 pounds of the Sunday New York Times ; and the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum. What I most wanted to see at the museum was a donation I’d made a few years back—a pair of wooden Northlands with cable bindings, and leather Henke boots I’d used in my 20s—but they weren’t on display. As with most museums, the collections here have to rotate.

I never travel 100 from Stowe to Waterbury without thinking about how nice the fall colors must have looked from the electric trolley that connected the two towns until 1932. And no one passes this way without encountering two Vermont tourism heavyweights: Cold Hollow Cider

Still owned by descendants of founder Howard E. Shaw and marking its 130th anniversary this year, Shaw’s General Store offers fall road-trippers a quick shopping break in Stowe. For those preferring to stay and explore awhile, The Green Mountain Inn is right up the street.

Mill, where they press 140,000 apples a day in season (and sell everything you’d ever want to bring back home), and a certain temple of ice cream founded by two guys named ... oh, you know who they are.

Leaving Waterbury Village, with its craft brewpubs and a train station that must have seen some of the gear at the ski museum when such equipment was new, I swung due

south toward the Mad River Valley. The valley is ski country, lorded over by the mountains that give Sugarbush and Mad River Glen their treasured vertical drop, but autumn offers its own rewards in the twin towns that lie along the river, Waitsfield and Warren. Great gulps of color in secluded countryside are wonderful, but fall foliage can be a seasoning as well as a main course, in village counterpoint.

Best of all, I found both towns much the same as they were on my last visit, a decade ago. “People here like slow change,” I was told by Melanie Leppla, who, with her husband, David, crafts the exquisite pieces they sell at their Mad River Glass Gallery on Waitsfield’s Main Street. Just down the road, though, I learned of a surprising new trend in valley tourism from Rick Rayfield, who presides over his bookshop, the Tempest, at a desk nearly hidden by towers of volumes, new and used. “People from New York City will drive up here just to have lunch,” he told me, “and then drive back the same day.” The thought made three days of meandering down Route 100 seem like a trip around the block.

South of Warren, south of the pools and cascades of Warren Falls where the river is mad in both senses of the word, I drove a stretch of 100 that had always struck me as

opposite: In Waitsfield, Hartshorn’s Organic Farm showcases the bounty of the Mad River Valley with artistic flair. this page, from top: Autumn ombré along Lower Leriche Road in Stowe; downtown Rochester, where Route 100 doubles as Main Street; at North Country Donuts in Morrisville, the sugary temptations come in a multitude of flavors, including maple-bacon, lower right.

somber in all seasons but fall. In Granville Gulf, the forest walls hemming in the road are so high and steep that little light gets through. Here, it seems, it is never summer, even on the brightest day beyond. But in autumn the gulf glows from within, as hardwoods brighten those forbidding slopes.

South of Rochester, with its village green almost as big as the village, 100 follows the West Branch of the White River, past lovely high hillsides that keep a bit more distance. Where the route takes a sharp right at Stockbridge, I did a double take at a Ford dealer’s sign that read, “Since 1913.” The boast, I later learned, was true, and Henry

from top: Chill-chasing flannel blankets at Johnson Woolen Mills, which traces its roots in the town of Johnson to 1842; goats at Rochester’s Liberty Hill Farm & Inn get a snack from sisters Ella and Cecilia, the granddaughters of owners Bob and Beth Kennett.

himself came for the launch. But that was on the Fourth of July. It was too bad, I thought, that the Model T maker didn’t get to see Stockbridge and environs in autumn glory. He might’ve moved here from Dearborn.

After a brief tangle with U.S. Route 4, at Killington, 100 strikes south again, to where I took a short side trip east to the home of another icon of the century past, a man who didn’t have to move here but left to go a lot further. At the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site in Plymouth Notch, I found the president’s birthplace, a working revival of the store his father ran, and the house where the elder Coolidge, a justice of the peace and public notary, adminis-

tered the oath of office to his son by kerosene lamplight after word arrived of President Warren Harding’s death. “What about the cheese factory?” I asked the lady running the store, remembering a more prosaic aspect of the Coolidge family story. “Yes, the president’s father started that,” she answered. “It’s still in business, just down the road.”

As I drove the 12 miles from Plymouth Notch to Ludlow, I thought of young Calvin traveling that then-unpaved stretch to attend Black River Academy in Ludlow, where he boarded during the week. At the September beginning of the

(Continued on p. 98)

On Route 100 in Troy, an amber field gives way to a blanket of scarlet and orange leaves spreading toward Jay Peak in the distance.

had hoped to have a

see p. 74.

“I

Peter Ralston image as the cover of Here in New England ,” says Allen, who has known the celebrated Maine photographer for years and who ultimately settled on Ralston’s Sea Smoke, shown here. To learn more about this photo,

in NEW ENGLAND HERE

Few have explored the soul of this region quite like former Yankee editor Mel Allen, whose new collection of writing says as much about the author as it does about his subject.

MEL ALLEN’S NEW ENGLAND ORIGIN STORY BEGINS in an unlikely place. It was the summer of 1969, and the Pennsylvania-born Allen was in the final year of a Peace Corps stint on the sweltering equatorial coast of Colombia. One of the few places to find relief from the heat was the air-conditioned local movie theater—which is where, on one July night, Allen caught the film Camelot, and a flickering first glimpse of his future.

“I recall nothing else from this evening, except that seeing the snow—even if Hollywood fake—jolted me,” writes Allen in the introduction to Here in New England , a new anthology of his Yankee stories. “I knew then that I wanted to live where there was snow and changing seasons. Soon after, I was in a library where they had books from the United States, and I picked up a photography book, and there it was—a Maine winter landscape.”

Just a few months later, there he was: newly married and newly arrived in Maine to start a life that eventually, unexpectedly, would make him one of the most identifiable and indelible chroniclers of life in New England. Much of that, of course, took place at Yankee, where Allen worked for 46 years, the last 19 as its editor.

If you know Yankee, you certainly know Allen’s work, which includes many of this publication’s most memorable stories over the past half century. Portraits of famous and

everyday New Englanders alike. Poetic odes to seasons and ways of life. And on it goes. The breadth and beauty of Allen’s writing can’t be fully captured in a single book, but the 45 stories in Here in New England make a respectable attempt.

“These aren’t my favorites, because I don’t have favorites,” Allen says. “They’re just stories I’m really proud of.”

Selecting them was no easy task. He reread his work, of course, but he also sifted through piles of old notebooks and tape-recorded interviews. (Among the treasures unearthed was the entire shoot that his first wife, Carole, a photographer, did of Stephen King and his family in the early 1970s.)

“It was like watching old home movies,” Allen says. “I saw how people were. I heard how they talked.”

And something else emerged from his research, something his fans have already long since recognized: a portrait of a caring, careful writer who made people understand and appreciate New England and New Englanders a little better.

“I really respected the people I wrote about,” says Allen. “I liked being with them. I knew I wasn’t there to write their stories; I was there for their stories to be told to me. I wanted to know what it felt like to be them and to see the world through their eyes.”

Through this book—which appears in exclusive excerpts in the following pages—Allen was once again able to do that. And now we can, too. —Ian Aldrich

THE COVER BACKSTORY: Allen knew from the start that he wanted the cover of Here in New England “to not only be lovely, so a reader would want to hold it, but also reflect the New England I knew—not a postcard vision, but something that reveals this region with all its contrasts, in all seasons.” He looked through dozens of images on photographer Peter Ralston’s website, and stopped when he saw a photo titled Sea Smoke

“This photo of Curtis Island Lighthouse at the entrance to Camden Harbor, taken on what Peter calls ‘a wicked cold day,’ shows an iconic New England lighthouse, but not one bathed in blue sky and warmth. To me, its beauty lies in its feeling of intense cold, and even a whiff of danger beyond its swells. It spoke of the real New England I tried to reflect in my stories.”

The name of the school is Hampden Academy. It is a small public school despite its highbrow name, located

and a white picket fence, as if the lighthouse stood on a shady neighborhood street.

Lighthouses have become icons of our yearning, speaking to us of lives spare and romantic at the same time. We wish we lived there; we know we cannot. So we carry the light inside, no matter where we live. (Yankee, September/October 2015)

1,500 miles north to New Hampshire. Sleeping in motels along I-95, I half-hoped that someone would break in and drive that cargo away; yet three times I’d wake in the night to peer out the window, afraid it was gone.

I should not have waited to give his records away. We had eight years between us, and a generation in musical taste. These albums, several hundred of them, I do not

the country he still believes in. Who would doubt he will not make a difference now?”

Years from now, when Bill De La Rosa thinks about the morning of May 28, 2016, he’ll remember this: the sun blistering down on 460 of his fellow graduates, sitting in

to her home and family for 10 years.

The pretty dark-haired woman is Gloria Arrellano De La Rosa. She leans in close to the computer screen. Her friend translates Bill’s words into Spanish. Bill knows she’s watching. And he knows she’ll be saying softly to herself, “Mijo. Mijo.” “ My son. My son.”

(Yankee, September/October 2016)

Mary, cracked with age, stands by the front steps, and no matter how late they party on Saturdays, they go together to Mass on Sunday.

When I first met the Eruziones an unexpected feeling of nostalgia came over me, as though I’d come upon a precious but long-forgotten landscape. They are a tie to another time, before families scattered like pods, blown away so easily by our freeways. The children who married strayed no further than a few blocks, and on holidays the house, as ample as it is, bulges with three generations.

I had wanted to meet them because I wondered what happens to a tightly knit family when one of their own, Michael, scores the winning goal in a hockey game against the Russians, and suddenly and without warning no longer belongs just to them, but in becoming a hero belongs to the country as well. . . . (Yankee, February 1981)

factories once thrived, only one remained, Stinson Seafood, in Prospect Harbor. And how on Thursday, April 15, the last oval can would come off the belt, and then an industry that had once sustained the Down listening to ball games on their radios. They drive used cars, handing them down one to another, nursing them into six-figure mileage, and on holidays the flag flies outside. A statue of the Virgin

and summer–so many that the water glistened like a sheet of silver when the men rowed out at night with flashlights. In daylight, sardine carriers pulled alongside the weirs; the men pulled the nets tight around the haul,

then suctioned the fish onto the boat, before heading to a nearby cannery. Some towns had three or four plants strung along the shore, turning out packed sardines by the millions. (Processed Atlantic herring leave the factories as “sardines.”)

“When the fish came to the factories,” Lela says, “the whistle blew, telling us it was time to go to work.” . . .

On April 15 Lela came to Stinson before 6:00, put on her apron, hat, earplugs, and blue rubber gloves. A few days before, Peter Colson had thrown a company barbecue and given every worker a surprise book of photos documenting what their work had meant. Now, one more time, the machinery hummed and rumbled, the fish slid down the belts, the cans whizzed by and were packed, covered in sauces or oil, and sterilized.

Shortly before noon, the machines slowed and stopped. Everyone gathered around the packing belt. The last 130 cans to be produced in Maine, in the United States, were taken off the belt and put aside for the employees. Colson told Lela that she would pack the last one. She picked three small fillets and arranged them perfectly.

“That was a bad day,” Lela says, shaking her head just a bit. “A sad day. The head guy from California came and talked to us about our severance pay. Then we cleaned our lockers out and lined up to get our papers signed. Peter stood up in front of the line, and we went out saying our good-byes. You couldn’t help crying. You couldn’t help it. You knew you couldn’t be with your friends. Then we walked out.”

She was driven home, and she put her final can of sardines in a glass display case in her dining room. Then she walked to the wharf, where her son was tending his traps.

“I had an operation last year,” Lela says, “and Peter had me doing quality control—repacking all the cans that weren’t done right. ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ he told me, ‘your table is waiting for you.’ I was going back on the line this summer.”

She looks right at me. “It got harder as you got older,” she says. “But I could go with the best of them. I’m a packer. I will always be a packer.” (Yankee, July/ August 2010)

The NewEngland.com Store (store.newengland.com) is offering a limited number of signed copies of Mel Allen’s Here in New England, which also can be ordered from the publisher, Earth Sky & Water LLC (earthskywater.net), or your favorite local bookstore. For more information, including a schedule of author appearances, visit melallennewengland.com.

Window on an Island Soul

For Jamie Wyeth, the ability to create art relies on being left alone. Yet at 79, he continues painting masterworks in the company of his family legacy, his muses and memories, and his dreams.

BY PHILIP CONKLING | PHOTOS BY PETER RALSTON

A two-lane country road winds along the eastern edge of the St. George River peninsula, where three generations of the Wyeth family have lived for more than a century. It’s mid-March, and the noted photographer and my longtime friend Peter Ralston and I are headed down this long peninsula to meet Jamie Wyeth as spring grasses are greening the banks of the blue river and the hardwoods and conifers show signs of new growth. I have known Jamie for more than 30 years, Peter for more than twice as long, and Jamie has agreed to a wide-ranging conversation about his life in Maine, his art, and his family.

Jamie Wyeth at his house in Tenants Harbor, Maine. In the background is his 2024 portrait of the late Linda Bean, granddaughter of L.L. Bean and a devoted collector of work by Jamie; his father, Andrew Wyeth; and his grandfather, N.C. Wyeth.

N.C. Wyeth, widely considered the greatest illustrator of his time, was a gregarious promoter of art—both his own and others’. His son Andrew Wyeth was intensely private and insular, and Jamie, Andrew’s son, is much the same. He especially hates interviews, because he fervently believes that if you want to paint, you simply need to be left alone to work. His perpetually paint-stained fingernails are a testament to that focus. But he has made an exception for two old friends.

We are meeting Jamie most of the way down the peninsula at what he calls Inshore House, in Tenants Harbor. In the raw spring air, Jamie has motored in from his studio on Southern Island at the mouth of the harbor. Jamie and his late wife, Phyllis, bought and renovated Inshore House in order to have a mainland base that offered easy access to the studio on Southern and to their outermost aerie on Monhegan, where, following his first, and hugely successful, show in New York in 1965, Jamie bought Rockwell Kent’s house.

We sit around a small dining room table, which is surrounded by Jamie’s paintings and sketches, old and new. Hanging on the wall over his shoulder is his portrait of the late Linda Bean, granddaughter of the founder of L.L. Bean; she was an island neighbor and an energetic collec-

tor of Wyeth paintings, especially those of N.C. Both in appearance and in his art, Jamie more closely resembles his grandfather than his father. Like N.C., Jamie paints in oils, not tempera, and he dresses in the kind of midcalf trousers that his grandfather wore, albeit with sly updates featuring mismatched multicolored stockings and assorted buttons sewn on his vest. His early preference for N.C.’s work over his own father’s was straightforward: “The Knights of the Round Table were more exciting than dead crows,” he explains.

Although Jamie built a studio out on Southern Island that may have been inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s architecture, he bristles at the notion of maintaining a studio as such, or any kind of dedicated workspace that might confine his painting. He simply works with fierce energy and attention wherever he goes. But islands, surrounded by wind-whipped seas that are often in turmoil, “give me focus.”

Now approaching his eighth decade, Jamie Wyeth cannot escape his place among his family’s three generations of primacy in American art. His paintings are part of the collections of the National Gallery of Art, the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, the Museum of Fine Arts

in Boston, and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, among others. In 1963, at age 17, Jamie painted Portrait of Shorty, an astonishingly haunting depiction of loneliness. He followed that a few years later with Draft Age, a portrait of a young man looking defiant, the embodiment of rebellion, then gained wide recognition with his posthumous Portrait of John F. Kennedy (1967).

Jamie’s early portraits were followed by Portrait of Andy Warhol (1976) and the panther-like Rudolf Nureyev (1977) These paintings became icons, too, because they captured not just their subjects, but also the times and sentiments embodied by the lives of these two remarkable figures. Lincoln Kirstein, the arts impresario and a founder of the New York City Ballet, called Jamie the finest American portrait painter since John Singer Sargent—a statement initially greeted with derision by the New York art world, but now generally well accepted.

In all families, death is a marker: the irrefutable punctuation point of a before and an after. N.C.’s death at a railroad crossing in 1945 sent a bolt of lightning through the family. In more recent years, Jamie has weathered other significant losses. The passing of his father and best friend, Andrew, in 2009; his wife, Phyllis, in 2019; and a year later his mother, Betsy, following a long and debilitating illness.

In Greek mythology, the muses were nine sistergoddesses who were the stewards of the arts, science, and literature—and they were worshipped at places called museums. As surely as Betsy Wyeth was Andrew Wyeth’s muse, so Phyllis was to Jamie. Nevertheless, Jamie is quick to point out the difference between these two indomitable Wyeth women. “With Phyllis, the great thing she did for me was to give me complete freedom,” he said. “She had certain things she liked and disliked about what I was doing, but it never was on a level of ‘remove this’ or ‘do that,’ which was the case with my mother and father.”

Unlike Phyllis, Jamie’s mother, Betsy James Wyeth, for

(Continued on p. 104)

opposite: Crowned by the decommissioned 1857

Tenants Harbor Light, Jamie Wyeth’s home on Southern Island rises behind the pyramidal bell tower that his father converted into an art studio after buying the property in 1978.

above: Jamie with his father, Andrew, in a 2008 portrait by Maine photographer Peter Ralston titled Of a Feather.

THE GARDEN THAT KEEPS GROWING

Michael and Kathy Nerrie believe that taking care of their own backyard makes for a better world. And what a backyard it is.

BY MEL ALLEN | PHOTOS BY GRETA RYBUS

More than a dozen benches like this

one, tucked under the branches of an old apple tree, are scattered among the paths at the 155-acre slice of rural New Hampshire known as Distant Hill Gardens and Nature Trail.

IN MY YEARS OF WRITING ABOUT NEW ENGLAND, SOMETIMES

I hear of a place I did not know about, but after I go and learn its story, I want to share it with others. This is one of those places. Because when people go there, they may think about the world a little differently, as I did.

When you drive about 15 miles north of Keene, New Hampshire, on Route 12A, with the winding Ashuelot River for company, then soon onto March Hill Road and stop where the towns of Alstead and Walpole converge, you’ll find yourself at Distant Hill Gardens and Nature Trail. Its 155 acres hold lush gardens, a sweeping lawn, a pond, a mystical stone circle, and whimsical sculptures. There are five miles of walking trails—with two of those miles smooth gravel, accessible for wheelchairs and baby strollers—that loop through forest and climb gently to a 1,235-foot summit. You might think you have stumbled upon a state park. You have not.

Distant Hill is the creation of just two people, Michael and Kathy Nerrie, who possessed the will and skill to create from a rock-strewn hayfield a world of beauty, bounty, adventure, playfulness, and hope. They each have passed 70, and what they have done here has taken close to half a century. But at a time when many might look to downsize, their life together remains a perpetual work in progress: They are still adding plantings, sculptures, trails, and projects, including a new pavilion to hold classes and, when it rains, picnickers. In some ways, it feels as if they are just getting started—though Michael notes, “The days get shorter as I get older.”

Most people do not know about Distant Hill. Only about 7,000 visit in a good year, many of them schoolkids on field trips, retirement home residents, and attendees of various workshops on gardening and sustainability. Some public

created and installed throughout the property is a flower that gets its multicolored petals from old ironing boards.

below: Behind the Nerries’ swimming pond stands the sugarhouse they built for making maple syrup (Michael fashioned the distinctive oval window from the top halves of two discarded windows from the Walpole Town Library).

opposite: Stocked with tools and inspiration for nature explorers, this kiosk does far more than just point the way to Distant Hill’s signature nature trail.

gardens host that many visitors in just a week. But on a summer or fall weekend, there is a lot to take in. Michael and Kathy call all of it—forest, wetlands, play areas, walking trails—a garden. Life grows everywhere here.

Leave your car in the grassy parking area and make your way to the nearby tent. On the table will be a map and information about what you will soon find. Standing nearby is the Nerries’ house, and also Michael’s workshop. The house tells the story of a back-to-the-land couple who came to New Hampshire in the 1970s and built nearly everything here by hand with ingenuity and a devotion to using what they found on their property, or what they could reuse or repurpose from discarded items, or what they could barter for. The house faces south, and with its windows, Michael says, “when we have a sunny day and 30-degree nights, the heat never kicks on.” Inside is a room where on winter days Kathy will string up a hammock, dress as if she’s on the beach, and read.

Let us start by touring the ornamental garden, Kathy’s passion. In summer its 450 labeled plants burst with color amid the stone pathways and the greens and yellows of the shrubs that are Michael’s passion. He has spent his life building things, and he learned the art of landscaping when he worked as a self-employed builder on the estates of wealthy people and studied how the professional landscape designers worked. Then he took courses to become a certified master gardener. He looks at the land now and describes it as if it were a gallery. “Shrubs are like buildings,” he says. “The plants grow and create their own outdoor spaces.”

The garden greeted its first visitors in the late 1990s, when the Nerries welcomed the public for donations to the local food bank. It has grown in depth and complexity ever since, and today you will feel as if you are strolling through an English country estate.

It will not be difficult to find Michael and Kathy: They will be wearing Distant Hill T-shirts. That’s Kathy, likely with her hands in the dirt, either among the flowers or perhaps the impeccable raised beds of vegetables that feed them all year. The lean man with the ponytail and a graying beard, who’s always in motion—that’s Michael. They grew up two towns apart on Long Island but never knew each other, until one summer they met as young teens in the Berkshires, and their story never ended.

What you stroll through up here is the original 21 acres from an 18th-century farm that had grown over. Over the years—as the Nerries built a house and outbuildings, bartered to have a jewel of a pond dug, unearthed tons of rocks and integrated them into the garden—they’d buy an adjoining parcel, then another, and kept adding to the point where, if you wish, you can spend an entire day here and still not see all that they and their volunteers have made.

Be sure to walk through the stone circle. The idea for

above: A special gathering spot on the winter solstice, Distant Hill’s circle of hand-placed slabs offers a touch of mystical interest all year round.

opposite: Crafted by Michael from found metal pieces, a heron statue stands sentry over a small frog pond.

it began when Kathy’s family would visit on the winter solstice and everyone would sit around a stoked firepit. Deciding to build on that experience, the Nerries traveled to Ireland to study its famous stone circles. They even bought a neighbor’s 10-acre plot because Michael coveted the massive rocks he had spotted there. With a small tractor he hauled them hundreds of yards to the circle location. He selected the perfect tall sighting stone to align with the setting sun on the winter solstice. He took a metal ring from an old wagon wheel hub and fitted it to the stone, and today friends gather by the fire here to mark the beginning of winter.

To Michael, a recycling center is not where you take your discarded stuff, but rather where you discover treasures to bring home—components, say, for the whimsical sculptures that keep you company as you stroll the grounds of Distant Hill. He is still adding to his “Wizard of Oz” series, which invite visitors to look closely: A discarded funnel and ax inspired the Tin Man. The Cowardly Lion’s body is an old cement mixer, the mane a coil of old mattress springs. “I see what I find and what I have in the shop,” he says, “and wait till one of the parts speaks to me.” Tossed-aside brokendown ironing boards? Find them in flower-like installations on the nature trails, standing by the White Rock Woods Play Area, a place designed for a youngster’s imagination to catch fire. And that is where we want to go next, the paths that lead to forest, in many ways the heart of what Distant Hill means to people.

At the head of the trail network stands a kiosk. There you will find walking sticks, wagons to pull tired children, baskets and nets to collect acorns and other nature finds, naturethemed scavenger-hunt games, snowshoes for traversing trails in winter. If you know walking a distance will be challenging, call ahead and reserve the golf cart to see the sights.

All through the paths you will spy benches for taking your ease. The signs along the paths teach about the

WHAT THE NERRIES HAVE GROWN IS A PLACE TO WATCH THINGS FLOURISH.

ONE DAY, IT MAY BE

A CHILD’S CURIOSITY; ANOTHER DAY, SOMEONE’S INSPIRATION FOR THEIR OWN GARDEN.

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flora and fauna. A bridge fashioned from a fallen pine tree leads you into a wetland filled with birds and frogs. And some days you may be there when David Hudgik wheels out of his specially equipped van—what he calls “my spaceship”—and glides down on his electric-powered wheelchair.

When Michael first met David, and David told him what it meant to be able to immerse himself in a forest, to feel that he belonged—he knew the hundreds of hours of sweat had mattered. “A lot of what I’m doing now is designed specifically with David in mind,” Michael says. “I ask him what works, and what doesn’t.”

What Michael and Kathy Nerrie have grown is a place to watch things flourish. One day, it may be a child’s curiosity; another day, someone’s inspiration for their own garden. And then one day someone like David Hudgik shows up and finds a world he once thought he had lost, a chance to discover what might be around the bend.

“There was one moment,” David says, “where it was just me on a trail, and I came up to my favorite spot. And there was a deer with a full rack on its head, and he just watched me. I got as close as 40 feet and then he took off. I’ll always have that.”

For more information, including videos and events, go to distanthillgardens.org.

207-301-6116

quarryhill org

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Welcome to Something Better.

Birthday Plates

(Continued from p. 44)

First, make the crust: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt until well combined. Sprinkle the butter cubes on top and use your fingers to work them in (rub your thumb against your fingertips, smearing the butter as you do). Do this until the mixture looks like cornmeal with some peasized bits remaining. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons ice water on top and stir with a fork until the dough begins to come together. If needed, add another tablespoon or two of ice water. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead three times. Gather the dough into a ball, then press into a disk and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to two days.

Preheat your oven to 400°F and set a rack to the middle position.

Now, make the filling: In a 12-inch skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion, salt, and pepper and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and stir to thoroughly combine. Slowly whisk in the chicken stock and let it simmer for about one minute. Fold in the chicken, carrots, peas, parsley, and thyme. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, while you make the crust.

Unwrap your disk of dough and roll it out, working from the center to create a 12-inch circle. Transfer the dough to the skillet, on top of the filling. Vigorously whisk the egg with the water and brush over the top. Decorate the crust with the parsley and thyme springs. Make three slashes in the crust to let steam escape, and bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, 15 to 20 minutes. Yields 4 to 6 servings.

1950s

BAKED SCALLOPS WITH RITZ CRACKER TOPPING

Ritz crackers were introduced in 1934, and by the 1950s they had become so popular that they even made their way into a culinary curiosity called “Mock Apple Pie” (the “apples” being crackers). Here’s a much better idea: The crackers make a perfect and classic topping for all kinds of seafood, including this popular baked scallops dish.

2 p ounds sea scallops

1 cup crushed Ritz (or similar) crackers

¼ teaspoon garlic salt

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black p epper

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted, plus more for greasing the pan

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon dry vermouth

Lemon slices, chopped fresh chives, and/or parsley, for garnish

Preheat your oven to 325°F and set a rack to the second-to-top position. Butter a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Pat the scallops completely dry. Remove the side muscle if still attached.

Arrange scallops in the prepared baking dish. In a medium bowl, stir together the cracker crumbs, garlic salt, and pepper. Sprinkle the scallops evenly with the cracker crumb mixture, then the Parmesan. Pour the butter over all, then sprinkle evenly with the lemon juice and vermouth. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes, then remove foil and bake an additional 10 minutes.

Turn the heat up to “broil” and, with the oven door ajar, brown the top for an additional 2 or 3 minutes (keep a constant eye on the dish to avoid burning). Serve hot, garnished with a slice of lemon and chopped fresh chives and/or parsley. Yields 4–6 servings.

1960s

MOLASSES-RAISIN BARS

In the ’60s, Yankee ran a column of readersubmitted recipes called “My Favorite Recipe.” Mrs. Louis W. Jackman of Bethel, Connecticut, earned a spot in the January 1969 issue with a spiced molasses bar recipe that’s more cakelike than barlike, to my contemporary sensibility. I adjusted the ratios to get a gooier texture, but the cozy warmth of this recipe is just the same.

FOR THE BARS

B aking spray, for the pan

10 tablespoons (1¼ sticks) salted butter, softened

1¼ cup brown sugar

¹⁄ 3 cup molasses

1 large egg

1¾ cups (245 grams) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¾ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup golden or other raisins (optional)

FOR THE DRIZZLE

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons milk

Preheat your oven to 350°F and set a rack to the middle position. Spray a 9-by-9-inch square pan with baking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, using a stand or handheld mixer, beat together the softened butter, brown sugar, molasses, and egg until smooth. In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until evenly combined, scraping the sides of the bowl halfway through. Fold in the raisins, if using.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and use an offset spatula to smooth out the top. Bake until cooked in the center and fragrant, 20 to 25 minutes. Let cool completely. Meanwhile, make the drizzle: Whisk the powdered sugar with the milk in a medium bowl until smooth. Drizzle over the brownies in a pretty pattern. Let the glaze set for 15 minutes, then cut the bars into 12 pieces and serve. Yields 12 bars.

1970s

ANADAMA BREAD

In this decade, home bread baking fit neatly into the “natural” food movement of the time, but Anadama bread goes back much further. It evolved out of the first bread baked by the English colonists, called “Thirded Bread,” which combined cornmeal, rye flour, and hard-to-grow wheat flour. Over time, molasses and milk were added and wheat flour became the dominant grain.

2 cups boiling water

½ cup medium-grind cornmeal (aka stone-ground)

1 package (2 ¼ teaspoons) active dry yeast

½ cup warm milk

8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter, melted, plus more for the bowl and bread pans

½ cup molasses

1 tablespoon sesame seeds (optional)

2 teaspoons kosher salt

6 – 6½ cups (840 – 910 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for the work surface

Grease a large mixing bowl with butter and set aside. Grease two 9-by-5-inch bread pans and set aside. In another large mixing bowl, stir together the boiling water and the cornmeal. Cover and let sit for 1 hour. After an hour, in a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast over warm milk and let sit for 5 minutes.

Add the yeast mixture to the cornmeal, along with butter, molasses, sesame seeds (if using), and kosher salt. Whisk to combine. Add 6 cups of flour and stir to form a dough. The dough should be slightly sticky but smooth enough to knead. If not, add more flour, ¼ cup at a time. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it’s smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Place the dough into the greased bowl, turning to coat, then cover with plastic wrap and let it rise until doubled in bulk, about 1½ hours. Gently punch the dough down, then let it rest for 10 minutes. Shape the dough into 2 loaves, then place them into the greased bread pans. Let them rise until just about doubled, about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350°F and set a rack to the middle position. Bake until browned and cooked through, 35 to 45 minutes (the bread should be 190°F in the center). Invert loaves onto a wire rack to cool, then serve warm or at room temperature. Yields 2 loaves.

1980s

PORTUGUESE KALE AND CHOURIÇO SOUP

In the 1980s, Yankee ran a series of culinary profiles called “Great New England Cooks.” This opened our food coverage up to a wider range of cuisines: Lebanese, Greek, Hungarian, Chinese, Portuguese. For the latter, we featured Puddie Gilmette’s recipe for classic caldo verde.

4 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup diced onion

3 large cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more to taste

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste

2 medium Yukon Gold potatoes, large dice

8 cups chicken stock

1 pound (about 2 bunches) curly kale, stemmed and cut crosswise into ribbons

1 pound chouriço, linguiça, chorizo, or other spicy cooked sausage, sliced crosswise

1 15-ounce can of white beans

Lemon wedges and chili oil, for garnish (optional)

Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat, then add onion and garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook, stirring often, until softened, about 5 minutes.

Add potatoes and stock and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Add kale, cover, and simmer until the potatoes are tender and the greens have softened, 25 to 30 minutes. Stir in sausage and beans (with liquid). Season soup to taste with salt and pepper and serve garnished with lemon and a drizzle of chili oil (if using). Yields 8 to 10 servings.

1990s

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S FRUIT SLUMP

I can’t claim that there’s anything specifically 1990s about this recipe, but it did run in our August 1991 issue—and I’ll take Louisa May Alcott wherever I find her. Inspired by Alcott’s signature apple slump, a recipe she loved so much that she supposedly named her house after it, this easy recipe yields a cozy cobbler-style dessert that makes excellent use of end-of-summer nectarines and raspberries.

FOR THE FILLING

5 cups raspberries

5 large ripe nectarines, pitted and sliced

½ cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

FOR THE TOPPING

1½ cups (210 grams) all-purpose flour

¹⁄ 3 cup plus 2 teaspoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon kosher salt

½ cup milk

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg

Preheat your oven to 350°F and set a rack to the middle position.

First, make the filling: In a 12-inch skillet, combine the raspberries and nectarine slices with the sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt.

Now, make the topping: In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, ⅓ cup sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, butter, and egg. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.

Drop the batter by the large spoonful over the fruit, then sprinkle with the remaining 2 teaspoons sugar. Bake in the skillet until the fruit is bubbling and the top is golden brown, 40 to 45 minutes. Serve warm. Yields 8 servings.

2000s

PUMPKIN CHIFFON PIE

I first made this pie when food writer Jane Walsh submitted it as part of a Thanksgiving recipe story in 2003, and I’ve made it at the holidays ever since. It has all the flavor of regular pumpkin pie, but with the loveliest cloudlike filling and an earthy walnut-enriched graham cracker crust.

FOR THE CRUST

1 cup walnut halves

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

5 tablespoons salted butter, melted

FOR THE FILLING

1½ tablespoons whiskey or brandy

¼ cup milk

1 package (2¼ teaspoons) powdered gelatin

²⁄ 3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon table salt

1½ cups heavy cream

Whipped cream and toasted walnut pieces, for garnish

Preheat your oven to 350°F and set a rack to the second-to-bottom position.

Grind the walnuts coarsely in a food processor. Add the graham cracker crumbs

and brown sugar; then pulse to blend while drizzling in melted butter. Press into a 9-inch pie plate.

Bake until browned at the edges, 12 to 15 minutes. Set aside to cool. (You can make this pie crust up to 3 weeks in advance and freeze it.)

Meanwhile, make the filling: In a medium-size pot over low heat, whisk the whiskey or brandy, milk, and gelatin continuously until the gelatin is completely dissolved, 2 to 3 minutes. Whisk in the brown sugar, then the eggs, one at a time; continue whisking over low heat (don’t let it come to a boil) as you add the pumpkin, spices, and salt. Cook until the custard is smooth and steaming, 5 to 7 minutes.

Turn the heat off and transfer the custard to a large bowl to cool at room temperature. Don’t refrigerate it (you don’t want the custard to firm up).

In a separate bowl, whip the cream to firm peaks. When the custard has cooled to room temperature (about 45 minutes), fold in the whipped cream. Fold the filling into the cooled pie shell; chill at least 2 hours. Garnish with whipped cream and toasted walnut pieces and serve. Yields 8 to 10 servings.

STOVETOP CLAMBAKE

During the height of the chef-as-celebrity decade, I met the talented Matt Tropeano, then executive chef at Pain D’Avignon in Hyannis (and now Chatham and Osterville). His take on the classic clambake, cooked with much less fuss on the stovetop, is the perfect summer feast for those of us without access to a private beach. Adding white wine and aromatics (leeks, celery, etc.) to the cooking liquid replaces the smoky flavor of a traditional clambake with something equally delicious.

1 fennel bulb, with stalk

1 bottle (750ml) dry white wine, such as pinot grigio

4 celery stalks, cut into 1-inch lengths

2 lemons, halved lengthwise, then thinly sliced

1 head of garlic, cloves separated

2 leeks, white parts only, finely diced

1½ tablespoons kosher or sea salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

8 live lobsters, about 1¼ pounds each

4 pounds littleneck clams

Fresh rockweed (optional)

2 pounds mussels, scrubbed and debearded

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, melted

Lemon wedges, for garnish

Remove the stalk and fronds from the fennel bulb and chop roughly. Cut the bulb into ½-inch-thick rings.

Put the chopped fennel and fennel rings into a lobster pot with 4 quarts of water. Add the wine, celery, lemons, garlic, leeks, salt, paprika, chili powder, and cayenne pepper. Bring to a boil.

Add the lobsters and clams to the pot with the rockweed, if using. Cover and cook 6 minutes. Add the mussels and continue cooking for 6 more minutes. When all the shellfish are open (discard any that are not), the lobsters will be done. Remove the seafood from the pot and serve hot with the cooking liquid, melted butter, and lemon wedges on the side. Yields 8 servings.

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Autumn from the Top

(Continued from p. 71)

school year, it must have been a walk through autumnal beauty, part of what he harked back to in his 1928 “Vermont is a state I love” speech.

My own sentiments along those lines date back to days spent in Weston, my next Route 100 town. Rolling in on a long-ago winter evening at the start of a family ski trip, I found a room at a homey B&B called the Markham House. My parents became fast friends with the owners, and after college I rented an apartment they’d fixed up from a garage out back. Then as now, Weston’s two big institutions were the Weston Theater Company and The Vermont Country Store, and one of my sharpest memories from those days is of standing on the porch of the latter as its proprietor, Vrest Orton, told me stories about walking the midnight streets of New York City with H.P. Lovecraft. There we were, the urVermonter and me, the kid from Jersey, sharing an interest in one of America’s darkest authors while looking out over the autumn cheer of Weston’s village green.

On the last of my three days along 100, I traveled down through South Londonderry, across the West River, and through Jamaica and Wardsboro, along the eastern border of the Green Mountain National Forest. Aside from pockets kept seasonally lively by ski resorts Stratton and Mount Snow, this stretch along the national forest and the North Branch of the Deerfield River belies the notion that Vermont’s emptiest quarters are way up north. There are a couple of roads in Wardsboro that underscore the point: Both contain the name “Podunk.” In fairness to Wardsboro, though, I should note that there are a good half dozen other American places with the name. And none of them are, like Wardsboro, the birthplace of the sweet Gilfeather turnip, Vermont’s state vegetable. There’s a festival here in the Gilfeather’s honor each October, and I was sorry to be just a bit early to sample turnip soup.

A bowl of soup to take off the earlyautumn chill was certainly in order at Dot’s Restaurant, in Wilmington, which I reached in time for lunch. Dot’s is the quintessential village eatery, the kind of place where it seems anyone in town is likely to show up on any given day. On the wall behind the counter here are photos of happy people holding big fish, and I got the feeling that half the customers this afternoon knew who they were. The diner sits on the Deerfield River’s North Branch, which glimmers and flows below the bridge by the statue of Molly Stark. Molly Stark? This is where 100 crosses

her highway, Route 9, the Molly Stark Trail. Her husband, General John Stark, passed through here on his way to the Battle of Bennington, where he said he would beat the British “or Molly Stark sleeps a widow tonight.” He did; she didn’t.

South of Wilmington, I traveled a Route 100 that meanders so perversely that it even turns west for a while, as if it doesn’t want to leave Vermont. But it finally gave up and dropped into Massachusetts, along with that advance guard of color that had set out, ahead of the spectacular main event, from the border country three days past.

Morning mist on the water at Woodward Reservoir in Plymouth.

Dürer, German, 1471–1528, Joachim and the Angel from The Life of the Virgin detail, 1504, ink on paper. Albrecht Dürer: Master Prints is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.

ROUTE 100: THE ESSENTIALS STAY

AMERICAN FLATBREAD, Waitsﬁeld: The original home of a Vermont take on pizza that’s spread throughout New England. The tomato sauce is organic, and the sausage is from pork raised down the road. americanﬂatbread.com

CAJUN’S SNACK BAR , Lowell: Where else in northern Vermont can you get a New Orleans shrimp po’boy? Or fried alligator, crawﬁ sh, or a catﬁ sh wrap? Indoor and outdoor seating available. cajunssnackbar.com

DOT’S RESTAURANT, Wilmington: Fuel up for a day’s drive with fluff y, fruit-filled pancakes or a plump omelet, or turn up later in the day for comfort-food favorites and old-fashioned milkshakes. Facebook

LAWSON’S FINEST LIQUIDS , Waitsﬁeld: Expect pub grub that’s a cut above, with Vermont cheeses and salumi, bread from Red Hen Baking Co., and pickles made in-house. Wash it down with one of Lawson’s Finest’s celebrated craft beers. lawsonsﬁnest.com

THE MAD TACO, Waitsﬁeld: Tacos—pork, beef, chicken, meatless—are just part of the Mexican menu, which includes burritos, enchiladas, and fajitas. And even the cilantro is local. themadtaco.com

MAPLE SOUL , Rochester: Shrimp and grits, barbecue baby-back ribs, and handmade gnocchi star; some people come just for the grilled cornbread with honey. Just about everything is hyperlocal but the seafood— and even that comes from a Vermont purveyor. maplesoulvt.com

PLATE , Stowe: Small, stylish, and big on seasonal fare. A fall menu might oﬀer corn fritters with spiced honey, a salad made with local beets, and wood-smoked burgers. Vegan options, too. platestowe.com

PROHIBITION PIG, Waterbury: It’s all about the barbecue—ribs, brisket, chopped pork, sausage—served with hearty sides such as duck-fat fries. Also on oﬀer: craft brews aplenty, including Prohibition Pig’s own creations. prohibitionpig.com

SOULMATE BREWING, Morrisville: Having opened its doors in 2023, this locally owned enterprise wasted no time

ECHO LAKE INN , Ludlow: This 1840 inn stands across Route 100 from Echo Lake. Calvin Coolidge stayed here, long before whirlpool and menu choices like veal short-rib bourguignon. If warm fall weather holds, take a canoe out on the lake. echolakeinn.com

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN INN , Stowe: The place to stay in Stowe village for more than 130 years, the inn oﬀers accommodations in its National Register of Historic Places main structure and seven adjacent buildings. The Whip Bar & Grill features ﬁne dining and pub fare. greenmountaininn.com

HYDE AWAY INN , Waitsﬁeld: This inn that grew up with the local ski areas oﬀers homey accommodations with breakfast year-round. Dinner menus run to New American comfort food, and the tavern is one of the valley’s most convivial spots. hydeawayinn.com

LIBERTY HILL FARM & INN , Rochester: At Vermont’s ﬁrst certiﬁed “green agritourism

Soulmate Brewing, Morrisville

Maple Soul, Rochester

Dot’s Restaurant, Wilmington

Private Cottage Lake Champlain

ROUTE 100: THE ESSENTIALS

OLD STAGECOACH INN , Waterbury: This handsomely preserved 1826 property did, in fact, once offer lodging to a clientele arriving by stagecoach. Today’s travelers find antiques-filled rooms, a hearty buffet breakfast, and a handy downtown location. oldstagecoach.com

THE PITCHER INN , Warren: Tiny Warren Village hosts one of Vermont’s premier luxury inns. Each of the 11 rooms and suites features distinctive decor reflecting the state’s sporty lifestyle; many have

wood-burning fireplaces. Plus: five-star dining, a spectacular wine list, and a spa. pitcherinn.com

THE STABLE INN , Rochester: Set amid Rochester’s shops and eateries, with an art gallery practically next door, this beautifully revived 1840s property supplements its accommodations with common areas like a full kitchen and a breakfast prep room. bigtownvermont.com/stable-inn

THE WESTON , Weston: Weston’s sumptuous retreat occupies a historic village home

transported to pure luxe. There are eight rooms and suites, some with private patios. Dine at the French-accented Left Bank, where meals are prepared with produce from the inn’s farm. thewestonvt.com

PLAY

BEAR POND BOOKS, Stowe: A favorite among the state’s indie bookstores, Bear Pond features a terrific selection of guidebooks and Vermontiana along with bestsellers, general-interest titles, calendars, and stationery. stowebooks.com

BEN & JERRY’S FACTORY, Waterbury: Vermont’s ice cream kings have been churning it out here since 1985. Take a tour to see how more than 350,000 pints a day are made, then hit the Scoop Shop. benjerry.com

COLD HOLLOW CIDER MILL , Waterbury: Cider is made on-site, and a lot more: baked goods (including cider doughnuts), maple products, Vermont-made specialty foods, kitchenware, and souvenir clothing. There’s a café, too. coldhollow.com

PRESIDENT CALVIN COOLIDGE STATE HISTORIC SITE , Plymouth Notch: “Silent Cal” and his era are commemorated in the tiny village where he grew up. See where he was born, took the oath of office, and was buried with his forebears. historicsites.vermont.gov

TEMPEST BOOK SHOP, Waitsfield: Shelves bulge with enough new and used titles to warrant your building an extra browsing hour into the day’s itinerary. Be sure to rummage through the bargains on the tables flanking the entrance. tempestbookshop.org

THE VERMONT COUNTRY STORE , Weston:

The practical, the traditional, the hard-tofind—all have a home at the store that’s meant “Vermont” to generations of visitors and mail-order shoppers. From clothing to candy you forgot they still made, it’s here. vermontcountrystore.com

VERMONT SKI AND SNOWBOARD

, Stowe: Properly located in the town that put East Coast skiing on the map, the museum features a superb collection of vintage equipment and a ski and snowboard hall of fame. vtssm.com

WESTON PRIORY, Weston: For more than 70 years, a hilltop monastery on the fringe of Green Mountain National Forest has been home to a community of Benedictine monks. Visitors are welcome, and a shop sells crafts made by the residents. westonpriory.org

The Weston, Weston

The Flavor Graveyard, Ben & Jerry’s Factory, Waterbury

Vermont Ski & Snowboard Museum, Stowe

Window on an Island Soul

(Continued from p. 83)

whom he was named, was intimately involved in every aspect of Andrew’s artistic career. She immediately established herself in family lore as the 18-year-old raven-haired beauty who married 22-year-old Andrew and released him from the domineering grip of his father. For this, N.C. would never forgive his daughter-in-law. “He hated her,” Jamie says, “for taking the chosen one away,” a family tragedy that was sadly never resolved. But then in the next breath, Jamie expresses wonderment that his mother, Betsy, “ends up devoting many years of her life to N.C. Wyeth” by painstakingly collecting, editing, and footnoting his voluminous letters and then publishing them in 1971 as The Wyeths: The Letters of N.C. Wyeth, 1901–1945.

As much as Andrew adored— even hero-worshipped—his father, his “whole drive was not to use a lot of color, not to use flashy effects. He was fighting against that view of art,” Jamie says. He mentions a favorite family story about Andrew’s

early tempera Turkey Pond (1944). The painting features a lone man, back to the viewer, striding through a field of dried grasses painted in a palette of dark green-black shades, dry browns, and muted gray-blues. When Andrew showed it to his father, “N.C. said, ‘Put a gun in the man’s hand and have a dog bounding beside him. Put some clouds in the sky, for Christ’s sake.’” Although Jamie understands that his grandfather was naturally worried his favorite son might not survive as an artist with such austere painting style, ironically Turkey Pond was soon recognized as the precursor to Andrew’s most famous tempera, Christina’s World (1948). “N.C. Wyeth completely missed what his son was trying to do,” observes Jamie. “And this 18-year-old girl [Betsy] caught it and said, ‘Stick to it.’”

Betsy became Andrew’s frequent model, the mother of his two sons, and his business partner. Jamie marveled that his mother “was my father’s editor right up to the very end. I flippantly

said one day that Betsy Wyeth should have also signed his paintings, but now I really believe it. I mean, really, she was that much of an influence on him.” Looking at Andrew’s final tempera, Goodbye (2008), which shows a sloop trailing a slight wake, sailing away from a small harbor, Betsy told her husband: “Take the boat out of it.”

Jamie agrees with his mother’s assessment. “He should have,” he says.

After Jamie’s own wife, Phyllis, died, “people from museums came to me and said, ‘Can we do an exhibition of paintings you did of her?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t think I did that many.’ I thought maybe there were ten or something, but I had done hundreds.” He was shocked when he began sifting through the many studies and portraits of her, beginning with Portrait of Phyllis Mills (1967), which he painted several years after they had first met and followed with scores more over their five decades of marriage.

Even as a young teenager, Jamie says, he was obsessed with his future wife. She was beautiful; she came from Wilmington, Delaware’s du Pont clan; she was an accomplished equestrian;

works before she passed away in 2019.

Southern Light, 1994, by Jamie Wyeth. The painting depicts the artist’s wife, Phyllis Mills Wyeth, who became his muse virtually from the time they met and who would figure in many of his

and by the age of 20 she was working in the Kennedy White House, commuting to Washington from her home in Virginia. In 1962, Phyllis’s life changed irrevocably when she suffered a broken neck in a car accident, after which she had to rely on crutches or a wheelchair to move around.

“I first met Phyllis when I was 15 or something,” Jamie recalls. “I remember going to their house, where there was some dancing. I finally got up the courage and asked her to dance. That’s kind of where it started.” A bit later, Jamie went to a fancy horse race called the Maryland Hunt Cup hoping he might see her. He borrowed binoculars from somebody and spent the whole afternoon staring at her with his back to the track. “She had this elusive quality,” he recalls. “She always was a bit detached from what was going on around her. She was fascinating.”

Jamie goes on: “Phyllis hated ‘the du Pont thing.’ She couldn’t bear that, which I always felt was a loss for her, because they’re a remarkable family.

The interesting thing to me, reading about them, is that most of the women were the strong ones in that family. After the family came to this country, it was the women that really pushed the men. Phyllis was like that—she was a driven person. Her attitude was that you’ve got to leave a mark; you have to make a difference. It’s just beyond me how she came out of the same womb as her sister and brother— they had none of that.”

After her injury, Phyllis endured many operations to improve her mobility and alleviate chronic pain. As a younger person, “she was very athletic, skied like mad, jumping horses, racing horses and so forth. That gave her at least a knowledge of the motor skills she needed to use after the accident,” Jamie says. He remembers visiting Phyllis at a rehabilitation center in Chicago after one of her most serious operations. “They said, ‘There is no physical way she should be walking. How is she propelling herself? She physically does not have the ligaments

and the muscles to do it .’ But it was really through sheer determination that she got around. If she fell and somebody wanted to help her, she would say, ‘Please don’t touch me.’

“Phyllis was a huge inspiration to me,” he continues. “There was always something that was firing her up and then firing me up.”

Two of Jamie’s early celebrated portraits of Phyllis, Looking South (1977) and Parasol (1979), both depicting her sitting on the porch of the Kent house on Monhegan looking out at the endless expanse of the sea, are filled with a sense of deep longing. Most moving of all, though, is his painting of Phyllis in Southern Light (1994), which captures her in the doorway of the island’s bell tower with a far-off look of pride in her eyes and a roiling sea behind her. “That painting was precipitated by a terrible operation that she didn’t want to have and thought would be fatal,” Jamie recalls. “Her look was like, I can’t believe I survived this. I immediately stopped what I was working on and ended up doing lots of drawings. It only lasted for a few days, but it was the look of rebirth.”

During the past few decades, many of Jamie’s paintings seem to have gotten more dreamlike. Nightmares, we need not be reminded, are also dreams. Some of his darker dreamscapes have keyed into the ravenous appetites of gulls, the artist’s constant companions on both Southern Island and Monhegan. In a series of paintings created between 2005 and 2008, he depicted the atavistic behaviors of herring gulls as the seven deadly sins in works titled Anger, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Sloth , Greed , and Pride . The series began after he woke up from a night of feverish dreams. “There were all these papers scattered all over the bedroom floor with scratchings on them,” he says. “They looked like hieroglyphics, but then I realized they were gulls. And I had written the name of one of the deadly sins on one. That’s why I keep paper with me all the time in my bed. That dream was very real.”

Last year Jamie spent much of the fall and winter months on Monhegan,

which “to me is an amazing place,” he says. “It has a primeval quality, particularly on the cliffs where you’re urged to want to fly out. It is a feeling that upsets me.” His most recent painting, Leap, completed during the winter of 2025, followed a vivid dream triggered by a tragic event on the island. The painting is of a single figure, ambiguously androgynous, launching themselves into the air off the dark cliffs of Monhegan. Is the figure jumping toward death, or is this an ecstatic leap of freedom—a rebirth?

The leaping figure is reminiscent of one of Jamie’s early models, Orca Bates. Three decades ago, he painted at least four remarkable portraits of a teenaged Orca, who grew up with his family as the sole inhabitants on Manana Island, on the other side of Monhegan’s small harbor. Jamie used Orca as his model for a beautiful androgynous portrait, Orca Bates, 1990, in which the young man sits in profile, naked, in front of the jaw of an enormous whale. A dozen years earlier, in 1978, Jamie had painted Phyllis in front of that same enormous jaw, with giant shadows of its weathered bone lengthened in the reflected light. There will be those who see in Jamie’s most recent painting, Leap, the figures of both Orca Bates, strong and graceful, and a vibrant Phyllis Wyeth, reaching out to the infinitely receding horizon that rounds a circle back to its beginning.

As we finish our visit with Jamie, I am always reminded of how much of a pleasure it is to be in his company. He is intimate, mannered, discursive, and deeply learned. As we take our leave, we pass portraits of Phyllis and other paintings in a personal gallery off the back end of Inshore House that leads to an exquisite lap pool where Phyllis used to swim. There is such history and depth in all of these paintings, which serve as screened windows into the imagination of an increasingly enisled artist. Although Jamie does not need to explain his work to anyone, those of us onshore see the ghosts of his past close by, and know his dreams are more vivid than ever as his widening wake follows him back to his island.

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Life in the Kingdom

(Continued from p. 112)

that I am a sentimental old fool, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to own my son’s old truck. Which is to say: No, I did not need a truck—but I absolutely needed this truck.

It’s nearly 2,200 miles and 32 hours of driving from Montana to Vermont. At the moment of inspiration (“I’ll buy your old truck!” I’d blurted into the phone before I’d thought for even a second about those 32 hours, and what it would feel like to drive them in a 28-year-old pickup truck), this hadn’t seemed like an impediment, so much as an inducement. A road trip! In my son’s old truck! Just me and the highway, the miles unspooling behind me like a cast fishing line, discarded beef jerky wrappers and empty coffee cups amassing at the foot of the passenger seat. There was even a cap over the bed, a cozy nest in which to grab a few winks whenever my eyelids started sagging.

I arrived in Billings on a sweltering afternoon, the sun a shimmering inferno in that ceaseless sky. Rye picked me up in his new ride, a 2012 Ram that, like just about everything else in Montana, seemed almost cartoonishly large in the context of my New England sense of proportion. Watching him pull to the curb behind the wheel of this behemoth, I had one of those surreal, almost out-of-body parenting moments in which you see your child as a person wholly their own, with an entire life that you understand in only the broadest of strokes. Who was this young man? And how could he possibly have emerged from the boy I knew so well? It was at once unfathomable and yet undeniable, and there was no way to reconcile the truth of it. So, I tossed my bag into the bed, hopped in, and we sped away.

Rye had left his old (my new) truck in a nearby parking lot to await my arrival. The plan was to retrieve it and spend a couple of days camping, hiking, and eating immoderate slabs of fire-charred meat, after which I’d head east on my grand adventure. As hastily hatched schemes go, it was a reasonable enough

plan, and I was feeling rather pleased about having envisaged it.

This delightful, self-satisfied feeling—one might call it hubris— remained with me for an entire half mile from the pickup spot, when I happened to notice the temperature gauge approaching the red zone, an uneasy sight that was soon accompanied by the equally unsettling odor of coolant wafting through the cab. I hadn’t even embarked on my 2,200-mile trip and already things had gone sideways. A flurry of phone calls found a mechanic willing to replace my failed water pump on short notice, and three hours later I was back in business.

The remainder of the weekend passed as all time with my sons now passes: too quickly, and with a sense of foreboding that I can’t quite shake, always the awareness of the hours flying by as if, like a bag of potato chips, each contains so many fewer minutes than seems fair. And I think about the cruel irony of how when they were young, and I was so often exhausted by their

boundless energy and unending need, those exact same hours would often feel overstuffed, full to bursting with so many more minutes than advertised, and I’d sometimes will them to pass more quickly, if only so I could have a bit of time to myself.

As I set off for home, the sun rose higher and I rolled the windows down to let air wash through the cab. The bulk of the trip lay ahead of me, and though I knew there remained ample opportunity for things to go awry, I also somehow knew they wouldn’t. In two days’ time, I’d be crossing into Vermont, winding through corners and cresting hills so familiar to me I could probably navigate them with my eyes closed, the roadside maples swishing in the breeze, my mind addled by an elixir of fatigue, caffeine, and the sweet-musky scent of summer. I’d be missing my sons, yes, but also happy to be back in the state I know so well, with its manageably sized sky and familiar sense of proportions. Not merely a place I lived in, but a place that lived within me.

Due East

Sometimes the best part of an adventure is the chance to return home.

ILLUSTRATION BY TOM HAUGOMAT

Ihead west yet again, arriving at the Burlington airport at the unholy hour of 5 a.m. carrying a one-way ticket to Billings, Montana, and an overstuffed carry-on bag; both are essential to the completion of a hastily hatched scheme that, depending on your perspective, could be seen as adventurous. Or absurd.

It had all begun to coalesce just a week earlier, when my son Rye called to let me know he’d purchased a new-

to-him truck. I hadn’t known he needed a new truck, and perhaps it’s fair to say that, strictly speaking, he didn’t. But the boy works hard, makes his own money, asks for little, and furthermore spends his days branding cattle and making hay and building fences and generally doing all manner of trucklike things. So who was I to question? Besides, it meant that I had a unique opportunity to procure his old truck: a rust-free 1997 Dodge Ram with a

rare-as-hen’s-teeth five-speed manual transmission connected to Chrysler’s venerable 318 V-8 motor, which is almost as renowned for longevity as it is for intractable gutlessness.

Now, the discerning reader could be forgiven for asking the obvious question: Did I need a new truck? The honest answer is that, no, I did not. But it would be equally honest to acknowledge

(Continued on p. 111)