| | November
14, 2009 Today's Keene
Sentinel has a Veteran's Day article that follows up on the post-flood
reconstruction in Alstead. I've posted it below. I must say, the new bridge is
mighty handsome. Although the photo I posted below doesn't really give you a good view of it.
I think it's touching and right that the new bridge was named for and dedicated
to veterans from Alstead.
Alstead fetes veterans with new bridge
By Lauren Bergeron
Contributing Writer
Published: Saturday, November 14, 2009
ALSTEAD — Alstead marked a step forward 
after devastating floods and took a look back to remember its veterans as a
newly rebuilt bridge was dedicated Wednesday. The bridge at the intersection of
routes 12A and 123, completed this summer, was officially renamed the Alstead
Veterans Memorial Bridge on Wednesday.
Longtime Alstead resident and Army veteran Jim Fowle said the bridge project was
tied in with the Veterans’ Memorial that stands across the road. While a group
was working on the memorial a couple of years ago, members realized the bridge
never had a name, so Fowle, who served from 1967 to 1973 with the Air Cavalry in
Vietnam, and other area veterans petitioned the state to name it for veterans to
memorialize their service and sacrifices. Fowle, whose home is located near the
Cold River, recalled when the water was so high that it ran over the bridge
instead of under during the flood of 2005. He pointed to areas along the banks
where homes had once stood, but now there is only grass.
Against the backdrop of Veterans Day, veterans and town members alike gathered
to watch as Gov. John H. Lynch cut the ribbon and plaques were unveiled with the
bridge’s new name. Lynch commended the veterans for their sacrifices and the
town for coming back from the flood stronger than before.
“Four years ago, there was no bridge. It took them a long time to rebuild a
bridge of this quality,” Lynch said after the ceremony. “The veterans have
done so much.
 I commend the organizers: They could have named it after anyone,
but they chose their veterans.”
Tom Taylor, a Navy veteran who served from 1964 to 1970 in Vietnam, Laos,
Cambodia and Quonset Point, R.I., acted as the host for the day’s ceremonies.
“It was a grass-roots movement,” Taylor said of the drive to name the bridge
for veterans. “We had the enthusiastic support of the town and the
government.”
Patrick O’Brien, a Navy commander who served from June 1979 to January 2004,
including three deployments to the Middle East and two in the Western Pacific,
said the town’s decision pay tribute to its veterans is an honor. “This
bridge is dedicated to the men and women who served with honor, courage and
commitment. When people drive over it, it’ll serve as a reminder of the
freedom and liberties they fought for,” he said.
Alstead Selectman Joel C. McCarty said the town is proud of its veterans and is
delighted to be able to show its gratitude for their service in a tangible way.
“It’s a perfect confluence of cultural themes,” McCarty says. “The town
is putting itself back together, there are the wars overseas, and the town has
members so willing to serve. We’re here to celebrate that service.”
November
7, 2009 Today would be a good
day to finally fix Pookie's nose. But first I have about 50 vintage tablecloths
I want to get listed on ebay. I'll do that after I get home from the grocery
store while Jim rakes leaves and watches the Pats game. We took a breather
yesterday a drove west to take Baby Boy out for his birthday. It was nice to see
him and Alyssa.
I made rye bread last week and now I remember that rye flower tastes like
ladies' perfume to me.
 I
keep doing this... I don't make rye bread for years, then when I do make it it
reminds me that I don't like to eat perfume. Does anyone else have that problem?
I also don't eat tarragon because it tastes like putty. It must be connected to
my dysfunctional olefactory system, which my spouse assures me is off-kilter and
doesn't work half the time. I once came home to a house full of natural gas
(someone knocked the knob on the gas stove and it let gas into the house all day
while we were at work), and I thought it was skunk. Thank goodness I opened all
the doors and windows and didn't turn on the stove! Five hours later, Jim
arrived home and called the fire department, who brought the ladder truck over
to take a reading on the levels of gas (it had dissapated), but the fire chief
told me that on new gas stoves that can't happen anymore. So we now have a new
gas stove, but it can happen. And has happened.
And now some Robert Frost:
Nature's
first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
October
31, 2009 It's a blustery, fun
Halloween day out there today. Jim and I will be leaving a basket of candy on
the front step tonight for the kiddies while we get out of the house. Jim has
cabin fever.
I've scanned some Covey
family ephe mera that was thoughtfully shared with me by Glen & Judy. You
can  find
it all in Frank Covey's Things.
These are Frank's parents, here on the left and right of this blog entry. Meet
Abbie and Edson. Edson died in 1906 at age 67... so not only is this image more
than 100 years old, he is no older than 67 years in this picture. Abbie died in
1923 at age 80, but this phot would have been taken when she was no older than
63. Do you find that shocking? I do! Anyway, you can access the Frank Covey page from Frank's entry in Genetic Muster,
too, and from Photo Album. I forgot I had
these other pages, actually. I've entered that age in which things fall out the
back side of my brain, and if nobody tells me they're hanging there, I don't
miss 'em. It's a good thing I have a web blog so I have record of my travels,
else I'd forget it all. =)
Ni's
childhood teddy lost his olifactory feature a few weeks ago in a run-in with a
small dog. Alyssa handed Pookie to me one day... the Pookster's nose dangling in
the breeze. I searched the internet for a way to fix him. I could
send him to a teddy bear hospital for anything between $60 and $100, but that's
not going to happen, especially since it's highly probably that come  January 1st
Jim & I will be living off his unemployment check and my meager substitute teaching
checks.
After much research, I've finally decided what to do, so I starting looking for a new nose, but the
largest one I could find is smaller than Pook's old nose, so last week I
invested a few hours of one evening to chipping, cutting, soaking, steeping,
peeling, scraping, and removing the back off the old nose so that I could reuse
it. Holy cow, those Gund folks really know how to affix a button nose! (My efforts were
punctuated with Jim's admonitions, "You know you're going to cut yourself
doing that." I assured him any damage I did to myself could be easily fixed
with peroxide and adhesive tape, but in the end no such fix was needed.) So I'm
ready to complete the repair, but am as intimidated as all get out. Teddy-bear
repair web sites tell me I have to open up Pookie's head from the back, unstuff
it, reinsert the nose, then close up his back. I'm not going to do that. I'm
going to find some heavy burlap or something, attach the nose to it, and insert
in into the hole in Pookie's face which I'll then sew up tightly with several
applications of quilting thread. I may regret it, but it can easily be undone if
I make a mess.
I was thinking this morning that when I was a kid we'd all be down at Grandma
Lil's house on Halloween to watch her hand out 200 to 250 popcorn balls, which
we'd all helped her make the prior week. Sometimes she made extras to freeze for
Christmas. Her popcorn balls were spectacular. I hated picking the old maids
(unpopped kernels) out of the popped corn, but that's what made them so
fantastic. How ironic that I can't eat popcorn balls anymore, although this
morning I was thinking that it would be worth a large oozy rash just to taste
one of hers again. =)
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