INTRODUCTION

As I am about to (or just have) formally launch this blog, please allow me to introduce myself.

Originally a Flatlander from Massachusetts, I have lived in rural New Hampshire for 47 years, the last 41 of which in the town of Rumney (population 1,480 at the last census [just under 900 when I got here]). When Flatlanders come to the state, they are barely tolerated by the old-timers because they bring 'their ways' with them). "Spend your money and go home!" is the still-present cry of some. I have endured because I have tried to adapt to NH rather than the other way around. 

I am the third most interesting person in the world. The first is that guy in those  beer ads. You know, the guy who taught his dog to bark in three languages, the guy who has aliens asking him to probe them, and the guy who can play Mozart on the drums. The second most interesting is all of you! Everyone has a tale to tell. And then there's me.

My daughter taught me a new word/concept: sonder (noun) - sonder is the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

I am a retired high school Language Arts teacher and an occasionally published writer with pieces having appeared in A 6^th Bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul (turned into a segment on the Chicken Soup TV series), Yankee magazine, Grit magazine, and various New Hampshire newspapers and tourist publications. Besides my writing, I am also a Justice of the Peace and a former New Hampshire Bail Commissioner. I am currently ‘casually working’ (an oxymoron?) on several writing projects.

Questions? Ask away.

Welcome!