On November 6th, 1829 a man dressed in a white shirt and spinner pants stepped to the edge of a stone precipice ninety-four feet above the High Falls of the Genesee River in downtown Rochester, New York. Below him, some 8,000 spectators lined the banks. He bowed to the crowd…
Read moreSliding into first base is dumb. Diving head first into a thick, immovable bag at top speed can result in injury and is almost always unnecessary. In baseball a runner can run through first base without the risk of being tagged out by the simple method of turning right after…
Read moreFirst, let’s get the pronunciation out of the way. It’s the kank-ah-mah-gus. But most folks just call it “The Kank”. The word means “the fearless one” in the native tongue of the Penacook Tribal Confederacy and was the name of an Indian Sagamon who lived in the area in the…
Read moreThe painters noticed it first, the beauty of the place. To the Native-Americans it was mostly about the clams, how they littered the banks, the sandy shores strewn with their cast off shells, pried and discarded by the Wabanaki who came here to fish and hunt. In 1604 French explorer…
Read moreAmong the most highly regarded of American values is self-reliance. Take away an American’s paycheck, give him a gun and a stretch of land and he will embrace the opportunity to show you how it’s done. Living off the grid with just your wits and wisdom to guide you is…
Read moreIt was a war nobody wanted. Even rabblerousers like Sam Adams and John Hancock agreed that tangling with the mother country would probably to lead to grief. The preferred method was to pressure the crown into repealing the acts the colonists found so intolerable. The Intolerable Acts, as the colonists…
Read moreIt was idealism that motivated them, idealism and a self-righteous belief in their own rectitude. Prickly is a word that might have been used to describe them, as well as narrow minded and intolerant. They were not easy people to get along with. They left England because they feared persecution…
Read moreNantucket is under threat. Like a humpback whale pursued by a skillful harpooner, the charming 18th century seaport is under siege from the modern world at every turn. Even the ferries that carry 1,600 visitors a day to the island each summer have been a target. In June of 2021,…
Read moreIn 1995 the richest casino in the world was not located in Las Vegas or Atlantic City. It was located in Ledyard, CT. Foxwoods Resort Casino operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Indian tribe enjoyed gross earnings exceeding $1 billion, with net earnings in excess of $300 million. Because it was…
Read moreIn a country constituted of immigrants and the progeny of immigrants, immigration is surprisingly thorny issue in America. It is often said that Native Americans are the only real Americans. Everyone else is an immigrant. But even that’s not true. The ancestors of Native Americans arrived in North America 15,000…
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