Last night, a few tons of granite fell down a NH mountainside, injuring nobody, landing on more tons of granite that fell before it.
But this new heap of granite used to be special. It was NH’s landmark stone profile, our “Old Man of the Mountain.”
Daniel Webster made speeches about it. It was the subject of thousands of amateur sketches and watercolors before anybody invented the camera. Every NH kid was dutifully taken to admire the craggy stone face. After you looked at the face for a while, you looked at the upside-down version reflected in Profile Lake. Then you and your folks could all go drink local birch beer and hike in the Flume.
I grew up in NH, and though I don’t live there now I took my own two daughters to see the Old Man. Now I’m having a lonely feeling inside, thinking of generations stretching ahead who won’t see what I saw, what Daniel Webster saw.
I also grew up enjoying clean air and clean water, a strong Bill of Rights, and a sense of being part of one human family. There wasn’t a darn thing I could have done to save the Old Man, but I’m going to keep working to pass that other stuff along.
Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852) — also known as “Black Dan”; “Defender of the Constitution”; “Great Expounder of the Constitution”
3 responses so far ↓
1 marcum // May 4, 2003 at 12:44 pm
Betsy, we do not know each other and our politics are not harmonious, but we share common sentiments on the death of an old friend.
2 Betsy Devine // May 4, 2003 at 4:08 pm
Dear Marcum–If we both hope our kids will live in as fine a place as the New Hampshire we grew up in, then our goals are harmonious even if our ideas about how to reach them might be different. Thanks for setting up the NH ring of bloggers–what are you doing over in Arizona? Betsy
3 marcum // May 5, 2003 at 3:47 pm
You’ve identified a sociologically fundamental, abstract characteristic of our relationship. Despite our individual concerns and persuasions, our social relation is positive (in the Georg Simmel sense).