June - 2017

Granite State of Mind, #131: Searles Castle, Windham

Joe Pace

Jun 28, 2017

Granite State of Mind, #131: Searles Castle, Windham

Not all memories are old memories, not all nostalgia papered over by the passage of years. Just over a month ago, during our last trip home to New Hampshire, we we fortunate enough to be able to attend the wedding of our nephew, my first godson Albert to his fantastic wife Marissa. They're not your usual kids - heck, her bridal procession was the Deep Space Nine theme, and the ceremony was presided over by my father, the original Albert Pace. So, naturally, they got married a

Granite State of Mind, #130: McConnell Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham

Joe Pace

Jun 27, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #130: McConnell Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham

Some of the places on this list are remarkable for their natural beauty, for their historic relevance, or their cultural importance. This entry doesn't meet any of those criteria. It's really just a nondescript institutional concrete academic building. And really, it's just a nondescript institutional classroom inside the building. And yet, it's one of my favorite scraps of real estate in New Hampshire, one of the most formative in my life, and one of the places I will always

Granite State of Mind, #129: Benson's Animal Farm, Hudson

Joe Pace

Jun 26, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #129: Benson's Animal Farm, Hudson

New Hampshire kids of a certain vintage will recall the trek out to Benson's Animal Farm with equal parts nostalgic pleasure and a vague sense of disquiet. All the fun of ice cream and rides alongside the contagious depression of caged animals. (An aside - Hudson is one of those towns, like Salem or Derry, that feel light years away from the Seacoast, more Massachusetts than New Hampshire. North Conway feels closer than that 93-3 triangle.) It was 1926 when owner John Benson

Granite State of Mind, #128: Great Bay Discovery Center, Greenland

Joe Pace

Jun 25, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #128: Great Bay Discovery Center, Greenland

One of New Hampshire's true treasures is Great Bay, a estuarine ecosystem fed by five river systems (Winnicut, Squamscott, Lamprey, Oyster, and Bellamy) as well as the tidal flows of the mighty Piscataqua. The Bay has long been a jewel of the seacoast, and we're lucky to still have it. A couple of years before I was born, Greek billionaire (and Jackie Kennedy's second husband) Aristotle Onassis wanted to destroy the Bay with oil platforms, and was only stopped by the inspired

Granite State of Mind, #127: Exeter Handkerchief Factory, Exeter

Joe Pace

Jun 24, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #127: Exeter Handkerchief Factory, Exeter

I love that in junior high school in Exeter we were essentially assigned to visit the local fabric store as part of our home economics sewing curriculum. It was in the syllabus - "you can find everything you need at the Exeter Handkerchief Factory". And it was no lie - that place had everything in their sprawling, 20,000-square foot complex nestled between Garfield Court and Linda Street. I was even able to find a purple-and-green fish pattern I used for making a pair of knee

Granite State of Mind, #126: The Asia Restaurant, Dover

Joe Pace

Jun 22, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #126: The Asia Restaurant, Dover

The city of Dover has been enjoying a bit of a renaissance in public regard in the past few years. I've always thought of it as the transitional space between Durham and Rochester, an aging mill city with a quasi-urban feel and working-class liberal sentiments, a place my French-Canadian grandmother and the Lebanese family her mother married into felt right at home. I lived there briefly after coming home from Texas in 1997, in a snug Cricket Brook apartment with future forme

Granite State of Mind, #125: Stratham Fair, Stratham

Joe Pace

Jun 21, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #125: Stratham Fair, Stratham

This July will mark the 50th annual Stratham Fair. That's sobering, because when I was a kid I remember that number being in the teens. The Fair started in 1966, a celebration of the town's 250th anniversary, and since then volunteers (including for many years the volunteer fire department) have stewarded one of the oldest country fairs in the region. More than 20,000 people attend each year for the lobster bake, tractor pulls, and carnival rides. It's become less of a commun

Granite State of Mind, #124: Hampton Beach, Hampton

Joe Pace

Jun 20, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #124: Hampton Beach, Hampton

As the longest day of the year and the official advent of summer is upon us, it seemed an appropriate day to highlight one of New Hampshire's most popular, most touristy, and most enduring hot-weather spots. Hampton Beach is over a century old as a destination for sun-worshipers, and is the only place of its kind in the state. The Seabrook waterfront to the south is home to private cottages and working boats, while Rye to the north has some delightful, more secluded sandy poi

Granite State of Mind, #123: Great Bay Athletic Club, Newmarket

Joe Pace

Jun 15, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #123: Great Bay Athletic Club, Newmarket

I've never been a fitness club guy (and I think the results speak for themselves). I spent my time at the then-new Hamel Rec Center at UNH, and I've dallied with gyms from Waco, TX to Tacoma, WA. It's really just not my scene. I'll sweat with a group if we're playing hoops or running for absurdly long distances, but when lifting my pitifully small weights I prefer solitude. In any event, my relationship with the GBAC has been a long one, and only at times has it included exer

Joe Pace

Jun 14, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #122: Manchester

The Pennacooks called it Namaoskeag. Veterans of Queen Anne's War settling there in 1727 under a Massachusetts charter called it Tyngstown. When it joined New Hampshire in 1741, Governor Wentworth called it Derryfield. It was Samuel Blodget, the merchant who saw the area's industrial potential, who named it Manchester in 1810 (envisioning a modern economic colossus like the city of the same name in England). Would-be wits these days call it ManchVegas. It's the largest city i

Granite State of Mind, #121: Epicurean Restaurant, Exeter

Joe Pace

Jun 12, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #121: Epicurean Restaurant, Exeter

No, I don't have a story about the Walgreens at the corner of Portsmouth Ave and Green Hill Road. This is about what used to be there in the 80s and 90s, the Epicurean restaurant. It was a big yellow building, and inside was a moderately classy joint, at least in memory. Why does it make this list? Three reasons: 1) It was owned by a former Boston Bruin, Gary Doak, a fact that brought major cool points to a sleepy little town like Exeter. 2) I remember bringing Brandy there f

Granite State of Mind, #120: The Music Hall, Portsmouth

Joe Pace

Jun 9, 2017

Granite State of Mind

Granite State of Mind, #120: The Music Hall, Portsmouth

I don't claim nearly the intimacy or familiarity with the port city's crown cultural jewel that many could more creditably boast. But I do have fond memories of the old place, most of which revolve around the herculean undertaking that was the annual Nutcracker show put on annually there for years by Ballet New England. In 1998, as Executive Director of BNE, I was essentially the producer of the show (shows, actually - nearly a dozen of them counting the afternoon school perf

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