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Also a place where conversation happens – from Letters to the Editor and Op/Eds to The Soapbox, you’re welcome to tell us how you really feel.
For some reason, I mentally imagine myself—a metacognitive ballet that I perform in clogs—as 36 years old. In my imagination, I stopped aging when I was old enough to no longer appear awkward but still spritely enough to feel young. It was a good age, 36, and for all intents and purposes, I stopped aging then.
Such is the life of a cancer survivor. A roller coaster from which you never fully disembark. A David and Goliath rivalry many readers will endure in their lifetimes.
Three years ago I met Lexi Ramirez, who was among those people who were camped out at the Hillsborough Couty Courthouse because they had no place else to go. On Nov. 19 Gov. Sununu “solved” the problem when he paid Eric Spofford, formerly of Granite House, to take people away in vans and put them up at his place in Derry. Lexi and about 30 others were whisked away and told they could stay for three months.
I was checking out the weather forecast the other day and was thinking how just a few weeks ago it was hot and how now we are entering the cooler – and soon the downright cold – time of year (and as most of the readers know from experience…New Hampshire can get cold). This was further reinforced during discussions with some unsheltered folk in Victory Park. These things got me thinking about how we haven’t seen much progress in our city towards helping end homelessness. Those currently without shelter will likely be living outside when we are in the colder months.
A while ago, when I was still living in the Great North Woods in the Tiny White Box, I wrote about leadership, describing myself as a mystical clown. Every clown needs a circus, and every circus needs a bunch of gifted and dedicated people to keep the whole thing from crashing down. These are those people, the ones who make Hope Recovery work, saving lives and strengthening recovery.
To help educate and care for our community, King’s Cross Church will be hosting an info session led by Jasmine Grace Marino at Hope for NH Recovery Center located at 293 Wilson St. in Manchester on October 6, 2023, at 7 p.m.
The other day, I told you about my new friend, Donald. Now, the truth can be told: Donald is actually Craig, and has given permission to use his name.
Today, at no charge, I’m giving you the Unofficial Insider Idiot’s Guide for Dummies to this Saturday’s Hope Recovery Festival. You might think because this information is free it’s not worth much. You would be wrong. I guarantee you will learn more useful inside dope here than I ever did. If you don’t I’ll give you triple your money back!
On Saturday, Sept. 23, I attended the Billy Joel and Stevie Nicks concert at Gillette Stadium with my wife and four of my friends.
Here’s a mosaic of the music and experiences from a night where I had the pleasure of watching two septuagenarian musicians remind all of us in attendance what it means to really rock ‘n’ roll.
That, my friends, is what the first steps of peer recovery look like, a person in recovery getting to know a person who needs recovery and offering a helping hand. That, though, is only a first step. These excerpts from the texts I received from Donald after I left are the true first fruits of peer recovery.
Near the beginning of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, he introduces the catalyst for the book: the madeleine, a small sponge cake, the taste of which transforms him: “No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs… The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it.” Today, I had a Proustian moment, although not as carefree.
. No, I don’t hang out with discarded crucifixes, portraits of Protestant bigwigs from long ago or aged Torah scrolls. Instead, like the Christians in the catacombs, I gather with other fallen people who are trying to recover their lives. Luckily, these fellow sufferers are carriers of wisdom, always pithy and sometimes funny. Over the years, I’ve collected some of that wisdom, and would like to offer it now.
New Hampshire’s roads and bridges belong to all of us. They are built and maintained with public money. Boston Express receives public subsidies. When these public goods are not meeting our needs, we need to speak up and let the public officials who are in charge know.
I don’t mean it’s unlikely I’ve been working that long, for I suspect some of you see me as a great-grandfatherly figure, a doddering old fool who’s lucky not to have oatmeal on his chin and his address pinned to his windbreaker in case he wanders away. No, it’s the newspaper reporter business you may find unlikely.
For those who may not be familiar with the premise of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it is set sometime in the not-so-distant future, following a violent civil war in the United States fought over ideological differences. Birth rates have plummeted due to environmental indifference and increased rates of STDs, and the far-right religious fanatics—many of whom posture as Christians—have established their own country named Gilead.
One of my favoritest of favorite days, though, comes next Saturday. Hope for New Hampshire Recovery’s annual Recovery Festival is at Arms Park September 30 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Arms Park is a new and much, much larger space than Veterans Park, the festival’s previous site. Taking up space about two-thirds the size of a football field, the festival has grown from a trade show for businesses in the treatment-recovery industrial complex to become a genuine gathering of the recovery tribe.
You can see Sandeep Das perform Sept. 23 with Symphony NH at Nashua’s Keefe Auditorium.
The world is filled with folks who are very smart, but who accomplish little, people who are very strong, yet move little, and humans who are very charismatic, but change little. I honestly believe, and believe it with every fiber of my being, that attitude accomplishes more than ability.
As I was writing the above, sitting at a table at the front of Hope, the place where members congregate for cards or chess or conversation, a woman I’ll call Carol sat down next to me. I greeted her with some sort of jackassery, and Carol looked into my face, hers slowly melting. On the verge of tears, she told me she hurt. Clearly, this wasn’t a headache or an ingrown toenail. I asked her if she wanted to walk down to my office so we could talk in private. She nodded.
