Editor of the Year

For all the witty headlines.

For all the patient plucking of misplaced punctuation.

For all the late nights waiting for deadline meeting stories.

And for all the mental gymnastics spent twisting and contorting over why a career as an editor seemed like a good idea at some point in time.

Click here for examples of Dana's editing work, ad nauseum

Dana Wormald has been named this year's 

EDITOR OF THE YEAR

overwhelmingly and unanimously by your minions*.

And Click Here to see how deep it goes.

 When he's not cutting, pasting and perfecting, he's thinking out loud. 

*The Minions:

She was guardian to a 'hero'

Henry and Me, strolling through the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C.

I met Henry Stad on a retrofitted school bus bound for Boston Logan International Airport. 

It was 5 a.m., and before I even sat down next to him, Henry offered me fair warning."My wife says I talk too much," said Henry, who, at 91, had a lifetime of stories to keep me entertained for the next 15 hours. Our journey together -- from the Bedford VA Medical Center in Bedford, Mass., to Washington, D.C., and back -- was courtesy of Honor Flight New England, which for the past 18 months has been flying World War II veterans round-trip to the nation's capital to see their memorial, part of a national network that launched five years ago.

Although I'd been on previous Honor Flights, including New England's inaugural flight, this was the first time I went without the usual trappings of a news reporter -- leaving my camera and notebook behind meant my professional objectivity was suspended. 

Henry Stad

I was there to serve as Henry's "Guardian" -- a pivotal part of the program that matches veterans with someone who will be "no farther than an elbow away," making sure they are safe and having the time of their lives.

That would be a tall order, considering the life Henry Stad had experienced so far.He was drafted into the Army Air Corps at 22 and served in the European/African/Middle Eastern Theater. I expected his arsenal of war stories would include tales of great heroism and tragic loss. 

What I quickly learned about Henry was that the circumstances of war itself did not faze him. Rather, it was his own brush with death after contracting malaria that changed the way Henry would live the rest of his days.

"My parents died when I was just a kid, both of them one after the other," said Henry. "So I always figured my days were numbered anyway. When I got sick in Africa, they didn't know what to do with me, so they shipped me back home. I had lost so much weight nobody knew how to cure me. They said I was a goner, and they pretty much left me to die."

But Henry's wiry body wasn't quitting. For no good reason, he recovered from whatever strain of exotic disease he'd contracted. He'd come close enough to death to appreciate life, and so once he was discharged, his only mission was living life to the fullest.

"I was fond of gambling," said Henry, who explained that he spent the next several years in as many tropical and exotic places as possible, chauffeuring high rollers and rubbing elbows with some of the most colorful characters imaginable during the 1940s and '50s.

"I didn't think about getting married or starting a family because I really didn't think I was going to live much longer, given my parents' short lives and the toll being sick had taken on my body," said Stad.But life went on ... and on. Henry finally came to terms with the fact that maybe life wasn't so temporary or fragile.

 That's when he met Maria, a woman who had, like Henry, given up much of her childhood to care for siblings after her parents died young. She is 10 years Henry's junior, but they are a perfect match. They have been married 52 years, and Henry says thanks to his later start in life, he still has grandkids small enough to sit on his lap.Age has left him with little padding around his knee joints, so Henry used a cane to stroll around Washington. 

True to my oath as his Guardian, I linked arms with him and we strolled together, usually bringing up the rear during walking tours, Henry spinning tales about his worldly adventures, and me soaking it all in.I can't give you the details -- Henry's also a fast talker -- and I didn't have a pen handy. But when I asked him what the highlight of his trip was, he skipped over standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial and counting the gold stars on the Freedom wall that represented the war dead -- including his own brother, a bomber pilot who was killed in action.

"All the fanfare, all the special treatment. To have people asking me if they could take a picture of me with their children. That's never happened to me before. I felt like a hero, and I had tears in my eyes," said Henry.

I guess the thing about being a Guardian is that, despite your best efforts to be the caregiver, you are susceptible to being schooled. I will never forget what I learned about life from Henry on our journey together:

War is hell, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If you're lucky, you'll learn early on that life is a crapshoot: Surviving isn't enough; you gotta play to win. Gambling a little along the way might pay off, so take a few chances. And when you least expect it, you'll find what you didn't even know you were looking for, as long as you've been following your heart. Be open to love. Marry well. Tell your story to anyone who will listen.

About Honor Flight New England: 

Launched in June 2009 by retired Manchester Police Officer Joe Byron of Hooksett and sustained by a core group of volunteers, Honor Flight has made 13 flights taking 365 veterans -- otherwise too old or infirm to go it alone -- to Washington to see the memorial completed in 2004 in their honor. Passengers have included a dozen sets of brothers, 18 POWs, a vet who was blinded while serving and a double-leg amputee.

Flights will resume in April. In the meantime, Byron is focused on fundraising, the only way the program survives. He is hoping to find a corporate sponsor.His sense of urgency in making sure the program continues is grounded in the fact that WWII veterans are dying at a rate of about 1,000 per day."Unfortunately, we have to take the winter off, due to the weather, and face the fact that in that time we'll lose some of our veterans who are on the waiting list, so it's kind of sad," Byron said. "But it's an incredible thing. I just had a call from a son whose father just returned from our last flight. He told me that his father cried himself to sleep, he was just so happy to know that everyone cared for him so much."

For more information, go to honorflightnewengland.org.

Honor Flight vets part of 'Pacific;' splash in D.C.

Story and Photos
By CAROL ROBIDOUX
New Hampshire Sunday News

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Tonight's premiere of HBO's 10-episode miniseries "The Pacific" is the latest cinematic offering by executive producers Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, a third take on the bloody battles of World War II and companion film to their previous collaborations, "Saving Private Ryan," and "Band of Brothers."
On Thursday, when Spielberg and Hanks addressed 250 veterans from around the country at the memorial constructed in the vets' honor, 35 New England veterans were there, including five from New Hampshire. It was a journey made possible thanks to HBO's urge to make a meaningful splash, and to Honor Flight Network, a remarkable national effort that has flown more than 40,000 WWII vets to Washington in the past five years, for a proper thank you.
Joe Byron of Hooksett, founder of the Honor Flight New England chapter, and his volunteer board had only about a month to organize the two-day trip, which was all expenses paid by HBO.
Byron's now seen to it that 142 local veterans have made it to see the World War II Memorial. With a waiting list of well over 300, Byron is doing his best to schedule 10 flights this year. He has enough in the donation till for about two flights, even though there are already five on the calendar.
He hopes the national exposure this week will increase awareness of the urgent need for donations, as veterans from that era are dying at a rate of 1,100 each day.
James Goins of Portsmouth was thrilled to get the call about the trip. He survived the war and went on to retire from the military in 1971. Surviving cancer is his current mission. He spent much of the trip taking it easy, suffering from fatigue and upset stomach. One of the younger veterans on the trip, Goins was 15 when he volunteered for service in 1943, slipping through a huge military crack that, in wartime, was enlisting most any able-bodied male who could vouch for himself.
"I had an older brother already in the Army, and I just wanted to be there, too," said Goins. "I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. I just knew I wanted to be part of it."
Whereas most Honor Flight trips are whirlwind one-day affairs, corporate sponsorship allowed for bells, whistles and fanfare this time around.
At Boston's Logan Airport, New England veterans were whisked through security to a double line of American flags leading to a room jammed with family, friends and strangers, all waving flags and cheering. The U.S. Air Force Band of Liberty, from Hanscom Air Force Base, played on as cake was served and tears flowed.
Paul Lindstrom of Hampton was there to see off his dad, Ed Lindstrom, whose personal story is as compelling as any character Spielberg or Hanks could conjure.
"My mother was engaged to his best buddy, and he had to break the news to her, that (the buddy) was killed when their ship was sunk. That's how they got together," said Paul Lindstrom. It was a marriage that lasted 62 years. "There's a reason for everything," Lindstrom said.
The group flew into LaGuardia Airport, picking up an Honor Flight group based in New York, then on to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, where the call had gone out to all active-duty military and the public in general to come and welcome the fleet of chartered Honor Flights arriving all day.
Robert Curtis of Bar Harbor, Maine, walked slowly under the archway of yellow balloons that led to a path lined with supporters that snaked through the terminal as far as the eye could see, all the way to the tour bus waiting to take the vets to the Crystal City Marriott in Arlington, Va.
He tried to take it all in.
"I've been to a lot of conventions, seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like this. It overwhelms me. Really brings a tear to my eye," he said, shaking endless hands attached to strangers, each one leaning in close to thank him, personally, for his service.
"You spend a lot of years thinking about those days, and then you get to an age where you start to wonder if it mattered all that much. We never knew how much we did, until now; now we know. This is once in a lifetime, for me. It has restored my sense of how great this country really is," said Curtis.
The climax of the trip came at the memorial, where Spielberg and Hanks spoke about the why of their movie-making efforts. For Spielberg, it's personal. His father, 93-year-old Arnold Spielberg, is a WWII veteran.
"With each passing generation, more and more people are forgetting about World War II," Spielberg said. "This is why I made 'Saving Private Ryan.' This is why Tom Hanks and I made 'Band of Brothers' and 'The Pacific,' because all of you are the greatest stories ever told, and we are honored to be able to tell these stories to our kids, to your grandkids, your great-grandkids and the world at large. We celebrate, we commemorate, we memorialize your stories so the world you saved will never, never forget you."

For more about Honor Flight, visit honorflightnewengland.org; write Honor Flight, P.O. Box 16287, Hooksett, NH 03106; or call 518-5368.

What's your New Year's Solution?

Mummers kickin' it Philly New Year style.

The thing about New Year’s day is, unless you are heading to Philadelphia for the annual Mummer’s Parade, there isn’t much left to do, what with Hanukkah and Christmas under your belt — and around your hips, thighs and abdomen. Nothing much to do except update your New Year’s resolution list.
So there you sit with your hand in a bowl of leftover onion dip, thinking about your life. And once you start dwelling, there’s no end to the remorse you feel over all the obvious bad things you do.

Time to make some new friends?

You secretly smoke. You eat chunks of real butter. You curse at the dog. Regular exercise means brushing in a circular motion twice a day after meals. Your best friend lives in a bottle and his name is Bud Weiser.
And now, just because the clock has struck midnight for the 366th consecutive day, you decide you’ve had it with your unhealthy lifestyle. Again.
Well, before you crush your last pack of Marlboro’s or pay the MasterCard bill for that Wii Fit you charged in a moment of desperation, I have to tell you something very important: DON’T DO IT!
That’s right. This year, I’m urging the public at large not to make a bunch of noble resolutions they will fail to keep.
First of all, take a look at the word “resolution.” Break it down, as your high school algebra teacher would say.
Re-solution. Sounds to me like solving a lifetime of mistakes again and again, year after year.
And the reason that we make New Year’s resolutions each and every year?
Class?
Anyone?
Do I see a hand in the back of the room? Yes, you there, with the light bulb over your head.
That’s right. We haven’t been using the correct dictionary.
So now that we’ve broken it down, let’s look it up. I’m using Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary:
“Resolution: noun; 1. the act or process of reducing to simpler form, as the act of analyzing a complex notion into simpler ones.”
Ah HA! It seems we’ve been approaching this New Year’s resolution thing all wrong by asking, “What bad unhealthy habits can I break this year?”
The obvious answer is: none of them. If making resolutions every year worked, we’d all be living a clean, sober, bad-habit-free life. We’d all be rich, due to our bountiful savings accounts. We’d have rippling abs, low cholesterol, and be working part-time as a volunteer at the local homeless shelter.
If only we’d looked it up sooner in Webster’s Ninth, we’d have known that to have a happier new year, all we have to do is reduce our lives to a simpler form.
Consider the stressors that lead us to overeating, overdrinking, oversmoking, overworking, oversleeping, underexercising and generally underachieving, especially when there’s something good on HBO. It’s really not the basics of life that lead to our frustrations — working or parenting or being married or being single. It’s the complications that get us.
We smoke because we think it calms our nerves. And our nerves are shot because we haven’t figured out how to simplify our lives. We drink too much because the buzz feels better than the burn we endure after working out. We settle in and watch others' lives pass before our eyes on the latest reality TV series because, frankly, we’re too tired to have a live of our own. After clocking out, stoking the home fires, and scrambling after the loose ends du jour, we're lucky to make it up to bed before falling asleep on the couch.
We eat too much because it’s the only productive thing we can do when life feels overwhelming. We don’t need better eating habits. We’re all familiar with how to right our toppled food pyramids. We just need to be underwhelmed.
Workaholics know, deep down, that the only thing really gained by overworking are more reasons to overwork, leaving less time to enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard to achieve.
And often, we oversleep when we’ve spent half the night staring at the ceiling, counting our worries like sheep. So enough with the worries already.
I’ve come to the conclusion that this year should be the last year anyone will have to labor over which resolutions to make, keep and break. I urge you to start this New Year by getting your hand out of that bowl of onion dip in a hurry. It’s time to find your New Year’s Solution.
If it’s a kinder, gentler, simpler life you need, then figure out what you can do to simplify your life this year.
I should start by cleaning out all the closets in my house. Then, I’d have a place to put all the stuff that piles up everywhere which makes me feel overwhelmed by how messy things are in my world. That’s not just a metaphor. But I know that endless clutter isn’t the underlying reason for my other bad habits.
By definition, all I have to do is make it simple, once and for all.
So, here’s my five-step solution to reduce stress and guilt in 2010, which should do it, once and for all:
1. Prioritize my daily to-do list, making sure I never again lose sight of who and what is most important to me.
2. Hug the ones I love every chance I get.
3. Be honest. About everything. Especially to myself.
4. When things feel overwhelming, take a deep breath and say out loud: “In the scheme of things, this is not a big deal. I can handle anything.” Then, go and handle it.
5. Lay off the onion dip.
Now it's your turn; what's YOUR New Year's Solution?

(Last) Flight of the Bumble Bee

All summer I have watched as small piles of sawdust accumulated just beyond my backdoor. I didn't know there were carpenter bumblebees, until I got up close and personal with their handiwork: perfectly bored caverns in the wood railing outside my door, where future hordes of carpenter bees are bred.
Not the greatest discovery for a housewife who has longed for a carpenter husband from time to time. Not that I'm complaining. But he has his hands full without having to patch up bee-sized holes in the woodwork.
Which is why I was surprised at the compassion I felt for the disoriented carpenter bee when I almost stepped on him, his wings moving in a flightless frenzy as he slowly crawled across my back porch.
I think he was trying to scare me, but it was futile. Oh dying carpenter bee, where is thy sting?
His dance of death coincided with the first day of autumn, and it made me feel kind of sad. Not that I will miss the miniature dunes of dust and resulting holes that, no doubt, will remain as a monument long after he is gone.
No, I think it has something to do with the wonder of nature and the symbiotic pull of such a small critter. Without my wood porch, he would perish. Without his daily presence, I would have missed another one of those moments, in which the big world stops spinning long enough for me to get my bearings and actually see something otherwise indiscernible.
Get close enough to a carpenter bee and you will fight the urge to pet him, once you are lost in the fine detail of his furry yellow thorax. Study his fat body and impossible filigree wings long enough and you will wonder how this specimen gets off the ground. Scientists have concluded there is no mechanical truth, no aerodynamic reason, for their success. It is a matter of brute force; sheer will to fly. Theirs is a busy existence involving digging holes, breeding a sophisticated society of drones and queens, pollinating plants and making it possible for humans to harvest fruit and vegetables across the globe, to ensure our "5 a day."
We have learned, with colony collapse in honey bees, that there are no small players in the food chain that binds our mutual existence.
So it was, watching my carpenter bee in a death spiral outside my door, that I felt obliged to linger as he tumbled around, wings gasping for air, abdomen glistening in the autumn sun, his will to bore, to fly, to pollinate, to procreate -- to live -- exhausting all at once in a brilliant, valiant moment of truth for both of us.

Three-minute Fiction

Hovering is for the Birds*
A short story
By Carol Robidoux

Ramona+ hovered daily over the nest hidden in the rhododendrons. In her heart it was no coincidence that the sky-blue eggs arrived on Mother's Day. Robins nested there before, next to the gladiola stalks and papery daffodil rot. Two days later three of the four eggs hatched, and she started snapping photographs.

She did a cursory search for the fourth egg but never found it.

Every time Ramona curled back the sturdy green leaves and burgeoning fuscia buds to snap a one-handed portrait of the feathering chicks, the mother bird's frantic screams echoed from a telephone wire as she hopped from ground to perch and back.

“It's OK,” Ramona told the puffed-up bird. “I won't hurt your babies.”

Ramona Googled “robins” and found that her adoptive brood would fledge in 14 days. Incredible, she thought. From invisible life form encased in porcelain shell to fully feathered red-breasted predator of worms in two short weeks.

Daily photographs were posted online. Ramona's social network liked the photos, and thanked her for sharing. Someone commented on the construction of the nest – perfectly formed cradle of sticks, leaves and bird fluff.

Such brushes with nature always stirred Ramona's humanity. Her thoughts spiraled deep into the substance of life, how every little facet of every little ecosystem is equipped to handle itself. Birds somehow know what to do to keep their species going. Without a network of friends and family or an information highway, they figure out nesting and hatching and feeding and protecting.

By day seven the babies were ruffled, their diamond-shaped beaks stuck in overdrive, expecting worms instead of zoom lens hum whenever Ramona visited.

Still at an impasse with mother bird, Ramona tried sitting on the porch steps, hoping mama robin would trust enough to nest while she was present. It never happened.

“I wonder why she doesn't do more to protect them if I'm such a threat?” Ramona thought, switching mental gears long enough to consider her own human brood of four.

In a few more years, her youngest would be off to college. Ramona figured bird years to be condensed dog years. In two weeks the robin was accomplishing what Ramona had spent more than two decades doing.

“You're obsessed with those birds,” her oldest son said in passing one day. Fully grown, he was between adventures, staying on for only a few more weeks before flying to Tokyo to take a teaching job.

“I'm not obsessed,” Ramona said, defending her right to be fascinated by a nest full of birds. “It's just that I know they're only here for a short time, then I can't hover anymore.”

Obsessed.

Her objection to the word her son had used to describe her maternal instinct didn't override the fact that he was right. Whether measured in bird years, dog years, or humanity, the part of motherhood that requires vigilance ends almost before it begins. After training yourself to nest, hatch, nourish and nurture, all the while deflecting danger, eventually they fly.
Day 11 her younger teenaged son arrived home from school. “Your birds are gone, huh?”

Ramona rushed to the rhododendrons. One forgotten, perfect blue egg inside a masterful cradle. On her knees she probed the weeds for signs of life.

They should have been there, testing their wings.

As she turned back toward the house, she heard an unnatural shriek, overshadowed by a shrill caw, caw, caw. Ramona's heart raced. In the time it took to turn around, her eye glimpsed a crow in flight, a limp bundle of blue-gray feathers in its talons.

She searched the wires for mother bird.

Ramona gasped in vain, knowing that her vigilance had served the crow well.

+ ramona: spanish in origin, means "Wise Protector"
*Inspired by the birds in my rhododendron bush.  Fiction prompted by NPR's "3-minute Fiction" spot.  Many will enter, few will win...

When it comes to lemonade stands, the glass is always half full

I was driving pretty fast on Mammoth Road. It had been a long afternoon of working my beat in Derry and I needed a bathroom, not a drink. But something about the kid with the crazy glasses made me turn the van around. Actually, it was more the sign in his hands: "Lemonade. 22 Ashley Drive." I saw him leaning it against a fence. He looked like he was being stealthy. He was gone by the time I made the U-turn.
Honestly, if I hadn't seen him with the sign, I would have missed the sign completely. It was barely readable at 50 mph.
I followed my heart and my inability to pass up a lemonade stand to a small side street where I found a mob of kids swarming a makeshift storefront -- a couple of girls with paper bunny ears hopping about, but mostly boys-- all kinds of boys. They were pumped.
"Wanna buy some lemonade?" One of them said, sticking his face right into my open passenger side window.
I was ready to pay top dollar, or at least, a dollar, for a small cup of ambition.
"How much is your lemonade?" I asked.
"Sixty-five cents," said the kid, who seemed like maybe he was just picking an arbitrary number.
Then another kid came up and asked if I wanted a small or a large. I asked if there was a difference in price. He hesitated.
Too late, my large cup of fresh-squeezed entrepreneurial spirit was coming toward me.

Frank.

My dollar didn't seem so generous at these inflationary prices, and what with all these salesmen.
I fumbled for another dollar. That's when Bunny Ears hit me up for more.
"You didn't buy any candy. Do you want some candy?" she said, like a spritely Frank to my not-so-Donnie Darko. "Aren't these cute?" she said, wiggling one of the gray-stuffed critters she and her friend were traveling with up near my face.
"What'cha got?" I said, grabbing my change purse through the open van window as I followed Bunny Ears toward the stand, as if I had no power to resist.
They pointed to a Ziploc bag full of random, somewhat melty-looking candy. I saw a candy necklace, some Snicker's minis, and a few tiny Twix bars.
"Twix," I said firmly. "How much?"
"That's 50 cents," said the tallest kid who looked like he was changing the numbers on the sign, from 45 to 50, at that exact moment.
I dumped all the change from my change purse and handed it off to another kid. I estimated it to be about another $1.67. He needed two hands to hold it.
"Do you think this is enough?" he asked the kid with the erasable markers.
"Yeah," said the number cruncher, scribbling "tips accepted" at the bottom of the sign board.
"Woo Hoo," yelled another. "Our first customer! We're rich! I'm gonna go get a money box." And he was gone.
During the transaction, I noticed a dad step outside of 22 Ashley to make sure the stranger his kids were giving candy to didn't seem like too much of a creep.
I smiled at the dad and drove off after snapping a photo of this industrious gang of nine.
Maybe it was too much to pay for 2 ounces of lemonade in a 20-ounce cup and a bite-size Twix, but I never get over the thrill of reinforcing the notion to a bunch of kids that there is great power in stepping outside yourself, offering something to the world and waiting to see if it matters.
Because it matters.

Being the hawk

Nothing is random, at least as far as I can tell. Like the time I saw what looked like confetti floating through the air as I made my way through the Hannaford parking lot. As I followed the trail of white fluff back to its origin, I spotted a hawk plucking a seagull it had just swooped in on. I got as close as I could and then automatically reached for my camera. Something about the moment resonated. The hawk only let me watch for a short time before dragging the seagull to relative safety (see video below), stopping at the corner of the parking lot to finish what he'd started. What stirred in me at first as pity for the poor seagull quickly turned to admiration for the hawk, for doing what he had to do to survive -- even in a crowded supermarket parking lot, without the usual privacy of brush or woods to devour his prey. It was as unnatural as it was natural.
The next day I was heading to the bank, in the same shopping center. As I turned the corner I could see the remains of the seagull scattered across the mulch-covered dirt divider. I instinctively pulled off the road and parked the van, getting out for a closer look. As I examined the errant wing, the disembodied head, the inedible remnants of the sea bird, I realized that some days you are the hawk, and some days you are the seagull, as natural as it is unnatural, as random as it is necessary to survival.

New Shoes

After a quick visit to the Employment Office today, which in my head has always been the Unemployment Office, I headed over to the new Goodwill Store.
Employment and goodwill are important concepts, even just psychologically speaking, when you have no job and no idea where your next paycheck will come from.
I bought some shoes for $6.99, size 10. They are black synthetic made-in-China shoes with clunky last-century heels. The toe part is kind of angled like toes, which is not the way shoes normally look.
I am unfashionable enough to not know if they are good shoes or bad shoes.
To me they looked quirky yet sensible.
They were someone else's shoes. I'll never know whose shoes. They haven't traveled far, from the look of the sole.
Philosophical interlude: It's hard to know how far one has traveled based on their soul mileage. If only there were an inner odometer we could access.
Not that the knowing is any indicator of one's soul purpose, or value.
Point being, I'm unemployed and officially walking in someone else's shoes, thanks to the goodwill of some other woman.
It won't take me long to go a mile. After that, we'll see what's changed.

Barefoot farmer traveled the world

By Carol Robidoux
MANCHESTER - One of the last times I visited John Giovagnoli on his farm, he was on the mend, knocked off his bike by a hit-and-run driver a few weeks earlier.

        He leaned forward and parted his thinning hair to show me the stitched-up gash still healing on his head, then pointed in the direction of his bike leaning against the garage, too twisted to ride.

        He shook his head over the whole ordeal -- the sore elbow, the tender scalp wound, the mangled bike, the kind of person who would leave a man crumpled on the side of a road.

        But the deeper wound that day was what someone had done to his corn crop. A few days earlier, someone had driven through the edge of his 60-acre property, crushing a section of sturdy stalks that fronted his annual vegetable garden.

        "It's just like if he took my heart out. That's what it is to me, it's my pride -- and then someone comes by and destroys it, just like that," John had said to me.

        I had a similar feeling yesterday, at the sight of John's old farmhouse being razed. The real damage was already done, though. John Giovagnoli, stubborn and self-reliant, wanted to save his own home from the fire.

        Instead, he lost his life to it.

        I thought back to that hot August afternoon a few months ago when we wandered between the corn rows. He liked to go barefoot as he tended his crops, the only way to really know if the soil is moist enough, he said.

        John led me through a mini maze before settling on a particularly ripe ear. He peeled it from its stalk, pulled back the husk, sunk his teeth into the sweet kernels and winked. "You try it like this and  you'll never eat it any other way. Go ahead. Don't be shy," he said, offering me the other side of the cob.

        I'd learned from previous visits with John that shy doesn't register much with a man who has for years reaped what he's sown in this world and taken his lumps with dignity and grace.

        I'd also learned that, despite having raised a mob of kids on an urban farm and making a name for himself as a humble New England pig farmer, John Giovagnoli was a man of the world.

        His respite every January from his labor of love in the fields was the trips he took -- Vietnam, Africa, Egypt, Israel, Syria, Rome, China, Colombia, Thailand -- traveling with only what fit in a backpack.

        He bunked with villagers and ate whatever was offered.

        "I wanted to know for myself how the world was doing," John told me once. "I have yet to go to a country in the world and sit and eat and drink with these people and not get along. Only the politicians seem to have trouble with that."

        That was his other passion, after farming; the politics of war and peace.

        John told me a story about when he was a fresh-faced Army recruit, shipping out to join in the war in Italy. His commanding officer was giving a pep talk on the mission at hand.

        "They were preparing us to go out and kill people. I raised my hand and said, 'You're asking me to go and kill my blood relatives? If you want peace, let me go break bread with them. That's the only way to settle your differences.' He got so mad at me, he told me I'd never earn my stripes because I couldn't keep my mouth shut," John said, unable to keep from smiling at the thought.

        Years later he said he saw that same commander at a reunion, and wore his old uniform to show off his stripes.

        "If I learned anything in my travels, it's that people are people. All the fighting and problems in the world, we cause them because we don't know how to just sit down and break bread with one another."

        I took his lessons on cultivating friendship to heart.

        A few weeks later, on an impulse, I called him up. A friend of mine was in town with her world-traveling mom, a single lady also in her 80s. Could we come by and break some bread?

        John dusted off some old wine glasses for us and we spent a couple of hours there, swapping colorful stories about couch surfing, life on the road and being students of life.

        I asked him if he had any regrets, and he said no, not really.

        Then he smiled.

        "I always loved to go dancing. I still have my good suit in the closet," he said. "That's something I wish I'd done more of."

        As we left, he thanked us for coming. "Come back soon -- anytime," he said.

        I promised I would -- and I meant to.

        Instead , I will have to remember him as the barefoot farmer who traveled the world -- a restless kid from Jersey who served his country and earned his stripes -- who fell for his Army buddy's sister, a West Side girl, and followed his heart to Manchester, where he raised some kids, some corn and some cows.

        His legacy to us all is a simple lesson: cultivate kindness and reap what you sow, no matter where you hang your hat.

        For all his stubborn simplicity, John Giovagnoli has left the world a better place

Diamond Makes Believers of NH Fans

NH Union Leader, September 23, 2002

By Carol Robidoux

Imagine the biggest karaoke bar in the world and, center stage, a guy in a glittering blue shirt and thinning hair, belting out that song by Neil Diamond everybody loves, “Sweet Caroline.”

Now imagine more than 10,000 people standing, swaying and singing along as if the words to the song actually mean something more than they do.

Right there you have the climax of last night’s show at the Verizon Wireless Arena, only it wasn’t a karaoke bar, and the man with the microphone was THE man himself, Neil Diamond.

It was a first for many New Hampshire fans who’ve waited a lifetime for the seasoned crooner to make his way to the Granite State.

And based on the sell-out crowd that spanned several generations of fans, it’s possible Diamond is even bigger than he was when his string of Top-40 hits began in the 1960s.

The show opened with “Coming to America,” a real crowd pleaser — as if any song about America could be a clunker these days. But Diamond did it right, backed by his 17-piece band that included a four-piece string section, horns, steel drums, guitars, keyboards, and backup singers.

After the first song, Diamond took a moment to playfully editorialize about the quality of the Verizon’s sound system, which has been criticized as too echoey, at times.

“It’s a record crowd here at the Echo Capital of New Hampshire. But don’t worry — the echo is absorbed by your clothing,” said Diamond. “And so I’ve been asked by management to ask that you don’t take your clothes off during the show.”

Of course, the crowd went wild every time Diamond unleashed his subtle sexuality. In particular, as Diamond prepared to sing, “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon.”

That’s when Annette Simard, 70, of Manchester noticed the singer was working up a sweat. So she stepped to the front of the stage, pressed a white tissue to her lips and then held it toward Diamond.

Slowly, Diamond walked over toward Simard, knelt down for the tissue and, before she knew it, was holding her hand. He sang the entire song to her as they shared the spotlight, at times as he sat, or even stretched his body out in front of her on the stage. The swooning Simard covered her face at times and appeared to be weak in the knees, as the crowd erupted in cheers and laughter.

“Has anybody got a cigarette?” asked Diamond at the end of the number. “Thank you, my darling. I’ll take experience over youth any day. I like a woman who comes and gets what she wants,” he said, as Simard stepped back to her front-row seat.

Throughout the rest of the show Diamond proved that there are perks to sustaining a career for more than four decades.

For one thing, your fan base keeps regenerating, evidenced by the age span of the crowd that included plenty of mother-daughter duos, such as Patricia Salois, 51, and her daughter Christine, 26.

“I like the way he moves,” said Christine.

“He seems like an honest, down to earth guy,” said Patricia.

“There’s no such thing,” said Christine.

“He looks just like my father,” said Patricia.

And there you have the essence of what it is about Neil Diamond that makes it possible for him to keep a sold-out arena full of devoted fans swooning for two-and-a-half hours.

Midway through the show Diamond started churning out his hits, including “Solitary Man,” “Holly Holy” and “Cherry, Cherry.”

He even launched into a few of the songs that have made others famous, like “Red, Red Wine,” which was never a hit for Diamond, but that put UB40 on the map, and “I’m a Believer,” which has rounded the charts twice — for the Monkees back in the 1960s and again last summer for Smashmouth as part of the “Shrek” soundtrack.

Just before 10:30 p.m. Diamond finished up with “I Am, I Said,” then rewarded the crowd with an encore that included “Cracklin’ Rosie” and “Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show.