Recently I was contacted by Sean Hurley, playwright and frequent contributor to New Hampshire Public Radio. Mr. Hurley had read the blog post that I did last year about an old abandoned road and was interested in also doing a story about it. We talked back and forth for a few days, trying to find a common space where we both would have time to meet on the old road. In the end due to my time constraints and his three day’s hence deadline we never did get to meet face to face, but the telephone solved the problem and he called to interview me late one afternoon. He had a radio voice that was deep and smooth, and his words sounded more like they were being poured than spoken.
He had explored the old road earlier and had lots of questions so we quickly got down to business. We started by talking about the place in general and what I thought of it. I told him that I thought it was great that it was so close to downtown Keene and so easily accessible. People have a place where they can go to experience nature up close and personal and can also see a great waterfall.
Native garnets are good for use in the abrasive industry, but not much else.
We talked about rocks; about what kind there were there. I told him that there was a lot of feldspar in the area and how I used to go there to find garnets colored such a deep blood red that they looked almost black, and which had formed way back when the molten feldspar slowly cooled. In fact there are so many garnets in places that it looks like they were shot out of a shotgun. And they are just about the size of shotgun shot, too-quite small.
No Passing Zone
“What about the double yellow lines on the road?” he asked. “The grass growing up through them must mean something.” He was hoping that nature boy would come up with something deep and metaphorical, but all I could think of was how it was sunnier where the lines were, and how nature was doing all it could to fill that sunny spot with leaf surface so not a drop of sunshine was wasted. I told him that nature was slowly healing the scar that man had made. He was less than impressed, I could tell. It was only later that I thought about how ironic it was that the yellow lines meant “no passing” when everything about this place speaks of the passage of time.
Beaver Brook in winter
He asked if the road ever changed. Thinking like a photographer I told him about how the light changed from day to day, and even from morning through afternoon. Once again he was looking for something more-something deeper-and it was only later that I thought about how beautiful the place is when the leaves are falling, and how silent it becomes in winter when the brook wears a blanket and the roar of the falls is muffled by gigantic, gleaming columns of ice.
Smokey Eye Boulder Lichen
We talked about the plants that grow there and I told him about trillium and Jack in the pulpit, about dog lichens and Solomon’s seal and red elderberry. He answered yes, he had noticed the poison ivy growing thickly along both sides of the road, and then asked about any rare plants that I’d found there. I told him about rose moss and blue stemmed goldenrod but forgot about several others, like the smoky eye boulder lichens so amazingly blue that it looks like the sky itself has been broken into pieces and sprinkled over the stones.
Hole through feldspar boulder drilled by hand with a star drill sometime in the 1800s.
We talked about history, and I told him how my search for the exact dates of when the old road was closed and when the new highway was built had been frustrated at every turn. Can it really be possible that everyone has forgotten? Aren’t things like that written down somewhere? I told him that I had friends who remember driving on it, and how I could remember traveling on it as a boy with my father.
As soon as I mentioned my father I found myself wishing he were here, because he’d know all about this old place, and I wondered why he never told me about the waterfall that we passed each time we drove through here. And then I wondered if maybe he had told me and I just didn’t listen. Hearing is different than listening and I was a headstrong youth who often heard but rarely listened.
And that’s how, much like the old road itself with all of its twists and turns, this became a father’s day post-so I could I urge those of you who are lucky enough to still have fathers to listen-really listen-to their stories. I can say with certainty that you won’t regret it if you do, but you might regret it one day if you don’t.
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren’t trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom. ~Umberto Eco
If you’d like to listen to Sean Hurley’s radio piece and read a transcript about the abandoned road just click here.
If you’d like to read the 2 part blog post that started all of this, just click here.
Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there. Thanks for coming by.
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 
I love this piece. Thank you for it.
It is one of the regrets of life: the things we forgot to ask our parents or the things they told us, but we didn’t ‘hear’.
And I very much relate to your account of the interview. I always think (later) of the things I wish I’d said at the time – but how many people can remember all this stuff on a moment’s notice?
Great post with a wonderful tone.
Thank you Cynthia. It’s true that most of us probably regret not listening to their parents enough, and I’m hoping some of the younger readers learn that lesson by reading this.
I’ve only been interviewed once and I’d kind of like to keep it that way. I couldn’t think of much of anything to say!
I’m sure you did. Your answers sounded just fine. It’s just that you then replayed the whole thing in your head and thought of additional things you could say.
I’ve interviewed hundreds of people, yet when the tables are turned, I always feel the way you did.
That’s good to know. I’ve never interviewed anyone either, but that seems like it would be the better of the two choices.
Oh what a great post. I love how you wound it into a Father’s day post. My brother always says we need to listen with listening! It’s funny what you can’t think of when being interviewed…or how you know what you just said isn’t the deep that they are looking for. My daughter was interviewed a month after her daughter died last year for a story about saving the garden at the hospital. My daughter could not bring herself back to that emotional place that the interviewer was hoping for and so only one sentence of hers was used in the story. Oh well. I’m anxious to follow the link and see how this story played out on air.
Thank you Jocelyn,
Actually it kind of wound its own way into a father’s day post and took me along for the ride. Being interviewed isn’t the easiest thing, I’ve discovered. Maybe it’s just something you have to get used to.
Well it took a little longer than I thought because the Mac didn’t like it much but I listened. I wish we had that show here, the man’s voice is hypnotic. It was good to hear your voice too and to finally know what a New Hampshire accent sounds like. It is a world away from Old Hampshire for sure, ours is somewhere between Cockney and a West Country farmer. Funny, we are so used to American accents here with so many on TV but its almost impossible to tell where someone comes from (unless it’s the deep south or New Yoik) while here I could probably pinpoint someone to within twenty miles just by hearing their voice.
Thanks for listening. His voice is unusual-he must practice.
I call my accent New Hampsha fahma, but my daughter says I just sound like her dad so I don’t know what to think. It isn’t often that you hear yourself speak like that so I think it must always sound a little odd.
I’m lucky that my boss lives outside of London so I get to hear British accents all the time. I also like the show “Doc Martin,” but I know what you mean. I can’t tell a Cornwall accent from any other British accent.
How great you were interviewed by the local NPR station.It’s inevitable, though, that you think of better things to say after the fact. I lost my dad several years ago and, yes, wish I had listened more to his stories.
Yes, you kind of feel like you’re on the spot, so it’s easy to forget things that you’d like to say. I think all of us probably wish we’d paid more attention to our fathers. And mothers.
Such a lovely post. I feel I learnt more from just watching what my father did and how he behaved – he wasn’t a forceful teacher. I feel I my behaviour today comes just from being with him when I was young. A big thanks to all those wonderful fathers. Amelia
Thank you Amelia. I think maybe we all learned more by just being around our fathers than by any formal teaching they may have done.
What a shame we don’t get that radio show here. I’m sure I’d have enjoyed listening as much as I enjoy reading your posts.
That’s why I put the link in at the bottom of the post. If you click on it you’ll be able to hear the spot. It’s only about 2-3 minutes long.
Doh! Just going back now!
There weren’t many clicks on that link so you weren’t the only one who missed it. I’ll have to find a way to make them more visible, I guess.
You know, I think you should write a book about your travels, the seasonal changes, and metaphors for life you capture in photos. These post are good literature.
Thanks for the vote of confidence Sue, others have suggested that as well. Right now I’m not sure where it would start or end, or what it would be about, but if I thought seriously about it I might be able to come up with something.
So many things to enjoy about this post. It made me get absorbed in it the way you get absorbed in your surroundings on each trip you share outdoors. Then the last pic. Your father sat exactly the way my father-in-law sat. Crossed arms and legs the same. My father in law was a great listener. He would never interrupt and seemed as if absorbed in what you were telling him. That is rare. Thank You for sharing, and triggering the memory of not my father but a father that became a great friend.
You’re welcome Grampy. My father loved to talk and would spend hours talking to anyone who would listen, so he and your father in law would have gotten along great. He especially loved to talk about the outdoors, hunting and fishing.
I was quite impressed by this post all along, but when you got to your tribute for your father, it really got to me! There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss my dad, and you put my feelings into words very well, thank you!
You’re welcome Jerry. Life can become a little more difficult after they’ve gone.
I’m a near constant listener to nhpr and consider Sean Hurley (and especially The Voice of Sean Hurley) a celebrity, so I am very impressed that you’re in that piece! Very cool!
Thank you. I had to tell Sean Hurley that I had never heard of him and never listened to NHPR, but he took it well. After listening to NHPR because of this, now I’m a convert.
He does have a lovely voice but to be honest I would rather hear your voice in my head through reading your posts than chopped up into little bits among his musings.
I guess that’s just the way they do things in radio. I didn’t even know that I was being recorded until the next day.
Reblogged this on Dawn of Divine Rays.
Thank you, Allen. Wonderful post. Happy Father’s Day! Namaste.
Thank you Agnes. Have a great weekend!
Such an interesting and thought-provoking blog.
Thanks! I’m glad that you enjoyed it.
Mesmerized I listened to the wonderful tranquil piece of Sean Hurley about the abandoned road. Beautiful and very welcome to get down from everydas hectic and the whole rat race. Thank you for linking it and enhancing it with your fine fotography.
You’re welcome. I think you’ve hit on the word I’ve been searching for that really describes Sean Hurley’s stories, Zyriacus. Tranquil is a perfect description and I thank you for it.
If you search for “Sean Hurley” on the NHPR website you will find many others that he has done.
Wonderful post. I know this road well. Beaten up but not forgotten. Happy Father’s Day.
Thank you, and the same to you. Maybe one day we’ll meet up there.
Ah. Those mysterious byways.
It was great to be able see another’s view point of a road I know so well.
I didn’t know about the garnets in Beaver Brook although I have found them in several other brooks/rivers in NH. I like how you rounded out the post with a tribute to fathers. You are not alone in wishing you had listened, hopefully some of your readers will take that to heart and not have to learn the hard way that they are a great resource and won’t be here forever.
I was up there hammering garnets out of those rocks many, many years ago and it was only after talking with Sean Hurley that I realized that what I had done was probably illegal, since it is a park under the protection of Keene. Oops-I never thought of that.
Fathers and mothers are indeed a valuable resource and if just one person learns that from this post, then I’ve done my job.
I do so agree with you that we should listen to the stories our parents can tell us. It’s also important to ask the right questions and remember the answers. I loved the waterfall picture and it was interesting to read what your interlocutor was interested in.
Thank you Susan. That’s the message I’m hoping some of our younger friends might take away from this post. Sean Hurley is a very interesting person and it was fun seeing what it was about the road that grabbed him. We all see things so differently.