chuck houston III

Labels: Hollis

Winter finally asserted itself yesterday! How odd that our first real winter storm didn't arrive until Valentine's Day! The entire campus got coated in a mixture of snow, sleet, and freezing rain - and then a deep freeze followed,turning the campus into a treacherous frozen wasteland, although a really pretty one.
I started the day at the MAC and then went over to Lowell House to meet a student for lunch. The photo below is of the Lowell courtyard.


After a stop at the Hillel building to give blood, I walked over to a lecture on the other side of campus. The photo above is a view of the famed Yard, with a squirrel seemingly unfazed by her new environment. Below is my route past the Science Center to William James Hall, which is the tall white building in the background. My office this semester is on the 13th floor of that building (WJH 1326).

From the 13th floor of William James Hall there's a really great view of the Boston skyline, which I attempted to capture in the photo below. I took the photo through the glass window near the computer lab.

By the end of the day, I was back at Lowell House for tea, and then dinner with some students. Below is a nice view of the Lowell House Bell Tower at dusk.

Labels: Harvard

Thanks especially to Russ and Geri Dickerman of Milford, NH - but also to hundreds of others - an unbelievable piece of pre-Revolutionary War colonial America still exists - it's the abandoned town of Monson, N.H. It existed from 1737 - 1770 - some 33 years. The town was incorporated for 24 of those years, and so tax, birth, death, and other civil records are still extant. All that is left, of course, are the foundations, and stone-walls, and a few other things. But the land has been left largely undisturbed for 237 years. It's a true ghost town! I spent 3 hours investigating Monson, N.H. on Saturday. Monson was eventually absorbed into present-day Milford, Hollis, Brookline, and Amherst. Here's some of my photos, but make sure to click on them, so you can see/read them:

click on above photo to read inscription
Above is the marker for the old center of town- it's so amazing to realize that everybody left the town in 1770 - before the Revolution, meaning that this town's whole history took place before we were a country. We were a colony of Britain at the time of this town. George III became [our last] king in 1760 - during Monson's time. After I read the inscription on this stone - and then looked around - I saw a stone wall, and realized that the wall has been right in that spot for at least 237 years. That rules!



Check out the foundation above - amazing that this was someone's barn or stall or cabin or whatever - i'll tell you, they did a nice job on the foundation. Considering the utter deprivation that was the case, it's amazing what was built.


To take the above photo, I walked out on the ice alongside a really long beaver dam.
The photo captures what the beavers have accomplished. Click on the photo to enlargen it. Pre-beaver dam, this was a wooded area with a little stream through it. Then the beavers dammed up the stream and this area went into marsh mode. You can see all the trees still standing proudly in the swamp, but they're basically toast at this point.


In 1843, the Monson area was surveyed and the stone pictured above was put in place. It demarcates the Milford/Hollis border. The photographer is standing in Milford, and that's Hollis just behind (south of) the stone.

Think about this for a minute: It's like 1740 and you have just sailed over from Ireland or somewhere and you travel by horse for days to come to this desolate, windswept hill in the middle of nowhere, and proceed to try to somehow find, grow, or make food to survive. But before you begin, would you mind moving, by hand, about 24,345,000,000 large rocks? Yes, please pile those up somewhere, so we can even get at the ground, which is frozen half the time anyway. Then, while half of your family gets drafted into the French and Indian War, you attempt to make a living out of this hardscrabble ground. No electricity, services, buildings, no nothing anywhere, and constant lethal fighting with the native Americans. Still, you persist. And all those rocks, where do you suppose they go? They go nowhere. The above photo was made as follows: Year 1740: Pile 24.3 billion rocks in a long row. Wait about 267 years. Take the photo.


The above photo just feels good. Click on it and check it out.......It's a western slope in Monson where the afternoon sun is warm enough to melt the snow. In the woods, there was about 6" of snow, but in this one sun-exposed area, the snow was mostly gone. The photo was taken at 4:34pm which is nice, considering that it's still nice out and still light out! The group that now owns this place has put a few benches around the property where you can sit down for a while if you'd like. I did. One of the main owners is the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests)

The photo above shows the site of the home of the only doctor ever known to live here. It was Dr. John Brown. Do you see the little sign in the photo above? OK, you can read it by going to the photo below and clicking on it. I noticed in reading the inscription that Dr. Brown's daughter Abigail was born here on June 10, 1754.


No blog entry is worth its salt without the obligatory photo of the author goofing around. Today's exploration of Monson was a 3-hour outing, from 2pm to 5pm. But the last 1/2 hour was just goofing around and looking at things and sitting around on the bench or taking photos or whatever. The temperature had dropped from about 31 degrees to about 28 degrees F., but it was still a sunny twilight. On this day, it was simply too beautiful outside to just....leave. Although that's what the Monsonites did.

Labels: Hollis, Monson

Somewhere about 12 or so years ago, I joined an organization known as Mensa. I immediately met Deb Stone who was living in Brookline, N.H. at the time. Deb is an actuary and general finance and management person, and typically has worked for large insurance companies. Deb moved to Windham, NH for a few years in the late 90's, and then moved out to Orange County, California for most of the 21st century so far. The good news is that she just moved back to N.H. and bought a house in Bow, NH (near Concord).
About 3 years ago, I met Blai Saleta and his wife Carmen at a Mensa meeting in Merrimack, NH. They live in Manchester, N.H. Blai is really cool because he's a great guy, good-looking, and from Europe. Blai is from Catalunya which is in present-day Spain, near Barcelona. He works for Velcro as an engineer, and they make, like, Velcro.
Deb and Blai are special friends, and I met them both in Mensa. We had a chance to get together at a "Superbowl Party" at Deb's new house in Bow, NH on Sunday, February 4. It was really great to see Deb and Blai and all the other Mensans that were there, too.

Labels: Mensa

I like going to various Harvard games-and I especially like going with Lisa. Plus, this time was really fun because Alyssa came, too :>) !! First we went to the land of the billion T.V.'s. Then, we watched the Harvard Men's Hockey team beat R.P.I. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Troy N.Y.) by a score of 3-1. It's pretty exciting, because the action is really close and pretty intense!



You can see in the photos, especially if you click on them to enlargen, how close you can sit to the action on the ice - right behind the clear, plexiglass panel. Hey ! #12 for Harvard (in the face-off in the photo below) is Paul Dufault of Shrewsbury, Ma. Paul went to St. John's and helped the Pioneers attain the #1 ranking in high school hockey in 2002.




The girls got new Harvard sweatshirts, and I got a new black Harvard T Shirt. Go Crimson!

Labels: Harvard, LeBlanc

Last Saturday night ruled. My brother Paul and my sister-in-law Tracy actually have a small, family-scale, private pub at the family compound in Central Mass. About once a month, I go down to the pub and we all hang out and watch music videos, drink Irish whiskey, and Dutch beer, and laugh at each other basically. It's really great. I mean check out this fridge in the photo up above. If you need something, you just take it- or bartender Tails Taylor will pour a shot for you. This is infinitely superior to the usual mode of drinking in busy commercial pubs.

Hey, here's a good photo of barkeep Taylor serving one up to my sister Kat and me.



Here's a good photo, too, below: it's the proprietor of Grady's pub: Trace Houston (nee Grady) on the left, with me, and my sister Kat Gannon (nee Houston).

In the next photo, I'm getting comfortable with the lovely Ms Grady, proprietor. Trace is totally special. So is Paul, that must be why they ended up together. Plus, The Shanerama is always around now, too which rules, because she does, as does the Jamester.

In the photo below, I was going to try to fix the red-eye on Paul, but if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll see that it's pretty funny with Paul having the red eyes.


Look at these clowns! It's a reunion of the Europe 2006 squad !
Tails, on the left, me, and Dave on the right, had a lot of laughs about our recent trips, as well as the wonderful videos of Dave's Filipino adventure.


During the evening, total attendance was 8:

James
Shannon
Kat
Tracy
Paul
me
Tails
Rock

Too bad Gannon couldn't have been there. He was in, like, Asia. John - you were missed !

All in all, another stellar night at Grady's Pub!

Labels: Family