03741 - Canaan, N.H.
Published June 28, 2009
Henry “Doc” Brown, 94, worked as a country doctor for more than two decades with his brother, Dr. Tom Brown, who lives in Lebanon. Doc Brown retired from general practice in 1966 to spend more than a decade with Planned Parenthood. Several of Brown’s former patients have said he’d accept their thanks as payment when they couldn’t afford his services, an arrangement Brown prefers not to discuss.
Doc Brown is a retired physician living in Canaan with his wife, Patricia. The following is an edited interview.
I’m afraid I’m not a very colorful character to build a story on. Nothing spectacular has happened to me. Most people call me Doc Brown, that’s how people know me. My wife calls me Henry, but she’s about the only one. » Read more
03741 - Canaan, N.H.
Published June 21, 2009
Marcus Herrera, 20, walks across a bed of hot coals at A Sacred Place in Canaan.
Three months ago, Marcus Herrera rode a Greyhound bus from his home in California to join the small community at A Sacred Place in Canaan. The following is an edited interview.
I tell people very rarely, but I remember being born and being angry. It felt like I was parading around, tripped and fell into this life, like, “Damn, I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque,” or something.
I was born with an umbilical cord wrapped around my neck as if maybe I was trying to get out early. And somewhere there was a voice saying, “This is not going to be easy.” » Read more
05001 - White River Junction, Vt.
Published June 14, 2009
Norman Hurd works in his garage assembling a deer-antler chandelier that will hang in a show home at Meredith Bay, a luxury gated community overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee. Hurd has been making antler art out of his home since 2002.
Norman Hurd worked at the post office in White River Junction for 33 years before retiring in 2001. A year later, he started making light fixtures with deer, moose and elk antlers that are seasonally shed. The following is an edited interview.
Hunters always seem to keep antlers around. Trust me, if you shoot one, you never get rid of them. My wife (Linda) will have to deal with them after I’m gone. A lot of women aren’t crazy about antler things but my wife likes it, so that’s kind of nice.
We went over to Lake Placid seven or eight years ago and antler art is pretty prevalent over there. I said, “Gee, I think I can do some of that.” That’s how it started. Then I picked up a video on how to do it that I saw on one of the hunting channels. But you can only learn the basics from that, and it’s trial and error from there. » Read more
03784 - West Lebanon, N.H.
Published June 7, 2009
Martin Midura, left, gets ready to take his friend Dan Beckwith for a tour in his 1913 Hupmobile after a meeting of the Twin State Cruisers in the McDonald’s parking lot on Route 12A in West Lebanon. The car has been in Midura’s family for 55 years.
Martin Midura of West Lebanon works at Hypertherm developing laser cutting technology. He owns a number of antique vehicles that he inherited from his father, Walter Midura. The following is an edited interview.
People had to have some serious (courage) to take out a rig like this (Hupmobile). It handles like a Mack truck and stops really poorly.
Now we’ve got roads and rest stops, but back then, they would go out for 50 miles with nothing but dirt and mud. The manuals tell you to carry a pulley and a jack and all sorts of things for when you go in the ditch.
This car is what they call non-electric. You start it with a hand crank and a magneto generates the spark. It’s got acetylene headlights and the original sidelights are kerosene lamps. » Read more