New Hampshire

Stories from the Road
October 13, 2016
Hancock, NH

The Monadnock Country Club golf course is about to close for good. A nearby artist colony owns the land and has decided to take it over. We played the executive course today and had fun, though the landscaping had seen better days.

The golf course was very hilly with a lot of rocks and trees. It demanded straight shooting and a “go for it” attitude. Not having played for a few weeks, I struggled at first, but gradually I began hitting some decent shots. The views from the course were excellent. After the round we went back to the Peterborough Diner for lunch. We split a tuna sandwich, which was very tasty.

We then drove through the countryside again in search of good photos. I found some interesting photo ops, but we didn’t have the wonderful light we had yesterday. However it was still interesting to explore the back roads, which took us over a covered bridge and to several small ponds. No one was on the roads, and we had the area to ourselves.

Tomorrow we drive to the White Mountains to stay at the Mountain View Grand Resort. This is a classic New England Hotel that has been around a long time. I played golf there, when I owned a ski home in Twin Mountain, a nearby community. I bought the ten-room house on the banks of the Ammonusic River around 1970, after having rented it for a number of years. We fixed it up over time, and I sold it after I had been in California for a number of years.

My neighbors were the Faheys.  Dick, the father, was a mountain man kind of guy, who worked for the State Forestry Service. He could fix anything and liked some bourbon at night. His two daughters Sharon and Brenda had never been beyond Franconia Notch, 12 miles south, when we invited them to spend the weekend at our house in Newton, Mass. It was a lot of fun. They were around 11 years old at the time. I will try to look them up.