The Blaisdell Blog

  Merry Christmas!   There, I’ve said it.   If you absolutely have to say “Happy Holidays” or “Seasons Greetings” feel free, but don’t hesitate to look me in the eye and jump in with a, “Merry Christmas.”   It is both joyful and triumphant. But I don’t want to stop there.   Let me add a few other greetings.    For all my Jewish friends: Gut Yontiff and Happy Hanukka.   For those of you who are part of the West African diaspora, “Habari Gani?” which is Swahili for, “What’s the News?” This is the traditional greeting for each day of Kwanzaa.   I offer a Joyful Kwanzaa to all of you, and I applaud your celebration of the seven corps principles.   I’m not done yet.   How about Namaste “Salutations to you” in Sanskrit.   For that matter, since Hindus celebrate Dawali, their “Festival of Lights” in the fall, may I add a hearty, “Sat sri akal.”   [Of all the foreign spoken references that celebrate seasonal days of note...

  I have a Thanksgiving morning ritual.   Up before dawn, I make my coffee (Minnesotan’s don’t do much before coffee), clean the turkey, sauté the giblets and start chopping up the onion and celery for the dressing.   While they are cooking, I carry my coffee cup to the door, and step out on the cold, silent porch.    I count the subdued lights filtered through the curtains of every kitchen window.   I know that each small beacon represents a woman starting the hours of work that is the Thanksgiving feast.   This is a day designed to remind each of us that no matter what budgeting, what careful use of leftovers, what creativity in bargain cuts and coupons it takes, our families will be fed. And on this day of Thanksgiving, there will be food in abundance. Everyone has a favorite holiday.   Mine has always— always —been Thanksgiving.   As a child it meant the best food, unremitting talk, play with my sisters and boardgames played, sitting ...

  With the most important election of my life weighing on my mind and soul, I am reminded of this political junkie’s exploration of history and loss of innocence.    Since I am a political animal I have long been fascinated with the “first in the nation” vote that comes out of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire.   Due to a curious New Hampshire law (i.e. when all the registered voters in a precinct have voted the polls may close) the handful of registered voters of Dixville Notch, started gathering at midnight on Election Day, voting as a group and then closing up.   They achieved notoriety as the first Americans to vote (they weren’t, but they had good press agents) and the media presented it as a grass roots event. In my naïveté I accepted this story as it was sold.   Here were the simple, down-home, plaid shirted, suspender-wearing folk of New Hampshire gathering around a wood fireplace in a cabin in the woods.   The whole thing was reminiscent of Ca...