I’m not a jealous person. I can’t think of a single human with whom I would want to trade places. I learned that lesson many years ago.
Oh, but that amphibian.
Every month, I toil in this space to inspire and amuse and pitch the fine work of our amazing team of staffers and freelancers at New Hampshire Magazine.
Every month, the Newt gets more mail than I do.
After our latest issue arrives at homes and newsstands, the Newt’s inbox gets flooded with emails. Our Spot the Newt contest asks readers to find our little friend hidden in advertisements scattered throughout the magazine. One lucky winner receives a gift from a local artisan or company.
Two weeks after the August issue was published, more than 100 people had already sent in entries from nearly 60 Granite State locales.
Amherst. Anaheim. Auburn. Bedford. Belmont. Boscawen. Brookline. Campton. Center Barnstead. Chesterfield. Chichester. Concord. Deerfield. Derry. Dover. Dunbarton. Durham. East Kingston. Effingham. Epping. Epsom. Exeter. Franklin. Freedom. Fremont. Goffstown. Hampton. Henniker. Hillsborough. Hollis. Hudson. Laconia. Lisbon. Litchfield. Londonderry. Manchester. Merrimack. Milford. Mont Vernon. Moultonborough. Nashua. Newbury. Newmarket. Newport. New Durham. Pelham. Pembroke. Portsmouth. Salem. Seabrook. Somersworth. Strafford. Sunapee. Tamworth. Temple. Tuftonboro. Walpole. Whitefield. Windham.
The Newt sure does have a lot fans. And New Hampshire sure has a lot of towns.
More than a dozen other entries were sent by readers in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.
And those are just the emails.
Every month, a batch of handwritten entries show up at our offices in the Waumbec Mill building in Manchester. Readers send folded notes tucked into tiny envelopes or scrawled on the back of all manner of postcards.
Carnival Cruise Lines from Swanzey. Charlie Chaplain and Buster Keaton from Manchester. Cartoon cats quoting Mr. Rogers from Kingston. The funky ones end up pinned on the wall in my workspace.
If you didn’t see your town represented, what are you waiting for? Spot the Newt!
We recommend using a magnifying glass for faster play.
Fall in Here
As summer winds down, tour fine farms (page 56), play a round of mini-golf (page 70), check out women’s rugby (page 40) and pucker up for a pickle fest (page 50). Celebrate the return of the sentry squirrels at Castle in the Clouds (page 36) and dig some rock ‘n’ roll vibes with Scott and Gail Huff Brown (page 84).
We’ve left a couple of things out on purpose. You can find them on your own — while you search for that pesky amphibian.
Murphy and Evelyn Bond share the August issue of New Hampshire Magazine at their home in Austin, Texas. Their father, Mark Bond, was born and raised in Derry, NH.
“As I got the most recent NH Magazine issue this past weekend in the mail, I was perusing it after dinner with my two kids,” Bond said via email. “My son Murphy immediately perked up when I asked ‘Do you want to see the lightning’?
“He got very excited to look at the picture on page 12 in the issue then proceeded to show it to his younger sister. Here they are looking at some of the other articles they found interesting after ‘seeing the lightning.’ Love getting this magazine to keep me up on all things New Hampshire.”