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Curious Traveler | C.J. Fitzwater  Feb 8, 2024 “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.” Mary Oliver from “In…

“Maybe I just wanna fly, wanna live, I don’t wanna die-Maybe I just wanna breathe-Maybe I just don’t believe-Maybe you’re the same as me-We see things they’ll never see-You and I are gonna live forever” – Oasis “Live Forever” I had planned to have lunch with Mike Bourgoine, a former boss, who after retirement from…

Curious Traveler | C.J. Fitzwater  Feb 1, 2024  Editor’s note: The following is the conclusion of “The Saga of Harold Congdon”. Time is a musical composition, there is rhythm, melody, and tempo, and then da capo it repeats in a circular pattern, linking us to eternity. Dec. 7, 1941, a day that will live in infamy. The…

Curious Traveler : C.J. Fitzwater Jan 25, 2024  Editor’s note: The following is Part 3 of “The Saga of Harold Congdon” The saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies. In the emerging beach resort town of Salisbury, Harold Congdon stood as a towering figure — a shepherd of his community, its…

Curious Traveler: CJ Fitzwater Editor’s note: The following is Part 2 of “The Saga of Harold Congdon”. Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall, a proverb vividly illustrated by Harold Congdon’s story. After a four-month sentence for liquor crimes and conspiracy, Congdon, with his clever legal maneuvering, reclaimed his political positions as…

Editor’s note: The following is Part 1 of “The Saga of Harold Congdon”. Civilizations aren’t solely constructed by the virtuous, nor do laws benefit only the innocent. On March 4, 1919, the 66th United States Congress convened in a historical moment as the last congress without female members in the House of Representatives. Dominated by…

Originally published November 2nd 2023 As you step into Linda’s Alpha Omega, you’re immediately enveloped in a warm atmosphere of joy. It’s not just a place to get your hair done; it’s a hub of community activity. The salon buzzes with life from morning until night, at least five days a week. It’s here that…

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.“ With our usual Tuesday auction canceled due to the timing of the Christmas holiday (my primary job is running an auto auction in Kittery, Maine), I took the opportunity for an impromptu adventure. My wife, Nina, stayed…

Dinner Date: CJ Fitzwater If you walk across the trestle-board-patterned marble floor of the Custom House in Newburyport designed by Robert Mills, the same architect responsible for the Washington Monument, you’ll encounter the anti-gravity cantilever staircase, a signature of Mills’ architectural style, with support on only one side, while the other side floats. Ascending this…

Dinner Date: CJ Fitzwater “Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact. But maybe everything that dies someday comes back“ -Bruce Springsteen, “Atlantic City” I met newly inducted Amesbury Hall-of-Famer, and hockey legend George Dodier a year ago after winning a hand sander at the inaugural Support Our Stadium brunch. When I stopped by his home on…