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I was born and raised in New Hampshire and one of my earliest memories is seeing The Old Man with my Dad. I was very young and can remember clearly asking my Dad how he got there, his reply was "God put him up there to remind you and me that he's watching over us and that we'll never be alone so long as we can see him looking, and watching. And when we see him looking down at us it's a comfort to know that we are safe in his presence, and that our prayers will be answered because he's listening." I do go home as often as I can and have brought my children to the Old Man several times in their lives and they have come to respect the Old Man as much as I do. My family was in New Orleans on the day we lost the icon of my sanctuary, enjoying the yearly jazz and heritage festival celebrating my son's 19th birthday when the call came to me on my cell phone and I heard the words "The Old Man' fell and is not going to be waiting for me the next time I come home. The words cut through me like a knife! The tears started pouring out and when I told my children of the bad news we all had a group crying session there with 50 to 60 thousand people around us sharing in our grief. I still have a hard time accepting the fact that he's gone. My icon, my sanctuary, it was to me a place where I felt safe with a knowing that everything in life was going to be okay because he's watching out for me. We will go to the sight and hike the trail that leads to where he was and pay our respects but I won't say goodbye, I'll thank him for what he meant to me and I consider myself very fortunate to have come from a part of the world where the Old Man lived and watched over me for the first half of my life. I just wish somehow that it didn't happen on my son's birthday, and so does he. It was the worst thing that could have happened to him on that day.
Debby in Louisiana
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OLD MAN DOWN
by AM de Rham, Sugar Hill, NH, 5/3/03
The Old Man came down
Last night or today
Not to happen in our lifetime
The shock, oh go away
The symbol of our state
Of rocks, mountains, lakes
The image is seen everywhere
Even on license plates
Many bolts and cables
Held the Old Man there
Bound to happen sometime
But now ? It's just not fair
The winter past was brutal
Enough to make me move
The ice and bitter cold
Rested in every grove
Then yesterday, it rained all day
Fierce, cold and steady
Two slides could be seen below
Where the Man went when ready
The Indians said beware
If the Old Man should come down
There will be no summer after
Saying that brings a frown
The people came to look
At what was not there
And for sure there was nothing
The Old Man worse for wear
Poets wrote of him
Nathaniel Hawthorne too
The Great Stone Face
Lost forever from view
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Pictures submitted by AM de Rham,
taken at the Family Rememberance Day on May 10, 2003.
Bossie, the Old Man of the Mountain cow, belongs to the
White Mountain Animal League
and was acquired because of the Old Man mark,
to be a spokescow for this non-profit in NH of fourteen years.
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