|
|
Please accept these few words as a tribute to your memorial collection for the Old Man. And be encouraged, for restoration or not, the outpourings of remembrance you are collecting here will guard the legacy of Our Friend for generations to come...
Joshua Bryars, Monterey, MA
A scholar once stood here
A gentleman of noble stature
Sprung truly from stock of common man
Yet chosen to embody the princely form -
the relentless struggle of a hero in unrenowned wait.
He was a friend, a stranger
A myth whose very whisper emanated upwards
from the deepest settled stones of earth
Standing ready in a moment to impart a simple
sense of grandeur to any willing passerby
He was a giver, a beseecher to all to float forth
even the smallest of honest prayers that he himself
might appeal to the heavens in joint supplication
A supplier, a provider
A symbol whose inspiration came shyly, its wisdom
revealed only later in nostalgic afterthought
He was, in all, the fragile saint
With both the pressures and cares of nature and man
slung tirelessly upon his weathered shoulders
Each gentle feature softened by every outflow of
unassumed generosity
His hold ever-yielding with each release of
some silent, self-assured blessing
He, if any, knew the price of his own compassion
Yet he gave, and continued to give
Until all was imparted, until all had been assumed
in the name of love...
Until life finally gave way unto legend.
|
Back in the l940 's when I was young, my parents and I spent the summers in New Hampshire. Those were simpler times and it was a thrill when my dad would sometimes drive us to view the Old Man. It is one of my fondest memories. I feel very sad about what has happened and I hope you all give him a fitting memorial.
Evelyn
|
Having grown up in western Maine there were many visits to the Old Man of the Mountain. I had just arrived back in Maine to visit my family when my wife called from Michigan and told me the Old Man had fallen off the mountain. It was like a loved one had died. It was too hard to believe. I knew that they had been working hard for years to preserve it and I felt sure they could do just that. It was much more than just some rocks on the side of a mountain in New Hampshire, it was a special place of memories and quiet meditation to the millions of people who stood in silent awe and reverence and gazed up at the Great Stone Face. Good-bye Old Man, you are gone but not forgotten. Your memory is "forever" etched on the side of the mountain of our minds.
Craig Morgan
|
I was born in N.H. and visited the Old Man of the Mountain when we all were little. I was trying to take my girls there but couldn't make it. But next year we are coming to the mountains with my little girl, to keep the family trait going and hope my daugters do the same. We have a lot of people here in Florida that are from N.H. that I know would like to help and I'm going to pass on the help with the donation to help rebuild the Old Man of the Mountain. I'll never forgot the OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
thank you from the Betts family
|
My mother had seen the Old Man many times in her life. A native Pennsylvanian, she is enamored with the New England way, and had been visiting the Old Man for about sixty years. She first took me when I was about 7 in 1973. Every year after that, I could not wait until we returned. The zenith of my admiration was when I went on my own to pay my respects in 1997, and then when I introduced The Old Man to some very good friends and co-workers after that. It will not be the same when I return to my White Mountains, and the Patriarch is gone. Fare thee well, Old Man. I will always remember meeting you as a boy, knowing you as a man, and I will remember you to my children and grandchildren.
David Delduca, Akron, PA
|
|
