Profile of a dead Old Man

I take it back. The most interesting and sad item of the day happened here in dear old New Hampshire. The beloved Old Man of the Mountain (or Profile) is no more. Sometime in the middle of the night, enveloped in fog and spring rain, the symbol of New Hampshire fell off its mountain perch.

I suppose all New Englanders like myself knew it could happen at any time, but never really believed it. For those unaware, the Old Man was a rock formation at the top of Franconia Notch in northern New Hampshire, that resembled the profile of an old man (my mother always said it reminded her of an old Indian man). It was discovered by settlers in 1805, and by the antebellum era was a major tourist attraction. To make sure it survived, the state applied glues to the cracks in the rock and fastened the Profile with a series of metal brackets and braces. By the twentieth century, Old Man became the state symbol, gracing our license plates, every state road sign, the recently designed New Hampshire quarter coin, and the masthead of the state's legendary newspaper, the Manchester Union Leader.

And it always seemed perfectly matched to New Hampshire, this rugged Old Man of the "Granite State," scowling toward the east, looking the part (dare I say) of a Yankee curmudgeon. Here was New Hampshire, a stubbornly conservative state in a thoroughly liberal region, a state of wild natural beauty with its mountains and short craggy coastline, symbolized to the world by a steady, crabby rock face. What more perfect match could be made between the Old Man and the state motto, "Live Free or Die?"

But now it is gone. What shall we replace it with? What will be the new New Hampshire symbol? I suppose Mt. Washington is the obvious choice, the highest peak in America east of the Mississippi River, where the highest wind gust on earth was recorded. I suppose we could also look to the Isle of Shoals off Portsmouth, a spiteful, bleak, tiny island that has attraced authors, artists, and sightseers for generations. An ex-Confederate general even died there.

I was at Franconia Notch about a month ago, driving south on Route 93 showing friends the sites. I couldn't see Profile because I was driving, but they did. Little did I know one month later, the Old Man, formed when gravity and erosion carved a face sometime before 1800, would slide down to Echo Lake. Thankfully I saw him when I was a child. The Union Leader said it best:

"It is somehow fitting that, apparently, no human beings were witness to the Old Man’s end. Thank God there was no advanced warning, no time for “reality TV” or a macabre “televised countdown to the end.” It is comforting to think that his was a death with dignity and solitude. But not in silence. Oh, no. We would like to think that the Old Man came crashing down with a great shudder and roar that split the spring night in Franconia Notch and caused Echo Lake to carry news of his demise back, back to Stark and Webster and Ethan Allan Crawford and the rest of those for whom he truly was a sign that here, God made men."

For those of us who think being a New Englander means something, it is a very sad day.