I received a fine letter this week from Jeff Havlick, a subscriber in Eastham. He enclosed a clipping from the Caledonian Record, the local newspaper in St. Johnsbury, Vt., in what is known as the Northeast Kingdom, near the Canadian border — a place even more remote than Outer Cape Cod.
“The folks up north really have it down,” writes Jeff. He says that he’s been going camping in the Northeast Kingdom for the past 45 years.
“While I’m up there,” he writes, “I love to check the local news. Not only informative but extremely entertaining. Even the police blog tells it like it is with a chuckle or even tears. I like to buy these papers, bring them all home, and when it’s a cold, rainy day in January I bring out an issue and read it completely — including all the ads.”
Jeff must have noticed that I’m a fan of obituaries, because the clipping that he sent was one of them. It’s about Donald Peter Barr, 78, a lifelong resident of Littleton, N.H., who was a drill sergeant in the Army and then a shoe salesman. His obituary got me thinking — not so much about death as about small-town life.
Donald, it reports, “flatlined, once again, and for the final time (at least we think so) on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023 at his home after a period of declining health. Seriously, the guy just wouldn’t die.”
There’s no byline on this obituary, but the writer has got to be Donald’s son, judging from the following paragraph: “Throughout his life, Donald’s most important achievement (besides being devilishly handsome) was being a father to his children, obvious favorite daughter Allison Barr, 43, and son Joseph ‘Not-a-War-Hero-or-Anything-but-Still-a-Good-Guy’ Barr, 40, who he loved fiercely (but mostly Allison).”
The obituary ends this way: “All in all, Donald was smart, caring, and as tough as they come. His mental fortitude was truly something to be admired and will keep his son feeling inadequate for the rest of his life. Funeral arrangements will be decided at a later date. Possible rager. Buckle up.”
The combination of cheekiness and genuine emotion in this account of a man’s life and death is revealing — about both the newspaper and the community it serves. Jeff in Eastham says of that paper, “After you read an issue, you feel like you’ve been there for years.”
People sometimes ask us if we worry at the Independent about how to please visitors. They wonder if we’ll lose the interest of part-timers here for a summer idyll, not for winter floods or soup kitchens.
I don’t think so. I think readers crave stories that are real. Havlick’s letter and that obituary suggest a journalistic standard worth trying to live up to: telling stories of town life with all its joys and sorrows in a way that makes even temporary visitors feel deeply connected to it.
Jeff notes that Donald Barr was “someone who I never knew, but after reading his obituary, I wish I did. Wish I was there for the party.”
So do I.
