One of my father’s most elaborate family vacation expeditions came when I was 9 and my sister was seven. He plotted a two-week auto tour of all the “natural wonders” of nearby New Hampshire along with quite a few non-natural sort-of-wonders in the Granite State—strange museums, odd theme parks, and the equivalents of Clark Griswald’s “World’s Biggest Ball of String.” I loved that trip for its random weirdness: it was one of the family excursions I remember most vividly.
One of the attractions Dad led us to was “The Flume,” a natural 800-foot-long granite gorge in Franconia Notch State Park in Lincoln, New Hampshire. There were lots of “wonders”to see there: The Flume Covered Bridge, Avalanche Falls, Table Rock, Sentinel Pine Bridge, The Pool, and a tight boulder tunnel known as the Wolf’s Den. It took about an hour and a half to traverse the winding trail on foot, an adventure featuring wooden boardwalks, packed gravel, steep grades and many stairs. Another attraction on Dad’s itinerary was the striking “Hanging Boulder” at the Polar Caves in Rumney, N.H. Somewhere there’s a photo of me and my sister standing exactly where that guy and his baby were posing above. Yet another was the legendary “Great Stone Face,” immortalized in a Nathanial Hawthorne story and used to describe silent movie genius Buster Keaton. Remember it?
That wonder crumbled and fell in 2003. And on October 18, 2026, Hanging Boulder came crashing down too. The boulder had been an attraction in the park since it opened more than 100 years ago, but is no more.
I don’t get nostalgic over rocks, but the news hit me surprisingly hard. Dad died in his sleep in 2009. Just because something has been around your whole life and seemingly forever doesn’t mean that it will always be there. That’s the life competence lesson.
I have not read Our Town since 10th Grade.
Maybe I should read it again.
-Jut
Like many great plays, especially O’Neill, it is far better seen than read.
I think “Our Town” is awful. It strikes me as Thornton Wilder looking down his nose at people he considers to be small minded and inferior. Plus, it’s fairly morbid. Probably matched by only “The Great Gatsby” as a grossly over-rated work inflicted upon unsuspecting high school students.
What do you really think?
Based on Wilder’s life experience (he lived in China and Italy as well as serving abroad in the armed serfices), most critics conclude that he used a simple New England town to portray universal humanity, and that his focus was neither strictly American or classist. He was also a weird duck, mysteriously obsessed with philosophy from childhood. What is it in the play that reads as condescension to you?
The characters seem like clumsy stereotypes which he seems to hold in contempt.
I’d have to revisit it. Saw it done professionally one summer in college and then a few years ago in a local high school production.
But I did attend a dinner party hosted by his daughter in New Haven with my soon-to-be ex- college girlfriend. Ms. Wilder was very elegant, “but she didn’t have much to say.” New Haven royalty.
“but she didn’t have a lot to say.”
Probably my favorite Beatles ditty. A pub song?
This is the first play I remember reading in school and it developed in me a lifelong interest in live theatre. I now volunteer as an usher at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, VA and I am enthralled. I feel so lucky to be working with so many talented people even in this small way.
After reading your post and contemplating the cultural enrichment I have gained as a result of reading EA, I read the sign in the photo explaining the weight distribution of the rock.
Knowing that the support of the overhanging mass was unknown, wouldn’t the allowance and encouragement of a photo op be unethical? What if it had fallen on Sydney Sweeny during a sport bouldering advertising photo shoot?
Bite your tongue …
It would have been breaking news!
The arch in Aruba collapsed in 2005, a real disappointment for tourism. It was beautiful.
Your story reminds me of a visit to Rock City in Tennessee a few years ago, a difficult-to-describe park with so many natural formations that are fun to explore, and a Lovers’ Leap viewpoint that reveals scenery in seven states on a clear day. Worth a visit.
Was someone able to determine the boulder was at risk of falling beforehand?
It was always at risk of falling! That’s what made it a “wonder.”
Did they stop people from posing beneath it at any point prior to its collapse? No one was killed?
A miracle!