Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial cherry trees blossom in Portsmouth
Staff Report
PORTSMOUTH – The Portsmouth Peace Treaty Living Memorial Cherry Trees are in bloom all around the Seacoast and across New Hampshire, as a reminder and celebration of New Hampshire history and the citizen diplomacy that helped end the Russo-Japanese War.
The cherry trees in Portsmouth are particularly noticeable on the bank of South Mill Pond next to City Hall. The large trees were a gift in 1985 from Portsmouth’s Sister City Nichinan Japan, where Baron Komura the lead Japanese negotiator at the 1905 peace conference was born. The smaller trees were planted in 2012, after the Japan-America Society of NH(JASNH) learned that the iconic Washington, D.C., cherry trees celebrate the Portsmouth Peace Treaty. The Japanese Foreign Ministry offered cherry trees descended from those yoshino cherry trees to 32 cities around the United States, including Portsmouth and the JASNH started planting them at
Orpheus Leading Eurydice
1. My affinity for language is a given. But how it was given and revealed more than other affinities that may have had it out for me as well is a mystery I’m trying to solve. My hunch is that an affinity for words was present at birth, then snapped-to early on by seductive teachers who assigned adventure narratives and lyric poems, and later the stories of Stephen Crane, the novels of Thomas Hardy, the poetry of Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay (her marquee name was a poem in itself). The tenderly implied coupling in the woods Tess endured with Alec D’Urberville unfolded so shadily that I had no idea she was being forced against her will otherwise I would have crawled into the novel and run the rapist off in the midst of the act. In such moments, this affinity for the book manifested a transcendent sense that prose and poetry recognized me as its completion, that I was
7:43 a.m.: Police deemed a burglar alarm on Islington Street to be false.
8:54 a.m.: Marcy Street caller said that his truck had been damaged by a downspout that flew off a city building but was told to contact the Department of Public Works.
9:28 a.m.: Verbal warning given to an Islington Street driver.
9:33 a.m.: Verbal warning given to a Route 33 and Interstate 95 northbound driver.
10:18 a.m.: Two-car rear-end accident reported at Gosling Road and the Spaulding Turnpike northbound. The incident was later designated as one that the Newington Police Department would respond to.
10:24 a.m.: Report taken for a two-car accident on State Street and Middle Street. National Wrecker was requested for towing.
PORTSMOUTH The City Council has approved changes to the Prescott Park Master Plan, which recommends spending more than $3 million to protect the city-owned park from flooding.
The council voted unanimously Monday to approve the changes to the plan recommended by the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Committee. Multiple recommended projects are aimed at protecting the beloved city park on the banks of the tidal Piscataqua River from flooding and other threats posed by climate change.
Tom Watson, who is chair of the Blue Ribbon committee, told the City Council the threats posed by rising water “will continue to be an increasing problem going forward.”