Verandah Porche
Poet
Vermont
E-mail: verandah@sover.net

Doug Putnam

Vernadah Porche collected nearly 100 stories from business owners and workers along the three-mile stretch of Sunapee Street. The artist engaged these individuals in one-on-one dialogues, interviewing them about their jobs and dreams. She then created "told poems" from the interviews, capturing moments of personal experience in a person's own language. Above, Doug Putnam. Photo by Bill Hackwell. All rights reserved.

"Banging Around" the Foundry and Forest with Doug Putnam (by Verandah Porche)

The rough ledges of Bald Mt. overlook Pine Tree Castings, the foundry where Doug Putnam started working ten hour days with molten steel in 1969. The the early 60's, at age, 13, Putnam and his best friends, Jeffrey Willett and Chucky Allen from Guild, built a camp on Bald Mt. and made themselves at home there. One of the fathers, probably not mine, might sneak up and see what we were up to. We shot red squirrels and hedgehogs and tin cans on a stone wall. We were learning the woods, a new adventure every day.

Putnam recalls how he landed the job at Pine Tree. Foundry Supervisor Henry Rodeschin said, Why don't you come in here? Rodeschin's mother had boarded children in the old Chateau, the Rodeschin family's home on the Guild Rd.

When I was four or five, she took care of me. I remember being in that huge house. She'd put us upstairs to nap. The windows were so tall, I could just see over the sill. He adds, Henry must have known I was a pretty good worker. In those days, neighbors were family.