Up the Creek: Citizen of the year

If you’re like me, you’ll be tuning in Sunday night. To the Oscars, I mean. To all those grand red-carpet moments and to the elegant evening gowns and tuxedos and the extravagant fanfare surrounding the bestowing of awards.

It’s quite likely you feel, as I do, jealous watching the Oscars each year. Maybe you’ll ask yourself, “Why does Hollywood get to hog all the fun? Can’t we give out awards like that here in the sticks of New Hampshire?”

We can. And not long ago, I inaugurated my own localized version of the Oscars. I vested myself with the authority to select the winner of the first annual Gilmanton Citizen of the Year Award — and then began worrying about how I would go about making the momentous decision as to how to conduct the selection process.

At first, I figured I’d be scientific about it. I’d work with a data-minded social scientist to conduct a longitudinal study looking at all the volunteers toiling away for Gilmanton’s nonprofits, then I’d tabulate, via discrete metrics, which individual has contributed the largest portion of her heart and soul to the town weal. But such an approach would be boring. If we worked that vineyard, I’m afraid that even Gilmanton’s world class hecklers, ever vigilant, ever ready to saw my prose to pieces on Facebook — well, I’m afraid that even they would be snoring.

I could, alternatively, just give the award to Gilmanton’s sexiest citizen. But such an approach would be low-class and tasteless. Besides that, we all know who would win. What with his imposing, muscled physique and his gleaming bald pate, the esteemed J.R. Stockwell — 62 years old, a carpenter and a stalwart member of the town cemetery committee — would just waltz away with the laurels.

Sorry, J.R. Maybe next year ...

We decided to invoke a more intuitive approach — and also an exciting new journalistic tool. No, not ChatGPT. We’re talking about the lesser-known Magic Pen.

Though it bears an uncanny resemblance to a standard-issue ballpoint pen, the Magic Pen functions somewhat like a dowsing rod. When positioned near an exceptionally newsworthy object or individual, it begins to quaver and convulse. Much like the Magic 8 Ball made popular by Ideal Toys in the 1970s, it is possessed of startling powers of insight. It harbors wisdom.

On a recent gloomy and wet Friday morning, I stood on my front porch and asked the Magic Pen to point me toward the 2023 Gilmanton Citizen of the Year. The pen pointed me in a southwesterly direction — downhill, toward Gilmanton Corners, and, as I approached the home of Israel Willard, the pen began quivering.

Israel embodies citizenship in a fine old-school Yankee way. The man does not sit on the board of any local organizations, and he does not pontificate at town meetings. But somehow, he is always involved, in a colorful and genial way. Israel is a volunteer chef at the Dump Run Cafe, which serves breakfast every Wednesday morning in the basement of the Gilmanton Community Church. One morning this summer, he made the 200-yard commute from his home to the church in his miniature orange Kubota farm vehicle. When the Gilmanton police gave Israel a warning for doing so (it must have been a slow crime day), locals embraced him as an icon of individual liberty.

Later, in October, when a goat belonging to Gilmanton resident Bobbi Jo Benware fell ill, it was Israel who loaned Bobbi Jo a dog crate so that she could transport the faltering animal (her name was Grandma) to the Deerfield Veterinary Clinic.

Was the Magic Pen ready to name Israel Willard Citizen of the Year? Surprisingly, no. As I stood outside Israel’s home, the pen pointed southwest again. I kept walking downhill on Route 140 and then, heeding the pen’s cues, stopped beside the old fire station, outside the home of Steve Owens.

There are numerous excellent things to say about Steve. For one thing, along with his wife Kristie Vanv-Owens, he saved the fire station. A small two-story white clapboard building, the old fire station quietly helps to give Gilmanton Corners a distinctive New England charm.

Steve is an amazing chef and also a conscientious citizen. Currently, he is teaching the culinary arts to inmates at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, in Concord. He is a master beer maker, and he harbors friends in all corners of the political universe. In 2018, at a bonfire in Steve’s backyard, this author set his left-leaning politics aside and enjoyed a cold one and a few laughs with home builder Brett Currier, arguably Gilmanton’s most ardent Trumpista.

In some ways, it would be nice to bestow the coveted award upon Steve Owens. But my fact-finding mission was conducted at the mercy of the Magic Pen, and the pen kept pointing me down the hill, toward the police station.

When I reached the post office, the pen leapt from my hand. For a split second, it just hung in the air, right before my eyes. It stared me down, as it were, urgently, imploringly, and I knew that we had at last hit paydirt.

I did not even trifle with the post office driveway. In haste, I climbed the grassy bank by the roadside, then stepped inside the building, toward the counter. And yes, there he was inside — Gilmanton’s 2023 Citizen of the Year, Mr. Sean Jordan.

Jordan, 38, is Gilmanton’s own beatnik postal clerk. A sometimes poet and an ardent fan of writers such as Charles Bukowski and e.e. cummings, Sean brings to a typically rote federal job more charisma and style than seems possible. Was it fashion mogul Karl Lagerfield who advised Sean that he would come off as more likable, more human if every day he wore a postal uniform that was one size too big? Who was the brilliant stylist who advised Sean to shave not every other day, but rather every fourth day?

It doesn’t matter. All I know is that, in a year pocked by ongoing political division in the U.S. and by the terrifying outbreak of war in the Middle East, we here in Gilmaton are especially appreciative of the amiable nonchalance and good cheer that Sean brings to his work. The holiday notes that he stuffed into our boxes this December are a notch more special in this tumultuous time. And the devotion that Sean, a single dad, so exuberantly shows to his boisterous son, August, age 5? Come on. How can you not like the guy? He’s even training his successor.

I’m still debating how exactly we will honor Sean Jordan. Our working plan is to hire a talented ice sculptor to carve a life-size replica of Sean wrought from ice gathered from the floor of Lake Winnipesaukee ice. If anyone out there is up for doing the scuba diving, please drop me a line.

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Bill Donahue has written for Outside, Harper's, The Atlantic and The Washington Post Magazine. He lives in Gilmanton, and his book, "Unbound: Unforgettable True Stories From The World of Endurance Sports," will be published by Rowman & Littlefield in June. This column is adapted from his online newsletter Up The Creek.