Welcome to Things Worth Remembering, our weekly column in which writers share a poem or paragraph that all of us should commit to heart. This week, Keaton Swett reflects on Sam Walter Foss’s “The House by the Side of the Road” and what it means, in an age of fracture and fury, to “be a friend to man.”
There’s a particular story my wife likes to tell. It comes from those early days of our relationship, when every glance carried meaning, and even brushing hands felt electric. We were out for Thai food one night, lingering longer than necessary in the easy Palo Alto air. She was in the Bay Area for graduate school and I was chasing the Silicon Valley tech start-up dream. Midway through dinner, the playful banter gave way to something more serious. I looked across the table and said, without irony, “Just so you know, I plan on moving back to New Hampshire one day. If that’s a deal-breaker, it’s better to say it now.” I had spent my childhood climbing the white mountains and swimming in the clear waters of Lake Winnipesaukee. I knew that one day, I wanted my kids to have the same experiences that had profoundly shaped me.
Luckily, she wasn’t scared off by long winters or my complete lack of tact. Still, our path back to New England took a few detours. Three years after that dinner, we traded Northern California for a seven-year stint in North Carolina for more graduate studies and start-up adventures. We were there, in March 2020, when the world abruptly shut down. Schools and churches closed. Restaurants went dark. Working remotely became as common as a glove compartment full of masks. Like everyone else, our lives were upended. The everyday connective tissue of friends, co-workers, and community thinned almost overnight. Above the chaos of it all, I felt a pull toward home.
