Hi, I'm John Clayton, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music I'm sure you've done this a million times before yourself.

Driven to a toll booth and paid a toll in the state of New Hampshire.

But did you ever think about what goes on behind the scenes at a tollbooth?

Tonight we're going to find out.

How are you today?

Good, how are you?

Thank you very much.

Also on tonight's program, we'll pay a visit to the Odiorne Point State Park.

We have green crabs, and we have rock crabs.

Crabs can hurt you if these guys pinch your finger.

Like the bigger they get, the harder their pinches.

So I'm going to teach you guys how to pick them up so they won't pinch you.

Put them in his mouth, they blow bubbles sometimes.

Music Also on tonight's program, we'll meet a man who was there for one of America's great aviation disasters.

The speaker from the ship yelled that they were going to drop another line.

And we watched that fall.

And just as the crew ran out to grab it, we felt something different.

Again, she dumps ballasts, and a nervous tension grips those who are watching.

And then we'll find out more about the musical mysteries of the harp.

It is assumed that probably it started from the twang of a bow and arrow.

But first, let's take a peek behind the scenes at a toll booth.

Good morning.

Sue Smith is the Supervisor of Toll Operations for the state of New Hampshire, and Sue, how large a pool are we talking about with toll operators in the state?

We have about 300 to 325 toll attendants throughout the system, and that includes nine toll facilities.

Good morning.

Thanks.

And are you looking for certain personality traits in your hiring?

Oh, absolutely.

Obviously, there's a lot of interaction.

The toll attendant gets to talk to a lot of motorists.

Although the interaction is for a short period of time, we expect that that will be a pleasant experience for the motorists.

Five is ten, ten is twenty, thank you.

Sandy's our toll taker today.

Sandy's going to show us the ropes here.

Hi.

It's $1.25.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Four, five.

Five is ten.

Thank you.

I hear stories about courtships that happen here, Sandy, where you might have a guy and a girl driving, you know, side by side, a little interaction on the road, and the guy will pay the toll for the girl behind him.

You ever get any of that?

Oh, yeah, and it's not just a matter of guys and girls.

During the Christmas season - Hi.

It’s $3.

I have a lot of people who pay for the other person just to be nice.

They don't even know em.

Good morning.

We definitely have a lot of nice people out here who do things like that.

That is very nice.

Now, how about you?

Any courtship, any dates?

Matter of fact, I'm engaged to a man that I met through the tolls.

Carry on.

Tell me more.

He's 24 year old.

I normally work down on the side road at Exit 11.

And that's where I met him.

He's from Allenstown and definitely a great guy.

I wouldn't be engaged if he wasn't.

Good morning.

The toll attendants are almost like the first ambassador from New Hampshire that people see when they come into the state.

That's true.

When we're interviewing people for the job, we're telling them that they have a great opportunity to make a wonderful impression for the state of New Hampshire.

Good morning.

So tell me, Sandy, in 20 years, what do you see yourself doing?

Honestly, I'd love to run for governor.

That's what I want to do.

Yeah.

That's one of the reasons why I took this job, to get familiar with the state and how it works.

And, you know, what are the quirks, things like that.

So I'm hoping.

We’ll see.

I'm going to school right now, so.

Well, you got a lot of experience shaking hands and meeting people.

That's definitely true.

That’s half of the battle, isn't it?

Yeah it is.

The money's the other half, right?

Yeah.

Well, you're obviously good at managing money.

Yeah.

That's true.

That's true.

Sandy Goulet for Governor.

Yeah.

Pick a year.

Any year.

That's great.

Hello.

You're natural.

Yeah, I know it.

Yeah.

We're going to leave the din and clatter of the toll booth now and head to a more melodious setting.

We're going to Stratham.

That's where producer Chip Neal met harpist and composer Stephanie Curcio.

Music You can find pictures of harps on the walls of the tombs in ancient Egypt, so we know that they are one of the earliest instruments.

Music We can only guess, but it is assumed that probably it started from the twang of a bow and arrow, and obviously a longer string has a lower sound.

So I would imagine that the men, with their big bows and arrows had a low sound, and the little guys learning had a high sound.

Music This is a very small lever harp, and they get larger.

Some of them have legs.

What is distinctive about them is that they have a mechanism at the top of the strings that will enable you to play a string where it is tuned.

Raise the lever and therefore raise the pitch of the harp.

A lot of experimenting was done.

There have been harps with double layers of strings, triple layers of strings.

There have been harps with crossed layers of strings.

I think that was called a Pleyel harp.

And then, other areas went into development of mechanism.

The mechanism that was originally developed was developed by SébastienÉrard in France and it involves pedals.

Now you can see here - I'll turn the harp for a moment for you.

There are seven pedals at the bottom of a harp.

There is one for each note of the scale: B, C, D, E, F, G, A. Each pedal on this harp, this is called a double action pedal harp, has three positions: the top, the middle, and the bottom.

Now what happens when I depress a pedal?

The first disc engages and we go from flat to natural.

When I depress the pedal again, the second disc engages and we get sharp.

Now all of the C's on the harp will react the same way.

C flat, C natural, C sharp, and I'm doing that with my foot.

And that's called a pedal slide.

Okay?

This is probably the most recognized sound of the harp.

It's called a glissando, a sliding across the strings.

And everybody loves this sound.

Now just listen to a change.

I'm doing that with my feet.

There is something kind of almost magical about the sound.

It resounds.

The most simple of sounds can just draw people to you.

I've been tuning at times and had people come up to me and say, that is just the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.

Stephanie Curcio not only plays the harp and composes for it.

She has also been teaching harp for a number of years.

We're going to meet some of my students who have really honored New Hampshire by being chosen as finalists in the national harp competitions and having won various divisions.

Music Annabelle Taubl is only 12.

Hard to believe when you hear her play.

She will play for you a piece by Marcel Grandjany.

An example of his neoclassical style.

The aria in classic style.

Music Piper Runnion-Bareford started harp at the age of eight and now at the age of 15, is a member of the New England Conservatory Youth Philharmonic under Ben Zander, and she will play the Nutcracker Cadenza.

Music Marilinda Garcia, who is 16, joined the Greater Boston Youth Symphony two years ago.

She is currently working under the direction of Frederico Cortese from the Boston Symphony.

She and her sister Bianca, who is also a member of the same symphony, will play an excerpt from Two in Flight, which was written by Stephanie Curcio.

Music To a person, they all said two things.

They love the sound.

That's what first brought them to the harp.

And they loved the challenge.

I think this whole idea of patting students on the head and saying, oh, anything you do, dear, is absolutely wonderful, it’s just not appreciated by the kids.

They are not stupid.

They know that you're mollycoddling them and they don't appreciate it.

They like to achieve, every single one of them.

I think you also have to have a lot of respect for your students.

I think they have to know that you believe in them.

I mean, every youngster who comes to me and says, I want to play the harp, has somehow been enchanted by a sound.

Music Music We're back at the Hooksett Toll Plaza with Ed Hyde, one of the toll takers who has a special premium for dog owners.

Abigail.

I have quite a few regular patrons who bring their canines with them.

And those that I get to know regularly, if they come in my lane, I happen to have a treat for them and it's getting to the point now where they’re disappointed if they go to someone else's lane.

A lot of toll attendants have regular commuters that see them on a daily basis, and if they're absent for 2 or 3 days, the motorist will be asking, well, what happened to to Laurie or where is John today?

And they get to know their families, their family stories, and they have a very good relationship with their commuters.

Do you, do you do windows, Ed?

Oh, yeah.

I've done windows before.

We do windows.

That's as far as I can reach.

We are.

Yeah.

You’re the best!

We love you!

Bye!

Bye, thank you!

Good luck, ladies!

Now, Ed, I know you get a lot of big trucks coming through here.

Do you ever get curious about what they're hauling and where?

Yeah, some of the things that I find very curious are when I see a tractor trailer with, I would say, you know, 100 crushed cars.

So I tell everyone they sell them as convertibles up in Canada.

Music Motor vehicle transportation is the way people get around these days.

But in an earlier age, people got around by other means, including the zeppelin.

John Fulton from Epsom was there one time when zeppelin travel had dangerous and deadly consequences.

On May 6th, 1937, John Fulton of Epsom, New Hampshire, was 25 years old.

FDR was in his first term as president.

The world was on the brink of war, and a great flying ship called the Hindenburg was about to land in New Jersey.

John Fulton was there.

I was in the, the aerological school there on the ground.

We had our quarters and our classroom right there, and we were called out frequently to assist with the blimps.

So we were experienced in handling lighter than air lines.

Slowly the big ship warps in and the ground crews rush for the mooring lines.

In another ten minutes or so, the great aircraft would have been snugly docked.

I had been assigned to the group that worked to test the, the landing lines dangling from the control car.

Music The speaker from the ship yelled they were going to drop another line, and we watched that fall.

And just as the crew ran out to grab it, we felt something different.

Again, she dumps ballasts and a nervous tension grips those who are watching.

Well, this is something unusual.

There goes more ballast, but the tail is settling in spite of all that has been dumped.

A grim note of impending tragedy.

I knew that something had happened.

This, the the, the noise of the spectators.

There was a change, and I, I didn't know what it was for a second or two.

And then I felt heat on the back of my neck.

Music (explosion) A roar and a burst of flame near the beak.

The tail fin.

An airship destroyed in less than half a minute.

Tail fin turned the ship into a flaming inferno.

I took off and I started running.

And I couldn't take my eyes off the ship.

I was trying to get away from it, but I couldn't take my eyes off of it, so I couldn't run about as fast as I wanted to.

Music (flames burning) I ran until I was aware that I had passed a photographer who was grinding away with his hand-operated camera, and when I realized that he was in no danger, I stopped and turned and watched the ship settle on the ground.

Rushing to the rescue, the heroes of the tragedy dashing, heedless of danger to help the injured to safety, while others beyond help perish in the flame.

I don't know what turned us back.

Everybody turned to run back to the ship to see what could be done, I suppose.

When I arrived at the framework I was, I could see people inside, the crew members, and everybody was going into the framework to see if they could get them out.

And I helped the three men out, and we took three of them out, and the last one was hanging in, hanging up in some of the support wires.

And I reached up and caught his hand to pull him down.

And as my hand came away, it was a mess of burnt flesh.

5 or 6 of us were pulling him, taking him out.

He was a big man.

Must have weighed well over 200 pounds, and I got to that first beam that I had crawled over, and I stumbled backwards and fell and I dragged that man over me.

Death list is now 35, with 10, including Captain Pruss, still on the critical list.

The blimps that took daily flights from Lakehurst frequently had people on the ground shooting at them with rifles.

This was never proved, but it was talked about at the time.

And that, if a shot had passed through one of the gas cells in the ship, it could have allowed hydrogen to escape and mix with the oxygen outside to a point where we might have had a spontaneous explosion.

Music Music Good morning.

Thank you.

I think we could all use a little break from the cold weather.

So we're going to take a summertime visit to Odiorne Point State Park.

Here we are at the Seacoast Science Center.

And, the Science Center is just six and a half years old as a year-round marine education center and visitor center here in Odiorne Point State Park.

We've got a lot of people doing tidepool tours, coastal installation tours, wildflower walks in the park.

We've got a great park to work in with a great cultural history and a very diverse natural history.

This, this part of Odiorne is known as the Drowned Forest.

And here along the coast, anywhere from 3200 years ago to 4600 years ago, this was a coastal forest.

It's kind of hard to imagine that now with the beach here, but this area was covered with forest and right in front of us here is the base of one of the trees.

You can see radiating from the center where the stump is, or what's left of the stump, the root system.

Of course, now it's covered with some of the rock weeds, the marine algaes that grow here and some snails.

But in this area you can find anywhere from 30 to 40 stumps.

I've been out here on days with a little bit lower tide and some of these trees, you can actually see the rings of the trees, the growth rings.

So you can actually date that the tree, when it, when it basically was drowned and, and perished in the rising sea level, Music Pretty low tide out there, which is good for you guys because you get to see you way down to the red zone.

And that's where, like, the sea stars are going to be living, crabs.

So you're going to start seeing crabs in about the brown zone.

We have two different kinds of crabs out there.

We have green crabs and we have rock crabs.

Crabs can hurt you.

If these guys pinch your finger.

Like, the bigger they get, the harder their pinches.

So I'm going to teach you guys how to pick them up so they won't pinch you.

Put them in his mouth.

They blow bubbles sometimes.

Here's some mussels, guys.

Oh!

Can I hold him?

No.

They might cry.

A crab!

Come on, I found a bigger one!

A bigger one.

You guys found a crab?

Here’s - They put these - Was he under the rock?

This is the last Odiorne home, as part of the Odiorne homestead.

The Odiornes first moved here in 1660.

John Odiorne was a fisherman out at the Isles of Shoals.

And he moved here to what is now known as Odiorne Point State Park, the name coming from the Odiorne family.

This was the last home that the Odiornes built and was built in the 1800s by ships’ carpenters.

The graveyard, it's got both marked and unmarked gravestones.

And the tales go and stories go that there are many of the earliest settlers in this area were buried here in some of these unmarked stones.

Music Over here at the site of the Graves family former estate.

And the rock wall is what's left of this area.

The home was here within the rock boundaries and was called Gray Rocks.

It was quite a lavish home of ten rooms and two baths but represents a period of time here in Odiorne when all of the land was privately owned and with some very lavish estates along the coast of New Hampshire.

And most of what you see today are these rock walls and foundations.

Hi.

Hi.

How are you guys doing?

Good.

All right.

You having a good day?

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

What are you finding?

I don’t know.

Everything?

A crab.

A crab?

The estate period basically ended with the military taking the land to build Fort Dearborn to protect the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which is just around the corner here.

This land was taken by the military.

And this is one of the sites, this is Battery Seaman.

And this is where two 16 inch guns were in place.

And these guns were capable of firing a shell that weighed nearly a ton or just over a ton.

And they were able to fire that shell about 25 miles.

They had warned and notified everyone in the area that they were going to test fire these guns once the installation was complete.

And of course, these guns were massive.

These were big guns.

And when they fired, there was quite a repercussion.

So the Wentworth Motel or Hotel is just just over the other side of here, little harbor just through these trees, can't be more than half a mile away.

So they had coordinated this large effort, got everyone in the communities, notified, they had military personnel in the hotel opening all the windows, taking all the pictures off the wall so that with the repercussion of the shell firing, they wouldn't break windows and knock these pictures off the walls.

So there was some big delay going on with the actual firing and miscommunication.

As the story goes, a lot of the windows were closed.

The pictures were rehung, and then the guns were fired.

(cannon firing) Music But the roadways, the rock walls, there's gardens, there's all kinds of things of historical significance as you walk through the park, which just make it - There's always a surprise around the corner.

It looks like it's part of a boat or something, like a rudder or something, you know?

What is it?

You know what?

Put it on.

We're going to have to bring it up with us.

Why don’t you stick it on top of the raft, and we'll get it on our way back in.

We hear you!

Let me see!

Ooh, look over there now!

You got him?

Got him?

Oh my God.

Oh, he's a big one.

Oh!

Can I hold him?

No.

We hope you enjoyed tonight's look behind the scenes at the Hooksett Toll Plaza.

And until next week, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm John Clayton.

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