Strawbery Banke Presents 10th Annual American Celebration

PORTSMOUTH—
On Monday, July 4, Strawbery Banke Museum rings with an event and fun-filled family commemoration of the nation’s 235th birthday. The 10th annual An American Celebration! event takes place at the Museum from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and includes Revolutionary War re-enactors, a visit from Abe Lincoln, an insider’s view of the shipyard where the new Gundalow is being built and nearly every kid’s activity imaginable.
From games and contests to kite flying to bubble-blowing plus a treasure hunt, the ever-popular 1940s candy counter and Victorian fairy houses, this is a day dedicated to family fun. The traditional Children’s Bike & Wagon Parade starts at 2:30 p.m. and children are invited to come early to decorate their entries between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Strawbery Banke Museum will also remember its role as the keeper of 400 years of Portsmouth history with historic house tours where costumed role-players welcome visitors to their eras, plus colonial hearth-cooking demonstrations and artisans at work in the cooper’s shed and potters’ shop. Visitors can participate in crafts, Children’s Garden activities and observe the Museum’s onsite archaeology excavation.
An American Celebration begins this year with the US Naturalization ceremony, welcoming new citizens to the public for the first time. 
“An American Celebration at Strawbery Banke is a family event that salutes what Independence Day really means,” said Lawrence J. Yerdon, President of Strawbery Banke Museum. “From welcoming new citizens to welcoming our neighbors and visitors, An American Celebration is a commemoration of the nation’s founding and the parts the people of Portsmouth played, a recognition of past challenges and opportunities and a rousing reaffirmation of what life in these United States means to us today.”
No American 4th of July would be complete without great food and great music and An American Celebration features both of those. Vendors will offer hot dogs, lobster rolls, milkshakes, watermelon, salads and cookies along with selections from Googies Sandwich Shoppe and Dos Amigos Burritos.
New this year is the First Annual Seacoast Professional Pie Baking Competition. Professional bakers from restaurants and bakeries around the area will each supply two pies: one for sampling by the judges and the other to be raffled off to benefit the museum’s historical cooking programs. The Bedford Big Band will present live swing music and popular favorites all day.
An American Celebration is the focal point of Independence Day celebrations on the seacoast and is one of Strawbery Banke Museum’s signature events, drawing thousands of visitors who mix comfortably across the 10-acre campus. Admission to An American Celebration is free to children under 17 thanks to sponsorship from BAE Systems. As a member of the Blue Star Museums program, Strawbery Banke Museum admits active duty military and their families free at all times. Museum members are also admitted free of charge. Adult tickets are $15 and available in advance on the Strawbery Banke website, www.strawberybanke.org or by calling 603-433-1107.
Photo caption: (Courtesy image of logo for the 10th annual An American Celebration! at Strawbery Banke Museum)

Remembering the Old Days of Banking in Dover

DOVER—
Many of you living in Dover can remember banking at the Merchants National or Strafford Savings Banks, and remember when there was a bank on the corner of Washington and Locust Streets called Dover Co-operative Bank. Those were days when banking was simple and everyone knew your name.
When kids turned in empty bottles and saved nickels and dimes in a special metal bank, they would go to the bank teller for a key to open and deposit the contents into a savings account book that you carried home with your empty bank, ready to be filled again.
Woodman Institute Museum trustee Thom Hindle and Federal Savings Bank (formerly Dover Co-Op) have prepared a special exhibit that represents those old days of banking. Sponsored by Federal Savings Bank, items from the Thom and Mira Hindle Dover Collection will be on display at the Woodman Museum throughout the 2011 season.
Remember the Hopalong Cassidy Savings Club of the 1950s? You received pins that represented different levels of savings. Tenderfoot, Wrangler, Bronc Buster and Trail Boss were some of the pins given out. You had a small bank that was a bust of Hoppy and coins would be inserted through a hole in his hat. Maybe you received a cardboard coin holder in the shape of a candy cane at Christmas or an Easter Bunny filled with dimes. Did you ever receive a nice mechanical lead pencil or a wood ruler from the bank, usually in celebration of an anniversary? Well these and many more pieces of banking memorabilia now on display should bring back fond memories.
Dover Co-operative was located in the Walker Block on Washington Street next to Robbins Auto. It was a three-story building until 1954, when the third floor was removed. That became Dover Federal Savings.
Merchants National Bank was located on the corner of Third Street and Central Avenue, now Baldface Books. Strafford Banks erected what would be called the “fortress of finance” in 1895 on the corner at Central Square. Strafford was established in 1804 near Tuttle Square.
Gone are the savings books and metal banks shaped like famous people, horses, cars, toy cash registers and buildings, replaced by drive-up windows, automatic teller machines and on-line banking. However, museum visitors can take a step back in time this season by viewing a display of these long-gone banking artifacts from our childhood.
The Woodman Institute Museum is located at 182 Central Avenue in Dover and is open Wednesday-Sunday 12:30-4:30 (except holidays). Call 742-1038 to reserve a group tour or visit www.woodmaninstitutemuseum.org.
Photo caption: The Woodman Institute Museum will host a special exhibit throughout the 2011 season featuring historic banking artifacts courtesy the Thom and Mira Hindle Dover Collection. (Courtesy photo)

Opening Scenes: ‘Super 8’

By Chip Schrader
Movie Reviewer
“Super 8” begins with a high angle shot overlooking a factory with a sign that reads “Safety is our first priority.” A man is on the right taking off the numbers 784 and replacing them with 1 to signify the number of days without an accident. The scene shifts to a middle school-aged kid sitting on a swing with a locket in his hand. His friends are gathered inside with the rest of the mourners wondering if he will still want to work on his zombie movie project, even if his mother his dead. A man comes to the wake to mourn and is removed in handcuffs.
“Super 8” takes viewers back to the 1980s, a time when producer Steven Spielberg was in his prime, directing or producing blockbusters like “Goonies,” “Poltergeist,” and “E.T.” Old time Spielberg fans have waited for the day that he would ditch Tom Cruise and work on another movie centered on children and the classical form of science fiction that made him famous, namely “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Like Spielberg in the past, director J.J. Abrams directs the children in “Super 8” so well; the movie takes off and never lands.
Kids in backpacks riding their bikes through a suburban town marks a period of time when Internet and social networking has not spoiled childhood. The boys are out with their super 8 camera shooting that zombie flick they were talking about in the first scene.
The crew consists of five boys. Throughout the movie, only three have predominant roles: Joe, the sensitive child of the woman who died; Charlie, the wannabe film director and Cary, that kid that wants to blow things up. They are eventually joined by a talented girl, Alice, who aspires to be an actress.
The kids are very funny in this movie, and it has been a long time since such a fun story has been united with this caliber of acting. To dig too deep into the story would be to spoil the whole experience, but anybody who has a love for the old creature features will love this movie. The camera angles are dynamic and exciting, the special effects and action are wildly entertaining, and the story is interesting.
There are some flaws, though. Loose ends are either untied or unsatisfactorily resolved as the movie wraps up. One instance of this is that we never really discover why the dogs ran off just before the town turns into a war zone, nor do we see their reunion with the family. Instead, we just see a scene where we learn over a phone call that Joe’s dog, Lucy, was found in the next county.
There are also characters that vanish, and we never see their story completed. At 112 minutes, the movie could use at least another 20 minutes to more deeply explore the characters, only because they are so interesting.
Bottom line: long-time movie fans have waited twenty years for this film. It may have its flaws, but the movie is so entertaining that nobody cares; it just ends far too soon. This is Spielberg’s best project since “Schindler’s List,” and this film will propel J.J. Abrams’ career as a director.
The kids are all believable and funny in this movie, and young starlet Elle Fanning is unbelievably good. Her scenes with Joe take us all back to a time of our first crushes, so much so that the viewer can feel that pang that hasn’t been felt in years. The action sequences are intense and the language may deter the younger audiences, but this is the way movies used to be, and this will hopefully be the beginning of the end of corny and sanitized youth movies. 5 out of 5.
Photo caption: (Courtesy movie poster)