This is NHPR’s The Big Question. In this series, we ask you a question about life in New Hampshire, you submit an answer, and your voice may be featured on air or online.
For December’s Big Question, we asked: What was your favorite moment of 2024?
Here’s what some of you shared.
Barbara Jo Kingsley - Peterborough: My favorite event this past year was climbing Mount Washington. I had a very major, 10-hour surgery last fall, and I told the surgeon that my goal was to climb Mount Washington that coming summer. And we did. We went up to the top in misty, drizzly weather and saw nothing but fog, but we made it to the top. The next day, we went down the Cog Railway. I had been up on the top when I was younger, but it was new for me after surgery. It was a goal I set, and I made it, and I was real proud of myself.
Rik Yeames - Concord: My favorite moment of 2024 occurred on Monday, April 8 at 3:30 p.m. when I was able to view totality from Pittsburg, New Hampshire, of the total solar eclipse that occurred that day. I was actually a NASA partner, [a] solar eclipse ambassador, [and] had an eclipse mobile. I spoke to a lot of school groups, libraries [and] some rotary clubs around New Hampshire. So it was the culmination of about nine years of working, planning and preparing, getting ready for the eclipse. It turned out to be the sight of a lifetime.
Carla Schwartz - Meredith, New Hampshire, and Carlisle, Massachusetts: My favorite moment was that we prepared a camper van to go to Vermont to see the total solar eclipse. We put in windows and we put in cabinetry and a refrigerator that runs on DC, and all this stuff for solar panels that go all the way to the top so that we can live off the grid. It was an event for humanity, really, to be out there and have the sky darken and then listen to the quiet when the birds disappeared, and then have the sun appear again eventually. It was really beautiful.
Heidi Solomon-Orlick - Henniker: Well, probably the two biggest things for me is one, I fulfilled a lifelong dream of publishing my first children's book at the age of 65 years old. And I think it proves that you are never too old, and it is never too late to reach for the stars. This book is the book that I wish I had when I was a child. The second moment for me this year is the fact that late last year, I was aged out of my corporate role and I decided to lean into full time entrepreneurship. It was a difficult transition for me, but it is the best thing that ever happened to me.
Fred Portnoy - Canterbury: My best memory of 2024 follows closely upon my worst memory of 2024. After my wife passed away in June, I determined two things: one, I was going to attend every concert offered by the Avaloch Farm Music Institute in Boscawen that summer. Two, I was going to honor my wife with a one-woman art show of her work in the town's parish house community center, culminating in a celebration of life. The confluence of those two led to the high point: Ashley Bathgate, cellist of Avaloch, very kindly offered to play selections we chose together for my wife's celebration of life in September.
