The World According to Gillespie

LOOKING BACK ON BOSTON’S CHARLES RIVER PARK   This column originally appeared on NorthEndWaterfront.com and also appeared on Wicked Local. Back in the 1970s, Charles River Park was more than a place where you would be home now if you lived there, as the iconic sign along Storrow Drive has said for years.   During my childhood, Charles River Park was a home away from home due to the fact that my grandmother lived on the twentieth floor at Eight Whittier Place, apartment 20E.   We frequently made family trips to Boston.   Travelling in could be strangely entertaining, listening to Dale Dorman on 68 WRKO before the FM radio boom, hearing songs like Paul Simon’s Fifty Ways to Leave your Lover , Why can’t we be Friends by War, and I Can Help by Billy Swan, all on fabulous AM radio.   The lobby at Eight Whittier Place was ornately decorated with dark woods and gold.   The trip up the elevators was adventurous.   My dad would sometime...

JEFFERSON INN PROVIDES PERFECT MOUNTAIN GETAWAY  This column originally appeared on Wicked Local. Having spent much of the summer conveniently enjoying someone else’s yacht, I decided that a little hiking was in the works, so I traveled off to the tiny town of Jefferson, New Hampshire. I made a reservation at the Jefferson Inn and appropriately reserved the Monticello room. The room has a comfortable queen size bed, a Jacuzzi, a small turreted nook for reading, and a plethora of books about Thomas Jefferson for those who wish to brush up on their history.   Jefferson, New Hampshire is in the northernmost part of the state. In an earlier column (Sailing into a Life with Coffee), I mentioned having my first ever cup of coffee at a bed and breakfast in North Woodstock, New Hampshire. To add a little geographical perspective, Jefferson is significantly farther north than North Woodstock. To get here, you pass the Kancamagus Highway, Franconia Notch State Park, Cannon Mount...