Episode 1 - The Old Man of the Mountain

[MUSIC] Hello and welcome to WTFNH, the podcast about weird shit in New Hampshire. Why New Hampshire? Because that's where the universe decided to drop me when I fell out of the great cosmic fending machine and I keep ending up back here no matter how far away I move. I'm your host Amanda Jundison and I'm here with my husband Chris. Say hi. Hi, how's it going? Do you have any idea what you're going to hear about today? Oh no, no idea. I know it's in New Hampshire and that's about all I've got right now. Well done. Yeah, and I think that's where most of the listeners are too. Oh, okay. Let's jump in. Okay, I'm calling this first segment where the fucking New Hampshire are we? And it's where I make my husband guess which part of the state today's weird thing is from. It's all to be good. Yeah, so you'll have to guess the region and you get bonus points for getting the right town. Okay. Okay. Okay. Are you ready? I guess. Yeah. So I'm going to give you like a series of clues. Okay. Okay. That's kind of what I thought because otherwise I'm just. How are you going to guess? Yeah. Shouting things out into the void here. So yeah, don't do that. All right. So remember, you can guess the region, fake bonus points for the town. Okay. Okay. Here we go. This region is a popular destination for outdoor enthusiasts. Okay. Okay. It is home to several iconic natural attractions. Weconic natural attractions. Got it. Okay. Artists and photographers have found inspiration in the ever-changing landscapes of this region for hundreds of years. Okay. Okay. Any guesses yet? This is the White Mountains. It is in fact the White Mountains. Yay. You got it. Yes. Okay. Do you want to keep going and see if you can guess the town? Yeah, let's give it a shot. Okay. So the town is part of the larger Appalachian mountain range because of course the whites are also a part of that mountain range. And it's named for a really impressive geological feature that makes up most of it. It's named for. Oh, it must be Frinkonia notch then. Well done. I am so proud of you. Yay. Okay. It is. It is the White Mountains. We are talking about the town of Frinkonia notch. Okay. With that in your head now, would you like to guess which weird thing we are going to be talking about today? Is it weird iconic or both? I'm going to go ahead and say both. Both? It's not the old man on the mountain, right? Yeah, I didn't know that. It is the old man on the mountain. I trombone you because you said it's not. Have some confidence in your fucking guesses. Jesus, man. It's the thing in Frinkonia notch unless you're looking at the notch itself. I mean, that's true. That's true. Okay. So you got the sad telephone for that one. It was the thing in Frinkonia notch. Yeah, we'll get to that. Okay. We will get to that. Okay. So we are talking about. The old man in the mountain. Yay. Now, okay. I have to tell you, I learned something just in preparing the script for today because my entire life, I have been calling it the old man in the mountain, which I think we both just did. Yeah. Apparently this is not correct. Oh. Okay. Yeah. Um. It's actually the old man of the mountain. Huh. Yeah. But I don't think that really matters because. No. What does everybody actually call it? Yes, the old man in the mountain. But it's just the old man for short, right? Like, I don't ever think I hear people say the whole name. They're just like, yeah, the old man. I don't think I've ever heard someone shorten it to the old man. Mass-hole. [laughs] This is just proof that you didn't grow up here. I don't know. People, tell me if I'm right or wrong. To me, it's always just been the old man. I don't ever say the whole thing. And then, apparently, when I do, I say it wrong. So, fuck me. But whatever. I mean, I've always heard it is the old man in the mountain. But like, nobody said of. It's always just like the old man, uh, the mountain. Old man in the mountain. Okay, you know what? That's fair, right? What is an F? What is an F? We don't know. Okay. So, I want to start by finding out what you think you already know about the old man and a segment that I am calling. New Hampshire of your knowledge! New Hampshire of your knowledge, right? Please, groans and courage for that shitty, shitty pun. Amp, ramp, okay, I'm done. All right, so this is where you get to tell me anything that you know or think that you know about today's topic, the old man in the mountain. So. Okay. What do you know? All right, the old man in the mountain is. It was a formation of rocks in Franconia notch that you could see from the ground. It was up on the side of the notch itself or like a ridge that's there. Yeah, it's on Canon Mountain. Canon Mountain. Okay, so it's Canon Mountain. I know they attempted to shore it up at one point in the 90s and it finally fell off in like 2003. The year after I got to go see it on like a middle school field trip. Oh, damn. So you actually did get to see him when he was in his rightful spot. Yes. Okay, cool. I did too, of course, because I was born in 1985, I've lived my entire life. I can remember numerous summers where my grandparents packed us into the RV, drove us up 93, and we got to see the old man. And at that point, they didn't have anything except like I think I remember coin-operated binoculars, right? That you would look up with. And of course my granddad always had his own pair. But we would go and we would look and then like five minutes later be like, all right, I'm done. And my grandmother's like, no, we're staying. We spent a lot of time with him. Good. Okay. So you actually know quite a lot. There's more that I'm going to tell you but like you've got a good start. So well done. Well done for that. So we know that the old man is like old, really old. But how old are we talking? How old do you think that formation was? I mean, it has to at least date back to the ice age. Which ice age? Ooh, I have no idea. I know it goes back to presumably New Hampshire buried under miles of ice and glaciers. Yeah. So the history of this formation is taking us back to between the 17th millennium BC and the 6th millennium BC. Oh wow. Okay. So this is when New England is undergoing the most recent ice age. And we both know that I suck at math. But you don't. Do you have any idea what that translates to in like years ago? That's about eight to 12,000. Well done. Dude. Oh my god. Yes. So we're talking about. You're doing the math and we had about how long? That was as soon as you said 6,000 BC. Yeah. We're talking like eight to 16,000 years or so. Yeah. Okay. And so at the time, right, there was this second ice age. We're undergoing a pretty significant glaciation across the globe. But of course, very heavily in the United States. And the glaciation period was actually named for a state. Do you know what it's called? I do not. If I had to guess it'd be something in the Midwest. But that is a really good guess. Yes. So this is actually named for Wisconsin. So this ice age is called the Wisconsin glaciation. Okay. My brain was shouting Montana, which is very different. It's a little far, that's a little farther west. But I'm honestly, I'm impressed that you got that close. I had no fucking clue. Well, I mean, you said state. I didn't really have a like coherent thought. I was like, that sounds like something that name after Midwest. Great. Yes. Yes. So Wisconsin glaciation. So New England is covered in glaciers for a long time. Right. But eventually the post glacial erosion creates this cliff. And that cliff eventually falls apart enough to look like what we know as the old man of the mountain. Okay. Okay. But in fact, the old man wasn't just one cliff. It was a series of granite ledges. How many do you think there were? Six. Really close. Five. You're crushing this. Yes. So it's five granite cliff ledges on what is now Cannon Mountain. Okay. And so when it's in its entirety, the rock formation measured 40 feet tall and 25 feet across. Okay. And that location sits about 1,200 feet above profile lake, which is what that body of water under it is called. When you say across, do you mean like side to side, like with the forehead? Yes. That's actually much wider than I realized it was. Yes. I agree. I thought it was like a very narrow slice of rock, essentially. Right. And it's one of those things where it's like an optical illusion. Because if you look at it from a certain angle, it doesn't look like anything. You have to look at it in that profile in order for it to look like the old man. Yes. That I kind of knew. Yeah. Okay. So speaking of that, let's talk about names. Right. Okay. So there are a couple of other pretty famous names for this formation. Do you know what they are? I do not. I'm going to go ahead and hazard a guess that one of them is in Iroquois or one of the like local native languages. Okay. Yeah. You're right. I don't have that actual name, but it translates loosely to great stone face. Okay. Okay. So that's one of them. I was actually going to give you. I was going to give you the hint about the brewing company in Newington. Oh, yep. Stone face. Right. And then the other name for it is just the profile. Okay. Okay. But yeah, so it was known to the Abanaki people as great stone face. And story goes that a human named Nisquizos who was born during an eclipse. Right. So his name actually means two moons. Full disclosure, I found this story on the website of the indigenous New Hampshire Collaborative Collective. And if you want to read further version from the adapted one, I'm about to tell you can head over to their website at www.indigenousnh.com. But anyway. So we're going to talk about the story. And then we're going to talk about the story. for her at their hunting camp, which is up on this mountain. and he'll light a fire every night so that she can find her way home, right? It's all super romantic. I'm getting a little goosebumps right now, but I'm sure you can guess where this is going. Yeah, I see where this is going because that face was there. Was there for millennia? Yeah. Right, seasons pass, Tarlo's not back, and he has just stayed up on this mountain like he's promised, but now his family is worried. And so they send his brother Gisosa to look for him, but Nisquizos refuses to leave the mountain until his wife returns. By the end of the winter, news arrives that she and her family didn't survive this sickness. So Gisosa heads back up the mountain with the task of telling his brother the sad news, but when he arrives, there's no fire, there's no trace of Nisquizos or his camp. But on his way back to the village, as Gisosa is stopping to say a prayer for his brother, the legend goes that he looks up at the mountain and he sees this face looking right back at him. It's stone face, right? Overlooking in Dachena, the traditional name for this land that we live on, now called New Hampshire, and that he's just there waiting and watching for his wife's return. And so that story goes with apologies to the master story tellers out there and thanks again to INHCC. Okay, so for, of course, you know, time immemorial, the Abanaki people were aware of this formation. Yes. When do you think the first mention by European settlers appears in various writings? Probably mid 18th century. Yeah, it's just a little bit, just a little bit later than that. Okay. Okay, so 1805 for sure is the first mention. Okay. Potentially mentioned earlier than that, but of course records get fuzzy. Yeah, and it may be something that people had talked about, but hadn't written anything down. Exactly. Right? Like, you feel like if you're in that area, it's hard to miss, but we'll come back to that in a second. Like by the early 1800s, what's happening is that they're starting to survey the area in preparation of construction of the notch road. Right? So up till then, there have just been like paths. And of course, the paths are really heavily traveled. They're used for commerce. And somehow nobody has noticed the old man, and I think it's because the woods are crazy dense. You know what New Hampshire woods are like. Yeah. Right? And of course, 93 is not going to be opened in this area until the late 1980s. Right? There's these two surveyors out there, Francis Whitcomb and Luke Brooks. And they're in the mountains doing this work, but somehow have failed to notice this massive stone face just looming over them. Well, I mean, like we mentioned, you can only see it from like a certain angle. Yes. Like, okay, so if you're listening to this podcast and you have never just spent a day in the woods in New Hampshire, it's kind of hard to explain how thick the underbrush can be and how easy it is to miss things that are actual feet from you. It's basically a mirror dimension of pine needles. Right? There's a plane somewhere in the woods in New Hampshire that I will cover in another episode that people just walk by on a regular basis. The path goes 15 feet by it. And you just like do to do. I don't know that there's a plane there. I'll also note that that's a more common phenomenon than you realize because there was one when we were living in Hawaii, too. There was another. Shoot. It was a hiking trail that went like 20 meters past a downed plane and it was just out there. Got to be what it could go find it. It's got to be what inspired lost. I mean, it could be. Yeah. I don't know. But anyway, the story goes that one morning Luke Brooks is out early. He goes to profile lake for water. And there finally, right, he looks up and he spots the old man because he sees its reflection in the lake. Right. No, whether or not this is true, of course, is totally up for debate and completely irrelevant. But it's worth noting that there were actually several groups of surveyors working in Franconia not at that time. And all of them tried to claim credit for this discovery. That's not surprised. Right. And Luke were like in first, I guess. Okay. But of course, all of this is actually just another example of white dudes taking credit for something that the indigenous folks had known about for a long, fucking time. Oh, yeah. Big surprise. It's a classic tale. All right. I'm going to give you a quote about the old man from a very famous granite stator. So I want you to go ahead and scroll up and you will see it on the screen. And I'd like you to read that out loud, please. All right. Well, the way. Second. All the way. Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades. Shoemakers hang out a gigantic shoe, jewelers, a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth. But up in the mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there he makes men. I feel like I should have had a sound effect for that one. It's just so fucking overblown. But anyway, do you have any idea which statesmen flash New Hampshire native coined that particular gem? I do not, but I'm going to hazard to guess. Let me see. There's only like three or four. So that are actually like real famous. Matthew Thornton. No, I'm sorry. Is it Bartlett? Also, no, but I'm not giving you the trump. Oh, all right. Third times the term. There's a highway named after him. It helps. Yep. My brain is not coming up with it right now. It is Daniel Webster. Of course. I was just shouting, DW Highway. I was like, what's DW? Again, for those of you who don't know, now you know, right? The DW Highway is named for Daniel Webster. So he was a lawyer, congressman, secretary of state, not one, but two times under two different presidents. And New Hampshire's own very own Sam Eagle impersonator. Look at a picture of him. I swear to God. Please put a picture of Daniel Webster directly next to Sam Eagle and then you can send me your hate mail. Okay. I need to look that up. Take a little pause for Chris to go ahead and look at this picture of Daniel Webster. Oh my God. He really does. That's some like, man. Right. Please, everybody, take two seconds. It'll make your day better. You're welcome. All right. But going back to this quote for a minute, can you imagine if our license plate said there he makes men instead of live for your die? Oh. I mean, like they're both the same level of pomposity. Yarr. Yarr. So, all right. Let's fast forward a little bit. In 1926, the formation appears on all New Hampshire license plate. Okay. When did the old man of the mountain become the state emblem of New Hampshire? Come to state emblem of New Hampshire. I didn't know we had a state emblem. I thought the state emblem was like the state seal, which is a boat. Yeah. It's just sometime around 2000. It is way earlier than that. Oh, wow. Yeah. Of course it is. One more guess. Based on 1925, I don't know why earlier than that. 19 hundred. It's worth waiting for the trombone. I'm just full of sad trombone. It's actually 1945. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's right, folks. Yeah, but the end of World War II, the great state of New Hampshire apparently had no concerns way to your than, hey, what should our state mascot be? I mean, after World War II, you'd think the state mascot would be a submarine. Oh, yeah. Well, all right. So just for fun, Z's, what do you think our emblem would be if we were trying to choose one today? Oh, God. I don't think there's any good options right now. I think it would be a middle finger pointed directly at the state of Massachusetts. With an unbuckled seatbelt. Perfect. Done. All right, trivia time. Over the years, a lot of famous people have come to visit the old man of the mountain. All right. Which of the following people did not make that track? Was it Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Antel Adams? Out of that crew. Grant. Actually, Antel Adams. That's a little surprising. He just stayed out west. He didn't give a hell about our little Piddly foothills that we call mountains. I was having that thought that he was like, you know, out west and in the bad lands and the big national parks out that way. But at the same time, I was like, when it comes to mountains, I think Antel Adams was a total size queen. So he was out of the woods. But Hawthorne. Hawthorne, I knew had, we've been here. Hawthorne visited in 1850 and he actually wrote a short story about the old man called the Great Stoneface. Oh, okay. And then Grant visited in 1869 on what was essentially a summer vacation. And he even took his family up the cog railway, which I think is kind of neat. Okay. Yeah. I haven't even done that. Yeah. I need to get on that, literally. And then Eisenhower visited in 1955 as part of the old man's 150th quote unquote birthday celebration because apparently we cannot just like cannot help ourselves. We have to answer purmorphized this honk of rock. I think it's an adoption ceremony. Yeah. I also think it's way fucking older than 150 at this point. But please revisit my earlier comment about people stealing things. Anyway, all right. Back to old Stoneface. So the same geological processes that created the old man are ultimately what led to its destruction. And dear listeners, I'm so sorry if this is spoilers for you because the old man did in fact fall the fuck down. But more on that in a bit. Okay. So freezing and thawing or causing damage over time to the old man's forehead. Rettenalls haven't been discovered yet. So he is screwed. I'm not sorry. In 1906, the Reverend Guy Roberts starts to warn people about the signs of deterioration. And then in 1916, Governor Roland H. Spalding, yes, another highway name like the Spalding turnpike. And lastly, I know starts. He starts this state effort to preserve the formation. Okay. So with that in mind. What decade do you think they first started actually mending the cracks with chains? - That feels very 1920s. - Oh my God, dude, yes, you nailed it. No sad trauma problems on that one, yeah. Right, so 20 plus years before they decide to make this face our state emblem, they're already trying to repair damage that's being caused by what are essentially frost heaves on the dude's face, right? And then later on in 1957, the state legislature passes a $25,000 appropriation for better weather proofing on the old man of the mountain. I did the adjustments that is just shy of $250,000 adjusted for today's money. - Okay. - And what it goes towards are plastic coverings, steel rods, a gutter to divert runoff, and 20 tons of fast drying cement. - They just cemented the whole thing? With the chains, with the plastic, whatever, they are doing the worst botched plastic surgery job that you could imagine. - It was like that fresco of Jesus, but in rock. - Basically. Right, so we're talking like major reconstructive surgery for this guy, okay? And it is a losing battle. Do you know the date that the formation actually collapsed? - It was 2003. I think it was in March. - No, it's a little bit, just a little bit later than that it was in May. - Okay. - Yeah, so May 3rd, 2003. - Okay. - All right, so this is the spring of my senior year of high school. Okay, and in fact, it's like just about a month before graduation, when this happens, I definitely remember people being genuinely upset. And also a couple of them were kind of mildly concerned that maybe this was a bad omen. (laughing) We're graduating that year. 2003 babies, let me know what you think about that. I'm kind of in the middle, right? We did end up then graduating into the recession a few years later, so who knows? - I was gonna say graduating into the recession and the Iraq war. - I'm not sure it's fair to blame all of that on old stone face. - Why not? (laughing) - Well, it's not his fault. - Write letters to your congressman, people. (upbeat music) - Do you have any memories of the old man falling down? - Not really, honestly. - What grade were you in? - I was in eighth grade. So this is at the same time that my dad and stepmom were getting married and I was going on like a week long field trip to DC. So there were a lot of other things going on at the time. - Yeah, you had way more important things to worry about. - Yeah. - That's cool. - All right, so in the immediate aftermath of him falling down, there's a lot of really fucking dumb ideas getting tossed around. - Okay, 'cause they wanted to rebuild it. - Yes, one of the ideas was let's replace it with a replica. Okay, which gets soundly rejected by a fucking official task force that has been set up to manage this crisis. All right, they pulled in like a former governor. It was a big deal, okay? And then the next year, there's a proposal to change the state flag to include the profile. I missed all of this when it was actually happening by the way, I learned every bit of this doing research. - Yeah, I think our state flag has changed since like. - No, that's the part with the seal. - Yeah, exactly. It's like the 1700s. - You know what, I didn't actually look up when the flag was created, but yeah, it's been around for a minute. But like people are freaking out about this face and the mountain being gone to the point that legacy funds are being set up right to try and find ways to help people relive the glory days of old Stoneface. - Oh, he has the glory days of the rocks on the mountain. - Exactly. So we did finally come up with something. Do you know what was finally decided on? I know that it is, how to phrase it. It's like it's a series of images that when you stand at Profile Plaza, you're looking through them and it looks like. You're looking at the old man of the mountain up there on the mountain again. - Yeah, that's really good. Well done. It's the old man of the mountain memorial. - Yeah. - And this memorial is actually really cool. I finally just made it up there last summer when Jake and I went up to. We stopped in Franconia notch on the way to Chutters, right up in Little Tim. And they've done exactly what you said. They have set up a series of what they call steel profilers and when you look at them from a certain angle, and it's really helpful. They've got markings on the ground. So however tall you are, it shows you where to stand. So that you get the profile right now, it's so sweet. It's like five feet, three feet, seven feet. I'm like, "Who the fuck is whatever?" But anyway, the seven feet tall people can also enjoy the old man. - Okay. - But yeah, when you look at them from that certain angle, it recreates what the old man looked like up on the mountain without actually having to do the stupid thing of recreating the old man of the mountain. - Yeah. - Right? So I found out as I was doing the research for this episode that actually took about 10 years for them to complete this memorial. They started planning and even broke ground in 2010, but they didn't complete the memorial until September of 2020. - Okay. - Yeah. - So it's still relatively new, which is kind of cool. - Yeah, 'cause I remember you mentioning. When you went there with Jake, there was some kind of a ceremony going on for the Plaza or the memorial that was set up. - Yeah, so it was an interesting day for us to have been there. So for those of you listening, Jake is our nephew. At the time, I think he was just turned nine. - Yeah, just so. - Right, 'cause this was just last summer. - Yeah. - And so we decided to make the pilgrimage up to Chutters Candy Counter and Little Tim, the longest candy counter in the world, definitely go. But the day that we stopped, they were setting up a memorial service for the man who had designed the Plaza. - That's what it was, yup. - And then I didn't realize what a big deal this was, but we're noticing that this event is happening. And so I'm like, okay, we're gonna spend the very short amount of time here, like 10 minutes max, like we're looking at the profilers, we're getting out. And as we go back into the parking lot, this van pulls up that has government plates on it and out pops Chris Sennunu, our governor. Right? And so I kind of elbow our nephew and I'm like, hey, do you wanna say hi to the governor and Jake's like, oh my God, yes, so we went over and he was so nice. He was actually really impressed because he cannot have been having maybe the best morning of his life, like he's probably changing into his suit, driving up 93, it's kind of a toasty day. He's gotta go talk at, you know, a memorial service, but he was so nice, he took a couple minutes, he chatted with us in the parking lot, we snapped a picture, I'll throw that in the show notes. And yeah, so Jake had a very like, new hampshire day (laughing) seeing the old man and meeting the governor in the same day in the same place, which was so weird. - And then going and getting candy. - And then going and getting candy at Chutters. It is, that is a classic summer activity. - Mm-hmm. - Like, you have to make that pilgrimage at least once a year. All right, so now, here we are, we're 20 years on from this and we are still spending a lot of time and legislative hours on the old man, okay? So just this year, two things happened that I think are worth noting. One is a comment made by state rep Tim K. Hill, comparing, the fall of the old man to another famous and emotional collapse. And you think of what he might have said? - A fame. There's no. - I'll give you a hint, it's really bad. - Oh, I could tell it was really bad. Are we talking like Berlin wall bad? - Worse. - Oh wow. Oh no. - Yeah, he compared it to 9/11. - What? - He compared it to the twin towers falling down. Yeah, in a spectacularly ill-considered and crass moment, Representative K. Hill said that quote, "The old man falling was akin to the twin towers "for many in the granite state and around the world." End quote. - I'm sorry. - I don't have words to express. - Yeah. - The concept of wrong does not mean the begin to scratch the surface. - I gotta tell you, right? So both of these events happened while I was in high school and there's literally no comparison. - So 9/11, I remember exactly where I was. Right, the whole morning is like a slow motion snapshot of what I was doing and who I was with, blah blah. The old man, I think I maybe was sitting at the lunch table and somebody mentioned it and was like, "Huh, that's weird." And then I went on with my day. - Yeah. Yeah, the old man in the mountain, I knew sometime later that it had fallen down. I don't know when I figured that out. I don't know. - No, but everybody remembers 9/11. - Yeah. - So there's a video of him saying this, of course. And it made its way to CBS, of course. So I have shared the link to the video in the show notes. It is wild. Like you can actually hear people groaning audibly in the back of the way. - That's that. - So there's that. This was not, I think, a widely agreed with sentiment. - Wow. - Yeah, I mean. - But anyway, so the other thing that happened this year is that New Hampshire has actually established May 3rd as Old Man of the Mountain Day. Okay, he has his own holiday now, which is kind of fun. What do you think people should do to celebrate? - Just to celebrate the Mountain Day. I think people should go to the mountains. I don't really have much. - I'm the classic right now. I love that. I get out into nature. - Yeah, exactly. - Let's never a bad idea. - Appreciate what's out there. Getting to like the, what's the word they always used with like the romantic painters, the sublime. Try to experience the sublime. - I was thinking maybe they could go spot some other really famous landmark and then right home, like they're the people who discovered it. (laughing) - I discovered this weird rock formation. It looks exactly like four presidents. - Oh my God. Do you mean out Rushmore? - Yes. - Nice. (upbeat music) - Okay, darling, you now know a lot about the old man of the mountain. Are you ready? for a little quiz. Yes. Perfect. Quiz me. We are calling this segment what the fuck do you know? [Music] What the fuck do you know? Special thanks to Kyle Joe and Mish for their voices on that little I couldn't help myself. Perfect. Okay so here's how this works. I'm going to ask you 10 questions and I'm cheating a little bit because there's a bonus question on this one too and I just you know think about the conversation that we've had and see how you do. All right I love bonus questions. All right here we go. All right. Question one. What state was the ice age that formed the old man named for? Wisconsin. Excellent. Question two. How many granite ledges made up the old man's face? Five. Well done. Question three. What are two other famous names for the old man of the mountain? Stone face. And? The other one's the skaming me right now. Oh the profile. The profile. Yes well done. Okay. She's totally not hinting with hand gestures over there. It's all right you can get in. You're halfway there anyway. Okay. Question number four. What does the Abynaki name Nisquizos mean? Skizos. Two moons. Well done. I'm very impressed. Okay. Question five. Who were the first white settlers to find the old man and what were they doing? Don't think don't worry about names. Okay yeah they were surveyors. They were surveyors. Right working on the Noths Road. Okay. Question six. Which New Hampshire native set of the old man quote up in the mountains of New Hampshire? God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there he makes men. Old Danny Webster. Danny Webster is rolling over in his grave. Okay. Question seven. In the 1920s two things happened with the old man. Do you remember what they were? First they started trying to use chains to hold it up. Well done. And number two. And number two was they started putting it on the license plates. So good. Okay. Question eight. Who were the three famous people that we talked about having visited the old man of the mountain? It was two presidents in a poet because it was Elyse's s grant, good white Eisenhower and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Well done. All right. Question nine. In what year did the old man become the state emblem of New Hampshire? 1926. Sorry. It's actually 1945. It was 45. I forgot. 26 was the license plate. Yep. You got it. That's okay. You're doing excellent. Right. Got nine correct right now. All right. Question 10. In what year did the old man of the mountain finally collapse? 2003. Well done. Okay. Here's your bonus question. True or false. There is a state statute that prohibits tampering with or damaging the old man of the mountain. True. It is true. So yes, under New Hampshire law, vandalizing the old man was actually classified as a misdemeanor. And it came with a fine of anywhere between $1,000 and $3,000 plus restitution to the state for any damage caused. How many people have ever been prosecuted under that, do you think? That is a great question. I wish I had looked that up. I have no idea. I'm guessing relatively few because that is a shitty shitty hike. Yeah, that was my basic thought. But I'm curious now. So I have to say you did just so well on that quiz. You got nine out of 10 and the bonus question. Good job. Well, my love. I have had a blast annoying you with all of this useless knowledge about the old man of the mountain. Do you have any takeaways from today's episode? Now I know a little bit more about the Abanaki history in the story. I know actually quite a lot more than I used to know about it, honestly. Yeah, I think it has a much more interesting history than you realize. And I didn't have enough of a chance last summer to look around profiler Plaza and see like how much information is there. I think I remember like an interpretive sign. So we should definitely take a trip. What is it like 10X? It's we need to drop back up the highway and take a look at that. It's still a fairly long drive from one where we're at, but it's not bad. Yeah, it's definitely worth a visit. So if you find yourself in the state of New Hampshire or you are a granite stator with nothing better to do this summer, get yourself up 93 and definitely take a look at that. It is really cool. I want to thank my husband Chris for being such a good sport. And I want to thank all of you for listening. For more information and links to various resources, go on and click through the show notes or visit us at www.wtfnh.com. You enjoyed this episode, please give us a like, review or rating. It really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe to WTFNH, wherever you listen to podcasts. This episode of WTFNH was produced by me, Amanda Jenison, with help from Chris Susa and Kyle Masterson. Sound effects and music from zapsplat.com with additional music from Pixabay.com. Tune in next time for more weird-ass tales from Granite State. [Music] [Music] Okay, so this is just a little test of our levels. So I want you to go ahead and just talk about your coffee. How do you like to take your coffee? I like my coffee with sugar and cream, as they say, you know. [Laughter] The Beastie Boys reference? No! You're so cool! Yes, it is! [Laughter] That's perfect. Okay, thank you. And then I'm gonna play. Okay. Okay.