For some reason that, over ten years working here, I have never completely understood, Peterborough, New Hampshire is something of a hotbed of magazine publishing. Even more so if you look back into the past.

When I was a tadpole geek back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was an avid reader of Byte and Creative Computing magazines (there’s an interesting story about their founding); both were published in Peterborough.

Although both magazines are now gone (Byte lives on as a fee-based web publication), and the granddaddy of Peterborough magazines, 73, ceased publication last year, there’s still plenty of publishing happening here.

Of course there’s YANKEE and The Old Farmer’s Almanac, published here in Dublin, just up the road from Peterborough.

There’s also a bunch of kids magazines and the audiophile magazine Audio Xpress. Wayne Green, founder of Byte, publishes NH To Do from nearby Londonderry. Helmers Publishing makes Desktop Engineering and Supply Chain Systems Magazine in the north end of town near the high school. And nearby there’s also Frontline Solutions, another supply chain magazine.

One of the largest mailing list brokers, Millard is based in Peterborough too.

And I’m probably missing many others.

I remember reading the Byte masthead many years ago, and seeing Peterborough, NH, and wondering where it was. Now I know.

We’ve been here in the U.S.A. since last Saturday, hence the echo you’ve been hearing when you ramble around here this week. Johnny and I have been hard at work here at Yankee while Catherine, Oliver, Jodi and my mother have been exploring the Monadnock region of New Hampshire.

Last night Catherine and I had a brief time to ourselves — Oliver stayed with uncle, aunt and grandmother — and we stole away to the Wilton Town Hall Theatre to see Super Size Me (recommended by brother Steve, and a very good documentary, worth seeing, but may prevent you from ever eating fast food again). When we returned to our cottage at 10:00 p.m., everyone was fast asleep: Oliver exhausted them.

We’re off to Boston tomorrow morning for the weekend, and then we’ll slowly wend our way north back to the Island, with the requisite stops at Delorme and L.L. Bean.

When we get back to the Island, we’ll be joined by brothers Steve and Mike and by my dad, making for a complete Rukavina family matched set. We may be forced to challenge the Garritys or the Ledwells to some sort of challenge of strength or intellect.

Tired. Wired.

Our American cousins, I thought this morning in the shower, have it good: they’ve got three national songs that everyone knows the words to. The Star Spangled Banner, America The Beautiful and God Bless America. At the Reagan funeral last night, each was used at an appropriate moment.

Here in Canada we’ve got Oh Canada, which has not only changed its words in my lifetime, but is also now more often sung bilingually than not, with the English/French break coming at some random time and taking everyone by surprise.

There’s God Save The Queen, of course. I imagine that most Canadians could at least belt out the first line, and most over 50 could remember the entire thing. It’s not quite about Canada, mind you, but there’s history on its side.

I suppose our third is The Maple Leaf Forever. Except that I know neither the tune nor the words, and I expect I’m not alone in that.

Were I ever to die, I think I’d like to have Speaking With the Angel (by the trio Cry, Cry, Cry), You Don’t Need (Jane Siberry) and, despite the corniness, Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin) played at my funeral.

The thought of the mourners slow dancing on my grave is too good to pass up.

I had lunch with my old friend Peter Lux today, and he encouraged me to take a look at, and participate in, a new project he’s sheppherding: MensNet.ca, a sort of “Slashdot for Canadian men’s health.”

Peter is arguably one of the country’s leading advocates of “health promotion” — making information about our health available to us — and this project deserves a look.

Back in the olden days, when I was a day camp counsellor at the Hamilton YMCA, one of my favourite things to do with kids was to take them on “behind the scenes” tours. They loved it. I loved it. It was great fun.

In this tradition, Hope Paterson is taking kids on a behind the scenes tour of Atlantic Superstore.

Now if she would only do this for adults too!

Sounds Like Canada, on CBC Radio One, is taping a series of 40 second interviews with people across the country about “their thoughts on the election.” Brendan Elliott came along to the back yard of 84 Fitzroy Street this morning to tape a piece with me.

If you thought this was a difficult election, try summarizing its challenges in 40 seconds.

The piece will air tomorrow morning, sometime between 10:10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. (which seems like a tricky way of getting me to listen to the entire show).

Elections Canada released the official list of candidates for Charlottetown this morning. In addition to candidates mentioned here before, Baird Judson is running for the Christian Heritage Party.

Here’s a list of links to the platforms of the parties fielding candidates in Charlottetown:

• Christian Heritage
• Conservative
• Green
• Liberal
• NDP

Our man Buzz gets interviewed by Steve Rubel.

I thought that the series of federal candidate meetings we had here last week would allow me to do one of two things: either conjure up a enthusiastic endorsement of one of the candidates, or, at least, to write at some length about the candidates and their ideas.

I find myself unable to do either.

I think, in my heart of hearts, I wanted the candidates to fall into the stereotypes I had pre-assigned them. I wanted Will McFadden to be a lunatic. Or to be some sort of Green Trudeau. I wanted Dody Crane to appear muddled and beholden to big labour. I wanted Darren Peters to be the devil. And I wanted Shawn Murphy to appear irrelevant and worthy of casting aside.

Alas, none of the candidates matched my stereotypes.

Will was neither a lunatic nor an Ubermensch: he was an enthusiastic, well-spoken environmentalist one-worlder who had been asked to run, and accepted.

Dody was smart, and passionate. She’s a True Believier in what the NDP stands for, and she’s back for her fifth election because she thinks she can make a difference.

Darren appeared to be more sympathetic to the Greens than to his own party, and wasn’t at all devil-like. He reminded me of myself (albeit with more musical ability, family connections, and facial hair).

Shawn convinced me that he’s a hard-working guy who understands that it takes a long time to get things done, and that he has the patience to see things through. He came across as scrupulously honest, and although he’s very much a Team Martin player, he was willing, at times, to poke holes in the platform.

In the end, I’m no further ahead, decision-wise, than I was before.

I suppose it’s time now to dig into the party platforms and see what the meat of each party’s ideas looks like.

Policy and platforms aside, here’s some anecdotal evidence of our sessions:

Will bought his snazzy green suit at Value Village. He walked in, picked it off the rack, and it fit. During his time in the military, he went overseas to Bosnia, where he had something of an epiphany, and realized he wanted to work on the peace side of the equation, not the war side. He lives in his van, which has solar powered Christmas lights.

Darren is an accomplished folk singer, no doubt due his Carmichael roots. He’s anti-choice on abortion, but pro-legalization of marijuana. He considers himself a progressive. His campaign vehicle is a Toyota Highlander; it gets 27 mpg in city driving.

Dody truly believes there are good people and bad people in the world, and she has no fear of pointing of which are which. She seems to take the existence of the Greens as a personal affront, even more so the notion that someone on the left would consider voting for them. When the new office building on the boardwalk in Charlottetown opens, her law office will be located just under the giant heart window. Her campaign vehicle is a VW New Beetle; it gets 27 mpg in city driving, the same as Darren’s.

Shawn spends 36 weeks of the year in Ottawa. He leaves Charlottetown every Sunday, spends Monday through Thursday in Ottawa, returns to town for a full day of constituency work on Fridays, and repeats. On principle, he doesn’t use his accumulated Aeroplan miles himself: he donates them to efforts like flying a student up to Ottawa each session to tape a TV program.

That’s simply a collection of the enduring images; there was 6 hours of conversation in and around all of that, and I think all in attendance learned a lot. Thanks to all the candidates for attending; I think everyone, candidates included, came away thinking that that this is how politics should be done.

Based on the success of our meetings, we’ve made a tentative decision to carry on our “Sessions at 84” series of informal meetings, expanding our scope beyond the political; think of it as Zap Your PRAM without the lasagna. Watch this space for details.