Rather than telling my story of moving to Portsmouth in a boring, chronological order, I will intersperse that chronology with my stories of living in Portsmouth, starting with…

…Puddle Duck

Has this ever happened to you?  You finally see the lyrics for a song you know well, and you realize that these are not the words you have been singing along with for all these years?  This is referred to as a mondegreen.  Well, I recently had a Portsmouth mondegreen.

In Portsmouth we have a historic area known as the Strawbery Banke Museum (and yes, that is how you spell Strawbery Banke).  The museum’s location, close to the Piscataqua River, is roughly the location of one of the oldest neighborhoods in the United States.  Because the plantation that eventually became the neighborhood surrounded a tidal inlet, affectionately referred to as the “puddle”, the neighborhood became known as Puddle Dock.  By 1700 it was a hub of New Hampshire’s maritime trade, but eventually went into decline.

Ever since I moved to Portsmouth in the summer of 2017, when people said Puddle Dock, I heard Puddle Duck.  I always found this name to be a bit odd, but, due to the long history of Portsmouth, I just assumed it evolved over time for a good reason.  In my mind, I saw a pond full of ducks surrounded by a colonial town, with horses, men in three-cornered hats, etc.   I meant to look up the origin of the name, but as frequently happens, I always thought to do it when away from the house and forgot by the time I got home.

So, a restaurant just outside of Strawbery Banke is reopening soon with a new name, Puddle Dock.  My wife and I walked by it recently and I commented on how funny it was that they were calling the restaurant Puddle Dock rather than Puddle Duck.  She looked at me with one of the those “What are you talking about?” expressions and patiently explained to me that the proper name was Puddle Dock not Puddle Duck.  I was amazed!  I didn’t know!  For almost four years I have been reading or hearing Puddle Dock as Puddle Duck…four years!*…

…and someday I will tell you what I thought the words were to some of the Beatles songs…

*I guess this is why you always need someone else to proofread your work…