I grew up across the road from Red (John) for quite a few years. He was a friend. He was a smart, well read man. He had loads of dogs, one blind dog he said was half wolf that he kept tied to one of his sheds for fear it would wander off. He smoked a pipe and I don’t know who told you he drank wine, but in the years I knew I knew him he drank Natural light beer and a lot of it, usually with a side bag of chips. He was Finnish. He grew up here, in that very house, with his parents and sister. He remembers when Turnpike rd was a dirt road. He told us that story quite a few times, among others. He was interesting to say the least. He enjoyed going to the store to get his “loot” almost every day. He didn’t drive. He rode his bike or had a friend take him. Eventually it was mine and my husbands “job” lol. He heated with coal (which he was often covered in) and wood (also often all over his face) and he didn’t have hot water. He wasn’t too clean and didn’t care…he once pulled a bad tooth out of his mouth with a pair of pliers!! He was in the Army and stationed in Germany for a time and he worked in Fitchburg at Simonds. He never married nor did his sister. She lived all over and finally came back to NH and settled in Keene. They renewed their relationship which was so nice for him. She eventually passed and it was hard on him. One by one his good friends, men who would come by and sit with him under that lovely old maple tree that used to change to the color of fire in fall and share a beer and a story, passed, his dogs too passed and he became sadder and sadder. He stopped gardening and just sat. What most people do not know is he was so very generous. His sister left him a decent sum and I remember him saying…”what the heck do I need money for??” He gave to so many charities, including a good chunk to the town library until it dwindled down to almost nothing which is what he wanted. I heard some people refer to him as the drunk old man who road his bike down to the store…he was much more. Eventually my husband took care of him and when it became apparent he needed more care, my husband had him taken to the hospital, a real inner struggle for my husband because Red had asked him not to do that. Just let me die he said. After that he was never the same. My husband visited him often (I cried coward, I just hated to see him like that) even though he didn’t know who my husband was anymore. And when he finally passed, there was no one for him. We fed his lone, last dog until one day he just disappeared, probably sick of us and missing his friend. We acquired some of Red’s (really) old books and some photos as well as some old Life magazines. My husband took some of his old tools, most of which had the handles painted orange so Red could “find the damn things in the tall grass!” We had his ashes for quite sometime not really knowing what to do with them. Eventually, we went to the cemetery pond (where he enjoyed going) and spread some there and the rest in our garden and in his. We kept a small amount and put it in a pipe tobacco tin. It sits on our bookcase next to his picture. We drank a Natural Light beer in his honor. A somewhat sad ending to a really lovely man. My family is better having known him. Just thought you would like to know a bit more about the man behind the abandoned house. Oh and someone did buy it…but have never done a thing with it so I will assume they have forgotten they own it 😉

Not Red Fogg ! I knew Red Fogg growing up as he was best friends with my grandfather and his son Terry with my father. There is a nice lady named Celia Koski that lives in town. Friends with my grandmother and a former librarian. I would mow her lawn in the summers and stack her wood in the fall! Maybe she knows who this is?

Nice story. Just came across it today, My father knew him. I wish I had.