Sunday, May 4, 2003
I remember driving through New Hampshire some time when I was a little kid and my parents asking me if I wanted to see the Old Man on the Mountain. Being a shy kid, the idea scared me shitless. I had visions of some Grizzly Adams-type guy, living in a log cabin on the mountain-top that we, personally, were going to see. No way was I down with that! 
Boston Globe Online / City & Region / N.H. says 'farewell, Old Man'
National landmark crumbles, apparently from natural forces
By Jenna Russell, Globe Staff and Peter Demarco, Globe Correspondent, 5/4/2003
FRANCONIA, N.H. - The Old Man of the Mountain, the beloved granite formation that symbolized the rugged independence of New Hampshire, has crumbled, leaving the Granite State to mourn ''The Great Stone Face'' immortalized by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
A rock slide, which appeared to have been caused by natural geological forces, stripped Cannon Mountain of the famous rocky profile admired by Daniel Webster, Henry David Thoreau, and generations of White Mountains leaf-peepers. Of the five separate granite ledges that together resembled a head, only two remained in place yesterday.
The massive boulders that composed the Old Man's prominent forehead and nose, their absence first noticed yesterday morning by state park employees, had tumbled toward Profile Lake, 1,200 feet below, stopping short of the water.
New Hampshire Governor Craig Benson announced the immediate formation of a task force to examine the possibility of resurrecting the symbol.[...]
Puh-lease...let the old man rest in pieces would you? The whole point of the thing was that it was a natural formation. It was bad enough that they were starting to have to hold it together with wires and epoxy. Let us have our memories! I can see it now, "We can re-build him...we can make him better than before...The 6 BILLION DOLLAR MAN! The old Old Man was inferior, this new one will be visible from all directions!"
Anyway, glad I got to see you while you were still around, Old Fella.
I have an idea. How about we take some of the granite blocks and make a memorial to something? How about a memorial to dead statues? That would be appropriate. We could start with 7000 entries of "Saddam Hussein," move on to Lenin, etc...
OK, a couple more serious suggestions: Maybe a war memorial or a memorial to all those killed on New Hampshire's highways (like those going to visit sites like the Old Man)?
Perhaps we could get a skilled stone carver to carve a statue of some sort from one of the larger pieces and we could gift it, Statue of Liberty style, to the people of Iraq as a freedom statue?
