I used to like Chuck Mower, and I will start by saying a few nice things about him. I met Chuck in the mid-90s when the Merrimack River Watershed Council had a canoe trip program. Chuck was one of the volunteer trip leaders and a regional historian. I enjoyed many trips in which we would stop for lunch, and he would tell stories, like the one of Hannah Dustin, as we ate our lunch. Chuck was(and presumably still is) a self-employed furniture maker respected by his peers, and he sometimes brought his sons, Lyman and Haven, on canoe trips that began or ended near his home and workshop on Depot Rd.
About 15 years ago, Jason Potts, a producer of Chronicle, emailed me out of the blue for some input on a piece featuring Manchester. He found me through the paddling grapevine in search of someone to work with on the Merrimack River part of the piece. I wanted to refer Jason to George May, but he was in the hospital at the time, so I suggested Chuck, and he did a good job speaking into the camera, and the featured sound byte was great. It was great because it wasn’t political, and it was great because at the time, I didn’t know he was with the enemy camp(as many paddlers tend to be, unfortunately).
A few years later, while BO was still in office, the 619DW gun shop, which was later relocated to Exit 12, received national attention for a BO poster. It said “salesman of the year” and was added to a collection of posters of various 20th-century overseas tyrants displayed in the storefront windows. At the time, I wasn’t paying attention to who did the complaining, but my thoughts were, “Good for that gun ship owner (Keith Cox), a badge of honor for him!” That story lay dormant in my mind for many years until a few years ago, when I visited the store’s website to find its hours of operation. Embedded on the home page at the time was a sound-bite video featuring Chuck Mower complaining into the camera!
This gun shop (though now sadly under new ownership) was at a very busy intersection on old Route 3, which receives most of the traffic from Exit 12 and makes for a premium campaign sign location, even though Merrimack is gerrymandered into that darling OTHER district. Not just for traffic visibility, but because gun shop customers are likely to support Lily, I paid Keith a visit to get permission to place her sign alongside the menagerie of signs for Mooney, Notter, et al. During that talk, I commented on how I didn’t know Chuck Mower was one of the malcontents featured in that old “salesman of the year” story. I told Keith that many fellow paddlers affectionately called Chuck “the Mayor of Merrimack,” to which he snickered and called Chuck “a Merrimack Town Councilor that doesn’t pay his taxes.” I haven’t given Chuck Mower much thought over the past year until now!
The Merrimack ICE protest is now a front-page story and subject of water-cooler talk. When I fired up the WMUR site just to monitor Adam Sexton and their serial story-spinning, I clicked on the video and found Chuck Mower featured in it. He was yammering the expected drivel of leftist talking points. He was also wearing a Vietnam veteran baseball hat as his dear paddling friend Doug Whitbeck did in another loony left protest outside the Nashua courthouse. Doug’s wife, Gwen (1948-2023), was the common thread.
I have many fond memories of paddling with the 3 of them. Gwen and Doug were a common-law couple living near Greeley Park when I met them over 30 years ago, and I was very blind to their toxic political views. They later bought “The Old Schoolhouse” in Mason and tied the knot in their front yard, which later became the site of a routine eyesore of an unholy political shrine. Gwen had her car wallpapered with Bernie pictures and prints, but had to stop driving soon after that. I know they kept the car, and Doug still kept his blue car. After her death, I saw Doug in traffic, or should I say that it was Gwen’s Bernie car that I saw and just assume that Doug was the one driving?
Chuck Mower and Doug Whitbeck have many things in common, including good things (like being veterans and paddlers) and horrible things (like their political views). If Doug ever downsizes his fleet by selling Gwen’s Berniemobile, he should give the Mayor of Merrimack first refusal.
