'Cynicism is fear'

Ken Burns

“I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we’re led to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it’s worse than fear; it’s active disengagement.’’

—Ken Burns (born 1953) celebrated maker of documentary films on topics in American history. His production company is Florentine Films, based in Walpole, N.H. The company’s name came from co-founder Elaine Mayes’s hometown of Florence, Mass. Burns attended Hampshire College, in nearby Amherst, Mass.

The Walpole, N.H. Town Hall

The (somewhat) famous Miss Florence Dinner, in Florence, Mass. Having a thriving silk industry in the 19th Century, the village was named in 1852 after Florence, Italy, for its own thriving silk trade in Europe.

Squirrels and season

“Squirrels from treetops listen to

pine wind song. Such overtures of

the season come again and again….’’

-- From “Squirrels in Wind Pine,’’ by David Kherdian, who lives in Florence, a village in Northhampton, Mass. Because it had a thriving silk industry in the 19th Century, the village was named in 1852 after Florence, Italy, for its own thriving silk trade.

A classic breakfast-all-day diner in Florence

A small-town Hollywood for documentaries

Walpole in 1915. Some of the town hasn't changed that much since then.

It's surprising what you can find in small New England towns. Consider Walpole, N.H., in the southwest corner of the Granite State.

That is where Ken Burns, Elaine Mayes and Roger Sherman, classmates at Hampshire College (in nearby Amherst, Mass.), in 1976 founded a documentary film company called Florentine Films, which went on to produce the famous  films  The Civil War (1990), Baseball (1994), Jazz (2001), The War (2007), The National Parks: America's Best Idea (2009), Prohibition (2011), The Roosevelts (2014) and The Vietnam War (2017).

The name of the company came from Florence, Mass., Mayes's home town,  also in the Connecticut River Valley. A rather cozy company.

The famous Miss Florence Diner, in Florence, Mass. Such diners are civic ornaments of many small New England towns and some cities, too. They sometimes serve as informal town halls --  chatty and caffeinated central meeting places.