Marlborough lawmaker has passion for music and the environment

Apr. 23—Standing beneath a large painting of Abraham Lincoln in Representatives Hall at the N.H. Statehouse, Rep. Lucius Parshall played "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his guitar at the start of a general session on March 16.

Wearing a tan suit, his brown hair in a ponytail, the 67-year-old Marlborough resident strummed through the national anthem with the confidence befitting a longtime music educator.

Parshall's talents are not limited to the guitar. He's an avid singer and lends his voice to the Keene Cheshiremen Chorus.

He's also a dancer, and on May 1, will join others in doing the annual Morris dance on the Nelson Commons. The men will carry sticks and be dressed in green, wearing short pants with a white handkerchief dangling from a back pocket, white knee socks and bells on their shins. The English folk dance, which dates to the 15th century, is meant to banish winter and celebrate the turn of seasons.

Parshall's passion for performance came early.

He grew up in the Finger Lakes Region of New York, one of seven children of a police officer and a stay-at-home mom. He recalls a happy childhood, but nevertheless had such a strong desire to join the circus that he ran away a couple times in an attempt to do so, once at age 13 for a group near his hometown of Penn Yan, and the next year for a circus in Buffalo. He spent a couple days at each circus before he was encouraged to return home. As an adult, he realized his youthful dream by working for a time as a cook and a driver for Circus Smirkus in northern Vermont.

He attended Ithaca College in New York, earning a bachelor's degree in music, and Binghamton University, also in New York, where he received an MBA with an emphasis in arts administration. While a student, he worked in the wine industry, pulling brush, trimming vines and delivering the product in an 18-wheel tractor-trailer.

Parshall later worked in corporate relations for WNYC in New York. But the Big Apple was not for him, so he moved to western Massachusetts and became an administrator with the Cummington Community of the Arts. He met the woman who would become his wife, Christine, and joined her in Cheshire County. He got his teaching credential from Keene State College and spent 20 years teaching music at schools in the ConVal School District and in Marlborough.

He enjoyed working with young people and sharing his love of music.

"It's a language that allows you to bring your own meaning to it," he said. "It lights up every part of your brain."

Guitar and piano are his main instruments, but he played the Renaissance lute in college, as well as a number of band instruments. He owns a variety of stringed instruments, including banjos, a mandolin, a harp and numerous acoustic and electric guitars.

"There's nothing more important than a musical life, and if you can enhance it by actually making music yourself, all the better. Sometimes words fall short. I used to call it my other voice."

However, he relies on the spoken and written word when it comes to his political life, which began during the divisive times of the Vietnam War.

"I had a brother who volunteered to do his patriotic duty to preserve democracy and to fight Communism," Parshall said. "He really, really bought into that. And he came back as a changed person. He felt like he kind of got suckered into that and saw the hypocrisy of it."

Parshall developed antiwar sentiments and started asking questions.

"Do we really need to have the ability to blow ourselves up seven times over? At what point do we just call for a little sanity?"

He continues to have questions. He wonders how some of those who speak so ardently about the sanctity of life in terms of abortion are so against gun regulations intended to protect life.

He believes women have the right to choose abortion.

"It's not my call to be a moral judge and jury for women across the country and across our state," he said, and he feels it's not right for people to impose their views on others.

"Not everybody believes like me. The mark of a mature mind is to be able to take a different point of view and be able to adopt it and see how it's going to affect them, and we're coming up way short on that."

After retiring from his career in education in 2020, Parshall said he ran for the Legislature to make positive changes, particularly in environmentalism and sustainability. A Democrat, he is his second year representing Marlborough and Troy in the N.H. House.

He is the sponsor of House Bill 1111, which would establish a commission to look at companies' responsibilities for the costs of solid-waste disposal from the packaging of their products.

"The one challenge of our age and the one thing my generation has not done well is leave a more livable world," he said. "I know there are climate deniers out there and I deal with them in the House, but I think it is the issue of our time."

He would like to see the nation ween itself off the petroleum industry.

"I think we'd be far better off if we took an active pursuit of solar, wind, I would even put nuclear on the table at this point — anything to get ourselves off the fuels that are really choking our atmosphere, choking our climate," Parshall said.

He and Christine, a former Keene Board of Education member who works as a nutrition educator for UNH Extension, have two children. William, 26, works at the 21 Bar & Grill in Keene, and Liza, 20, assists local artists and works part-time at a local Market Basket. The family has lived in Cheshire County for 25 years.

"I feel fortunate to live in one of the most progressive areas of the state," Parshall said. "That means we are better prepared to take care of each other culturally. The mark of a society is how we take care of each other."

Jim Peale, who lives in North Swanzey, gets together with Parshall and others to sing everything from old sea shanties to songs by Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Stan Rogers.

He appreciates Parshall's company, sense of humor and eclectic nature. Peale said these qualities in his friend are also good traits in a legislator:

"That's kind of what I look for in legislators, intellectual depth in more than one area."

Rick Green can be reached at RGreen@KeeneSentinel.com or 603-355-8567