An hour with the Cocanours

It would take a simple brush stroke to alter the map to include Niles and Christie Cocanour’s home within our town border, but these former Carlisle residents remain devoted neighbors despite their Chelmsford zip code. 

Niles and Christie co-chair one of Carlisle’s most endearing traditions, Old Home Day. “Old Home Day is for all Carlisle residents, past and present,” explained Niles. “We represent the ‘past’ part of that message.” While the couple no longer lives in town, they continue to lead the charge to organize this mammoth three-day event each year, armed with a small company of volunteers who attend to every detail.  

Deep roots in New England

Niles originally hails from upstate New York, but his father moved the family to a 100-acre farm in central Ohio when Niles was 8. “My father didn’t make much money off Christmas trees and maple syrup,” he recalled. “It was more that my father wanted to keep my brother and me busy so we didn’t get into trouble.” 

“My parents were pretty keen on New England,” Niles explained, “as some of my mother’s family came over on the Mayflower.” Those ancestors were John Alden and Priscilla Mullins, passengers on the Mayflower in 1620. According to popular folklore, John Alden was the first pilgrim to step out at Plymouth Rock, and the couple was widely believed to be part of a love triangle depicted in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, The Courtship of Myles Standish. 

Niles said his mother’s family remained in Vermont throughout the Revolutionary War, when one of his great, great (even greater) grandfathers was in Ethan Allen’s company of Green Mountain Boys. To receive his pension from Congress, the grandfather had to recount his war duties, which included swimming across the river to Fort Ticonderoga to spy on the Fort and report back to his commanders. Niles said a letter from his grandfather warned the family to move further inland to avoid raids by Native American and British troops along the Connecticut River.

West Coast connection

Christie originally hails from Southern California and never moved much from the area until college. A student at  UCLA and a Texas A&M and Brandeis graduate, Christie worked for the Department of Defense as a flight test engineer when she met Niles during a social event at Edwards Air Force Base. Niles, who received his degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute courtesy of the U.S. Air Force, was serving as mission commander on the EC135 aircraft, otherwise known as ARIA. 

“Once a year, the base hosted a big party in the desert attended by younger officers and civilians,” Niles said. The party dates back to Chuck Yeager’s days in the USAF, and Yeager often attended. “You would meet all sorts of icons of history when you went through Edwards,” Niles recalled.  When a mutual friend in Niles’ squadron realized he did not have a date for the party, she took the opportunity to introduce Niles to Christie.  

Getting down to business

Niles explained that ARIA, which they fondly called “Snoopy” due to its large black nose, was originally developed by NASA and the Department of Defense in the 1960s to support the U.S. space program. The fleet underwent many conversions and was eventually relocated to Edwards AFB in 1994. The planes were the size of a 737 jet and “chock full of equipment” that could be deployed globally for any mission. “It had a huge parabolic dish in the front that was sensitive enough to pick up a one-watt transmitter at 1,000 miles,” Niles explained. “Decommutators would break signals out, and we would use heat strip maps to call out events as they happened.” 

Christie said she was involved in flight testing some of the aircraft. “They would stick the engineers in the back of the plane with a lot of equipment,” she recalled. “We had varying degrees of success in keeping our lunch down.”

Both Niles and Christie said the years at Edwards, 1994-1996, were “a lot of work!” “The B2 bomber was being tested for the first time while we were there,” said Niles. “It was super classified. We would drive into the desert early in the morning when it was clear as the sun was coming up. If you looked on the horizon, you could see a little line, then the plane would bank, and a giant black Dorito would turn right in front of you.” Christie said they saw the space shuttle land at Edwards AFB several times when Cape Canaveral was weathered in and watched nervously once as a shuttle took off precariously attached to the back of a 747 to be transported back to Florida. 

In 1996, Niles got orders to transfer to a detachment in Greenville, TX. Christie explained that the detachment is not a base but a civilian airfield where 50-60 military personnel were deployed for flight testing and modifications to some new equipment. The couple had been dating for over a year when they got engaged in 1996 and married in 1997. Christie was able to join Niles in Texas for a year or so until Niles, now a captain, received new orders for a tour of duty at Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford. 

Massachusetts bound

Christie and Niles enjoyed living on base at Hanscom and being introduced to the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Christie took a job at Raytheon and eventually transitioned to BAE, and then to Lincoln Lab, while Niles worked at the Lab testing equipment and aircraft that were ultimately used to help forces in Iraq and Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11.

It was not long before Niles discovered Carlisle and a nicely appointed house on East Street next to long-time residents Ernie and Ellen Huber. They lived in the house just a short time before Niles was promoted to Major and assigned to a short tour of duty at the Pentagon. “Christie was involved in some highly important sensitive work at the Lab,” said Niles, “and we both knew that the Pentagon schedule was going to be long and grueling, so we decided she would stay in Carlisle and I would just fly home on the weekends.”

As an aside, Niles said that during his tour, he was assigned to work for a new director who had been stationed at Hanscom as a civilian. “She told me she used to live in Carlisle,” he recalled. “I asked her where in Carlisle, and she said, ‘on East Street.’ Then I asked her where on East Street, and she said, ‘241’—we lived in the same house!” His boss had dug a new well, replaced the windows, and installed a new roof, which Niles and Christie were now enjoying.

The lure of the pie

In 2006, they decided to rent their home on East Street to another military family when Niles was reassigned to a position in Las Vegas. They stayed in Nevada until 2011, when he took a second tour of duty at Hanscom and returned to Carlisle. Christie stayed in Las Vegas for another year, so Niles found himself home alone.

After about six months of being back in Carlisle, Niles noticed an ad on the back page of the Mosquito seeking volunteers for the OHD pie baking contest. Niles easily rationalized his decision to get involved. “I bake pies, I like to eat pies, I guess I could judge pies, and that might allow me to eat MORE pies!” He knocked on the door of Dave and Florence Reed’s home in 2012 for the first OHD planning meeting and was eventually named pie-baking contest co-chair with Sally Duscha.

Christie returned to Carlisle in 2012 and joined Niles on the OHD committee. Dave Reed, who was feeling the effects of some serious health issues, was already passing on additional OHD duties to Niles, and agreed to make Christie and Niles co-chairs beginning in 2015. The couple purchased a new home in 2014, just over the Carlisle border in Chelmsford, bordering the Cranberry Bog. True to form, the USAF promoted Niles to Colonel in 2015 and issued a new set of orders—including a by-name request—for him to return to the DC area. The new co-chairs embraced their OHD duties despite living apart for the next three years.

“It was a tough decision,” said Christie, “since we both knew what living apart was like.” “Military families put up with just as much as servicemembers do,” said Niles. “Christie was well plugged in at the Lab at the time, and we knew that a command position in the Rapid Capabilities Office would mean long hours,” so they decided that Christie would remain in Massachusetts while Niles worked in DC. “I enjoyed the work; I am proud of the work we did, and when it was finished, I was ready to come home,” said Niles. Christie pointed out that after Niles retired in 2018, his position was divided into three distinct jobs. 

Manning the OHD ship

With Niles back home, the couple dug into their OHD duties. “We have changed a few things,” noted Christie. “One has been to spread out the venue. It all used to be located on the FRS green and in the church, but we found we were starting to outgrow those spaces.” 

Old Home Day was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic, but the committee realized the town was ready for normalcy in 2021, so they planned two OHD celebrations that year, one in the summer and one in the fall. “We were trying to find the right balance between accommodating peoples’ sensitivities while keeping the event true to its form.” Due to concerns about crowds and proximity, they decided to cancel events like the parade and the kids’ games for the summer event in hopes of being able to hold them in the fall.

“The fall turned out to be a very busy time for families as parents were trying to navigate what being back at school in-person looked like for their children,” explained Christie. “Lots of parents on the committee just didn’t have the bandwidth to do a fall event, so we had to cancel it.”

OHD has come back strong since 2021, with the country fair now located under the solar panels to accommodate more vendors, and cakes and pies moved into the school so they could also spread out. “Willam’s Be Yourself Challenge is a great example of a new event that has blended into what OHD is all about,” said Niles. Christie said the Carlisle Music Festival has been an exciting new addition to the weekend festivities for the past two years, and organizers hope to expand the festival in future years. 

Old is new again

Niles said that OHD may seem the same each year to some, but not all. “Every year we are a little older, some people who were with us last year are not anymore, and new families are coming for the first time.” Christie added, “We had someone tell us he hadn’t been to OHD in over 30 years. He said, ‘It looks a lot the same and a little bit different.’ It was very nostalgic for him.”

A few things have moved on from the early days of OHD, like the greased pig chase, the milkmaid contest, and, more recently, the frog jumping contest. “One contributing factor was that more and more frogs were being abandoned after the contest,” explained Christie. Some residents would like to see fireworks again, but the price tag is steep. “If the Town wants to do it and can cover most of the cost, we would be happy to help organize it,” said Niles. “Costs keep going up,” Christie added, “and while we have gotten ARPA grants for the past two years, that money is gone now.”

Niles and Christie said they plan to be involved with OHD for the foreseeable future. “It’s crazy busy, but we have some of the best volunteers, and it’s one of the most fun committees in town,” said Niles. You can take the Cocanours out of Carlisle, but you can’t take Carlisle out of the Cocanours. 

If you enjoy giving back to the town while working with a great crew of people, OHD might be the committee for you. For more information, to volunteer, or to donate, visit http://www.carlisleohd.org.

Published October 23, 2024 in The Carlisle Mosquito.