GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Cloudy again, rain likely later. That was some fleeting high pressure, eh? There's a low pressure system moving in from the west and another forming off the coast, so at some point, we're probably going to get hit with rain coming from both the west and the southeast—a likelihood this afternoon, a certainty tonight and tomorrow. Highs today getting up toward 60, winds from the south, and lows only in the lower 50s tonight."Quick! Check this out!" That's a bear, noticing Erin Donahue's trail cam. Ted Levin writes, "In a dash, Usain Bolt, the graceful Jamaican Olympian, reached 28 mph. A robust black bear, a lumbering bundle of muscle and fat, covers 44 feet a second, hitting speeds of 30 to 35 mph. Legendary NFL fullback Jim Brown ran the 40 in 4.5 seconds; a black bear in less than three. When I was a boy, a camp counselor told me, 'If a bear chases you, run downhill, stop, and turn either left or right'—supposedly, the bear couldn't stop and change direction. Nonsense. Black bears are quick and agile... the leaner, the faster."This probably won't make it into the wedding album. A Woodstock innkeeper has been charged with placing a loaded handgun against the neck of a bride's father, and his wife with assault, following a melee between the couple and members of the wedding party, reports Mike Donoghue in the VT Standard. The lawyer for Jackson House innkeepers Jeffrey and Robin McClain says the guests had returned intoxicated from a rehearsal dinner last week and damaged the inn. The guest, James Revene, told police, “There is no doubt in my mind he was going to kill all three of us." The wedding was relocated to Mendon. Donoghue details the charges and counter-charges. In Randolph, ill feelings linger—and linger—over town office encounter. It began in May, when resident Toby Long went to the town offices to get a phone number for a selectboard member. He was met, he tells the Herald's Darren Marcy, with a "rude" response from two town employees. Things got heated—and went downhill a week later when Long learned one of the employees had called his boss. Selectboard chair Trini Brassard, though she won't talk specifics, tells Marcy that town employees increasingly deal with demanding behavior from the public. "Tolerance is not there anymore," she says.Thanks to former sportswriter, Upper Valley hikers get together once a month to walk, chat, and—always—eat. Which makes sense, given the name one-time Valley News sportswriter Jared Pendak has given the outings: Dayhike & Dine. The ever-changing group hikes once a month, and recently, writer Matt Golec joined in for a Daybreak profile. Pendak not only chooses the trail, Matt writes, but takes on the much tougher job of choosing the restaurant: close to the trailhead, decent food, with prices everyone can afford. Key to its growing popularity: a chance to socialize, both on foot and over a meal.SPONSORED: Don’t miss out on the most thrilling entrepreneurial showdown of the year! Join us for “The Pitch”, hosted by Dartmouth’s Digital Applied Learning and Innovation (DALI) Lab. From innovative tech solutions to game-changing startups, it promises to inspire and ignite your entrepreneurial spirit. Next Thursday, Oct. 26th, starting at 7 pm in Dartmouth's Collis Center, 12 teams will give two-minute pitches; prizes include one decided by you! Come cheer on entrepreneurs in the community and be part of the excitement at The Pitch—where innovation meets opportunity! Sponsored by DALI Lab.Sub shop set to open on 12A next month, after delay. The Jersey Mike's going into one of three slots carved out of the old Pier 1 space was supposed to open in May, writes Nora Doyle-Burr in the VN; now, Bedford, NH developer Chris Brown tells her it'll be Nov. 15. Brown blames the holdup on permitting for propane at the location. "Ultimately, we’re opening; that’s all that matters,” he says. The other side of the old storefront will become a T-Mobile store, and Brown says he's still looking for a tenant to fill the space in the middle.
In Barnard, Woodstock, S. Woodstock, staffing shortages plague post offices; residents are taking notice. Bethel (and Barnard) Postmaster Renee Turgeon has taken to posting infrequent opening hours on the listserv; in Woodstock, residents are complaining about delivery delays—sometimes for days; and in S. Woodstock, reports Lauren Dorsey in the Standard, even when the post office is supposed to be open, the window's sometimes closed—and residents say packages are getting misdelivered. "Recruitment is a challenge in Vermont today," a USPS official tells Dorsey. It's holding a hiring fair Saturday.At VT Tech in Randolph, a home for "disruptive" manufacturing tech. In Seven Days, Anne Wallace Allen takes a deep dive into the Advanced Manufacturing Center and the array of cutting-edge machines it makes available to small- and medium-sized companies in the state—like scanners and an assortment of high-end 3D printers that can help firms shave weeks off prototyping, parts design, and troubleshooting. Why the need? "We outsource so much," center director Barry Hulce says. "The U.S. has really given away a lot of its manufacturing capabilities, and we have to reestablish them."Dartmouth names Sammy McCorkle permanent head football coach. He'd been leading the team ever since Buddy Teevens' bicycle accident in March; Teevens died last month. McCorkle has spent 18 years coaching at the college, writes Rick Bender for Dartmouth Sports. "This place literally changed the course of my life and the lives of my entire family," McCorkle said in last night's announcement. "None of this would be possible without the players, through their hard work and dedication to this program, as I truly appreciate the trust they have placed in me."Seven million tweets say K-pop band BTS was biggest driver of public health messaging during pandemic. There was a lot of tweeting by public health officials and politicians, of course, but in a new study, Dartmouth researcher Herbert Chang—a USC grad student when he crunched the numbers—found that tweets mentioning the band drew a far greater response than those that didn't. As the study puts it, "Virality synergistically increases 111 times when health agencies leverage entertainers for public health messaging." Chang talks to VT Public's Mary Engisch about it all.Hiking Close to Home: Taconic Mountains Ramble State Park. The Upper Valley Trails Alliance recommends this unique hiking experience in VT's newest state park in Hubbardton, west of Rutland and Brandon. There are several trail options, including a family-friendly 1.8 mile hike to some nice rock formations and lovely views on the Moots Point Trail. Be sure to explore the Japanese garden built by Kit Davidson who donated these beautiful 200 acres to Vermont. Parking is off of St. John Rd., 0.2 miles from VT Route 4.For new CT River Conservancy head, paddle home to Walpole freshman year at Dartmouth helped cement love of the river. That was years ago, but now, Rebecca Todd tells Domenic Poli in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, she's got a "professional excuse to be out on the river." Todd, who lives in Chesterfield, NH, took on the top post at the state-spanning nonprofit on Oct. 10. Her first task, she says: "I get to go to northern Vermont, New Hampshire, all the way down to Long Island Sound and meet people who care about the river and the ecosystems here. You know, those are my kind of people."So... Think you know what's been going on in the Upper Valley? Because Daybreak's News Quiz has some questions for you. Like... Which classic novel did the Center for Cartoon Studies' James Sturm help turn into a cartooned version? And how many bushels of grasshoppers did an Orford farmer collect from his hayfield in 1915? Those questions and more at the link.But wait! How closely were you following VT and NH?
Because Seven Days wants to know if you know which VT landmark is ahead of schedule on its demolition.
And NHPR's got a whole set of questionsabout doings around the Granite State—like, what food would the NH Food Bank like to see donations of this fall?
Clegg case goes to the jury. After three weeks of testimony in a Concord courtroom, the defense and the prosecution wrapped up their arguments yesterday over the guilt or innocence of Logan Clegg, the man accused of shooting Djeswende and Stephen Reid on a trail last year. As Maureen Milliken writes for Manchester Ink Link, the evidence in the case is "largely circumstantial... a shell casing an assistant attorney general found on the trail near where the murders took place, a month later. That casing was later determined to match those test-fired from Clegg’s gun."NH to boost patrols along Canadian border. At a press conference yesterday, Gov. Chris Sununu and AG John Formella announced a $1.4 million effort to create a partnership among state, county, and local law enforcement to dramatically increase border patrol hours. The NH-Canada border stretches just 58 miles, note NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins and Hadley Barndollar, and there's no specific data on how many illegal crossings occur there. Sununu said that encounters with people on the terrorist watch list are growing along the length of the northern border—and account for 85 percent of all such cases.VT State Police find missing patrol rifle. In a news release yesterday afternoon, the agency reported that, based on information from the public, troopers and game wardens launched a search of pull-offs along Route 7 in Bennington County, and found the rifle—stolen out of a stolen state police cruiser—at a pull-off in Arlington. In their summary, they say it's still unclear whether the cruiser was locked when it was taken from a lot across from a trooper's home in Rutland; however, a key to the car had been left inside. Wednesday, the VSP arrested 29-year-old Timothy Gabriel in the case.Uh-oh. Mile-a-minute weed is here. No, seriously, that's its name (well, that and Persicaria perfoliata), and yesterday, VT's Dept of Forests, Parks and Recreation announced it's been found in the state, growing in Chittenden County. The invasive, originally from India and Eastern Asia, had already been reported in ME and southern New England. It "poses a significant threat to native vegetation, young forest stands, habitats in natural areas, and agricultural industries such as nurseries, landscaping, and Christmas tree farms," the agency says. The vine can grow up to six inches a day.Brave Little State dives into the "Who's Abenaki" controversy head first. In a three-part series that went up yesterday, the VT Public show explores the extremely heated debate opened up by two federally recognized Canadian First Nations challenging the claims of four Vermont-recognized Abenaki tribes. It's the first comprehensive look at the issue, enlisting VT Public reporters, NHPR's Julia Furukawa, Radio-Canada's David Savoie, and a former president of the Indigenous Journalists Association as an editor. They look at the claims, counter-claims... and the First Nations' challenge to VT's recognition process.“We’ve never had one get halfway and decide to come back.” Good thing, writes Emma Beddington in the Guardian, because these ferrets have a job to do: running media cables through London’s architectural treasures. Ferrets are among the animals employed around the world to help humans with tricky jobs. African giant pouched rats sniff out landmines in Southeast Asia and Africa (no rats have been hurt so far) and pick out positive tuberculosis samples. In London, Harris hawks are sent to the rafters of train stations and historic sites to deter pigeons. And in Spain, spiders are welcome in one winery cellar, where they keep cork-eating moths at bay. Complete with videos of animals at work.The Friday Vordle. If you're new to Vordle, you should know that fresh ones appear on weekends using words from the Friday Daybreak, and you can get a reminder email each weekend morning. If you'd like that, sign up here.
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This morning starting at 11, the Upper Valley Aquatic Center in WRJ is holding a Red Cross blood drive, part of an effort to address a blood shortage both regionally and nationally. There are still some slots for appointments left—you'll find them at the link.
Tonight at 7 at Seven Stars Arts in Sharon, musical greats Colin McCaffrey and Jim Rooney welcome VT legend and bojotar inventor Bow Thayer to the stage. Thayer's restless exploration runs from Americana to folk, prog, blues, world music, psychedelia, and improv that breaks free of the constraints of a banjo or guitar. Doors open at 6:30.
If you move fast, you may be able to score tix for Upper Valley Baroque's dress rehearsal for "Choral Gems," also at 7. This weekend's performances are sold out, so if you don't have tickets for one of those, this is your chance to hear Filippo Ciabatti conduct the UV Baroque Chamber Choir and Continuo instrumentalists in program two of J.S. Bach’s motets and Italian composer Giacomo Carissimi's dramatic work, Jephte. At St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Hanover.
Also at 7, Artistree in S. Pomfret hosts bluegrass-inflected duo Grant Gordy and Joe K. Walsh. Gordy, on guitar, and Walsh, on mandolin, tour as a pair and in the band Mr. Sun, with Darol Anger and Ethan Jodziewicz, as well as putting other projects together on the fly (see below). You'll hear the influence of Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, and other string band greats.
And also at 7, the Norwich Bookstore hosts former VT Gov. Madeleine Kunin, reading from her new poetry collection, Walk With Me, and talking about poetry and our evolving sense of ourselves, even as we enter older age.
Whether this draws you to or keeps you away from Hanover, tonight's the Dartmouth bonfire, with parade starting at 7:20, ceremonies at 8, and bonfire at 8:30.
And at 9 tonight, Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover brings back Albany-based jam band Hilltop—brothers Stephen & Reid Perry, and their friends Aris Nieuwkerk and Dave Klang—for what the band calls "an absolute rager... make sure you're ready to dance!"
Saturday
Just a heads up if you're headed into the woods that tomorrow's the start of gun season, with youth hunting weekend in both Vermont and New Hampshire, and shotgun season for turkeys in VT (it started last weekend in NH). Here are VT dates, and here are NH dates. Blaze orange!
Tomorrow morning starting at 10 in WRJ, the Farm to Film Festival gets underway. A group of groups—JAM, Vital Communities, and King Arthur Baking, backed by Vermont Public and Vermont Humanities— collaborated to put together a daylong look at the food system through films, workshops, food, and more. The first event, at JAM, is a "Get Your Hands Dirty Family Fun Popup," with seed-planting and a DIY timelapse setup to record the progress at home; Tommy Crawford will be on hand at 11:30 with songs from VT Farm Stories. Also at the Briggs, and with an evening square dance in The Liminal Lounge (the space behind JAM in Newberry Market).
Also at 10 tomorrow morning, Dartmouth political scientist Brendan Nyhan will give a lecture as part of Alumni Weekend that's open to community members, "Rethinking 'Echo Chambers': Evidence from Facebook and YouTube." It's based on a study of the two social-media giants that challenges the conventional wisdom about echo chambers: He and his colleagues found that "extreme patterns of like-minded information assumption are rare" and that algorithmic recommendations tend not to direct people to potentially harmful content or polarize attitudes. In the Grand Ballroom at the Hanover Inn.
At 1 tomorrow, the Hop presents the Met Opera in HD version of Dead Man Walking. It's the Met premiere of Jake Heggie's 2000 opera based on Sister Helen Prejean's memoir about her fight for a condemned murderer's soul—"one of the most widely staged operas created this century," the NYT's Zachary Woolfe wrote last month. "Its appeal is no surprise...Jake Heggie’s soaring music is easily digested, and the storytelling of Terrence McNally’s libretto is crystal clear; its emotions are passionate." In the Loew.
Starting at 5 pm tomorrow and then at 4 pm on Sunday, BarnArts' Haunted Village Theatre gets underway. With 90-minute tours starting every half hour, guides will take visitors to five spots around Barnard, stopping off for an all-ages cast version of "This is Halloween"; a recitation of "The Cremation of Sam McGee"; an adaptation of the true Barnard story "The Mad Wolf"; and more. In family-friendly, PG, and PG-13 versions.
At 7:30 tomorrow evening, Roots and Wings—the coffee house at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Upper Valley in Norwich—brings in singer, songwriter, pianist, and guitarist Sarah McQuaid. Born in Spain, raised in Chicago, holding joint Irish and US citizenship, and living in England, McQuaid "is a stunning instrumentalist...[and] heir to those great '70s American singer-songwriters" both vocally and in the nature of her compositions, RootsWorld wrote a few years back.
At 8 pm tomorrow, the Newport (NH) Opera House and the Upper Valley Paranormal Society premiere a new film, Hauntings at the Newport Opera House. The documentary recounts an investigation of the opera house three years ago, sparked by odd events over the years at night in the building, by members of the society and members of the opera house association. NHPR's Olivia Richardson went along on a recent tour and filed this story yesterday.
And at 9 tomorrow night, the stage at Sawtooth Kitchen hosts Nashville- and LA-based blues singer-songwriter Liam St. John, still riding high from his 2022 debut album, "stripped back."
Sunday
At 4 pm Sunday, it's the second showing of Mountainfilm on Tour at the Loew. In the Hop's words, "you'll meet blind alpinist Erik Weihenmayer as he tackles the high peaks; a first-ever orchestra of Black and Latino youths; a trio of Chicago women winter swimmers; and a disillusioned musician who finds his peace as a buffalo rancher. These stories are interspersed with eye-popping adrenaline kicks from the worlds of skiing, mountain biking and climbing."
And to take us into the weekend...
Some years back, Grant Gordy and Joe K. Walsh (at Artistree tonight) were teaching at a bluegrass camp called Sore Fingers. It's "sort of the hub of the greater bluegrass community in England," Walsh told
Fretboard Journal
in 2021. "They had this big stone hall that feels like it’s out of Hogwarts and they have various concerts every night," and one night, Walsh and Gordy got together to play a concert for the first time ever with two other musicians they'd known for a long time, bassist Greg Garrison and violinist Alex Hargreaves. It went well. "We should record," Garrison texted the group. The result was
Bluegrass and the Abstract Truth,
"an utterly gorgeous album of instrumentals," one reviewer wrote.
Have a lovely weekend whatever the weather. See you Monday for CoffeeBreak.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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