GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Getting sunny—but just for a bit. Last night’s rain has moved out and more is on its way, but in between, this morning’s clouds should loosen their grip for a while, with more sun than clouds especially this afternoon and highs reaching the upper 60s. There’s a cold front coming that will reach us overnight, with a chance of rain developing after midnight, but we’ll talk about that more tomorrow. Lows in the mid 40s.
So did the principal get a bottle of champagne? On Friday, writes Maggie Cassidy, a hot air balloon floated up the big hill on Hartford Ave. just below Hartford High and landed by the entrance to to the school. “It was the talk of the town!”
At Enfield’s Baited Hook, going from cook to “being responsible for everything.” The popular Mascoma Lake restaurant has been on the market the last two years, but that’s done and over with, reports Sofia Langlois in the Valley News. Last week, in a Facebook post, longtime community member Lisa Rinella announced that she and her husband Tony—who, apart from time off to recover from a stroke, has been the Baited Hook’s cook since 2023—will gradually take over from the current quartet of owners. “Over the next six months,” she wrote, “we’ll work together as Tones and I gradually take on daily operations and ownership, with their support as we build through the quieter winter months.” They plan some menu changes, including takeout meals.
In Gus Speth’s new novel, small-town life—whether in Vermont or South Carolina—fills the pages. In later life, the environmentalist and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council has turned to writing: non-fiction, poetry, and, now, his first novel, Jericho River. In The Herald, John Freitag writes that while “readers should not try to pin local names to characters or situations in the book—Jericho River is not Strafford”—it pulses with the life of a village, in this case during the ‘60s and ‘70s. He quotes fellow Straffordite Gregory Maguire: “this harvest of small-town stories manages to be as bedrock solid as the channel of the White River and as evanescent as daily life in any state.” The book’s available both in print and as a free PDF or ebook.
Lebanon lawyer could be disbarred. That decision will ultimately be up to the NH Supreme Court, but last month, reports the VN’s Alex Ebrahimi, a four-member panel chaired by a former Supreme Court justice “ruled that the evidence supporting multiple misconduct allegations” against Stephen Girdwood was “clear and convincing.” Ebrahimi details those allegations, including using nearly $500K he was holding in escrow in a couple’s divorce proceedings for a planned sports and music complex in Orlando, Florida, and for himself. Girdwood confessed to the Leb PD, who referred the case to the FBI. That criminal investigation is still ongoing.
Mystery of the week: How did a five-ton loader kept at a Vermont town garage get a parking ticket in NYC? Two things are sure: The loader got a $115 ticket for illegally parking on a Queens streets; and officials in Lincoln, VT are confident it was never there. It’s 300 miles from Lincoln to Queens, one notes: “Max speed is 25 miles per hour. I’m pretty sure you would run out of gas,” town administrator Trish Waugh tells WCAX’s Connor Ullathorne. The loader’s used mostly for moving the town’s sand pile and is kept in the town garage. Even so, the town’s mailed a check, which hasn’t been cashed—so the town’s now racking up late fees.
The Monday Jigsaw: WRJ’s storefronts, 1917. This week’s puzzle isn’t a photo, but a fire insurance map. In this case, of what was known as the Junction House Block—what was then and still is the main block in downtown WRJ. Cam Cross explains: “From the 1860s onward the Sanborn Map Company surveyed American towns for fire insurance underwriters. An underwriter in Boston needed to know, without traveling, what a building in Vermont was made of, how many stories it had, whether it kept a boiler or a skylight or a store of kerosene, and what stood close enough to carry a fire across to it…” Sanborn’s maps told them. On his Curioustorian blog, Cam explains what the 1917 map shows, and compares it to what’s there now.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts Zhou Fengsuo for “A Student Stands: From Tiananmen to Today.” A physics student at Tsinghua University in 1989, Zhou helped organize the Tiananmen Square protests, serving on the Standing Committee of the Beijing Students’ Autonomous Union and founding “The Voice of the Student Movement” radio station. He was forced into exile after the crackdown. 5 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
An evening of music and silent film at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. Boston-area composer and organist Peter Krasinski, who specializes in accompanying silents, will provide the music for the 1932 film VAMPYR as part of the Ives Concert Series. At 6:30 pm, he’ll use the big screen to give an intro to the pipe organ—and to show the Buster Keaton short The Electric House and play JS Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in d minor. Then it’s on to Carl Theodor Dreyer’s unsettling supernatural film at 7:30 pm. No charge.
Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center hosts Cinde Warmington. The former Exec Councillor for this region is the Democratic nominee for governor of New Hampshire, facing off next month against incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte. As part of Rockefeller Center’s series on this year’s midterms, she’ll be talking about her uphill campaign and policy priorities. 7 pm in Rocky’s Hinman Forum, and livestreamed.
And for today...
We’ll look back to the inimitable Rita Moreno and the irascible Animal, mixing it up on The Muppets.
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