GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly (but not completely) sunny, warm. There's dry air in place and temps today will be rising into the mid or upper 60s, even the 70s as you get down toward Springfield VT and south. The dryness comes to an end tonight, though, as a warm front moves in, channeling tropical moisture, bringing a slight chance of rain overnight—though its main impact will be tomorrow and Wednesday. Lows tonight in the mid 40s.Work due to start today on Route 12 bridge in Charlestown. The months-long project on the bridge over the New England Central Railroad, says NHDOT, will focus on deck repairs, and require removing pavement over the bridge. Traffic will be down to a single lane with alternating traffic signals. In addition, NHDOT says, "Access to South Main St will require a detour using Paris Avenue onto East Street thru Charlestown primary school." They add, "Please use caution."Last Hartford dairy farm lets go. Until last week, writes Christina Dolan in the Valley News, the Jerseys at Jericho Hill Farm produced about 150 gallons of milk a day, which George Miller and his family sold to Spring Brook Farm, in Reading. But Spring Brook is reducing production and relying solely on its own herd and so, last week, the Millers shipped all but four members of their herd off to a farm in far upstate NY. Though George's wife Linda is ready to travel, for George "'retirement' is relative," Dolan writes: He'll keep producing hay and making maple syrup and butter from the cows the buyer didn't want."I had no idea I'd make so many good friends when I was diagnosed with Parkinson's." That's West Leb's Betsy Warren talking to NHPR's Paul Cuno-Booth about the exercise programs for people with Parkinson's she's discovered since her diagnosis—and in particular, a weekly dance class at DHMC. It's been run by Richard and Diane Caruso since 2017, and builds on research showing regular exercise can slow the disease's progression. "We're just trying to find all the things that people want to work on that are going to make their lives a little better, and we do it with music," Richard Caruso says.
In Post Mills, future of former landfill that's been capped for decades is still foggy. There's an effort, backed by the Green Mountain Economic Development Corp., to install a large array of solar panels there, writes Stuart Blood in Sidenote. But that's been hung up by the complex question of who's going to take responsibility for pollution that may be leaching into the aquifer below and around the site. Especially because, as Blood writes, nobody actually owns the landfill itself. "The former owner did not bequeath this troublesome property to anyone in his will," he reports. He dives into the issue.From "a wild and wonderful start" in two Hartford schools eight years ago, Upper Valley theater program now brings Shakespeare to schools around the region. Northern Stage's BridgeUP began with two teaching artists who "literally made up the curriculum as we drove to class each day," program director Kate Kenney tells Susan Apel in Artful. But these days, Susan writes, it's a going concern: 10 teaching artists, 10 schools, 273 schoolkids, and everything from text analysis to figuring out costumes and props. Performances start next week, from Hamlet and Macbeth to The Tempest and Twelfth Night.For Colby-Sawyer, tuition "reset" showing promise. You may remember that last year, the New London college announced it was slashing undergrad tuition—to $17,500—and at the same time cutting the aid it offered. The idea, writes David Brooks in the Monitor, was to make costs clear from the get-go. And though the move's impact on the bottom line isn't clear yet, Brooks reports that applications are up about 12 percent, and, president Susan Stuebner tells him, "campus visits are up dramatically" and families are telling the college the lower price "was one of the reasons they engaged with us in the first place.”Valley News app getting a refresh. Games coming. In a publisher's note posted last night, the paper announced that starting today its mobile app—which for years has presented users with a slightly interactive version of the print edition—will begin offering breaking news and other recently uploaded stories. And in what may prove a more far-reaching development, the paper plans to introduce a suite of games to all its platforms crafted by Puzzmo, a startup that launched last fall aiming to build a national community around everything from "Really Bad Chess" to the crossword and its own inventions.For NH National Guard troops on the Texas-Mexico border, "Our job is simple to describe, but there is nothing simple about it." NH Bulletin's Annmarie Timmins has been in Eagle Pass, TX, trying to get a sense of what the 15 soldiers deployed there by Gov. Chris Sununu are encountering. They're highly limited in what they can do, Timmins finds—no arrests, no giving migrants water—but they've got a front row seat to all the human drama unfolding at the border. Timmins recounts the stories they've told her and what they've left behind. "The world doesn’t stop while you’re gone," says one.Former Littleton NH selectboard member: “I would rather speak out and risk persecution than say nothing and see people end up in hell.” Things in Littleton have calmed down a bit since Carrie Gendreau stirred up a pile of discord by calling into question some public murals sponsored by North Country Pride. Still, as Jenna Russell writes in the NYT (gift link, lots of photos by John Tully), the turmoil has left its mark—the town manager's gone, Gendreau didn't run for re-election, and divisions that townspeople had been able to ignore remain raw. Russell tells the whole story and talks with Gendreau about her beliefs and motivations.Inside VT State Police's effort to make progress on cold cases. There are some 80 unsolved homicides and missing persons cases on the VSP's books, reports VT Public's Liam Elder-Connors, some dating back to the 1950s. For the state's Major Crimes Unit and the two part-time civilian analysts whose sole job it is to focus on those unsolved crimes, progress is measured in inches. “If we can rule out one more piece of evidence or talk to some person they never talked to before or couldn't find," says one analyst, they don't sound big, but these are all things that we can do that help it move forward."The Monday jigsaw. Thanks again to the Norwich Historical Society's Sarah Rooker, this week it's of an 1870 log drive down the river, where the Ledyard Bridge is now. "Millions of long hardwood logs from Vermont and New Hampshire forests floated down the Connecticut River during the legendary log drives after the Civil War. Dozens of dams were built on rivers and streams to hold back the water flow until the drive was ready, and then loosed to flush the timber downstream. The last big drive of long logs...took place in 1915." You can change the number of pieces if you want it more or less complicated.
Heads Up
Today at 5:30 pm, the Norwich Public Library (scroll down) is hosting local columnist and author Ann Aikens, reading from her book, A Young Woman's Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale. With the same blend of "brutal honesty and gentle kidding" (as an editor once put it) that she's applied to her long-running VT Standard column "Upper Valley Girl", Aikens began the book as advice to her nieces—and got carried away from there. Q&A and, quite possibly, advice to follow.
And at 7 this evening, Still North Books & Bar and Dartmouth's Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies co-sponsor a reading by Inupiaq writer and poet Joan Naviyuk Kane. Kane, who grew up in Anchorage, roots her work in the Arctic and the experiences of its indigenous people and cultures. At Still North.
And to ease us into the week...
"Fantasia" by Robert White (1538-1574),
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson
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