GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, getting into the 70s. We started the day with patchy frost, but temps will rise sharply, crossing the 70-degree line by mid or late afternoon under high pressure, mostly clear skies, and winds from the south. A little bit of cloudiness tonight will keep lows around 50.Standouts at the birdfeeder. Google "oriole" and the first results will be Baltimore's baseball team (they beat the Angels 7-3 yesterday). But their winged namesakes have been arriving in these parts from as far down as South America.
Here's a pair in North Thetford, from Randall White;
And another in WRJ, from Sallyann Snitkin.
Area schools face PCB uncertainty. As Liz Sauchelli writes in the Valley News, Hartford High was the first Upper Valley school to be tested for the contaminants under a 2021 VT law, but it won't be the last. Several schools—including in Hartland, Tunbridge, and Woodstock—are due to be tested this summer. But the testing schedule is about the only thing schools can count on, Sauchelli writes: The state "appears to have run out of the money to help schools pay for testing," and it's entirely unclear how they'll pull off remediation if, as with Hartford, they may have to tear buildings down. Sauchelli explores.How Dartmouth has avoided "the Trump administration’s target lists." In the NYT (gift link), higher ed reporter Vimal Patel notes that the college is one of only two Ivy League schools not facing an explicit funding threat (though broad federal cuts will affect it) and is the sole Ivy not being investigated over antisemitism allegations. Patel pinpoints the stances that President Sian Beilock has taken: as "a champion of free expression and dialogue among people with different political viewpoints"; last year's police crackdown on protesters; the hiring of a prominent GOP lawyer. He checks in with both supporters and detractors, and explores the roots of Beilock's thinking.SPONSORED: Tired of hauling around tons of metal everywhere you go? Join Curb Your Car Day this Friday! Anyone traveling that day by bike, foot, bus, or carpool is invited to stop by for refreshments, raffles, and bike safety checks and equipment at Colburn Park in downtown Lebanon, 7-9 am, or the tent at the Hartford Town Hall, 171 Bridge Street, 7:30-9 am. Reinforce a healthy habit for you and your community! On Saturday, try e-bikes for free 12-2 pm at Kilton Library. Sponsored by Vital Communities.Becky Schneider: “The face of Lou’s.” "She cared about the details, the flavors, and the people. That’s what made her unforgettable," former owner Pattie Fried tells the VN's Liz Sauchelli for her profile of the longtime Lou's server—who was much more than a server to the diners and staff of the Hanover restaurant. Schneider died at 63 on March 22. Schneider was a tableside storyteller, a cook in her own right, a single mom (one of her daughters, Sarah, also works at Lou's), a "mother hen" to homesick Dartmouth students, and a stickler for serving good food. Plus lots more.Gene Cassidy: "an unusual thinker, an exceptional writer and an insatiable reader, though an apathetic student." Also, the father of former Valley News and VTDigger editor Maggie Cassidy, who's penned a sparkling obit of the longtime newspaper editor and, more recently, host of "All Vermont Music" and co-host of "WordStream" on Royalton Community Radio. Though he worked overnight as a news editor, he was "an active stay-at-home father all day," Maggie writes, "an uncommon sight in that era." He moved to WRJ in 2014 and worked for a decade at the Co-op Food Store there, until a severe stroke sidelined him. He died a few days later, on May 2. He was 70.SPONSORED: Spanish for Healthcare Professionals from the Rassias Center. The Rassias Center for World Languages at Dartmouth specializes in immersive language experiences. It uses a unique approach that speeds language learning, increases language retention, and has participants speaking and understanding quickly. Spanish for Healthcare Professionals puts language and grammar into a medical setting using both general and healthcare-specific vocabulary. This program runs June 28 through July 6 on the Dartmouth campus. Burgundy link or here for details. Sponsored by the Rassias Center.NH Senate Finance Committee wants to restore health programs cut by House. On Friday, the panel charged with figuring out how to respond to the House's budget recommended reversing a 3 percent rate cut for Medicaid providers and restoring funding for mental health and people with developmental disabilities. In all, the House budget cuts $643 million from the budget proposed by Gov. Kelly Ayotte, and though health cuts account for a big chunk of that, NH Bulletin's Ethan DeWitt points out the committee still has to figure out how to deal with cuts to universities, the arts, corrections, and more.At home in NH, David Souter's legacy "is one of kindness, legal acumen and dedication to civil discourse." As you no doubt know, the former US Supreme Court justice died Thursday in Hopkinton; he was 85. NHPR's Todd Bookman talks to friends of Souter's in the state's legal community about his career at the apex of the US legal system—“Being on the court didn't change him one iota,” says one—and his life afterward, which included hiking, promoting civic education, and mentoring people interested in the law.Tapping birch. The "season," writes Dave Mance III in the latest "Dispatches" newsletter from the Vermont Almanac, "happens after maple season and before the leaves emerge." Last month, he and his daughter checked out both a white birch and a black birch in their backyard—the white birch was sweeter but cloudier, while the black birch produced much more sap and they just drank it straight up: "The flavor is inoffensive and it feels novel to be drinking tree juice," Mance writes. Barnard's Eric Withington, who produces birch syrup, says he averaged 120 gallons of sap to 1 of syrup this year. Maple's about 40:1.The Monday jigsaw. "The weather being what it has been this week," writes Cam Cross for the Norwich Historical Society, "brought to mind this photo showing the old covered bridge of White River Junction after the freshet [ie, sudden stream overflow] of February 1913." Here's more on the bridge's history, with several other photos of the flood's results. And here's the full version of the puzzle photo.The Monday Wordbreak. With a word from Friday's Daybreak.
And to kick off the week...Tonight's Lebanon Opera House concert by banjo legend Béla Fleck, harpist Edmar Castañeda, and drummer Antonio Sánchez, is sold out. It's a powerhouse trio: Fleck, of course, is an 18-time Grammy winner; Castañeda a composer who, among other things, helped write the Encanto soundtrack; and Sánchez composed the award-winning score for Birdman, the 2014 Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards. And though it might be tough to imagine banjo, harp, and drums intertwining, they do: Their new album, BEATrio, is out Friday, and they've released a cut to show how that's possible. When it debuted, Fleck wrote, "This project kind of reminds me of the early days of the Flecktones, when audiences would go, ‘How is this supposed to work?’ We were hanging on for dear life. Things were going right, things were going wrong — everything was happening.” Here's that cut, "Archipelago".See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Associate writer: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
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