WELCOME TO AUTUMN, UPPER VALLEY!
That was a heck of a week to close out summer, eh? Oh well. First day of fall and there's a cold front headed our way from the Great Lakes, sort of a two-stager. Mostly cloudy at first then a 50-50 chance of rain for a good bit of today, highs reaching the low 80s. A dry slot tonight, then rain and cooler temps tomorrow. Oh, and the fall equinox? You juuuust missed it. It was at 3:50 am. So before summer becomes just a fond memory... Lori Harriman sent along a pic from last week of the fields, the trees, and the mist up along Hartford's Jericho Road. "I love Luna Ricker. A ton." That's Doug Heavisides, principal of the Hartford Area Career and Technical Center, in an emotion-laden elegy to Luna Ricker, who for decades taught gym and served as a trainer at Hartford High. She died this weekend.
We all knew Luna loved us.
As she taped our ankles extra tight.
Sometimes too tight.
But that did not matter.
It was her love that mattered.
Feds will spend $1.3 million to repair road by the Union Village Dam. If you've been up there anytime in the last two years, you know that the July 1, 2017 deluge pretty much pulverized sections of Buzzell Bridge Road alongside the Pompy between the dam and Thetford Center. Now it's getting rebuilt. They're also putting in a beach alongside the river.Meanwhile, 12A repairs in Plainfield are clearly coming along. William Daugherty was out with his drone over the weekend, and has plenty of shots of the rebuilding from April's washout up on FB. You can run through them at the link. Dartmouth researchers part of biggest Arctic expedition in history. On Friday, after a decade of preparation, the German icebreaker RV Polarstern set sail from Tromsø, Norway. It will lodge itself in the polar ice, and then drift with the ice across the central Arctic for a year, as some 600 experts from 19 countries take turns collecting observations on water, ice, air, and wildlife. Ian Raphael, a grad student at Thayer, is now on a Russian icebreaker that will be meeting up with the Polarstern; three other Dartmouth researchers will eventually join the expedition as well. Matt Golec has the story in the VN.Plans moving forward to make downtown Lebanon more "walkable." The proposed rules, which would create a specially zoned downtown district, would allow smaller lot sizes, require street-level windows, move parking lots to the side or back of buildings, and require some types of businesses — think drive-thrus — to get variances. The city council appears to be on board. (VN)Dartmouth entrepreneurship center raises $26 million from 26 donors. Yep, that's $1 million each. The Magnuson Center has become both an academic hub and a support system for budding entrepreneurs among students, faculty, and community members, and this won't hurt. “Anyone who has set out on an entrepreneurial journey quickly realizes if you want to go far, you’re gonna need a lot of other people,” says Jamie Coughlin, its director.Remember the guy who led police on a two-state chase 10 days ago and got away? He was caught on Saturday. Police found him hiding under a bed in a home in Saxtons River, VT.A Mascoma road trip. All summer, NHPR's been running stories about Route 4 from the river to Portsmouth. Now it's compiled them with a handy map to guide you to each one, including Enfield's July 4 celebration, the coffee-shop boom in Canaan, efforts to rescue Grafton's fire-damaged meetinghouse, and the history of the Ruggles Mine. Plus, of course, plenty more off to the far east.Now, about those caterpillars just dangling in the woods... There've been a lot of them this year, which you may have noticed. So has Inside/Out's Sam Evans-Brown. At least in NH they're probably banded tussock moths, and Joanne Russo, a citizen scientist and "iNaturalist superstar" from Saxtons River, tells him they can launch themselves thanks to a thread caught on the wind; she's not quite sure why there are more than usual, though maybe the fact that it was dry during the months adults were laying eggs helped.NH state officials go all fuzzy on new residency standards. Remember the brouhaha about changing residency standards for voting? Now that they're actually in effect and towns are gearing up for next year's elections — including this NH Primary thingie coming up in February — NHPR decided to find out what they mean in real life. But no one's saying, and not just to reporters, either. Hanover's town clerk tried to figure out whether students need NH drivers licenses. The secy of state's office sent her to the AG's office, which said to refer people to the DMV. "We're sort of stuck," she says.“I'm just doing my thing. But I'm not at the point where I'm willing to self-reflect, especially with a microphone.” That's Christopher Louras, the former mayor of Rutland, who lost his post in 2017 after his proposal to welcome Syrian refugee families to the city sparked an uproar. In the end, only three families came; Louras still wishes there had been a lot more. Louras hasn't been talking to the press, but VPR's Nina Keck recounts the whole story and, in something of a coup, gets him to open up (a little).Psst, you want this Frank Lloyd Wright house? It could be yours... It's the other Wright house in Manchester, NH, two doors down from the one owned by the Currier Museum, and is coming on the market for the first time since it was built in the mid-'50s for radiologist Toufic H. Kalil. It's one of Wright's Usonian Automatic houses, so no attic, no basement, made of concrete blocks. But hey, it has "rich Philippine mahogany paneling." Not to mention a pedigree. Asking price $850,000. (Thanks for the tip, MT!)
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The restaurant's raising funds for Waves for Water's efforts in the Bahamas: 2 bucks from each "Beach Bum" cocktail, $1 from select brews. Also, a ton of raffle prizes donated by local businesses, with the money you spend going to the cause.
Sponsored by the UV Democrats, it features Jennifer Frizzell, policy dir. at the NH Womens' Foundation, talking about the challenges women candidates face and data on women in Congress and the NH Legislature. She'll be joined by three local panelists. Starts at 6:30.
. It's the first of multiple screenings this week around Vermont of this film by Kevin Hines, who on Sept. 25, 2000 threw himself off the Golden Gate Bridge in a suicide attempt. He survived, and has since devoted his life to advocacy and trying to inspire people and families struggling with depression and mental illness. This showing's at Oxbow High School, sponsored by the Clara Martin Center. At 5:30, panel discussion afterward.
The films include Suzan Pitt's
Asparagus
, a "wordless, erotic and jarring visual poem," as the
NYT
put it in her obituary; DA Pennebaker's 42-second long ode to childhood "The Little Boat"; Carolee Schneemann's tribute to her cat, Kitch, who featured in two decades' worth of her films; and others. Starts at 7 pm.
. The link takes you to this week's schedule.
Let's dive into autumn together! Okay... Here we go... See you tomorrow.
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