WELCOME TO THE WEEK, UPPER VALLEY!
Don't you just love it when you see the words "high pressure building in"? It'll probably start out foggy, but today will mostly be sunny, highs in the upper 60s, maybe even 70. And because it's such dry and mostly cloudless weather, temps will be down in the low 40s tonight except in the cooler valleys, where it could get into the 30s. Glory Days indeed: WRJ Welcome Center burglarized. Sometime during the overnight hours Saturday-Sunday, someone crawled through a window into an unused portion of the Amtrak station, made their way into the official Welcome Center (which is operated by the Hartford Parks & Rec Dept), and made off with a bunch of cash. The annual Glory Days Festival had just wound up, so there was "likely more money than usual in the...petty cash box," says Eric Francis.Goose v. Quechee Club makes the big time. You'll be pleased to know that The New York Times has picked up on last week's cancelled hunt to rid the golf course of its unwelcome flock. It's got the back-story — a concerned Quechee-er's call to the VN, the outcry, etc — but the best part is that it turns out there's a national org called GeesePeace, which seeks alternative dispute resolution. Like, seriously, driving a border collie around a lake in a motorboat.“Human slavery was the precondition for the rise of higher education in the Americas.” That's one of the arresting quotes in Matt Golec's nuanced tour of Dartmouth's ties to slavery in yesterday's VN. As part of its 250th celebration, the college is looking deeper into the question: Archivist Peter Carini has cataloged more than 30 items related to Eleazar Wheelock’s involvement with slavery, and sociology prof Deborah King will be looking this fall at the college's economic ties to slavery, including whether donors funded the college with profits from the slave trade. (VN, sub reqd)Just catching up on last Thursday's border patrol stops on I-89. U.S.Customs and Border Protection said in a press release late Friday that it arrested "24 illegal aliens and one United States citizen wanted on an outstanding warrant of arrest" during three days of activity in the Lebanon area. Four of those arrests were at the highway checkpoint; the rest "were apprehended in the areas around the checkpoint."There may soon be a Dunkin' on S. Main St. in Hanover. The VN's John Lippman says that an NH franchise owner is "working with the town" on the empty Nugget Arcade space that was used by the Hood while the museum was being renovated. He also mentions in passing that the British clothing company FatFace may go into what used to be the Canoe Club. You'll find the story down below his briefs on a huge tract of Quechee Lakes that's up for sale and King Arthur's new photo/video facility in Leb's Rivermill center. (VN, sub still reqd)West Branch of the Ompompanoosuc has kingfishers and herons again. The AP's Wilson Ring has a story about the end of the Elizabeth Mine cleanup, which is already getting national pickup. The history of the mine, the history of the cleanup, the 20,000 new solar panels on the site... and two smaller Superfund sites still to go: Vershire's Ely Mine, and Corinth's Pike Hill.Grafton County Sheriff's Dept computer forensics unit works throughout NH and has “opened a window” to work with Vermont. The unit's two investigators "can unlock information on just about anything that communicates electronically and/or stores data digitally," says the Union Leader in this profile. The unit focuses mostly on the abuse and exploitation of children, but as Lt. Frederic James tells the paper, these days computers, cellphones, gaming consoles and the like invariably form a “secondary crime scene.”NH budget negotiations hitting the crunch point. The continuing resolution that's kept state agencies funded since Gov. Chris Sununu's budget veto ends Sept. 30. Dem lawmakers and Sununu plan to meet for the third time in a week today, and with the legislature reconvening next week for a veto override session, there's some pressure to reach an agreement ahead of time. It's unclear what'll happen, says the Monitor's Ethan DeWitt.Want to catch up on what the Dem presidential candidates told the NH state party convention?. A bevy of them were there in Manchester over the weekend, and C-SPAN's got the whole thing. Thanks to the Upper Valley Democrats for the timestamps.Joe Biden, 00:56:59;Cory Booker, 01:16:07;Pete Buttigieg, 01:45:03,Julian Castro, 02:10:36;Kamala Harris, 02:50:34;Amy Klobuchar, 03:16:42;Beto O’Rourke, 03:40:07;Bernie Sanders, 04:26:52;Elizabeth Warren, 05:11:19Andrew Yang, 06:45:02Efforts to merge hospitals began over 50 years ago. That's Richard Slusky, former CEO of Mt. Ascutney Hospital, noting in a VTDigger commentary that people have been trying for a very long time to bring Springfield Hospital, Mt. Ascutney, and Claremont's Valley Regional together. Given the presence of D-H, he writes, there are more acute beds than needed in the region. Plans to merge community hospitals began in the 1960s, but community opposition got in the way. He takes a thorough look at the whole history. And speaking of history, NHPR takes a long look at the World Famous Ruggles Mine. The Grafton mine, which brought out feldspar (think Bon Ami) and mica, stopped operating in 1961. That's when Arvid Wahlstrom got another idea: "Shiny minerals with a view had the makings of a roadside of attraction during the road trip’s golden age." You could go in with a hammer and try your luck for quartz, garnet, mica, aquamarine... Of course, the attraction has been shuttered and for sale (for $900,000) since 2016; turns out someone's recently put in an offer.
And speaking even more of history: Is it true that Thetford's Sawnee Bean Road is named after Scottish cannibals? VPR's Brave Little State has been looking into odd VT road names, and a listener phoned in: "Last I heard, Sawney Bean and his family were shipwreckers who lived in caves on the coast of Scotland, and ate the people. How did this get to Thetford Center?” It's a winding story: through Scottish legend and English-Scottish history and early Thetford settlement. And at one time it was Swaney Bean. Lots of Thetford locals filled with entertaining speculation... and one historian who opines, “This would the equivalent of naming a road after Charles Manson. Or Ted Bundy.”
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Photojournalist Robert Azzi, who lives in Exeter, NH, is a former Nieman journalism fellow who was born in NH but has lived in Beirut, Cairo, Athens, and Jeddah. He's also a board member of ACLU-NH. He's been traveling throughout the region to libraries, schools, and houses of worship, talking about what it means to be Muslim in America and about the Middle East. "Nothing," he says, "is off the table." At the Abbott Library at 6 pm.
For almost four decades, Rick Prelinger has been building an archive of "ephemeral" films documenting the social and cultural history of the US. They're now part of the Library of Congress. In 2017, he used his collection to create this film of a vanished New York: the 3rd Avenue El, Penn Station as it was meant to be, the pushcarts of the Lower East Side, cityscapes of the 20s and 30s and 40s... Starts at 7 pm.
The CT-based actor, who's originally from Kentucky, has been performing as Poe for a decade. Poe, of course, was ahead of his time. He wrote the first modern American detective story, the first modern science fiction story, and the first American horror stories. He was also, in his day, known as a critic. "He was the Simon Cowell of his day – incredibly funny but with a sharp, very sharp tongue," Harmon says. At the Fiske Free Library at 7 pm.
Joseph Stallsmith (who used to run Joseph's Waterworks on River Road in Norwich) pulls together a crowd of musicians who take turns sharing a song, usually something others can join on. "On any given night," he says, "we may have a cello, dobro, flute, uke, harmonica, spoons, banjo, and lots of guitars, playing anything from 'Oh Brother, Where Art Thou' to Hermin’s Hermits." Things get rolling at 6.
Have a fine start to your week. See you tomorrow.
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