GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny, cool. We get another day much like yesterday, only a bit chillier, as high pressure continues to edge eastward and gusty winds from the north blow through. Highs today only around 50, with overnight lows once again down to around or slightly above the freezing mark.
Autumn barrage. Roy Hatch was at Tall Timbers in Quechee recently doing Meals on Wheels deliveries when the distinctive sound of fall—acorns shelling rooftops, cars, and anything else under the oaks—caught his ear. There’s video, but really what you’ll want is the audio that goes with it.
It’s time for Dear Daybreak! This week’s collection of short pieces from readers about Upper Valley life features Rebecca Lafave on the jolt of delight offered by Thetford’s Woods Trail Run; Jay Campion’s poem on fall and the turn of the seasons; and Patricia Sherman’s story about watching that snoring-loon video late at night in a hotel room and its unexpected consequences. And if you’ve got something to share, please send it in.
Dartmouth hazing case yields fines for two alums. The incident 13 months ago drew widespread headlines, after a student went to the Hanover police to report that he’d been struck repeatedly with a wooden paddle during fraternity pledge events, as well as forced to eat a raw onion, which he’d vomited. The college quickly suspended the Omega Psi Phi fraternity for three years. Milan Williams, a 2009 grad, was one of three men charged in the incident; he’s pled no contest and paid a $1,116 fine, reports John Lippman in the Valley News. Alexisius “Q.” Jones, a senior at the time, pled guilty to failing to report a hazing incident, and was also fined. A third man’s case is pending.
If someone hands you a $100 bill with “For Motion Picture Purposes” on both sides… it’s not legit. But even so, reports NBC5’s Michael Cusanelli, police in Bradford, VT say they’ve been getting reports of people trying to use the bills at local businesses. Investigators have identified two people trying to pass them off—and are urging business owners to pay close attention. “If you do happen to receive fraudulent money,” Cusanelli says, “do not attempt to hold on to the bills. Police said to report any instances of fraud to the department immediately.”
SPONSORED: Express Care at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital is now open. Our Express Care team treats adults and children over the age of one for non-life-threatening conditions. And with evening and weekend hours, you get the right level of care when you need it. Get immediate care for coughs, colds, rashes, and sprains right at APD Express Care, and all without an appointment. Alice Peck Day Express Care. Part of the best health system in the region, Dartmouth Health. Sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital.
Wells River settles on water plan. Instead of trucking water from across the river in Woodsville 6,400 gallons at a time to the top of Royston Ridge Road, reports the VN’s Clare Shanahan, the trucks will empty the water into a proposed 10,000-gallon tank at the bottom of the hill, and then it’ll be pumped up. Village trustees say they’re hoping to have the storage tank and other equipment installed within the next few weeks. “I’d like it in place long before it was really needed with the cold weather so we can fine tune it and get it working,” says trustee Michael Thomas. As you’ll remember, an oil spill early this year forced the village to shut down its well to avoid contamination.
Hopkins Center officially reopens today. “It really raises the bar in terms of what we can aspire to,” Hop director Mary Lou Aleskie tells Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster in the Dartmouth Alumni Mag. Lamster looks at the renewed center—and its “defining feature,” the Daryl and Steven Roth Wing—with an architecture-lover’s eye: the Roth wing’s “wiggly vertical columns that, from a distance, look like a row of enormous champagne flutes”; the “jewel box” of a recital hall; “a complex warren of hallways on multiple levels…[whose] paths through it are considerably more logical and accessible.” The four-day reopening celebration starts this evening.
SPONSORED: Acclaimed comic storyteller, author, innkeeper, and educator Cindy Pierce brings her latest comic show, Glitchy Business, to the Nugget Theater to benefit the Hanover Improvement Society on November 5th at 7 PM. Cindy’s brand of outrageous, bawdy, and honest humor is on full display in Glitchy Business. Tickets cost $75 and can be purchased through the Nugget website or by clicking here. Beer and wine will be available for purchase. The show runs approximately 75 minutes. Due to the mature content of the show, it’s for adults only. Sponsored by the Hanover Improvement Society.
NH governor faces off with Exec Council over paper—and power. Earlier this week, Gov. Kelly Ayotte called on the Exec Council to stop having state troopers hand-deliver reports and contracts to members’ homes, and move things online, saying the state could have saved $3 million had they switched to digital in 2013. But councilors counter that the administration has been withholding crucial documents related to the contracts they’re being asked to sign, and yesterday, reports NH Bulletin’s Ethan DeWitt, “the conflict boiled over at an especially tense council meeting.” One after one, three GOP members voted to table contracts, “seeking to disrupt Ayotte administration priorities until agencies agree to provide the information.” DeWitt explains the drama.
NH AG issues report, recommendations after Berlin domestic violence murder. The report includes a step-by-step reconstruction of the July 6 shooting of Sandra Marisol Fuentes by her estranged husband, Michael Gleason, who also shot and killed himself. As Sruthi Gopalakrishnan writes in the Monitor, a friend of Gleason’s contacted the Carroll County sheriff’s office two days before with his concerns, which were relayed to the Berlin PD—whose response, the AG’s office concluded, was “wholly insufficient under the circumstances.” Gopalakrishnan details the report’s findings and recommendations for prosecutors and law enforcement. Full report here.
Okay, so it won’t be the Savannah Bananas, but next year in Manchester you can get one step away. By now, the barnstorming Bananas should need no introduction. What you might not know is that they (along with the Party Animals) are the mainstays of the expanding Banana Ball Championship League, which also features the Firefighters (one guess on their uniforms) and the brand-new Loco Beach Coconuts (tropical beach-themed uniforms). And as the Globe’s Steven Porter writes (newsletter, no paywall), those last two teams will be bringing “a spectacle-filled showdown” to Manchester’s Delta Dental Stadium in June. Tix by lottery, Oct. 31 deadline.
VT state senator in Young Republicans chat apologizes, says he is “weighing” his options. Orleans County Sen. Samuel Douglass, a Republican who was part of a chat group among a faction of YR leaders around the country whose overtly racist conversations were made public by Politico on Tuesday, has faced calls to resign from Gov. Phil Scott and other GOP leaders. Yesterday, report Liam Elder-Connors and Peter Hirschfeld for VT Public, Douglass issued a statement saying he’d been oblivious to his colleagues’ “disgusting comments.” “I apologize so deeply to my constituents and colleagues that our county and state have been dragged into this,” he added.
VT Pride Center closing: Questions about how “a valued community resource could go belly-up with little warning.” A lot of people were left wondering just what happened when the Burlington organization suddenly shut its doors and laid off staff last week. Seven Days’ Colin Flanders was, too. Board co-chair Monica Allard tells him that it faced a “perfect storm” of challenges, in particular years’-worth of debt in the face of lagging fundraising and uncertain grant funding, with the group no longer able to make debt payments and sustain operations. In addition, Flanders details tensions with the board and others “over political stances taken by its staff.”
“Everything was going less smoothly than it had in 1775.” The 250th anniversary of the Revolutionary War is upon us, which means so are reenactments of famous battles. It might have been easier to fight in the American Revolution, writes Caity Weaver in The Atlantic (gift link). For one thing, nowadays there are safety precautions. Also portapotties and pretend dying, which forced reenactors to move the Battle of Bunker Hill some 30 miles up the coast to Gloucester. In a highly entertaining report from Fort Ticonderoga, Weaver also deals with “period-correct leather buckle shoes (not engineered to withstand repeated impact with modern Vermont’s asphalt highways)” and wet authentic wool coats “stinking of sheep.”
Rapid-fire ski jumping. It’s just what it sounds like! Ski jumpers train all year in Lake Placid, of course, and the other day, Nordic Combined athlete (and 2023 US National Championship gold medal winner) Annika Malacinski put up a video of what it looks like when something like 16 jumpers-in-training head down the run and take flight in rapid succession. “🔥 these kids are crazyyy, I would NEVER 🙂↔️” she writes.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts “Who’s Leading the World?” Subtitled “Does ‘America First’ Mean the End of the Multilateral System As We Know It?” the panel brings together retired ambassadors Erica Barks Ruggles and Jeffrey Delaurentis, and Dickey director Victoria Holt to take stock of the UN, the international diplomatic system, and the US’s place in it all. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
Dartmouth’s history department hosts "In Conversation with Rashid Khalidi". An online conversation with the Columbia U professor emeritus of Modern Arab Studies about his research and writing. 5 pm in Kemeny 008.
At Fable Farm in Barnard, the Rumney Sessions bring in Hot Pickin’ Party. Bluegrass with guitarist Doug Perkins, bassist Mike Santosusso, and dobro player Adam Frehm. 5:30 pm.
At the Quechee Library, “To Write or Not to Write (with AI)?” Sci-fi horror writer Andy Futuro on “when to use AI, when to avoid it, and how to spot it. Never before has it been easier to be a one-person publishing powerhouse. And never before has it been harder to break through the avalanche of slop.” 5:30 pm.
At the Norwich Public Library, Julie Carrick Dalton and The Last Beekeeper. In this VT Humanities presentation, journalist and former beekeeper Dalton will talk about her 2023 novel, set in a post-apocalyptic US in which people keep seeing stray bees a decade after a global bee die-off. 6:30 pm.
Clara S. Lewis and American Infanticide at the Norwich Bookstore. Lewis, a senior lecturer in Dartmouth's Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, will be reading from and talking about her new book, which takes off from the case of an Ohio college student who killed her newborn, leaving it in a trash can alongside her sorority house, to trace the history of the American response to infanticide. 7 pm.
At the Hood Museum, the Indigenous Peoples’ Fashion Show. The annual event, organized by students, celebrates and shows off Indigenous fashion, jewelry, creativity, expression, and design. 8 pm.
And anytime, JAM’s highlights for the week bring you: coverage of the Junction Dance Festival this summer; August’s 13th Annual Abenaki and Indigenous Peoples Honoring Day in WRJ; and a video profile of the Special Needs Support Center.
And for today...
German classical guitarist Laura Lootens with a piece by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, an Italian composer and pianist who emigrated to the US in 1939 (he was Jewish) and wound up composing the music for some 200 MGM films over the course of his career there—though he composed many other works as well, which have been getting renewed appreciation of late. He died in 1968.
See you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael