SOME HALLOWEEN, HUH?
Showers throughout the day, more serious rain starting late in the afternoon. It seems cruel, but there it is. There's a storm system racing out of the Ohio Valley, and a warm front, and suddenly here we are looking at the possibility of high winds — they're talking 55 mph gusts, though mostly to our west — and rains heavy enough to spur a flood watch tonight and tomorrow. Temps steady in the high 50s to mid 60s until about daybreak tomorrow, when suddenly they plunge toward the 40s.Well, she made it. Remember Preston O'Donnell, the Bradford six-year-old who set out to collect 3,000 pairs of socks for The Haven by the end of October? She pulled in 3,916. And just delivered a check for all the cash people dropped in the collection boxes she and her family set up around the region.Longtime Leb baseball coach Doug Ashey died on Tuesday. He was 64, and had been ill briefly. He'd been the Raiders' coach since 2002, and before that led the Kearsarge baseball team for seven years. (VN, sub reqd)The "second spookiest guy in Windsor"? Seven Days' Dan Bolles is up with a profile of Cody Sullivan and his writing partner and co-producer Zach Husband. Together, the two put out Pulp! From Beyond the Veil, a podcast of short horror and sci-fi stories they write and produce themselves. They enlist fellow Windsorites as voice actors, and Sullivan regularly turns for advice to the spookiest guy in Windsor, folklorist and author Joe Citro.Now there's an actual box you shouldn't block. In a bid to fight congestion at the 12A intersection with the I-89 northbound ramps, Leb has painted two large X-ed out squares as a reminder that you shouldn't be in there. Traffic's been backing up at light changes, keeping 12A from being the free-flowing river of cars it was so obviously meant to be. (VN)Jinny Cleland ends an era. If you've been to the Norwich Farmers Market anytime in, oh, the last generation, you've probably stopped by Royalton baker and farmer Jinny Cleland's stall, the one in the left corner just after you come in from the parking lot. She's been selling breads and cookies and sweet rolls and scones and flowers and 30 varieties of jams at the market for 40 years, but last Saturday was her last regular appearance. The VN's Sarah Earle has an appreciation.Presidential filing opened in NH yesterday. Between now and Nov. 15, when it closes, you can expect a long parade of the known and obscure to plunk down the $1,000 primary filing fee. First in line, as he was in 2016, was Mark Stewart Greenstein, of West Hartford, Connecticut, who snagged 29 votes last time around. Pete Buttigieg showed up, too, a few hours later. Bernie's expected today, and VP Mike Pence is due in on Nov. 7 to file for Pres. Trump.Sununu unveils plan for NH's housing shortage. Much of the heavy lifting will be done by two bills that came out of a bipartisan task force the governor convened earlier this year, which included Sunapee Rep. Gates Lucas (R). One would allow Tax-Increment Financing districts to be used for residential development; the other would streamline the process for planning boards. Do you really need to rake your leaves in the fall? Well, yes and no, says UNH Extension. If you've got a lawn, you don't want to leave them just sitting there. A heavy layer smothers the grass and can promote "snow mold diseases" (who knew?). But running leaves over with a mower a few times and mulching them into the lawn isn't a bad bet, the experts say.Students in VT, NH see standardized test declines. The results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the so-called "Nation's Report Card" — are out, and while 4th and 8th grade students in both states scored better than the national average (except for VT's 4th graders in math), they saw declines from the 2017 results. This is also a national trend. VT Agency of Education officials caution that these are statewide averages, and so it's hard to draw conclusions about what's affecting scores.So, Vermont has this gun problem... But it's not quite what you think. For decades, weapons have been accumulating in police evidence rooms as they're seized after a crime or confiscated and never reclaimed. Now, thanks to a 2018 law, the state is selling them off. They're stored in a secret windowless room secured by both combination and key locks, an alarm system, and video surveillance. Seven Days' Paul Heintz details "How the State of Vermont Became a Firearms Dealer.""Whatever you think doesn’t matter, because I designed it." That's Great Vermont Corn Maze creator Mike Boudreau to VPR's Erica Heilman, who visited Danville's premier fall attraction — it's the largest corn maze in New England — on its final day of the season. It's a delightful piece, complete with practical advice — "Don’t wear heels" — and a very fine aerial view. Did she make it? Let's just say there's this line: "I keep meeting Liz and Justin at the same place. It's like running into someone at the grocery store and then running into them six more times, always in aisle six."The "most prolific first-ascensionist" in the history of climbing. Jon Krakauer hit the web Tuesday with a profile of driven mountaineer Fred Beckey, who's pioneered ascents for more than half a century. "Nowadays, of course, every crag from Smith Rock to the New River Gorge is crawling with pierced-eared rock rats who’ve copped an attitude, hit the road, and are living in tents in the dirt. But most of them are just temporarily slumming; within a few years, they’ll be back in suburbia attending PTA meetings." Go wallow in the writing.
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SO IF YOU'RE NOT OUT GORGING ON KIT-KATS...
Lebanon has moved its Halloween FunFest inside, with pumpkin bowling, a tour of the Soldier's Memorial Building, and of course the annual fire department open house. But! The official unveiling of the winter cover panels for the fountain in Colburn Park, created by students working with AVA, is still on. It'll be brief but enthusiastic. FunFest starts at 4, the unveiling is at 5.
Yep! The original
Rocky Horror Picture Show
will be at the Main Street Museum in WRJ. It took them
four months
to negotiate the rights, so they're doing it up with cast support from the Center for Cartoon Studies. Costumes welcome, water and water guns not so much: "We are still a museum," they point out. Starts at 8, tix $10 at the door, space is limited so get there early.
Or maybe you just need to escape from all the orange and black, sit quietly, eat good food, and listen to some music.
Joseph Stallsmith and Phyllis Shea "travel back to the flower child generation" with folk-rockabilly songs accompanied on cello, guitar, and baritone uke. At Peyton Place in Orford.
Rowley Hazard and Madonna Gordon do jazz/bossa/blues/pop at the Quechee Club.
And Still Hill brings their acoustic folk, Americana and progressive bluegrass to Windsor Station.
Stay dry... but definitely have fun! See you tomorrow.
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