GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sunny, but definitely colder. In fact, it’ll be the coldest day of the week, with highs today only reaching the mid 50s and, with clear skies letting the heat escape, temps tonight dropping into the upper or even mid 20s. Still, we’re in the middle of high pressure, so we’ll be looking mostly at sunny blue skies today.
Now that fall’s here… It’s time for a couple of fall photos.
Here’s a busy Sharon streetscape, from Annemieke McLane.
And catalpa over Mill Brook in Windsor, from Marv Klassen-Landis
It’s also time for Dear Daybreak. This week’s collection of short pieces from readers about Upper Valley life features Troy Thomas’s beautiful photo of clouds reflected in the Connecticut River; Perry Allison’s lesson on the need to take notice from an hour spent on her porch; a shout-out to the Forest Service employees who had the foresight—and the expertise—to station that Sikorski “Air Crane” helicopter at Leb Airport; and Deecie Denison’s surprising encounter with a flower-buying young man at Hannaford’s. If you’ve got something to share, please send it in.
In Bradford VT, the resignations don’t stop. It would be fair to say that town leaders haven’t been seeing eye to eye, reports Clare Shanahan in the Valley News. Selectboard Vice Chair Michael Wright stepped down Sept. 25—the same day longtime emergency management director Gary Moore also resigned. Those followed Dan Perry’s resignation from the selectboard in May and, of course, the mass resignation of firefighters in April. Moore’s move came after the selectboard deactivated his key-code to the fire station, where his office had been. Wright, convinced it was time to change board leadership, tried to make himself chair, but was rebuffed.
“Every line feels like it’s carbonated and alive.” That’s the Center for Cartoon Studies’ James Sturm talking about Ricardo Liniers Siri, the Norwich-based Argentine cartoonist known as Liniers. Sturm also has this to say to Chelsea Edgar in Seven Days: “He’s like some kind of holy fool. He’s sweet and playful, and yet he speaks fundamental truths.” Liniers’ daily strip, Macanudo, (you can find today’s here) “reflects Liniers’ insistently optimistic worldview in the face of unavoidable suffering and his gift for finding deeper truths in the most ordinary moments,” Edgar writes. “I’m the journalist of the tiny thing,” he tells her. If you want to know who he is, read this.
SPONSORED: Help someone who needs a hand right now! Based right here in the Upper Valley, Hearts You Hold supports immigrants, migrants, and refugees across the US by asking them what they need. Right now, there are requests from an Orange County farmworker who needs boots and a jacket, Afghani refugees in VT who need a cheap laptop and multiple moms who need car seats, and immigrants elsewhere who need help with the basics, from shampoo to clothing to school supplies. At the burgundy link or here, you'll find people to help all over the country and from all over the world. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.
From Patrick O’Grady, a trio of businesses that’ll come to your home. In the VN’s new issue of Enterprise, he profiles a car mechanic, a bike mechanic, and a pair of piano technicians who all make house calls (though, sure, no surprise on that last one):
First stop, an auto mechanic who’ll work with your budget. Enfield’s Chris Stiles began Helping Hands Auto Car “as an alternative to more expensive repair shops and a way to help those who may be struggling financially,” O’Grady writes. Though he can’t tackle the full range of repairs a garage can, basic repairs and maintenance are his bread and butter. “It is not strictly about making money,” he tells O’Grady. “I’m more about seeing a smile on their face than anything.”
Next up, Todd Chewning and Cowbell Bike Repair. You’ve no doubt seen Chewning’s cargo van somewhere in the Upper Valley sometime over the nine years he’s been in business. A client who works in a machine shop even modified the van’s walls to store products and tools and hold a bike stand. “In a world where everybody wants everything today, it is nice to have someone come to your house while you do other things,” says Chewning.
And finally, Adam Partridge and Emerson Gale. Partridge runs Upper Valley Uprights from Lyme; Gale owns Gale Piano Service in Strafford. They don’t consider themselves competitors: They figure there are thousands of pianos in the Upper Valley, more than enough to go around. And they are both reflective about their work. “Tuning pianos is a wonderful combination of being very focused and very relaxed, engaging your sight, hearing and touch simultaneously,” says Partridge. And Gale: “It is a place where art and science can meet.”
SPONSORED: REDCAN Restaurant can make any event special! We offer private events, large and small holiday parties, retirement parties, cocktail hour, and much, much more! Inquiries are coming in fast for the holidays, so please make your plans today. We look forward to making your event a special one! Email us at: [email protected]. Sponsored by REDCAN in White River Junction.
Come From Away “fits a huge story into an intimate space.” Last week, we got two local takes on Northern Stage’s season curtain-raiser. Now, Seven Days critic Alex Brown weighs in. The play, she writes, “is a good deal more than a message of hope. It’s about being lost in a crowd, then found.” It’s artistically full, with a memorable cast of 12 people inhabiting some 80 roles—“The entire company is constantly transforming to become a world of people who don’t know each other”—deeply engaging staging and choreography, masterful lighting and set design, and a “tonally perfect” production that moves “confidently from light to dark and never blurs the two.”
Despite investigations finding potential crimes by NH corrections officers, no prosecutions. It all began with a major NH Fish & Game poaching bust that netted five men; four were current or former officers at the state prison for men. Fish & Game officers also “uncovered text conversations between corrections officers that took questionable, and in some cases violent, turns,” report NHPR’s Lauren Chooljian and Nate Hegyi, and referred them to the AG’s office in 2023. State and federal investigators dug in, finding evidence of illegal drug use, potential drug trafficking, a plan to falsify records, and more. But, report Chooljian and Hegyi, so far no criminal charges have been filed. Case by case, their story unveils what investigators found.
A legendary VT State Police investigator looks back at murders, burglaries, and a career’s worth of crimes. JP Sinclair doesn’t talk to the press much, but as Erica Heilman says in her latest Rumble Strip series for VT Public, “he had to give me an interview because we played Little League together”—they both went to Charlotte Central School. He liked investigation because “it was up to me to use experience, ingenuity, whatever to figure it out,” he says. “The person who did it has every advantage to break every rule to try and get away from you. These victims are coming to you in their darkest moments… they put all their faith and trust in you.”
Here’s part 1. Heilman once worked as a private investigator on the defense side. You can imagine: They’ve got a lot to talk about.
And here’s part 2: The mechanics of crime investigations, working in law enforcement in the community where you live, and “what you know about a place when you work in law enforcement.”
Monitoring cameras, surveillance video, and thermal drones—all for a cat. Francine, a furry ambassador who’s lived at a Lowe’s in Richmond, VA, for eight years, wasn’t keen on the disruption caused by Christmas display set-up, so off she went. According to the AP’s Julie Walker and John Raby, security cameras caught “glimpses of her in the appliance section and then the receiving department, where she darted into a truck.” And darted out again 85 miles later, at a distribution center in NC. Lowe’s mounted a full-on, tech-assisted search, and two weeks after her DIY escape, she was home. “Where she’s at is where she wants to be,” says the store’s general manager.
The welcome home. Okay, okay, equal time for dogs. And not just any dogs: Olive and Mabel. It turns out that BBC sportscaster Andrew Cotter doesn’t spend all his time filming his labs. He also has to go to work. Sometimes for a long time—like his recent four-week trip to Japan, LA, New York, Germany, and Switzerland. “I'm often asked how Olive and Mabel greet me after time away,” he explains about his latest video. You could skip to the 1:35 mark, but the whole thing’s better if you don’t.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
THERE'S SOME GREAT DAYBREAK SWAG! Like Daybreak tote bags, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies, t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
HEADS UP
Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts “Arctic Security Dynamics: Comprehensive Security and the Canadian North”. Karen Everett, a senior research associate affiliated with the University of the Arctic at Université Laval in Canada will talk about the complex and varied forces at play when it comes to security concerns in the Arctic, using the Canadian north as an example. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and online.
Feast & Field’s Rumney Sessions bring in Jim Yeager. The Fable Farm crew’s Thursday evenings once the weather turns (sort of) colder “bring together farm food, art, and community—but in a smaller, cozier setting”: a 250-year-old barn. Yeager, a Windsor-based musician, songwriter, and veteran performer in these parts, will bring the music. Starts up at 5:30 pm.
At the Norwich Bookstore, Matt Hongoltz-Hetling and The Ghost Lab. Sounds like a novel, but Hongoltz-Hetling’s third nonfiction book (his first was A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear) delves into a small group on the NH Seacoast whose shared interest in occult phenomena—from ghost hunting to alien abduction to spirit guides—led them to set up a research center. Matt and I will be talking it over, along with why the rise of faith in the paranormal has coincided with a plunge in faith in American institutions. 7 pm.
And anytime, JAM’s got local highlights for you: the Upper Valley band Rummager at the Main Street Museum back in August; Vermont Humanities director Christopher Kaufman Ilstrup talking about the humanities, his group, and the impact of federal funding cuts; and JAM’s Chico Eastridge getting the tough assignment of covering the last day of the season at West Leb’s Ice Cream Fore-U—when, by tradition, the much-loved spot gives its goods away for free.
And for today...
“In 2025, Bon Iver announced his retirement, and the search began for his replacement.” Never mind that as far as anyone knows, Bon Iver leader Justin Vernon is not retiring—plus, how do you replace a solo artist in his own musical project? But you know what? It doesn’t matter, because out of that conceit comes this video: the auditions, set to Bon Iver’s “Day One” off the latest album, with, among others, Cristin Milioti (star of How I Met Your Mother), Jacob Elordi, Bon Iver’s two collaborators on the original song—Dijon and Flock Of Dimes’ Jenn Wasner—and Vernon himself all trying out. Heck, forget the backstory. It’s just fun to watch.
See you tomorrow.
Looking for all of the hikes, Enthusiasms, daybreak photos, or music that Daybreak has published over the years? Go here!
And always, if you’re not a subscriber yet:
Want to catch up on Daybreak itself (or find that item you trashed by mistake the other day)? You can find everything on Daybreak’s homepage.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to visit daybreak.news to sign up.
Thank you!