GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
If Daybreak doesn't show up in your inbox... A good number of Gmail users yesterday reported that they didn't receive the newsletter—and then found it in their spam folder. Email services like Gmail, Yahoo, and Apple are constantly changing the algorithms they use to detect and divert spam, and Daybreak gets caught in the net sometimes. The best thing to do, if you haven't already, is to label it a "contact" or "safe sender" with your provider. The burgundy link takes you to a helpful page on how to do this (hit your email provider on the right).And if you're among the Gmail users who didn't get Daybreak yesterday... Look for it in your spam folder or hit the burgundy link for an online version.Okay, let's get to it!Getting sunnier, a tad warmer. It's just the start of things, as high pressure begins building in and winds turn to come from the southwest (and south tonight and tomorrow), nudging us out of the colder-than-normal spate of the past few days. Highs today in the mid-40s, down to the upper 20s tonight.Scenes of late fall. We're in that transition, when the total rush of peak is past, stick season's still to come, and there's great but quiet beauty out there.
Like this single Thetford maple leaf, outlined by Tuesday's first frost, from Barbara Woodard;
And the late afternoon light on Orfordville Road in Lyme, from Jay Davis;
And early-morning fog on the former golf course in Hanover, from Bruce Atwood.
"Everybody’s got their eyes and ears open that there’s an idiot or idiots out there." That's Newport, NH's Ken Sawyer, whose multi-racial household was one of several properties in three Sullivan County towns targeted Monday night by vandals spray-painting racist or obscene graffiti. The incidents occurred in Croydon and Claremont as well, reports the Valley News's John Lippman, and Newport police chief Alex Lee told WMUR they "may have been motivated by an unlawful bias"—his department is working with the AG's office's civil rights unit on the investigation. Sawyer tells Lippman he's been overwhelmed by the community's supportive response.VT Dept of Corrections revokes security clearance for health contractor at Springfield prison. The move effectively bars Robert Stevenson—the top administrator on site for health services contractor Wellpath—from working in VT prisons. It follows a story by VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein reporting that Stevenson's nursing license had been suspended or revoked in three states for diverting opioids. Louise Walker, the nurse who blew the whistle on Stevenson and was later fired, told Weinstein yesterday she was "ecstatic." Corrections officials say they plan “deeper involvement” in Wellpath hiring decisions.Trial gets under way in Austin, TX for woman accused of shooting cyclist Moriah Wilson. Yesterday was devoted to opening statements in the murder trial of Kaitlin Armstrong, who is accused in the May, 2022 murder of Wilson, who grew up in the Northeast Kingdom and went to Dartmouth. Prosecutors allege Armstrong was motivated by "romantic jealousy," report CNN's Lauren Mascarenhas and Ashley Killough; Armstrong defense attorney yesterday told the jury that his client has been "trapped in a nightmare of circumstantial evidence.” The trial comes a few weeks after Armstrong tried to flee custody.Lebanon budget proposal would see 4.6 percent municipal tax rate increase. City manager Shaun Mulholland's proposed budget would boost total city spending by 15 percent over the current fiscal year, reports the VN's Patrick Adrian, based mostly on inflation, labor and contracting costs, and "the need to upgrade and maintain public infrastructure to keep pace with the city’s growth," Adrian writes. Says realtor Patrick Flanagan, "People, many who make good money, want to have good roads, good schools and police protection... The town is growing and the demands are growing.”VT's first (and so far only) natural cemetery: "Like going for a hike... It just feels good." The 56-acre Vermont Forest Cemetery is in Roxbury, a bit beyond the Upper Valley, and it held its first burial last month, reports VT Public's Lexi Krupp. “A green burial offers the opportunity for grieving families to be involved with it, instead of just shipping the body off to a funeral home,” Barnet's Kate Abrams tells her; that first burial was of Abrams' husband, Ron Langley. The cemetery is attracting attention from people both in and outside VT who like the idea of being buried in a forest that will grow over them, Krupp notes.Massive blaze destroys Montpelier lumberyard. No injuries were reported in the fire that engulfed the rk MILES yard in the city's downtown—though it did destroy the first fire truck on the scene. Arriving firefighters found a “massive amount of fire already spreading throughout the lumberyard,” the deputy chief told VTDigger's Lola Duffort last night, and “as they were trying to extricate some people, the fire kind of overwhelmed them and they had to get out." The city's mayor reported last night that rk MILES' retail building had been saved, as had the neighboring Clothespin Factory and Hunger Mountain Coop.Hey, VT car owners: You don't need that little registration sticker on your license plate any more. That's thanks to changes to motor vehicle laws that passed in June as part of an ambitious effort to modernize the DMV's computer system (including a 50-year-old mainframe). As of yesterday, the DMV says, the stickers are a thing of the past—and from now on, you can carry proof of registration on your smartphone. "It's a significant step towards modernizing our systems and reducing unnecessary hassles," the agency says. Though it's also worth noting all DMV office will be closed Nov. 8-14 to make it happen.With buyouts and retirements in hand, VT State U will lay off only one faculty member. That'll be a professor of landscape contracting, reports VTDigger's Peter D'Auria. The university last month had said it needed to cut 20 to 33 faculty positions, and in a Tuesday report, announced that 17 faculty had taken buyouts, six more are retiring, and three won't have their contracts renewed. It also recently announced plans to cut 33 non-faculty staff positions, and on Tuesday added that 11 programs will be discontinued, including a natural science degree, while 16 will be consolidated. Talk about deadline pressure: Owners of hotel that's "home away from home" for VT legislators scramble to reopen in time for January session. July's waters hit two feet in the lobby of the Capitol Plaza Hotel, right by the capitol in Montpelier, and took out its kitchen, restaurant, and heating and electrical systems, reports Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen. On the day of the floods, guests at the hotel—whose restaurant for decades has been a hangout for politicians and lobbyists, and where VT Public's Montpelier newsroom is located—helped carry furniture to safety; a clerk showed up in a kayak. Allen recounts the hotel's history and the flood's stories.With more kids accidentally ingesting cannabis (and other drugs), VT distributes child-resistant bags for cannabis retailers to give away. Three thousand of them are going out to shops this week, reports WCAX's Katharine Huntley, and if this pilot project's successful, maybe more in the future. Cannabis products come in child-safe packaging, says the health department's Kelly Dougherty, but "some of these products can look very attractive to children and they’ve got gummies and chocolates and crackers... So we want to make sure that they’re sort of out of sight and unable to be accessed."Wilson's warbler no more. The American Ornithological Society announced yesterday that it will choose new common names for birds named after people. The move comes after two years of discussion about how to deal with birds named after "problematic historical figures," writes Smithsonian's Sarah Kuta, who rounds up the national coverage. The group decided it would be too difficult to pick and choose, and instead will rename birds named for people in a way "that focuses attention on the unique features and beauty of the birds themselves." New names will be the work of a future committee.
“They’re going to be protected, they’re going to be loved, and they’re definitely going to be fed." Peggy Winckowski would know, since the 66-year-old St. Louis grandmother is the one doing the feeding—of dozens of high school students who show up each Wednesday morning at her house. The tradition was begun in 2021 by her grandson, Sam Crowe, who told a group of friends at a local diner one morning that his grandmother could make a better breakfast. Sam died in a car crash last year. “We were all grieving with grandma,” a friend tells the Washington Post's Sydney Page (gift link), and now even more students show up each week. “It’s just a tiny house, but it’s got a lot of love in the walls,” says Winckowski.
The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At 4:30 today, Dartmouth's English department and Jewish Studies program host a poetry reading by Erika Meitner. Meitner, who went to Dartmouth and now teaches at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, is the author of six collections of poems that, one reviewer wrote, "lack linguistic trickery, but make no mistake: this is sharp, clear writing with edge.” In the Sanborn Library.
Today at 5 pm, Dartmouth's Rockefeller Center and the Dartmouth Political Union bring in Chris Christie, former NJ governor and current GOP presidential candidate, for a conversation about his campaign and policy priorities—plus questions from the audience. It'll be online as well as in-person in the Loew Auditorium.
This evening at 6:30, the Howe Library and Hanover Historical Society host Adair Mulligan for a talk on "The Connecticut: New England's Great River". Mulligan, who currently runs the Hanover Conservancy, spent two decades as conservation director for the Connecticut River Joint Commissions. She'll be giving an "armchair tour" of the river itself, its history, its impact on the communities along its banks, and what its future looks like. In the Mayer Room and online via Zoom.
This evening at 7, the Norwich Bookstore brings in Arlene Iris Distler and Judith Janoo for an evening of poetry. Distler, who lives in Brattleboro, published her most recent collection, This Earth, This Body, late last year. It explores family, loss, and other attributes of a life lived with "mindful attention to detail and capacity for love," as the Brattleboro Reformer put it. Janoo, who lives in the Northeast Kingdom, has a new collection, Just This, that traverses Maine, Vermont, and Malaysia, where her husband was from.
At 7:30 this evening, the Flying Monkey in Plymouth, NH presents Celtic fiddle superstars Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy with what's certain to be a rafter-shaking evening of reels, jigs, strathspeys, ballads, stories, and maybe dancing in the aisles. There are just a few tix left — as is also the case for Saturday, when they'll be at the Chandler in Randolph.
And anytime, you should check out what JAM's highlighting this week: Former VT Gov. Madeline Kunin's poetry reading at the Norwich Bookstore last month; bestselling writer Ross Gay's reading from The Book of (More) Delights, also at the Norwich Bookstore; and the performances by two Hanover High students, Arlo Philip and Elizabeth Chambers, ahead of last month's screening of Nora Jacobson's Passion in a Pandemic at the Briggs.
So, the amazing thing is...
Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy have seven kids, and they're already a dynasty. MacMaster, of course, grew up surrounded by music—her uncle Buddy was world-famous as a Cape Breton fiddler; her uncle Kinnon Beaton, also a fiddler, is satisfied just being known island-wide. Leahy, meanwhile, grew up in Ontario with 10 siblings, all musicians. So it's hardly a surprise that the MacMaster-Leahy kids have taken to the family trade. Here are Natalie, Donnell, and five of their fiddling, step-dancing kids
See you tomorrow.
The Hiking Close to Home Archives. A list of hikes around the Upper Valley, some easy, some more difficult, compiled by the Upper Valley Trails Alliance. It grows every week.
The Enthusiasms Archives. A list of book recommendations by Daybreak's rotating crew of local booksellers, writers, and librarians who think you should read. this. book. now!
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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