GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Another day, another weak upper disturbance. Though if yesterday—most of it—was any sign of what weak upper disturbances bring, let's cheer it on. Patchy freezing fog again, then partly sunny again, highs in the mid-40s again, no winds to speak of, and, once again, temps dropping into the 20s overnight.Stick season on foot. Etna photographer Jim Block spent the end of October mostly hoofing it. He wandered Hanover and Lebanon, getting some nice mountain views and some glacial erratics near APD; headed on over to Thetford for some shot of "good-looking cattle"; caught some black bears wandering through his yard; caught some exquisite sunrises over Sunapee...Sharon school bus driver missing; police launch search. The VN's John Lippman reported last night that Randy Koloski, 68, failed to show up for work on Monday—though his phone and checkbook were found inside his unlocked car, which was parked at the school bus depot. He was last seen on Sunday at his home in Sharon, according to Hartford Deputy Police Chief Brad Vail. A joint search with the VT State Police is underway, using K-9 teams and aerial drones. Koloski's brother, Tim, told Lippman yesterday that his brother is “in good health” and said his disappearance is “out of character.”Cockroaches, overflowing dumpsters, leaky ceilings, loose handrails, broken locks... In a joint VPR/Seven Days investigation, Liam Elder-Connors and Derek Brouwer document a history of complaints and problems in apartments owned and managed by Bove Brothers Realty—whose holdings are mostly in northwest VT but include Stony Creek (along Route 5 in Wilder) and Quechee Sunrise. The company is mostly run by Rick Bove; his brother oversees the family's renowned Burlington restaurant and retail pasta sauces. For his part, Bove insists, "We respond promptly to calls for repairs."SPONSORED: If you don’t love where YOU work, consider joining APD! Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) knows that employee satisfaction and engagement closely relate to patient satisfaction and safety. Join a team that values engagement, partnership, kindness, community, and service. We have multiple openings, including an immediate need for a full-time, evening shift Environmental Services Technician. Apply online or call (603) 308-0812 to discuss the opportunities at your local community hospital. Sponsored by APD.Sometimes, democracy is hard. Yesterday was supposed to be the day that Hanover High learned the identity of its new mascot. But, reports the Valley News's Benjamin Rosenberg, eight of the 33 designs students and staff had voted on violated a rule requiring originality. Leaders of the school's Council proposed a runoff between the top two qualified designs—but that idea ran into flak. So next week, the Council will again take up whether to hold a runoff—and, if that move fails, whether to resubmit the 25 qualifying designs for voting or just to start the whole thing all over again."What if Hanover’s Rob Grabill and Lebanon’s Rob Johnstone, the programs’ longtime coaches and fast friends...heard a roar from not one but TWO student sections?" Tomorrow in Nashua, the Hanover High and Lebanon High boys' soccer teams play back-to-back games for state titles. In a personal reflection, Octopus Athletics blogger Tris Wykes (raised in Hanover, lives in Leb, father of a Leb football player) traces some of the low points of the longtime rivalry between the schools, a transcendent moment at their football game two weeks ago, the friendships across town lines, and his hope: "The Friday night lights don’t have to illuminate our differences.""If you can make a hockey rink a net-zero building, you can make anything net-zero." Woodstock native Harold Mayhew has designed ice rinks throughout the northeast, among them Woodstock's Union Arena. Starting in 2014, he helped steer his hometown ice to an ambitious goal: overhauling and upgrading its heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting systems to make it as energy-efficient as possible. You no doubt remember that it hit that goal this summer—and it took a lot of doing, reports Seven Days' Ken Picard, detailing how a financial necessity for the rink turned it into a national model.And the Emmy goes to...a Dartmouth engineering prof! Today at the Technology and Engineering Emmys, Professor Eric Fossum will hoist a statuette honoring his innovative work in television technology. As Julie Bonette writes on the Dartmouth Engineering site, when Fossum worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab he invented “the CMOS active pixel image sensor with intra-pixel charge transfer”—a key component in most of the cameras we use today. Fossum shares the award with two companies thatcontributed to the technology’s development. He's the only individual honoree today.Churches take turns hosting roving housing for the unhoused. In particular, an RV that WRJ housing advocate Simon Dennis and a helper turned into a two-unit apartment-on-wheels to help people falling through the cracks. The first church to offer space outside, Jim Kenyon writes in the VN, was the Unitarian Universalist church in Norwich. “It’s a small, tangible way that we could help out,” the Rev. Jan Hutslar tells him. But faced with a Norwich zoning ordinance limiting RV stays, on Monday Dennis towed the RV over to the First Congregational Church of Lebanon. It's got until mid-December there.From a 60-jar batch of preserves made with foraged blueberries to... the world? It was a jar of that first batch, made for friends, that wound up in the hands of the owner of the Grafton Village Store and yielded what became Blake Hill Preserves' first retail order, writes Curt Peterson in the Mountain Times. Early on, owner Vicky Allard tells him, “Weekends were spent delivering jams to stores, running our booth at local farmers’ markets, visiting farms for more produce, and making jam" in their kitchen. Now, the company ships all over the country from its Windsor headquarters.A "very active fruit-growing community.” That's what Kate and Charles Dodge found years ago when they settled in Putney, and it's what the former lawyer and former composer took advantage of as they built Putney Mountain Winery and Spirits—which has a tasting room in Quechee Gorge Village. In VinePair, Laurie Wilson profiles and interviews the couple, who started with fruit wines in 1998 and have seen—and helped—Vermont's wine industry flourish. Their Northern Spy cider was used to christen the USS Vermont submarine — "The generous splash of bubbles was impressive,” says Charles.“When the kids are expecting pizza and you don’t get it in, it’s challenging." You can only imagine. But that's what's happening to school food services as they struggle with supply-chain issues, reports Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin. “There isn’t a week that goes by that we’re not spending a lot more time trying to find food items,” the director of food services in Keene tells him, and districts are often changing menus based on what comes in on the truck. They're also building backup supplies and constantly trying to figure out how to serve a protein, a grain, a fruit, a vegetable, and a dairy product. Every day.NH Community Loan Fund has helped one-third of mobile home parks in the state become resident-owned. Like so much else, mobile home parks nationally have caught the eye of private equity, which buys them and raises rents. But because NH requires owners to give residents 60-day notice before they sell—and a chance to put in a bid themselves—an unusually high number of parks have been turned over to residents: 139 since the Community Loan Fund got off the ground in 1984, reports Kate Stringer in Next City.The bionic gloves—and grit—that saved a legendary pianist. Any one of the many injuries (and surgeries) that maestro João Carlos Martins’ hands have endured would be enough to end a career—and ended his many times. But as Gabriella Paiella writes in an engrossing profile for GQ, despite his setbacks, Martins’ determination to place his fingers on the keys again is “a jolting reminder of how it feels to have a calling” in life. Last year, a video of Martins went viral: an 80-year-old world-renowned pianist, wearing special gloves to counteract the nerve damage in his hands, plays for the first time in years. Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it keep going by hitting the maroon button:
At 4:30 today, both in-person and via livestream, Dartmouth's Dickey Center hosts Daniel Drezner, talking "US Grand Strategy, RIP." Drezner teaches international politics at Tufts' Fletcher School of Diplomacy, is a senior fellow at Brookings, and is a contributing editor at The Washington Post. His talk asks the question (which his title seems to answer): "Is the United States capable of devising a viable and durable grand strategy for the 21st century?"
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore hosts an online conversation between not one, but two Center for Cartoon Studies graphic novelists and teachers. Jarad Greene, who lives in WRJ, has just published A-Okay, "a vulnerable and heartfelt semi-autobiographical middle grade graphic novel about acne, identity, and finding your place." He'll be talking with Tillie Walden, a cartoonist and illustrator originally from Austin, TX who now lives in Lebanon and whose graphic novel Are You Listening? won the 2020 Eisner Award (the comic industry's Oscars) for Best Graphic Novel.
Also at 7 pm, Hanover High's Lamplighters start their three-day run of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, directed by Terry Samwick. Shipwrecked twins, mistaken identities, lots of confusion and near misses... In the Hanover High auditorium.
And finally, at 7:30 live theater returns to Enfield as Shaker Bridge Theater revs up its '21-'22 season with Lauren Gunderson's I and You. Caroline—“Small but mighty, like a dachshund,” she says of herself—is homebound due to illness and thrown together with Anthony, an athlete who believes in politeness and doing one's homework and does not "get girls", to work on an English project. Confessions and twists ensue. Runs through Nov. 21.
You probably don't need any introduction to Béla Fleck, who over the years has pushed the edges of what's possible with the banjo far beyond bluegrass and his beginnings with New Grass Revival. But he's returned to those roots recently with a new project, "My Bluegrass Heart." One of the pieces on it is "Psalm 136." "I was first exposed to this melody on an album called
Jewish Uganda
," he said recently, "and I fell for the sound of the kids singing this simple melody." Back in September, at the Fresh Grass festival at MASS MoCA,
—who's been a bluegrass star ever since she was 11, when Alison Krauss called her up to play at the Grand Ole Opry. Just another day at the office for two fleet-fingered masters.
See you tomorrow.
Daybreak Where You Are: The Album. Photos of daybreak around the Upper Valley, Vermont, New Hampshire, and the US, sent in by readers.
Want to catch up on Daybreak music?
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Tom Haushalter Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Tom About Michael
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! You can subscribe at:
Thank you!