GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Still quiet, still cold, but today we get a decently sunny day. Eventually, anyway, once the clouds clear out. Temps are running about 10 degrees below normal (though that's going to change starting tomorrow) and even once the clouds do part, we won't get above 30. With relatively clear skies tonight, we'll be seeing lows in the lower teens, single digits some spots—and maybe even below zero up in the Northeast Kingdom.Time to catch up. Ordinarily, the photos in this spot are recent—taken within the last week or two. But there's always a backlog, so here's a sampling from October and November...
A striking view of the Presidentials from Danville, VT last month, from Pril Hall;
The first quiet moments of sunrise over Lake Fairlee, also last month, by John Pietkiewicz;
And a splendid daybreak sky over Corinth in October, from Lois Jackson.
West Leb committee proposes housing, retail, outdoor space for Main Street lots. The city bought the three parcels (including the buildings where the Vintage Home Center and Lebanon Sewing & Vacuum Center are now) back in June. Since then, officials have considered building a new fire station there, but on Monday, reports Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, an advisory committee proposed a mixed-use development that backers believe would boost West Leb's economy. The city council will take up the issue next month, considering whether to solicit developers and to close off a street that divides the parcels.Failed brakes led to Mechanic Street crash. If you happened to be driving past the Freihofer's outlet in Lebanon yesterday and noticed a car that had crashed nose-in to the building, police report the car's brakes had failed when the driver turned into the lot. The driver was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. VN photographer James Patterson got the photo.SPONSORED: Donate to the Holiday Book Angels, and give local kids the gift of reading! Each holiday season, the Holiday Book Angels help get books into the hands of Upper Valley kids. This program, organized by the Norwich Bookstore and some amazing local volunteers, is supported by donations from our community. Check out our website or visit the Norwich Bookstore to learn how you can help: by picking out a kid to shop for, buying pre-selected books, or donating funds. Your contribution will make a huge difference to young readers in the community this season! Sponsored by the Norwich Bookstore."How to say you work in New Hampshire without saying you work in New Hampshire." That's how the Bristol, NH Police Department (over by Newfound Lake) just captioned Officer Seth Learned's photo on Facebook of a stray bull staring through the door of the Mid-State Health Center there. Learned had taken a call about two bulls and a donkey that had gotten loose from a nearby farm. Someone from the farm eventually arrived to walk them home.In the NH House, a staunch gun rights advocate and a staunch gun safety advocate find common ground. On Tuesday, GOP Rep. Terry Roy and Democratic Rep. David Meuse got unanimous permission from the rules committee to draft a bill later than usually allowed. Their goal is to close a loophole in NH law that may have allowed John Madore, the man who fatally shot a security guard at NH Hospital, to buy a gun despite having been involuntarily committed. As Steven Porter explains in the Globe's Morning Report (no paywall), NH doesn't automatically provide data on commitments to the FBI, which means one might not show up on a background check.At NH's Public Utilities Commission, an "exercise in applied cynicism"? You probably remember that the other day, the PUC voted to allow a three-year, $254 million energy efficiency plan proposed by the state’s electric and gas utilities to go into effect. But, NH Consumer Advocate Don Kreis writes in his "Power to the People" column, far from being a win for efficiency and the NHSaves program, it's a shot across the bow. In particular, Kreis explains, two of the three commissioners don't like how the benefits of efficiency are calculated—and "are determined to pull the plug," he writes.SPONSORED: When the nights are the longest, we seek out the light. Experience the comfort and joy of St. Thomas Episcopal Church's Sankta Lucia Festival of Light. Join us this Sunday at 10:30 am in Hanover for this service of illumination, followed by a smorgasbord of Scandinavian delights. Find out more at the burgundy link or here. Sponsored by St. Thomas Episcopal Church.Irasburg tanker fire done. Actually, it burned itself out on Tuesday night and residents who'd been evacuated have returned home, reports VT Public's Sophie Stephens. The Route 14 bridge from which the tanker slid into the Black River remains closed, with three of its five beams melted. Efforts to remove the tanker from the river began yesterday. "It's drained our capabilities for a small town… you know, it kind of hurt us," says Irasburg Fire Chief Robin Beaton.Accused Burlington shooter: "A complicated person with views not easy to pigeonhole." Justin Eaton, who lived many years in Woodstock, is under investigation for committing a hate crime in the shooting of three Palestinian college students last month. But his background and beliefs, Sasha Goldstein writes in Seven Days, fit no neat categories. He volunteered with the Boy Scouts, spent weekend mornings cleaning up used needles and other detritus outside a Congregational church in Burlington—but also had two women he'd dated get in touch with police and was evicted and sued by a former landlord. And his recent social media posts suggest sympathy for Palestinians.Where Newport VT's hopes for economic development once lay, "a community of feral cats and a flourishing grove of birch saplings." That's what's in the large vacant lot that replaced apartments, stores, and offices torn down in 2015 as part of an ambitious project spearheaded by Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger, the principals in the subsequent EB-5 scandal that landed them both prison terms. The problem for Newport, writes Anne Wallace Allen in Seven Days, is that the parcel is still in the hands of a court-appointed receiver, who wants more for it than potential buyers will pay. Locals are feeding the cats, since, a store owner says, "they do eat the rodents."Tyromancy, n. Divination by means of cheese. "Predicting the future using cheese is something I do as a side business," writes Jennifer Billock in Saveur, "and from what I can tell, there aren’t very many of us doing this anymore." Which is kind of a shame, because it's got a rich history—first mentioned by a 2nd century Greek historian, popular in medieval England to figure out things like who committed a crime (they used farm cheeses, but some tyromancers dabbled in fondue). "I’ve even read a fortune from a Kraft Singles slice," writes Billock. "Vegan cheese? No problem."Squirrel! At least, that's what Brian Spies thinks his 10-month-old German Shepherd Luna was chasing when she wound up 25 feet up in a tree—which was at a slant, but still. She'd disappeared on Sunday, and Spies had spent the day looking for her. It wasn't until Monday that a friend happened to look up. "I'll be darned. I see something in the tree, and I went, 'Holy cow, that's the dog,'" he told KCRA TV. Spies grabbed an extension ladder (and his friends held a sleeping bag, in case something went wrong). “I had to bear hug her and walk down the ladder with no hands,” he said. “We felt like firefighters.”The Thursday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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There's a new Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, 252 or 520 pieces, just in time for these long nights by the fire. Plus, of course, fleece vests, hoodies, sweatshirts, even a throw blanket. And hats, mugs, and—once you work up a puzzle-piece sweat—tees. Check it all out at the link!
Last Friday, it was the Christmas tree lighting on the Dartmouth Green. This evening at 5, it's the Chabad at Dartmouth menorah's turn, in a public lighting ceremony open to all.
At 5:30 pm, Sustainable Woodstock hosts an online talk by Debbie New of the Vermont Community Geothermal Alliance on ways to use thermal energy. "Beginning with the basics and benefits of shallow geothermal heating and cooling," they write, "this session describes the opportunity to use the heat we already have—e.g. from large buildings, refrigeration, and wastewater—to decarbonize buildings."
Also at 5:30, in the Rumney Barn at Fable Farm Fermentory in Barnard, the fermentory hosts the Ben Kogan Duo. Kogan—you may remember him as one of the organizers of last May's Imagine Zero Music Festival—is a jazz bass player who's branched out into acoustic, electric guitar, and songwriting, and his project (the Duo is him and whoever else he's playing with) focuses on "Indie-Americana with jazz and bluegrass sensibilities." Kogan will be joined by saxophonist and Dartmouth jazz improv teacher Michael Zsoldos to inject some classic jazz into the mix.
And at 7 this evening, online, the VT Ski & Snowboard Museum hosts John Caldwell, the “Father of Cross-Country Skiing”, in conversation with E. Thetford's Peter Graves, former xc coach and legendary Olympics, television, and stadium announcer. Caldwell, a 1950 Dartmouth grad (where he competed in alpine and cross-country skiing, ski jumping and biathlon) competed in the 1952 Olympics, coached a generation of xc greats at The Putney School (including his son, Tim, and Bill Koch), coached a variety of Olympic xc ski teams, and wrote The Cross Country Ski Book. He and Graves will talk about it all.
And for today...
Denny Laine, who died on Tuesday, was undoubtedly best known for his work with Paul McCartney as part of Wings. He played on all of the band's studio albums, regularly sang lead and played lead guitar, and with McCartney co-wrote "Mull of Kintyre" in 1977, which passed the Beatles' "She Loves You" to become the biggest-selling single in UK history (until it was surpassed by Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" in 1984). Before all that, though, Laine was a founding member of the Moody Blues, which began life in 1964 as the M&B 5, named for a Birmingham brewery. Laine left two years later—with "Knights in White Satin" and the rest of what we think of as the Moody Blues still in the future. But he'd already made his mark with the group's first big hit, "Go Now", a 1964 cover of an R&B song by Bessie Banks, with Laine taking the soulful lead.
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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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