GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
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Mostly cloudy, warmer. As a ridge of high pressure moves east and an area of low pressure traipses west to east north of the border, air will be flowing up from the south, bringing temps back to seasonal norms. We’ll be getting into the low 40s today under a more clouds than sun, with that low-pressure system bringing a slight chance of rain/snow to some higher-elevation spots tonight. Lows tonight in the mid 20s.
A pair of Sunapee reflections.
First up is videographer Peter Bloch’s extraordinary photo of the world reflected in a loon’s eye on Little Lake Sunapee. He was going through photos from last summer, he wrote recently to followers: “It was already a pretty tight closeup of a loon, taken just minutes before sunset with the sun straight behind me. When I zoomed in on the eye and removed image noise, I was able to see a perfect reflection on the surface of the eye. You see the sun, the horizon line of trees, some clouds and even some of the rippled reflection of the sun on the water.”
Meanwhile, Joe Bouscaren sends in “Morning Sun on Melting Ice” on Lake Sunapee, a little riot of reflected light.
It’s time for Dear Daybreak! This week’s collection of Upper Valley anecdotes from readers starts off with Amanda Perry’s photo of a remarkable, Rothko-channeling Thetford Center sky, then moves on to Patricia Kangas Ktistes’s recollection of the Ladies Benevolent Society in Grafton in the 1970s—and the particular resonance of Pyrex; Sue Lin’s nighttime deer encounter with her dog, Sally; and Mike Loots’s of-the-moment observations of the first red-winged blackbird to return for the spring.
After nine years, the weekly jam sessions at WRJ’s The Filling Station are still going strong. Eric Francis was there for Daybreak on a recent Wednesday evening, as the folk jam—which draws professional and amateur musicians alike from all over the Upper Valley—blew through its ninth anniversary in its usual convivial style. It began as a one-off birthday party for fiddler Jakob Breitbach. Now? “People will come in from all different worlds and they’ll chatter away at the bar, somebody strikes up a tune, and, almost as if there’s a conductor, people will just join in like they’ve been playing together all their lives,” says reporter-turned-harmonica-player Will Adler.
Woodstock Village board upholds police chief’s demotion. As Alex Ebrahimi reports in the Valley News, the trustees made their decision that Chief Joe Swanson was justifiably removed from his role as chief based on a March 2-3 hearing; they “determined there was just cause in Municipal Manager Eric Duffy’s demotion of Swanson to patrol officer, ‘given his serious and egregious violations of numerous workplace rules,’” Ebrahimi writes. The hearing was the aftermath of a December decision overturning the board’s demotion of Swanson last year. His attorney, Linda Fraas, has appealed once again to Windsor Superior Court.
SPONSORED: Upper Valley Smiles at Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital is hiring a Dental Hygienist and a Dental Assistant. These per diem roles offer flexible monthly shifts, competitive pay, and the opportunity to support children’s oral health across the Upper Valley. Work three to four set days each month from September to May and enjoy summers off while making a meaningful difference for local kids. Learn more and apply: Dental Hygienist | Dental Assistant. Sponsored by Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital.
Two shout-outs to Upper Valley food stars. Both are in this week’s special food issue of Seven Days.
The first is in a roundup of seven new restaurants around Vermont: Corin Hirsch’s profile of Woodstock’s The Farmer and the Bell. “During a busy week,” writes Corin, April Pauly “and bakers Addy Kenyon, Kevin LaFleur and Althea DeBenedetto can blow through 1,800 eggs, 120 pounds of butter and many bags of high-gluten flour from King Arthur Baking in Norwich.” Of course, they’re not just making the bakery’s signature doughnuts: there’s also an array of “dimpled slabs” of focaccia “shot through with salt and air bubbles”; “gossamer” hand pies that “shatter at first bite”; and plenty more. You’ll also find profiles of spots from St. Albans to Rutland to Greensboro.
The second is in a trio of writeups by Margot Harrison of locally made short films about aspects of the state’s food culture: “La Liga” and the soccer league created by migrant dairy workers; “Sugarhouse”, which is about exactly what you’d expect; and Jim Zien’s “Meze on Main Street: A Love Story”. “It’s a love letter to White River Junction restaurant Tuckerbox, a Turkish eatery that became an unlikely community hub,” writes Harrison—as well as to owners Vural and Jackie Oktay and their kids and, as Harrison puts it, “the appeal of international eats in a small town.”
SPONSORED: Join Upper Valley Circus Collective for an Open Gym March 29th! UVCC is offering up all of their amazing circus skills in a buffet-style schedule. This will allow participants to be introduced to at least FOUR new circus skills so YOU can decide which ones you would like to try! Try your hand at everything from aerial silks and hoop to juggling and acrobatics. It's the perfect way to try something new. No experience required…All Fun! Details and pre-registration here or at the burgundy link. Sponsored by Upper Valley Circus Collective.
Meet our neighbor. One of the things that always strikes me as I prep Daybreak is how much is going on just over our doorstep. A fine case in point: St. J and the Northeast Kingdom, with their lively food, arts, and outdoor scenes and equally lively community life. Up there, they’ve got the North Star Monthly keeping tabs, and North Star’s newsletter, which I get, is a regular jolt of great stuff—events, photos, links to essays and articles. In yesterday’s version (burgundy link), editor and owner Justin Lavely said kindly of Daybreak that it’s written “with the same neighborly instinct we try to bring to the Kingdom: local, reliable, and written like it means something.” That is exactly what I admire about North Star’s newsletter. You should take a look.
Not even a week after his election, Grafton’s new police chief steps down. You may remember that last Tuesday, voters in town rejected an article that would have made the chief an appointed position and overwhelmingly chose Jeffrey Cogswell for the spot. But on Monday, reports the VN’s Sofia Langlois, Cogswell announced that he had “received news that will make me physically unable to take on the position, and/or fulfill the requirements.” He didn’t clarify. But Langlois writes that a “roadblock” may have arisen during his certification review by the state’s Police Standards Board. The selectboard is turning to former Chief Russell Poitras as interim until the next election.
Of the 10 highest-paid NH state employees, nine work in state prisons. In fact, reports the Monitor’s Charlotte Matherly, the “highest-paid individual, Dwane Sweatt, a supervising officer at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility in Berlin, made 2.5 times more than Gov. Kelly Ayotte. Sweatt earned $406,273, with $295,905 of that coming from overtime.” The same dynamic is at work with other corrections officers, who can pull four or five double shifts a week. “Across the board, New Hampshire paid more than $69.1 million in overtime to employees,” Matherly reports. “Corrections accounted for more than a third of that sum, at almost $25.8 million.”
Scrabble and “the debate, rancor, misunderstanding, and confusion around what constitutes a word.” In a deep plunge into the cutthroat world of competitive Scrabble, author and wordsmith Stefan Fatsis—who’s got a new Substack—looks at the contentious process of compiling the authoritative list of acceptable words. Creating the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary is not a speedy task. “It took decades for funner and funnest to be admitted as valid inflections of fun.” And a Scrabble dictionary is not the same as a regular dictionary. No, in the OSPD, a word just has to be possible, like hiccupier and hiccupiest (19 points, but who’s counting?).
The Thursday Crossword. It’s puzzle constructor Laura Braunstein’s “midi”—slightly longer and harder than her Tuesday minis, but perfect with breakfast. And if you’d like to catch up on past puzzles, you can do that here.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
The Rumney Sessions at Fable Farm in Barnard bring in Sonny Saul and Quincy Saul. The father-son duo teamed up briefly a few weeks back when Quincy Saul and the Social Research Band played in the farm’s barn, and “what followed was epic,” they write. “Sonny has long been a staple of this region through Pleasant Street Bookstore and the jazz shows he periodically hosts out of the store. We’re excited to welcome his sound back to the barn alongside his son, Quincy.” Doors/food at 5:30, music 6-ish.
StoryJam at the Literary Arts Bridge. This go-round, the informal storytelling circle’s theme is “danger”—open to however you want to interpret it. As they write, it’s an “unrehearsed 5-minute true story from your own life. No competition, no judgment, no lecturing… Just share a story about something that happened to you and listen to other people’s stories.” You’re also welcome just to listen. 6 pm, and you’ll find the Literary Arts Bridge behind Talbot’s on Lebanon St. in Hanover. No link.
At the Norwich Bookstore, Dan Chiasson talks over Bernie for Burlington with Makenna Goodman. Chiasson, a poet, critic, and journalist who’s seven books under his belt and chairs the English department at Wellesley, has been getting widespread attention for his latest, which doesn’t just trace the rise of Bernie Sanders during his years as Burlington’s mayor, but also Vermont’s transformation in the middle decades of the 20th century and beyond. With novelist Makenna Goodman. 7 pm.
Lucius at Lebanon Opera House, with “A History Worth Repeating”. The Grammy-nominated LA-based indie-pop band—with Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe fronting on vocal harmony and keyboards and Dan Molad and Peter Lalish backing on drums and guitar—”is known for engaging live performances and spellbinding harmonies,” LOH writes. There’s just a bare handful of tickets left. 7:30 pm.
And anytime, JAM’s got some highlights for you: Interviews done a few years back by JAM Campers Annie Hanna, Ollie Hanna and AJ Fredland of four women running WRJ businesses: Kirsten Connor at Flourish Beauty Lab, Kim Souza at Revolution, Bridget Cushman at Gear Again, and Elena Taylor at JUEL Modern Apothecary (before it left); VT novelist, poet, and professor Elizabeth A. I. Powell in a VT Humanities talk about Nobel-winning poet Louise Glück; and the three candidates for Hartford High principal talking about their experiences and goals at a recent forum.
And for today...
What you might see tonight at the Lebanon Opera House.
See you tomorrow.
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