Daybreak Thursday, 4/16/26

This’ll stun you: There’s rain in the forecast. A new system, which was over the central Plains yesterday, is on track to reach us today, with showers and possible thunderstorms late in the afternoon or this evening; if those show up (they’re most likely toward the south) they could be packing strong winds and hail. Highs today will be in the upper 60s, lows mid 50s, winds from the south.

How’d that cloud get so lucky? Tuesday evening, as he looked eastward toward Mt. Moosilauke from his spot in W. Newbury, Bruce Wood noticed a brilliant patch of orange atop otherwise gray skies. “The sun was filtering through storm clouds behind us and lighting up just that one cloud,” he writes. “It makes no sense to me how that can be, but the camera doesn’t lie.”

It’s time for Dear Daybreak! This week’s collection from readers starts off with Sally Duston’s photo of a soft, beautiful sunrise the other morning in Thetford Center. We then move on to Patricia Kangas Ktistes’ story of trying to raise Big Boy tomatoes in Grafton a few decades ago—and the decidedly other ideas nature had in store. Finally, Kevin Donohue checks in with a poem touched off by our recent April snow. If you’ve got a good Upper Valley anecdote or entertaining story or bit of local history, please use this form to pass it along or email me at [email protected].

That anonymous old brick building in downtown Lebanon you don’t even glance at? It’s got a history. Continuing her series for Daybreak on the enigmatic buildings all around us, Sarah Copps today sets her eye on 10 Spencer Street. Right now it’s being renovated into artists’ studios, but back in the early years of the 20th century, it began life as a Boston & Maine depot (it backs onto what is now the rail trail), until the company once known as National Biscuit Company (yep, Nabisco, but only after 1971) took it over to use as a warehouse. That lasted for decades, and then it had other owners and other uses (including a bakery stint). At the link, Sarah fills it all in.

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A controlled wildland fire in Woodstock. You may remember the item a few weeks back about how the US Forest Service is embarking on a series of prescribed burns on a 28-acre parcel near where the Appalachian Trail crosses Route 12. They were out there last week, and so was Valley News photographer Alex Driehaus. The goal is to open up wildlife habitat that’s being encroached upon by trees, says Ryan Hughes, forest fire management officer with the Green Mountain and Finger Lakes national forests. Driehaus’s video of the crew at work is at the burgundy link, and her article and a striking set of still photos are here.

Vershire voters nix budgets. Due to a delay in printing the town report, Vershire had to postpone its town meeting until the past Saturday. And there, reports Clare Shanahan in the VN, residents rejected the general fund budget 97-73 and the highway budget 100-71. They also turned down a new sand and salt shed and “indefinitely postponed” $50K for renovating the town office building. Town Clerk Chelsea Parker tells Shanahan the selectboard will “go back to the drawing board” to come up with new budget figures for a special town meeting to consider.

SPONSORED: Experience a Legend: organist Maurice Clerc at CCDC. The Ives Series is proud to present Maurice Clerc, Organist Emeritus of Dijon Cathedral, for an evening of French masterworks. A direct musical descendant of Pierre Cochereau, Clerc brings over 40 years of international acclaim, the rhythmic brilliance of Tournemire, the atmospheric colors of Langlais' "Song of Peace," and as a finale, a spectacular reconstructed Cochereau improvisation from Notre-Dame de Paris. Recital Tuesday, April 28 at 7:00pm, Masterclass Wednesday, April 29 at 4pm, all free at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College. Sponsored by CCDC.

NH launches cancer screening pilot program for firefighters. “Firefighters face a significantly elevated risk of cancer due to repeated exposure to toxic chemicals,” writes Sruthi Gopalakrishnan in the Concord Monitor, including to benzene, carcinogens released when materials burn, and compounds in firefighting foam. So the state is investing $5 million in cancer screenings in an effort to catch them early; the first phase of the program will cover about 1,200 screenings—and the slots filled up within 48 hours, says Mark Wholey, director of the state’s fire academy: “It is the number one cause of line-of-duty deaths in the profession,” he says.

Red lights on headlamps: the origin story. Actually, on Outside/In, NHPR podcast producer Marina Henke goes way back to the origin of headlamps themselves. Which weren’t lamps at all, but candles stuck to miners’ helmets so that they could work with their hands. Eventually, that gave way to carbide lamps and then, in the 1930s, electric lamps with batteries—though as Henke says, “The early models looked . . . well kind of like a Victorian torture device. And the batteries? Gigantic!” Eventually, George Petzl got the idea for an elastic band, and then red light—which doesn’t night-blind someone looking at it—made its way over from the military.

With Speaker on board, VT House ready to repeal parts of land use law. Faced with heavy pressure from rural Vermonters, Democratic leaders in the House—most notably Environment Committee chair Amy Sheldon and Speaker Jill Krowinski—in the last couple of days have signaled they’ll move to back off parts of the “tiered” system imposed by Act 181, as well as the so-called “road rule” requiring a permit for private roads longer than 800 feet. Sheldon, notes VT Public/VTDigger’s Carly Berlin, was a drafter of Act 181 and “is known as a devoted conservationist”; her turnaround drew headlines when she announced it Tuesday. Krowinski joined her yesterday.

VT towns struggle to maintain their roads. The state’s weather is not easy on its roads, and many towns, especially in rural areas, lack the money to keep up with repairs. Morristown, for instance, has a backlog of $3.2 million worth of paving work, and is even considering abandoning some roads, reports Seven Days’ Kevin McCallum. Climate issues and exploding construction costs have made road maintenance more expensive, while federal funding cuts and declining gas tax revenues (one side effect of EVs) have eaten away at funds used for repairs. The state is considering a mileage-based fee to recover lost gas tax revenue from EV drivers as well as shifting some vehicle-sale tax revenue from education to transportation.

Appellation VT: “We’ll finally get some respect.” That’s Kenneth Albert, founder of Shelburne Vineyard, on a proposal before the feds to designate the Champlain Valley as an American viticultural area. That, vintners tell Theo Wells-Spackman in VTDigger, could boost agritourism and local winemakers’ profile. The area, bounded by Lake Champlain, the Greens, Rutland, and the Canadian border, is a bit warmer, and the growing season a bit longer, than in the rest of the state. The combination of an area’s temperature, soil makeup and elevation—the “terroir”— gives each region a distinct character. “You’re tasting a place,” says VT winemaker Kendra Knapik.

Sometimes, you just want to go somewhere else. Which is exactly what WindowSwap offers you, at the push of the “Open a window somewhere in the world” button. Passing houses and shops through a moving train window in Nagoya, Japan. Looking out over rooftops in Pittsburgh. A centuries-old courtyard in the Alhambra de Granada, Spain. A lush, storm-whipped yard in Bagong Silang, the Philippines. The snowy streets of Gatineau, Québec this past January. The view through a tea house window at the corner of 8th and D streets NW in Washington, DC, jazz piano playing in the background… Fair warning: It’s kind of addictive.

It’s a spring-themed Thursday crossword! Puzzle constructor Laura Braunstein gets artistic with today’s “midi.” 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
Ezra Klein and Heather Gerken talk “Abundance and the Future of American Democracy” at the Top of the Hop. Klein, the star NYT columnist and host of “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast, and Gerken, president of the Ford Foundation and emeritus law prof at Yale, will sit down 
to talk over the “abundance agenda” Klein has been promoting, as well as the state of democracy and US politics. Moderated by Dartmouth political scientist Russ Muirhead. No tickets left for the in-person event, but you can still register for the livestream. 5 pm.

Dartmouth’s English department hosts poet and writer Wendy Walters for the annual Black Life and Letters Lecture in Honor of William Cook. Walters, who teaches at Columbia, is the author of A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint, which takes aim at “the ubiquity of white paint in our society” and is due out in October. 5 pm in the Sanborn Library.

The Howe Library hosts local author Courtney Floyd and Higher Magic. Floyd’s debut dark academia fantasy novel about a mage grad student who’s struggling with her thesis that classic literature contained magic—and is learning “to wield her own stories to change her institution for the better.” You can read Kari Meutsch’s Enthusiasm about it here. 6:30 pm in the Mayer Room and online.

Still North Books & Bar hosts Jessica Riskin and Renée Bergland talking about The Power of Life. Riskin is a historian at Stanford who teaches the history of science and modern European history. Her new book reconsiders Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the Darwin contemporary whose theory that living beings can speed up evolution by using a trait a lot (the classic example is giraffes’ long necks) was widely derided. But that was until the field of epigenetics evolved, with its evidence that, for example, veterans can pass down traces of PTSD to their children. Riskin considers the history and the science and Lamarck himself. Bergland, who lives in Hanover, wrote Natural Magic: Emily Dickinson, Charles Darwin, and the Dawn of Modern Science. 7 pm.

Ask a Neighbor: Virtual house tour of weatherization and electrification projects. Back in February, the Thetford and Norwich energy committee’s created a presentation on the subject. Now, the Thetford Energy Committee is reprising it, with members talking about their experiences, the pros and cons of their approaches, and talking hard costs. 7 pm via Zoom.

Sunny Jain and Love Force at the Hop. In this “blend of Punjabi rhythms, American jazz and collective celebration,” the founder of Red Baraat “explores the universal nature of music, and how through compassion and love we can break down barriers created by religion, cultural traditions, racism and time.” 7:30 pm in Spaulding.

Liz Longley at the Flying Goose in New London. Longley grew up in Pennsylvania, moved to Nashville to launch her career, found early success and then got dropped by her label, turned to Kickstarter and has never looked back. Her seventh album, New Life, came out last year. On it, married and with a new child, Longley faced “the toughest challenge of her songwriting career: writing about being happy,” one reviewer wrote. 7:30 pm, call (603) 526-6899 for reservations.

And anytime, check out JAM’s highlights for the week. Including a link to Samantha Davidson Green’s new documentary, I Believe I’ll Go Back Home: Robert Johnson’s Copiah County Roots & Living Legacy, which just premiered. It’s about the legendary blues great and his grandson, Mississippi blues artist Steven Johnson, who’ll be performing this weekend at the Hop.

And for today...

Okay, so the talk-to-music ratio here is higher than usual for this spot, but this is just too charming not to include. Martin Lawrence, second horn for the London-based Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (which specializes in period instruments mostly from the late 18th century), introduces us to the alphorn—which as you can see is pretty darn long, though not, he points out, as long as some of the horns he plays in the orchestra would be if they were uncurled. He walks us through the Swiss “ranz des vaches,” which were both a call to the cows and a signal to humans that cows were on the march, and how they inspired composers like Rossini and Brahms.

See you tomorrow.

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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt      Poetry editor: Michael Lipson    Associate Editors: Jonea Gurwitt, Sam Gurwitt