SO GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN, UPPER VALLEY!
Let's just get right to it...
We've got air flowing in from the northwest for the next few days, and along with the occasional winds, it's going to be keeping things brisk. There's snow in the forecast for the northern towns of the Upper Valley, with a chance of snow showers starting in a line maybe around Fairlee-Orford, with actual inches accumulating to the west, northwest, and especially in the northern mountains. Temps today might or might not reach 20, and wind chills could be down in the minuses. Lows tonight in the mid or upper single digits.
Here's what ice crystals can do on old wooden steps, from Trey Piepmeier in Strafford.
Now let's do some catching up. Don't worry, not much. But in case you missed any of this, you should know that...
The Dartmouth men's basketball team dropped its union bid. Or, as The Washington Post's Jesse Dougherty put it more formally last week, team members "withdrew [their] petition to the National Labor Relations Board, which quickly closed the case." The SEIU local that represents Dartmouth employees timed the request with politics in mind, Dougherty writes. "Requests to withdraw are not automatically granted by the NLRB, so had the union waited or not withdrawn at all, it risked a Republican-controlled NLRB setting a long-term precedent by quashing the unionization effort." Gift link.
Hartford's police chief is retiring. As the Valley News's Christina Dolan reported Jan. 1, Gregory Sheldon will step down from atop the force at the end of next month, two years after taking on the role. “Some recent events have made me reevaluate things,” he told Dolan by email. “My decision has nothing to do with my position, responsibilities, town staff, or police department staff." He was known for taking a broad view of how to address public safety. Good policing, he told Dolan, often involves “recognizing when we are not the right tool." Town leaders haven't yet announced plans for interim leadership.
Hartford High's Macy Bettwieser made it into the three-person final of Next on Stage. “We had a bunch of friends over, and they all just, like, started screaming. I was kind of in shock for a minute, but it’s really exciting," the senior told the VT Standard's Lauren Dorsey—after making it through each round of the Broadway World competition. Bettwieser's been a regular since childhood at Northern Stage, the Trumbull Hall Troupe, on other local stages, and at Upper Valley Music Center, and Dorsey checks in with her, her mom, Hartford High choir teacher Andrea Nardone, and others to tell the story. Livestreamed finals on Jan. 19.
And one more update: Penny Yanick has ended her 37-year delivery run. You probably remember that about a year ago for Daybreak, Matt Golec profiled Yanick, who spent the better part of four decades delivering the VN, NYT, and WSJ to homes in Hanover, Lebanon, and elsewhere. But on Saturday, Matt reports, that came to an end, and now she gets to sleep in. She'll miss the animals she saw and "chats with those customers who were up early in the mornings," she tells Matt. "I will not miss being out in cold, ice, snow, wind, rain (usually before any salt or plows!)." Original story here.SPONSORED: Join the Hood Museum of Art for the event of the season! On Friday, Jan. 17 from 5:00–6:30 pm, celebrate the opening of Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) with remarks by the artist and by Dartmouth President Sian Beilock, gallery activities for all ages, exhibition swag, raffles, refreshments, and live music. Explore a thematic examination of Romero's complex and layered images, which celebrate the multiplicity, beauty, and resilience of Native American and Indigenous experiences. Always free and open to all! Sponsored by the Hood Museum.Leb committee proposes food truck changes. This evening at 7, reports Clare Shanahan in the VN, the Lebanon Food Truck Task Force will present its recommendations for changes to city regs on "where, when and how many food trucks can operate." The four-member committee wants to take away two of the four spaces currently allocated by Colburn Park—and open up spaces by Lucky's and behind City Hall. They also have proposed that food truck operators be responsible for ensuring their spaces are reserved when they need them—and otherwise are available for public parking. Details at the link.Coming to E. Thetford: flowers. And pizza. In the same spot. As Li Shen writes in Sidenote, Fresco Flowers—whose new building stands along Route 5 right by All Seasons Drive—is a joint venture between longtime chef and caterer Glen Ferriot and gardener Christy Parker. Ferriot used to own the Fairlee Fresco Deli in Baker's Store in Post Mills—and put in time as chef at the Ritz Carlton, the Lake Morey Inn, and Hypertherm. Parker ran the flower gardens at Crossroad Farm. Together, they're launching a cut flower business that happens to have a pizza oven. They hope to open for Friday pizza soon.Two Canaan residents arrested on dognapping charges. Remember how, back in early December, a 10-month-old dog was taken from his kennel on Goose Pond Road after a resident alleged on Facebook that he and a companion were being mistreated by being left out in the cold? Well, on Friday, reports the VN's Christina Dolan, former selectboard member Dan Collins and Tracy Packard were arrested in the case: “Both parties cooperated fully and turned themselves in voluntarily...when they were made aware of the warrants,” Chief Ryan Porter tells Dolan. Neither responded to requests for comment.Plymouth State researchers land snowpack-data grant. The $192K from the feds, writes Claire Sullivan in NH Bulletin, will go toward creating the first “Snow Drought Index” in the nation by amassing a century's worth of depth and water-equivalent measurements from around the Northeast. The idea is to create a baseline allowing for "a historical perspective of present-day snowpack conditions [and] an understanding of how the seasonal snowpack has evolved," researcher Eric Kelsey says.A host of new laws in NH, VT. Many went into effect Jan. 1, some take hold a bit later.
New Hampshire's new measures include a $1,000 fine for driving a vehicle that is too heavy across a covered bridge and damaging it—but also weightier legislation, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, including a ban on certain gender transition surgeries for people under 18; a higher minimum marriage age (it was raised to 18 from 16); greater data privacy rights; and more.
In VT, the minimum wage is rising 34 cents per hour thanks to 2020 legislation, report a team from VT Public; private health insurers can no longer require primary care providers to get prior authorization "before ordering admissions, treatments, tests and procedures for their patients"; all state decision-making bodies must now hold regular and special meetings both in-person and electronically (local boards aren't required to do so, but may); and more.
Now overseeing VT's Act 250: a new board. It's not just its members who are new; it's an entirely new entity, writes Report for America corps member Carly Berlin for VT Public and VTDigger. The new Land Use Review Board is made up of five full-time members with backgrounds in town and regional planning, environmental law, and civil engineering; it replaces the part-time, citizen-led Natural Resources Board. Act 250 "can certainly be credited with saving Vermont from rampant development,” new board chair Janet Hurley says. “But it can also certainly be responsible for the depth of our housing crisis."The AP's lone VT reporter departs—and isn't being replaced. Last Friday, reports VTDigger's Shaun Robinson, longtime reporter Lisa Rathke left her post after 26 years with the news service. She was the last, lonely remnant of an AP bureau that had 12 staffers (including nine reporters and two photographers) a couple of decades ago. The global news cooperative has been laying off staff, Robinson reports, as it seeks to “accelerate a transition to a digital-first organization." It's currently advertising for "a temporary, one-year video journalist job based either in Montpelier or Burlington."The stories behind the stories. Every year, Seven Days asks its reporters to write about what went on behind the scenes of some of the pieces they put together over the course of the year—"the odd origins, sudden twists, mid-reporting freak-outs and affecting epilogues." They always make for entertaining reading, and as it happens, several of this year's crop have to do with stories that Daybreak linked to. So, for instance:
What happened when music editor Chris Farnsworth, after having no trouble talking to Noah Kahan back when Stick Season was first released,tried again when he had to do a piece on Kahan's meteoric rise.
And when Derek Brouwer, on vacation, learned that a scam victim who'd lost nearly $1 million, was actually willing to go public in his story on cyber scams targeting elderly Vermonters.
And when Mary Ann Lickteig, a couple weeks before she was due to interview musician, composer, and Broadway star Shaina Taub about her musical, Suffs, got a message from Taub's publicist cancelling the interview because Lickteig had had the temerity to interview Taub's mother without permission. "Of course I called Taub's mother," Lickteig writes. "Who else would have seen the earliest signs that this child was born for the stage?"
It's of the old Pomalift at the Dartmouth Skiway in the winter of 1957-1958 not long after the skiway opened. That lift was eventually augmented by a t-bar and then, in 1968, a double chairlift,
sent along by the Norwich Historical Society's Cam Cross
. He also includes
, a 2012 documentary.
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Fleece vests, sweatshirts, head-warming beanies... Strong Rabbit has updated the Daybreak page to keep up with the changing weather. Plus, of course, the usual: t-shirts, long-sleeved tees, the Daybreak jigsaw, those perfect hand-fitting coffee/tea mugs, and as always, "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Check it all out at the link!
The hour-long film follows NYC public garden designer Lynden B. Miller as she dives into Farrand's life and works with designers, scholars, and horticulturists, weighing the impact of the country's first woman landscape designer, her designs for the likes of JP Morgan and Woodrow Wilson, and her advocacy for public gardens. 1 pm at the Montshire.
The VT Center for Ecostudies' popular monthly lecture/discussion series has a new venue: Putnam's vine/yard in WRJ. This evening at 7, Dartmouth aquatic ecologist Celia Chen will talk about pollutants like mercury and "forever chemicals", their impact on humans, wildlife, and aquatic ecosystems, and what can be done.
Ellams, a Nigerian-born British playwright, poet, and performer, is a Hop resident artist, in town this week ahead of his performances of
Search Party
over the weekend. Tonight, he reads from his epic about a half Nigerian-mortal, half Greek-god who starts out in a tiny village in Nigeria before heading to an NBA arena and to the halls of Mount Olympus. Discussion afterward moderated by filmmaker and Dartmouth film prof Anaiis Cisco. 7 pm in the Howe Library's Mayer Room, as well as livestreamed.
The Tuesday Poem
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.Life is no ‘brief candle’ for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
— From
Man and Superman
by George Bernard Shaw. And
It's good to be back with you. 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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