GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Before we start, a huge thank you! A few weeks ago, I made one of just a few requests for contributions that occur each year. I never know what to expect, but the response to this one was lovely: Nearly 100 of you signed up for monthly contributions or sent along one-time support, a good number for the first time. It was a heartening boost—and a reminder that Daybreak can exist only because there's a community of people who care about the Upper Valley, Vermont, and New Hampshire. I'm deeply grateful: You are a model of what's possible. And if you didn't contribute then but want to now, here's the link.A break, then maybe rain tonight. Yesterday's front has moved east but another's on its way: It'll be mostly cloudy today and even though we'll see more sky later in the day, we've got a slight chance of showers overnight—again, rain for most of us, snow above 2,000 feet (the mountains got something like 2-5" out of yesterday's weather). Temps are still cooler than normal: highs today in the upper 40s, lows tonight nearing freezing.Comet over Killington. Andy Bernard got this fantastic shot of Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS from his home in Lebanon over the weekend.For UV developer Mike Davidson, Goddard College was "an impulse buy." At a meeting in Plainfield, VT last night, Davidson told a crowd that as recently as two weeks ago, he hadn't known the 130-acre campus was for sale, reports Seven Days' Anne Wallace Allen. He and Tim Sidore, his longtime right-hand associate in projects around the Upper Valley, told townspeople gathered in the Plainfield Opera House that they have no firm plans yet—though he mentioned affordable housing, offices and art studios. The property holds 10 administrative and academic buildings, 12 dorms, and two maintenance buildings.A short history of Dan & Whit's. Before them, there were Leonard Merrill and E.W. Olds, and before them there was a brick store built in 1828 that burned down in 1889, writes Kevin Hybels in the Norwich Historical Society newsletter. Whit Hicks began working at Merrill's in 1932, Dan Fraser the following year, and the pair bought the store after Merrill retired in 1955. "Everybody knew us as Dan and Whit," Hicks later recalled. "Dan & Whit's sounds a lot better than Fraser & Hicks or Hicks & Fraser, whichever. Actually, nobody knew us by our last names." Plenty of photos from through the years.In Bethel, "a week of days is dragged along, empty of all heart and life." That was in 1901, when Mary Parker, grieving the death of her husband, Sylvester, began setting down her own thoughts in the journal he'd been keeping since 1876. Sylvester was a Universalist minister in town, and the couple played a prominent role during "a time of religious, social, and political transformation in Vermont," writes Tim Calabro in the Herald. He describes a recent presentation by local historian Hilary Mullins, who discovered the well-preserved journals in Bethel's library. They are "a treasure trove," she says.SPONSORED: Think you're familiar with New England history? In his latest film, Lost Nation, Vermont filmmaker Jay Craven explores the untold parts of our history of slavery through the stories of two Revolutionary War-era Vermonters: the rebel schemer Ethan Allen and Lucy Terry Prince, a formerly enslaved woman defending her family from local intimidation. The Hop screens the film on Sunday, October 27, followed by a live discussion with the director. Get your tickets now! Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts."If I'm in a room with 100 scientists, I may be the only one in the room who actually knows how to milk a cow by hand." It helps, of course, to have grown up on a farm, as Victor Ambros did. The Nobel Prize-winner sat down via Zoom with Seven Days' Hannah Feuer to talk about his family's farm in Hartland; going to Woodstock Union (and his classmates who'd sneak out to what was then Suicide Six during gym class); meeting his wife, Candy, when they both worked the dining halls at MIT; and the magic of informally sharing information with another scientist—and coming up with key insights as a result.Brookfield man presumed drowned in hunting accident. A Vermont State Police team yesterday morning recovered the body of a man believed to be Steven Jones, 30, who was last seen on Rood Pond in Williamstown Sunday afternoon. Witnesses Sunday called in police after they heard yelling from the pond and saw an overturned kayak—Jones was reported to have been out duck hunting. The recovered body, dressed warmly but without a life vest, was taken to the medical examiner's office in Burlington yesterday for an autopsy and confirmation of identity.Out on NH's trails over the weekend, "it was chaos." At the short Artist Bluff trail in Franconia Notch, "Once you got to the top it was kind of bottlenecking, and people were just shoving their way through," hiker Tamara Breaux tells WMUR's Monica Hernandez. The long weekend and leaf season combined for big crowds and, for NH Fish & Game, a long weekend of rescues. Seven people got stuck coming down Cannon Mountain at night with no lights or water or clothing for freezing temps; a 33-year-old Boston woman was injured on Franconia Ridge, over four miles from the trailhead—rescuers had to navigate Saturday traffic jams on I-93 and didn't get her out until 1:20 am Sunday.In one NH town, a voter guide that actually helps voters. For the last 15 years, volunteers in Raymond, just west of Epping, have compiled a guide that gets sent out to every voter ahead of town meeting. It explains in plain language what warrant items would do, reasons for voting for or against, and what will happen if they pass. For his UV Vibes podcast, former Hanover town manager Alex Torpey invited three of the people behind it up to the JAM podcast booth to talk about it—and about how cool it is to demystify complex articles, especially on zoning, and build trust with voters.“They're an invasive species that will destroy the environment if left unchecked.” That's the caption on a New Yorker cartoon of a spotted lanternfly giving a presentation—and pointing to a human projected on a screen. It's also the starting point for Josh Crane's Brave Little State foray into the question that got the loudest cheers at VT Public's gathering over the summer at Babe's Bar in Bethel: What invasive species has done the most damage to Vermont’s ecosystem? The short answer? Humans. The long answer? Well, how much time you got? Dutch Elm? Chestnut blight? EAB? Knotweed? Like the nine-foot stand of it in Ashley Wojnarowski and Mike Mezzacapo's yard in Pomfret?The beauty of human striving. Every two years, the first weekend in October, teams in the Catalonian city of Tarragona gather in an old bullring to build towers—using only their bodies. If you're having trouble imagining what that looks like, it's both chaos (sometimes the towers fall) and like nothing you've ever seen, and The Atlantic has pulled together 20 photos of this year's version. And one more: AP photographer Emilo Morenatti's shot from about 100 feet up, perched on a catwalk despite suffering vertigo and having lost a leg covering Afghanistan. Thanks, JM!Daybreak doesn't get to exist without your support. Help it stick around by hitting the maroon button:
We may be the middle of nowhere to everyone else in VT and NH, but
we
know what's good! Strong Rabbit's Morgan Brophy has come up with the perfect design for "We Make Our Own Fun" t-shirts and tote bags for proud Upper Valleyites. Plus you'll find the Daybreak jigsaw puzzle, as well as sweatshirts, tees, a fleece hoodie, and, as always, the fits-every-hand-perfectly Daybreak mug. Check it all out at the link!
NH and VT volunteers with the "cross-partisan" group Braver Angels will lead a workshop on how to make them happen. "The goal," they say, "is to learn simple skills to listen and speak in order to strengthen our civil discourse." Starts at 6 pm, potluck involved. To register or for questions contact Patricia Higgins at
.
The Tuesday poem.
A story is like waterthat you heat for your bath.It takes messages between the fireand your skin. It lets them meet,and it cleans you!Very few can sit downin the middle of the fire itselflike a salamander or Abraham.We need intermediaries.A feeling of fullness comes,but usually it takes some breadto bring it.Beauty surrounds us,but usually we need to be walkingin a garden to know it.The body itself is a screento shield and partially revealto light that’s blazinginside your presence.Water, stories, the body,all the things we do, are mediumsthat hide and show what’s hidden.Study them,and enjoy this being washedwith a secret we sometimes know,and then not.
— By the 13th C Sufi mystic and poet Rumi (or
).
Oh, and hey, while we're down here, a correction from yesterday. Guitarist and Royalton Community Radio guitar-show host Peter Neri writes in to say, "'Angelina' is not a new song of Tommy Emmanuel's. It appeared on
The Guitar Mastery of Tommy Emmanuel,
which was released in 2005, and he more than likely wrote it earlier than that. He is such an awesome player!" He also gets featured a fair bit on Peter's show,
One Guitar,
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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Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson Associate Editor: Jonea Gurwitt About Rob About Michael
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