GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
It’s going to be warm out there. But also rainy. Air’s been filtering in from the southwest the last couple of days, and we’re due to get up toward 80 today (it’ll be the warmest day of the week). The day starts partly sunny, but a cold front’s approaching from the northwest, bringing a chance of rain starting around noon and a likelihood tonight, plus a chance of thunderstorms this afternoon. Winds will be gusty in the afternoon as well, with the potential for strong winds in any thunderstorms. Lows tonight in the mid or lower 50s.
It’s Infrastructure Day. A look at two different projects.
Over the weekend, William Daugherty sent his drone up to take a look at the Dry Bridge replacement project on 12A in West Leb. “Even though this is a relatively small project,” he notes on his post, “it amazes me how many things have to happen in order to effect the wonder that is a road bridge.”
Meanwhile, in the closing days of April, Great River Hydro drew down the Connecticut River north of the Bellows Falls dam some 16 feet so they could fix flashboards at the hydroelectric station. Boaters and anglers weren’t the only ones affected. Kelly Stettner sends along a photo from where the Black and Connecticut rivers meet. “Typically a lovely oasis for painted turtles, warm-water fish species, dragonflies, and waterfowl...it was a vast wasteland of a mudflat,” she writes. “Baby lampreys were trapped in stagnant puddles, hundreds of freshwater mussels were stranded and exposed...it was pretty devastating, given the timing, as so many fish, crayfish, and other critters were laying eggs.”
A desert island. Or is it a dessert island? In DB Johnson’s Lost Woods this week, Henry lets Eddie and Auk use his boat… but only if it’s on dry land.
Leb eyes selling three old West Leb parcels. The city originally bought the Main Street properties from Chiplin Enterprises in 2023 with an eye toward either putting up a new fire station or working with a private developer “to replace the more than 120-year-old structures with something new,” as Clare Shanahan puts it in the Valley News. At its meeting tomorrow, the city council will take up whether to sell the lots to developer DEW Properties (Riverwalk in WRJ and Marek South in Leb) to build about affordable housing on upper floors and “possibly commercial space on the ground floor if a suitable tenant can be identified,’” Shanahan reports.
Two shuttered businesses spur replacements. Fabric in Enfield, bikes at the Hartford/Norwich line.
In the VN, Liz Sauchelli profiles Common Threads, a new fabric store in Enfield opened by Becca Finnegan, a former employee at the JoAnn Fabrics in West Leb, which closed about a year ago. “I felt a deep loss for the community,” Finnegan—who once ran C. Beston & Co. in Hanover with her mom—tells Sauchelli. Her focus will be on natural fibers, along with quilting and apparel fabric, as well as the needles, thread, and other materials people need for sewing. Her shop’s on the ground floor of 78 Main St.
Meanwhile, former Drummond Custom Cycles employee James Allen has his own spot, Upper Valley Bike Company, in Palmer Court, just off Route 5 at the Hartford/Norwich line, reports Marion Umpleby in the VN. “Rather than setting up a fully-kitted bike store,” writes Umpleby, Allen “has opted to focus on custom fittings and helping cyclists find the bike that fits their needs, and their body.” These are not knockaround bikes, Umpleby notes: He works with companies like Factor, “whose carbon fiber bikes sell for $7,000 to $50,000, [and] FiftyOne Bikes, an Irish company peddling road and gravel bikes in the $3,000 to $10,000 range.”
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Two Upper Valley writers win VT Book Awards. The awards were announced in Montpelier on Saturday, reports Mary Ann Lickteig in Seven Days. Woodstock poet and Dartmouth English Dept. administrator Carlene Kucharczyk took home the poetry award for her first collection, Strange Hymn, which “pushes language to the edge of what it can do,” one reviewer wrote. Corinth’s Sasha Hom won the fiction prize for Sidework, about seven hours in the life of a Korean American mom who lives in a van with her four children, two dogs, and husband. Mimi Tipper won the children’s lit prize for Kat’s Greek Summer, while Helen Whybrow took the creative nonfiction award for The Salt Stones.
In SoRo, “a burst of brightness.” You definitely know Woody Jackson’s art: it’s on Ben & Jerry’s pints around the globe. You may also know his larger artworks. As Dave Celone writes on his Upper Valley VT/NH Musings blog, Jackson “might be Vermont’s most famous artist.” And these days, you can see what he does in the VT Law & Grad School art gallery. “Woody’s famed cows,” Dave writes, “stand amid multi-colored fields with shining windrows of greens, yellows, and reds. These cows also meander through forest-scapes with orange and blue backdrops as if set on a stage under the spotlights of a Broadway show…[bringing] joy, elevated spirits, and a whole new rhythm.”
SPONSORED: Community Day at the Hood Museum! Join us for a Community Day for all ages! Next Saturday, May 9, from 1:00–4:00 pm, explore American Pop, featuring artists from Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol to contemporary voices like Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Tony Abeyta, who remix familiar symbols from pop culture and art history into bold new expressions. Then spark your own creativity with artmaking using upcycled materials from rePlay Arts. Enjoy snacks and enter a free raffle—no registration needed. Coinciding with the Annual Dartmouth Powwow, this program highlights shared themes of art, culture, and community. Sponsored by the Hood.
Vail Resorts will keep NH skiers sales-tax-free if they want. “In response to pressure from Governor Kelly Ayotte and the state attorney general’s office,” reports the Globe’s Steven Porter (no paywall), the giant ski resort company announced on Friday that it would back off plans to charge all skiers a “blended” sales tax designed to even out taxes on passes across states. Instead, skiers can skip the tax by limiting their pass to Vail’s four NH resorts. This means, for instance, that someone who buys the 21-resort “Northeast Value Pass” for $662 but sticks to the NH mountains only will save $21 in sales tax. Link to apply is in Porter’s piece.
Market Basket names one-time bagger as new president. The long-running drama atop the popular MA and NH chain took a new turn last week when the company chose Chuck Casassa to run it, replacing Arthur T. Demoulas, whom the board (led by his sisters) fired last year. Casassa, a 50-year company veteran, began as a bagger when he was 14, moved on to front-end manager, merchandiser, assistant manager, store manager, regional manager, and finally, director of operations last year. Supermarket News has the basics at the burgundy link. In the Globe (paywall), Travis Anderson details Casassa’s shifting role in the Demoulas battles over the years.
And the Notch watch begins. Just sayin’… At noon yesterday, the VT Agency of Transportation opened the gates to Route 108 between Stowe and Cambridge, otherwise known as the Notch Road. The twisty tractor-trailer trap is once again graced at either end by the traffic control devices known as chicanes, WCAX reports. They were pretty effective last year: Only two truck drivers evaded them before getting stuck in the Notch. But hey: new season, new opportunities! Watch this space.
The Monday Jigsaw on Tuesday: Saint-Gaudens’ Little Studio. As the Norwich Historical Society’s Cam Cross writes, it “works perfectly for a jigsaw puzzle: striking individual pieces that combine to become a work of art in itself. No expanses of sky, vegetation, or background.” On his Curioustorian blog, Cam delves a bit more into the sculptor’s home and surroundings at what is now the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish.
The Tuesday Crossword. It’s an extra-good day for Daybreak puzzles, isn’t it?
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from Friday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
Time for ice cream! As the VN’s Marion Umpleby writes in her rundown of ice cream shops in the region, the Upper Valley’s “ice cream offerings are vast and varied.” She’s got spots by town, from Fore-U and Cold Stone in West Leb to the new LJ’s Scoops in S. Royalton to Mac’s Maple (opening Mother’s Day) in Plainfield, Hanover Scoops and Red Kite in Hanover, Wade’s in Claremont, and plenty more. Hey, it’s going to warm up for good at some point, best be prepared.
The Hanover Garden Club presents “Historic Preservation Through a Garden Lens.” Preservationist Diana Kimball-Anderson will talk about historic plant varieties and garden techniques, as well as her own work at the University of Virginia’s Morven Farm, the Enfield Shaker Gardens, and with the Woodstock Foundation. 1 pm in the Montshire’s community room as well as by Zoom.
Icelandic writer and film director Andri Magnason at Dartmouth with “On Time & Water”. Sponsored by the Geography Department, Arctic Institute, and others, the widely published poet, playwright, and fiction and non-fiction writer will give a lecture exploring “what it means to be human — or a scientist — when nature has left geological time and entered a human timescale. Topics include science communication, glacier science, ocean acidification, paradigm shifts, and the limits of language.” 4:30 pm in Kemeny 008.
Dartmouth’s Rockefeller Center hosts “Immigration and American Democracy” with The Washington Post’s Sylvia Foster-Frau. The veteran reporter and Pulitzer winner is on the Post’s investigative team, specializing in immigration. Her talk will be moderated by sociology prof Sunmin Kim. 5 pm in Hinman Forum and online.
At Sunapee’s Abbott Library, “One Text, Many Meanings—Interpreting the US Constitution”. Colby-Sawyer political scientist Eric Boyer will talk through four different methods of interpreting the Constitution’s language. “Through a focus on the evolution of the right to privacy Professor Boyer will reveal how different interpretive frameworks can lead to radically divergent views on issues like contraception, abortion, and marriage equality.” 5:30 pm.
At the Norwich Inn, Nate Dominy and “Firelight and the Origins of Storytelling”. Dominy, an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist at Dartmouth, is the final speaker in the VT Center for Ecostudies’ Suds & Science series this season. He’ll explore the “mounting evidence on the importance of firelight during human evolution, especially the origins of spoken language.” 7 pm.
Francesco Libetta at the Hopkins Center tonight and tomorrow night. The Italian pianist and composer “juxtaposes a selection of Leopold Godowsky's famously intricate reimaginings of Chopin's Études with the original pieces,” using both a French 19th-century piano and the Morris Recital Hall’s new Steinway to showcase “the shifting voices of the instrument through history.” 7 pm performance this evening has only a limited number of standby tickets left, available at the box office at show time; Wednesday’s 8 pm performance still has tickets left.
Poets Scudder Parker and Kerrin McCadden at the Norwich Bookstore. Parker’s second collection, The Poem of the World, came out last summer; McCadden’s American Wake was a finalist for the New England Book Award. Both are VT-based writers. 7 pm.
The Tuesday Poem.
Lately I’ve lain in bed with a disembodied voice, listening
to the ancient Greek myths and their meanings, imagining
Athens and Naxos and Thebes, imagining infants left to die
on hillsides, Oedipus abandoned and then rescued by
a shepherd, no one could avoid their fate, not then, maybe not ever,
if you knew what was coming would you dig a burrow or cower
in the shade of a grass blade as the shadow of the hawk passed over
or would you be like Antigone, defying the king, refusing to dishonor
her slain brother, sentenced to entombment she hung herself—
maybe you know that story, or the one about Nelson Mandela
and his fellow inmates at Robben Island performing the ancient play,
learning it secretly from scraps of paper—or Verlaine’s
“Chanson d’automne” on the BBC, in 1944,
the long sobs of the violins,
just a few words to signal the French Resistance, imagine.
— “Sleepless Nights” by Kim Addonizio, originally published on the American Academy of Poets’ Poem-A-Day.
See you tomorrow.
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