GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Patchy fog to start, mostly cloudy after, chance of showers all day. Yesterday's front may have drifted off, but the airflow is such that there's moisture coming in off the Atlantic, leaving the potential for things to be kinda drizzly today. Winds from the southeast, highs into the mid 70s, lows tonight in the lower 60s. Oh, and a decent chance there'll be more of this tomorrow.Look up! The last couple of days haven't been great for dramatic skies, but before then...
Here's WRJ Saturday evening after the front went through, from Thom Wolke;
And Lyme Friday night, looking west toward Thetford, from Tim Trefren;
And a brief interlude between storms in Lebanon Saturday night, from Sharon Wight.
Collision between VTrans dump truck and camper in Quechee shuts down Route 4. It happened yesterday morning around 10 in front of Quechee Gorge Village, reports Eric Francis for Daybreak. The VTrans driver—identified by police as a 54-year-old resident of Quechee—was sent to DHMC in cardiac arrest, where he remained in serious condition last night. The camper's occupants, who were tourists passing through, had minor injuries. According to Eric, the truck struck the camper and scraped its length before coming to rest. Route 4, one of VT's major east-west roads, was closed for five hours. Photos."If there was something at home that needed fixing, it usually involved pulleys." Bob Dean, who taught engineering at Dartmouth and launched or co-founded a series of major Upper Valley companies—including Hypertherm, Creare, Fujifilm Dimatix, and Simbex—died in January at 94. "If the Upper Valley had its own Thomas Edison, Bob Dean could hold that mantle, an inventor of restless curiosity and relentless energy in search of practical solutions," John Lippman writes in the Valley News. Dean, who lost a leg in a tractor accident when he was 14, lived a modest life with his wife, Nancy, who died in July. "It was the designing that was the adventure, not the possessing in the end,” says one of his sons. Lippman pens a tribute.SPONSORED: Calling all movie enthusiasts: Telluride at Dartmouth awaits! From September 14-21, the Hop will bring to the Loew Auditorium advance screenings of six incredible films from the acclaimed festival. Check out the full lineup of some of this year’s most anticipated films before tickets sell out. Sponsored by the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.Orchards are seeing lots of visitors, and they're not just human. "This time of year, there’s an uptick in wildlife movement through orchards, as many creatures come to feed on the fruit, and others come to hunt the fruit eaters," writes Northern Woodlands' Elise Tillinghast of the highly photogenic bobcat that showed up on camera this week. Also out there in the woods this second week of September: Nashville warblers, adult goldfinches being besieged by hungry fledglings (they're late bloomers), and sunflowers looking a bit worse for wear. Did you know muskrats use their stems to build lodges?Speaking of which, there are still young muskrats out there. That's because their parents breed several times a year, writes Mary Holland on her Naturally Curious blog. And while the young from early litters scatter once they're weaned after a couple of months, the third-litter kids usually stay home with mom through the winter. They'll be on their way come next spring.Man who burned down Strafford home charged with arson, ordered to competency evaluation. The VN's John Lippman follows up on yesterday's initial state police report: According to court documents, Edward Gallagher III had called 911 more than two dozen times the night before the Saturday blaze that destroyed his home, saying that he intended to set his home on fire as a “distress signal.” Lippman details what happened next: the fire, the official response, and Gallagher's appearance at Coburn's General Store, where he asked someone to call the police; Mel and Sue Coburn recount events.As some kids face afternoon bus rides of up to 90 minutes, Mascoma school district sorts through options. Which, bluntly put, aren't many. The problem, superintendent Amanda Isabelle tells the VN's Liz Sauchelli, is that Butler's, the bus provider that serves Mascoma and a range of other districts in the region, is short on drivers. District employees and coaches have gotten bus licenses so they can fill in, but some kids still face long rides, and parents remain concerned. “Nothing’s off the table for me," says school board chair Tim Josephson. "If you have a good idea for how to solve this, tell us."Iconic NH author Willa Cather finds her place in Congress. Okay, okay. She was from Nebraska, and of course, she's most closely identified with the Plains. But she spent decades living and writing in Jaffrey, notes Susan Apel in Artful, and chose to be buried there. Recently, a sculpture of Cather was installed in the US Capitol's Statuary Hall—making her only the 12th woman to be honored that way and her sculptor, DC-based artist Littleton Allston, to become the first black artist with a sculpture there. Susan links to info about Cather and Allston, and to the installation ceremony itself.Exit interview. For two decades, Joan Cross taught art to K-8 students in the Lakes Region. Now, though, she's left that job to become a truck driver. "I like to drive big things," she explains to NHPR's Rick Ganley. But what she's also got on her mind are the issues that drove her from teaching, in particular the sense that she just wasn't equipped to deal with the emotional issues students acted out before her every day. "It was just falling apart," she says. She and Ganley talk over students' needs, the distractions for teachers, why teachers should be paid more, and why "teaching is such a small part of teaching."The most expensive house on the market in NH? Nope, not on Lake Winnipesaukee. It's a $25 million, 10,000-square-foot, 7.5-bath custom home in Rye. Pool, outdoor kitchen, elevator—and windows that look out on views of the ocean up to ME, down to MA, and out to the Isle of Shoals. It's also just a ten-minute drive to "the trendy dining scene" of Portsmouth. Oh, and in case you were worried, there's also an indoor kitchen.Lyme disease vaccine trial starts up again in VT. This is the same Pfizer trial that suddenly shut trial sites in Middlebury and Brattleboro in February, reports Kristen Fountain in VTDigger. Now, UVM's announced it will operate a study site in Burlington and is recruiting adults and children ages 5 and older as participants. This is a Phase 3 trial, testing whether the vaccine and a booster do better at protecting against Lyme disease than an equal number of doses of a saline placebo. Participants won't know which they're getting.Latest VT state education data show "mixed bag" for schools. The information is in the state's "Annual Snapshot," released Friday, reports Peter D'Auria in VTDigger. Overall, an education department spokesperson tells him, "We can see that the effects of learning loss due to COVID-19 are still … present in the 2022 data." English and science scores were down in 2022 compared to 2019, while math scores showed a slight increase. In all, the snapshot characterizes VT's academic performance as “not improving"; D'Auria digs into the nuances.Looking to get your visitors out for a foliage drive in VT? On her Happy Vermont blog, Erica Houskeeper's got some suggestions. Peacham and Groton (and, of course, the state forest); Craftsbury and Greensboro; Newbury ("an ideal town to visit in the fall," partly because of the Tucker Mountain Town Forest); towns in the Greens, like Chittenden and Ripton; and, of course, Woodstock and Quechee. She links to events from Fall Foliage Days to the Killington Brewfest 9/30 to Cedar Circle's Pumpkin Festival on 10/8.Diss Burners all you want. The people on Fluffy the Floating Cloud Bank had a great time at Burning Man. That's according to Duane Peterson, SunCommon co-founder and, at least as of Cleveland, which is where he was on Fluffy's trip home when Seven Days' Ken Picard managed to get him on the phone, bus driver. You may remember from last year that Fluffy's got a dance floor, roof-mounted flamethrower, and 14,000 LEDs that respond to music. And when things got famously muddy this year, Fluffy happily hunkered down and took in strays. "We just turned it into a wonderful adventure," says Peterson.Wait. Craft ice??!! Or rather, Craft Ice™??!! That's what appliance maker LG now gets to use after it trademarked the term. Ice—ie, frozen water, which lots of people like to put in drinks—is having its moment, reports Axios' Jennifer A. Kingson, after a series of hotter-than-usual summers. Novelty shapes for cocktails are hot. So are gadgets that make "bar-quality" round cubes. And so are iced drinks. "Cold has certainly surprised us all at Starbucks," said former CEO Howard Schultz on an earnings call last fall. And hey, you can now get molds to make Hogwarts-shaped ice. Or Darth Vader.The Tuesday Vordle. With a word from yesterday's Daybreak.
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At noon today, Dartmouth College President Sian Beilock and Dartmouth Health CEO President Joanne Conroy meet for an online conversation. They'll talk about Beilock's research and her focus on mental health; women in leadership roles; strengthening ties between the two institutions; and the panel discussion later this month at Dartmouth with Beilock, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and all six of his living predecessors on the national mental health crisis. Via livestream at the link.
The Hop officially kicks off its season today at 4:30 with a Season Kickoff Party in the Nearburg Art Forum, which is in the Black Family Visual Arts Center. Snacks, drinks, and a look ahead.
This evening at 6, Here in the Valley's Tuesday Jukebox picks up again on the Wonder Stage of Wilder with an evening of French Gypsy jazz, jump blues, bebop, big band swing, Western swing, Afro-Cuban, Samba, Bossa Nova, and more, all with Route 5 Jive and vocalist Grace Wallace. You'll want to bring a blanket or a folding chair, and maybe a picnic dinner. If it's raining, it'll be in the Wilder Library (and you can probably leave the folding chairs behind).
At 6:30 this evening, NH transportation officials will gather in Lebanon's City Council chambers for one of two area public meetings to discuss the state's upcoming ten-year plan (the other is Oct. 2 in Claremont). As Patrick Adrian wrote in the VN last week, the ten-year plan is when infrastructure projects that will most definitely affect area residents' lives get teed up, including, potentially, extending the Mascoma River Greenway into old West Leb, and repairs to bridges throughout the region.
And also at 6:30, the West Claremont Center for Music and the Arts welcomes in Ethiocolor, an Addis Ababa-based Ethiopian dance and music band that draws on both ancient and modern sources. They'll be kicking off a one-month tour of the US that will take them to the Kennedy Center, the World Music Festival in Chicago, NYC, SF, LA, and other big cities. Here's your chance! The event will also be livestreamed.
At 7 this evening, the Thetford Arthouse Cinema screens Woody Allen's "seriously underrated" Broadway Danny Rose. The 1984 film follows a hapless theatrical agent who gets dragged into a mob love triangle. The film will be followed by a discussion of "the issue of screening films from miscreant directors, producers, actors, et al." In the Martha Rich Theater at Thetford Academy.
Also at 7, in Haverhill, the Haverhill Library Association hosts an NH Humanities talk by Plymouth State philosophy prof Maria Sanders, "The Quest for Happiness." She'll explore how ideas of happiness have evolved in the West, and compare major concepts of well-being throughout the world—and why the US doesn't tend to fare well in global happiness surveys. In Alumni Hall, 75 Court St.
Also at 7, the Norwich Bookstore presents an online-only evening with five poets associated with NYC-based literary publisher Four Way Books. They include former VT poet laureate Sydney Lea, Bennington-based Michael Dumanis, Maine-based poet Adrian Blevins, Colorado's Rajiv Mohabir, and California poet Cintia Santana.
And the Tuesday poem...
I saw a great teapotI wanted to get you this stupendous100% cotton royal blue and black checked shirt,There was a red and black striped one tooThen I saw these boots at a place call ChucklesThey lace up to about two inches above your anklesAll leather and in red, black or purpleIt was hard to have no money todayI won’t even speak about the possible flowers and kinds of lingerieAll linen and silk with not-yet-perfumed lacesBrilliant enough for any of the GracesFull of luxury, grace notes, prosperousness and charmBut I can only praise you with this poem —Its being is the same as the meaning of your name
— "On Gifts for Grace" by
, from her collection,
.
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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