SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN, UPPER VALLEY!
Mostly sunny. With high pressure set up across the Northeast and in no hurry to leave, we could probably just run the same forecast every day: fog or clouds to start in the river valleys, making way for sunshine at some point. Today, highs in the upper 60s, lows tonight around 40, calm winds from the northeast.Lift off! A monarch in E. Thetford leaving a zinnia, by Tom Monego.Hanover preps rental inspection program. A third of the town's housing stock gets rented out, writes Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, and back in March, voters approved an ordinance requiring them to be inspected for safety, health, and code compliance. “Everyone benefits when buildings are safer,” town manager Alex Torpey tells him—especially when, he notes, tenants have cited issues like windows being painted shut and mold problems. The two will soon launch an online portal for landlords to register, Adrian reports, and hopes to hire a housing inspector by the end of October.A Dartmouth president with goals beyond campus. Sian Beilock was inaugurated on Friday, and in her speech she laid out several key initiatives. Some are focused on the campus community—mental wellness, "brave spaces" for dialogue—but Beilock is also positioning Dartmouth to acknowledge its impact as a major player in the region, including a plan to create 1,000 new beds for undergrads, grad students, faculty, and staff within 10 years—and, significantly, place undergrad dorms “closest to the heart of campus." She also pledged to boost child care and college funding for the region's revolving housing loan fund. More details at the link.With federal end-run around NH Exec Council, Claremont center will restore community sex-ed program. You may remember that last November, the Council voted 3-2 to defund a decade-old program at both the TLC Family Resource Center in Claremont and Amoskeag Health in Manchester—communities with the state's highest teen pregnancy rates, writes Annmarie Timmins in NH Bulletin. Now, she reports, US Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has announced that the feds will fund the programs directly."I simply cannot put this book down without picking it back up to indulge in reading just 'one more.'" That was Susan Apel's experience as she neglected getting dinner on the table to keep dipping into WRJ essayist and writing teacher Joni Cole's new collection, Party Like It’s 2044: Finding the Funny in Life and Death. In Artful, Susan writes, "Her essays are relatable and unsparing and filled with everyday human moments and thoughts"—often veering in unexpected directions in a way that brings both laughter and tears: "Be prepared to [read] straight through what would otherwise be dinner time."What Etta did on her summer vacation: 15 miles and over 10,000 feet of elevation. At the age of 9. Etta Noreika and her parents, Julia and Michael, live at the base of Mt. Kearsarge, in Wilmot. The grown-ups, writes Eric Rynston-Lobel in the Concord Monitor, are "avid trail runners," and in the spring, Etta asked her dad if she could do the four-mile Sunapee Scramble with him. “It was like, ‘Ooh boy...you sure?’” says her mom. She was. With that one done, she tackled a race up Ascutney, then Mt. Washington's Race the Cog, then the Race to the Top of VT up Mansfield. Now? The rest of New England.Closing of W. Leb's New England School of Hair Design reflects larger changes. The school's been in business 46 years, writes Jim Kenyon in the VN, and has trained hundreds of stylists over the years. But in recent years, its student count has dropped dramatically. Part of the reason, Kenyon writes, is that in 2019 VT dropped the hours to get a license from 1,500 to 1,000—which allowed the Hartford Area Career and Technology Center to make it possible for high school students to get in enough hours while in school. And NH now lets licensed stylists from other states practice there. With the W. Leb school due to close next month, HACTC is considering a training program for adults.And speaking of closing... Sam's Outdoor Outfitters, which for nearly a century has anchored Brattleboro's downtown and attracted shoppers from far beyond its metro area, will shut its doors next spring. Brad Borofsky, the grandson of the founder, broke the news to employees in a letter and confirmed it to VTDigger's Kevin O'Connor yesterday. He cites declining business over many years—which he blames in part on the VT sales tax when NH is just a bridge away. Two other stores, in MA and in Swanzey, NH, will remain open. “For Brattleboro, losing Sam’s is like New York losing Macy’s,” former Gov. Peter Shumlin tells O'Connor.One way to commute to a new job: by chairlift in a snowstorm. Which is what Hugh and Jeanne Joudry did back in 1968, the day they started their gig scanning the scenery for forest fires from the fire tower atop Stratton Mountain. They spent 37 summers doing that, and, now 86 and 79, they happily tell Vermont Public's Sabine Poux all about it for her Brave Little State episode on VT's fire towers. Poux talks history—the first one in the state went up on Burke Mountain, funded by a private landowner—and spotter lore, and what it's like when potable water's a quarter-mile away. Includes an interactive map of the state's 38 towers, and which are still climbable. Yes, Gile's on it.The Tuesday Vordle. Still with a word from Friday's Daybreak.
Heads Up
At 7 this evening, the Norwich Bookstore brings in novelist Thomas Reed, reading from and talking about his latest, Pocketful of Poseys, which was released last week. It's about a close but divided family that embarks on a three-week trip around the world to scatter the ashes of their mom and her husband—guided by their mother's hand-scrawled notes on family history.
Also at 7, Here in the Valley's Live Band Karaoke strikes up again for the fall at Sawtooth Kitchen in Hanover. You singhttps://www.sawtoothkitchen.com/general-5 while the Route 5 Ringers, the four-piece house band, make it all possible with a limitless choice of songs—a laptop connected to a large TV monitor on stage that displays both the lyrics and the chords (in case the band doesn't know a song, which is unlikely).
Also at 7, the Thetford Arthouse Cinema is back at Thetford Academy with All About Eve—Joseph Mankiewicz's 1950 film starring Bette Davis, George Sanders and Anne Baxter, winner of six Oscars (and nominated for 17 of them) about an aging Broadway star, her circle of friends, and an ingenue who isn't nearly as innocent as she seems.
This evening at 7:30, renowned violinist Johnny Gandelsman kicks off his year-long Hop residency with Part I of This is America. Gandelsman, a member of the avant-garde NYC-based string quartet, Brooklyn Rider, worked with more than two dozen composers from all over the country and all over the musical world to create the anthology, which he'll perform in its entirety over the year—and expand with four Hop-commissioned pieces. Tonight's performance at the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College may be sold out, but it's always worth checking for tix: 603.646.2422.
And this is the final week for the first group show by Upper Valley Photographers, which runs at AVA through Oct. 1. Photographers were asked to include images that moved them—on any subject, including portraits, landscapes, abstracts, and still lifes.
And the Tuesday poem...Look at the birds. Even flyingis bornout of nothing. The first skyis inside you, openat either end of the day.The work of wingswas always freedom, fasteningone heart to every falling thing.—"One Heart" by Li-Young LeeSee you tomorrow.
Written and published by Rob Gurwitt Writer/editor: Jonea Gurwitt Poetry editor: Michael Lipson About Rob About Michael
If you like Daybreak and would like to help it keep going and evolve, please hit the "Support" button below and I'll tell you more:
And if you think one or more of your friends would like Daybreak, too, please forward this newsletter and tell them to hit the blue "Subscribe" button below. And thanks! And hey, if you're that friend? So nice to see you! Subscribe at no cost at:
Thank you!