GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Sun again. But cooler, too. We remain under high pressure (despite a nor’easter moseying around out there off the coast), but temps will be down a few degrees from yesterday, with highs in the upper 50s. Overnight lows again in the low 30s.
A masterclass in balance. That would be the black bear who showed up on Lisa Grose’s trail cam in Hanover recently, standing on a little chunk of log in the middle of the water. “Bears always look so healthy in the fall, with a thick, shiny coat and all plumped up,” Lisa writes about her still photo from the cam. “Sometimes this guy swims across the pond or hops the rocks. This time he changed his mind. Maybe the water is getting too cold?!”
One last reminder: Ramp from I-89N to I-91N closed today and tomorrow. From 8 am to 6 pm for paving, though if crews get done earlier than 6 pm they’ll reopen it. If you happen to get caught, the detour takes you up to the Quechee/Woodstock exit, where you can reverse direction.
Ask Maggie: When will Crosby Street in Hanover reopen? You’re not going to like the answer. When Dartmouth closed the cut-through street that runs alongside Buddy Teevens Stadium in order to put in a “vault” for all the new heating and cooling pipes running through campus, it said the work would take 12 to 18 months. We’re at month 16, and digging into a reader’s question about it, Maggie Cassidy learns that months of Crosby closure remain. It turns out that infrastructure work the college needs to do in exchange for digging up a town road and inconveniencing thousands of motorists a day (though it isn’t saying precisely how many) will take longer than expected. At the link, Maggie explains all—including her quest for actual details.
In Fairlee, proposed apartment block meets opposition. The Denison project would construct two three-story buildings on the former Colby Block, across from Chapman’s General, with four commercial spaces and 22 market-rate rental apartments, reports Sofia Langlois in the Valley News. Developers Jonah Richard and his cousins, along with lead investor Deecie Denison and the project’s supporters, believe it would bring life back to a key part of downtown Fairlee. But to build its septic system, they argue, they need financing from the state’s CHIP program—and opponents are raising a range of objections. Langlois outlines the controversy. And here’s Richard’s presentation to the selectboard responding to the objections.
In Newbury, Topsham, and Groton VT, an unusual state legislative race. For starters, as Alison Novak writes in Seven Days, the Democrat is an 18-year-old senior at Thetford Academy, Aiden Otterman. The Republican is his great-uncle, Tom Otterman. And there’s a third candidate with a more-than-realistic chance of winning: Newbury Selectboard Chair Susan Culp, who’s running as an independent. Tom Otterman, a civil engineer, declined an interview, but both Culp and the younger Otterman filled Novak in on where they stand, which comes down to policy experience versus youth, a rural VT background, and a focus on the state’s high cost of living.
SPONSORED: Immigrants and refugees need your help now more than ever. Hearts You Hold currently has 440 requests from individuals and families trying to make a new start in this country, including 47 in Vermont alone. They’re waiting to be funded by caring people like you. Some are local, others are in New York, Georgia, and elsewhere. You can sort the requests by state or category to find the folks you want to support. You’ll find them all at the burgundy link or here—from basic household goods to clothing to laptops to swimming lessons to diapers to a young mother from Argentina in VT who needs help with baby goods. Sponsored by Hearts You Hold.
“You start to realize that there are all these riches of this world that cannot be attained by going far, only by going deep.” That was forester and author Ethan Tapper to an interviewer last month, and as H Rooker writes in this week’s Enthusiasms, that’s what Tapper does in his new book, The Forest Year. The book chronicles a year at Bear Island, the forest in Bolton, VT that Tapper brought back to life. “Tapper set out to write an almanac, but as he weaves his personal connection to the land with science and philosophy it becomes much more,” H writes—and will make you see the forest you love anew.
Windsor may no longer be a prison town, but it remains “the place of last resort for people who die in Vermont’s prisons.” That’s how VTDigger’s Noel Clark describes Ascutney Cemetery, which contains a burial lot owned by the state’s Dept. of Corrections that holds the remains of 42 people who died in the state’s custody and whose bodies went unclaimed. Clark goes deep into the cemetery’s history—people serving sentences at the prison farm in Windsor maintained the grounds and more. “We were literally doing maybe $60,000 worth of work for the town, and for free,” says former superintendent Mike Coxon. Now, as budgets allow, the state plans to replace the decaying wooden crosses that mark ex-prisoners’ graves with actual headstones.
SPONSORED: A new health center at Valley Regional Hospital? Possible. The Michael and Sheila Satzow Health Center is now open across from Valley Regional Hospital in Claremont. Made possible by a generous donation from Michael and Sheila Satzow, the new health center provides more capacity and quicker appointment times. Primary care patients will find modern exam rooms and have access to X-ray and lab services during their visit. Specialty services, including orthopaedics, midwifery and podiatry, will relocate here from the main hospital in the coming months. Right here, we have a healthy disregard for the impossible. Sponsored by Dartmouth Health.
Polar Caves’ “hanging boulder” falls. The boulder—some 80 tons, according to MassLive—had been a feature of the Rumney tourist attraction since it opened 104 years ago. It fell on Sunday, the last day of the season, and was discovered by a hiker where it had smashed through the walking trail’s wooden walkway. No one was injured. The boulder, a geologist tells the Boston Globe (paywall), was deposited there thousands of years ago by a glacier. “It was a balanced rock essentially,” he says, “so if more of its weight was hanging over the edge than sitting on its base, then it was just a matter of time until gravity and erosion of its base took over, and it tipped over.”
In NH’s long tradition of local control, one way to address data centers. The New England News Collaborative is running a series of pieces about the politics around hyperscale data centers in the region (which lacks them), and as part of it, NHPR’s Kate Dario looks at Nottingham, NH—where, as you may remember, a huge backlash against a proposed data center eventually led to a 1,335-143 public vote last month in favor of a moratorium; a ban in Canterbury; and the ongoing public discussion in Bow. Unlike other parts of the country, Dario says, the town meeting tradition “has given residents a forum for hammering out issues and the power to make decisions.”
Restaurateurs face “a three-headed hydra of existential threats.” How a Vermonter’s app may help. Matt Jennings opened two highly praised restaurants, wrote a cookbook, and then found himself anxious and “wondering why I felt so hollow inside,” writes Melissa Pasanen in Seven Days. Burnt out, he moved to Vermont, hoping to rediscover the aspects of the restaurant business that he enjoyed. One goal: reduce constant job churn in the business. With a techie friend, he developed MAJC, an app that helps find, train, and retain talent. “Hospitality is known for taking care of everyone,” says Jennings, “but nobody takes care of the people doing the work.”
For Olive and Mabel, proof of life. Or, well, actually, proof of blissful nap. “Often I have to remind myself that Olive and Mabel belong to you almost as much as me,” writes Andrew Cotter, “and that you would probably like to see them doing anything—it doesn't have to be a grand or clever production. So, this is nothing more than some recent footage to let you know that that they are still the best dogs and still offering moral support in life. They do this by snoring and looking ridiculous, but mostly by just being there. And yes, Olive may be nearly 14, but I had to also show you that she is in fine form and that she still has the puppy within.” At least, when she’s dreaming.
Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.
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HEADS UP
“Norman and Beatrice” at The Village in WRJ. A reading of Barbara Hammond’s play, inspired by her parents’ experience, about a long marriage and caring for a spouse with dementia, followed by a panel discussion about caregiving and the challenges of doing just that. In association with The Upper Valley Walk to End Alzheimer’s. 2 pm, registration appreciated: Call Katie Chase, 802-295-7500. No link.
Dartmouth’s Dickey Center hosts Kim Ghattas and “A True Story of Murder, War, and America's Undoing in the Middle East.” Ghattas, the Beirut-born longtime journalist (The Atlantic, the Financial Times) and author, has a new book out, The Best Kind of American, about the Iranian revolution, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, this year’s war in Iran, and the 1984 murder of Malcolm Kerr, president of the American University of Beirut. She’ll be talking it all over with Middle East Studies Chair Tarik el-Ariss. 4:30 pm in Haldeman 41 and livestreamed.
At the Nugget, a special screening of Road To L’Etape Du Tour. Hanover native Julia Coulter’s debut feature film “tells the story of a woman with a congenital heart defect who, facing a turning point in her life, embarks on a journey to train for a stage of the Tour de France, [and] has made waves on the film festival circuit this year.” 6:30 pm, with donations benefiting the CHaD HERO.
At The Center at Eastman, “From the New Hampshire State Archives.” State Archivist Ashley Miller talks about the archives’ history and mission, as well as about the intriguing and often significant materials it holds and how they’re preserved and made accessible to the public. 7 pm in the Draper Room.
Hop Film screens Mr. Nobody Against Putin. David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin’s Oscar-winning documentary about a young schoolteacher in small-town Russia finding ways to resist the war in Ukraine and the regime’s propaganda efforts. Talankin will be on hand to talk about it afterward. May be sold out, but they’ll have some standby tickets available at showtime. Which is 7 pm in the Loew Auditorium.
At Sawtooth Kitchen, “What’s Pissing You Off Wednesday” comedy night. As they write, it’s “the comedy show where YOU give the comics something that’s driving you crazy, and they turn it into comedy. Bad drivers? Your boss? Dating? Politics? Self-checkout machines? That one person who somehow makes everything worse? Bring it.” 8 pm.
And for today...
Paulinho da Viola grew up in Botafogo, a traditional neighborhood in southern Rio de Janeiro, the son of a guitarist whose home regularly hosted musicians gathering to rehearse and write new songs and sambas. Afterward, young Paulinho would try to figure out chords on his father's guitar—and then, as a teen, show up for jams at the legendary composer Jacob do Bandolim's house. So, not surprisingly, he became a musician—and now a samba legend—in his own right. He turns 84 next month and is still in the thick of it: here, on Brazil’s version of a recent Tiny Desk Concert. 18 million views in seven days… The video picks up about two-thirds of the way through.
See you tomorrow.
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