GOOD MORNING, UPPER VALLEY!
Blech. There's a front coming through today, accompanied by what could be high winds. With temps rising to 50 or higher today, it'll come as rain showers, which could start this morning but are likeliest in the afternoon. Steady winds from the southeast, with gusts getting above 40 mph possible this afternoon. Showers will eventually end tonight, overnight lows in the upper 20s.When the sun lets you know it's on its way. That was the moment John Pietkiewicz caught on his way to work early one morning as he was passing through Norwich.New Exit 19 closures coming. Crews have finished rebuilding the northbound on- and off-ramps at Exit 19 on I-89, NHDOT says in a new press release. Now, though, they plan intermittent nighttime closures starting next Monday (weather permitting) on both the northbound on/off ramps and the southbound on-ramp so they can make drainage improvements. As things stand now, NHDOT plans to close the northbound off-ramp Monday night, the northbound on-ramp Tuesday night, and the southbound on-ramp next Wednesday night—though if work goes quickly they might try to do two in one night. Stay tuned.Hartford planning commissioners change minds on Haven master plan: parking, not a connector lane. The lane would have run between the nonprofit and the parking lot of neighboring St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, and was an effort to keep traffic off Hartford Ave. imposed by the panel in July. Writes Patrick Adrian in the Valley News, it effectively killed a proposal by the two organizations to build a new homeless shelter. They've since dropped the shelter idea, but at a meeting Monday, members of the Planning Commission said they still want the Haven to get a handle on parking and traffic issues, and directed it to come up with a parking management plan by mid-January."Eventually, I would like to produce a million [samosas] a day." You can't accuse Damaris Hall of thinking small. As Kirk Kardashian writes in a Seven Days profile of Global Village Foods, the Quechee-based business owned by Damaris and Mel Hall, the two started out three decades ago making 30 samosas at a time for street festivals; these days it's 5,000 a day (plus 2,000 entrees and ready-to-eat meals), and they're getting ready to start selling to the two biggest college dining companies in the country. Kardashian traces their journey from festivals to WRJ's Taste of Africa to today's thriving business.SPONSORED: Renew Campion is almost there! Thanks to the generosity of our Campion Rink users and supporters, we have raised 96 percent of the money needed to earn a $1 million match from the Byrne Foundation by Dec. 31, so that we can begin critical renovations on the rink next spring. We have only a month to go and need your help to get all the way and ensure the rink's future. Please donate! Or consider helping our GoFundMe effort to raise the funds for naming a locker room in honor of HHS hockey coaches Dick and John Dodds. Sponsored by the Hanover Improvement Society.Recount in Orange County sheriff's race widens challenger's win by six votes. On Election Day, vote totals had part-time sheriff's deputy George Contois unseating longtime incumbent Bill Bohnyak by 100 votes. Bohnyak requested a recount, and the numbers are now in, reports VTDigger's Ethan Weinstein: 6,606 votes for Contois to Bohnyak's 6,500. In an email to VTDigger, Bohnyak wrote, "To the citizens of Orange County, fellow brothers and sisters in law enforcement. To many of our Legislators and Senators, it has been my honor to work with and serve you all." He steps down Jan. 31A bit more catching up. A few stories hit the news last week that are worth attention even now. After this, I promise, we're done.
Norwich's planning director departs with harsh words for "abusive and outspoken" residents. In his resignation letter—reprinted atop Patrick Adrian's story in the VN—Aaron DeNamur wrote that he was disturbed by treatment of town staff by residents and that he had experienced "inappropriate and distressing interactions in public meetings as part of my job." He also warned, basically, that word gets around. His last day was Friday. At a special meeting two nights ago, the town's Planning Commission voted to begin the search for a new zoning administrator, either acting or full-time, whoever shows up first. Norwich is also looking for an interim town manager; the Selectboard was scheduled to "invite [a] candidate or candidates" to interview for the position at a special meeting last night.
About 10 days ago, the Boston Globe's Spotlight team dug into a case that drew headlines around here a few years back, after Dartmouth Health radiologist Mark Guilfoyle was dismissed for failing to spot signs of breast cancer in the mammograms or breast ultrasounds of two dozen women at rural hospitals in the North Country. DH "appeared to play a proactive role in uncovering and addressing Guilfoyle’s many mistakes," the Globe's team wrote, but the piece looks hard at the NH Board of Medicine, which fined him $750, told him he could no longer read mammograms—and let him keep practicing. "New Hampshire patients have no simple way to learn important information about a physician’s past because the state’s medical board is one of the least transparent in the country," they add. The full Globe story is behind a paywall.
And on his In Times Past blog last week, local historian Larry Coffin posted his Journal Opinion piece on the region's reaction to the routing of I-91, and the highway's impact on the Upper Valley (scroll down at the link, you'll find it). It's filled with choice details, from the Thetford resident who griped, "You are trying to build too much of a highway. We don’t need it that big," to Fairlee's agitation for a route west of the Palisades, to the first traffic signals in Orange County going in because of increased traffic at the junction of Rtes. 5 and 25 in Bradford. Overall, Coffin writes, the highway spurred new development around interchanges, made it possible for locals to find work farther away, and boosted numbers of both residents and tourists.
The Family Place returns in person to Tracy Hall in Norwich this Saturday, Dec. 3, for its 20th Annual Gingerbread Festival! It's a fun-filled, family-friendly event, with a display and auction of over 100 hugely creative gingerbread houses built by families all over the Upper Valley; a winter auction of special items; a Gingerbread Country Store with handcrafts, gift items, and prepared food (next door in the Parish Hall of the Norwich Congregational Church); and fun activities for children. Join us for a wonderful celebration of the season!
Sponsored by The Family Place.
NH testing deer for Covid. But it may be a while before we learn anything. In the Keene Sentinel, Mia Summerson writes that state wildlife officials collected blood samples during both last year's and this year's hunting seasons. “Results are pending," Fish & Game Deer Project Leader Becky Fuda tells Summerson—with 2021 results not expected for a few months. The virus has been found in deer in MA, NY, PA, and southern Ontario, Summerson writes, as well as in mink, dogs, cats, otters, and hamsters. The CDC says that odds of a person catching the virus from an infected animal are considered low.No sign of an end to 20-year drop in NH school attendance. In 2002, writes Ethan DeWitt in NH Bulletin, the state had 207,684 kids in its public schools. This year it was 161,755, or a 22 percent drop over those two decades. Schools opened in the fall with 1,845 fewer students than in 2021. That comes despite the state's overall population growth, and has affected not only school budgets, but the state's workforce challenges. DeWitt cites lower birth rates (despite a small pandemic bump) as a chief cause; in-migration of families hasn't been able to offset it, and the housing crisis is proving a barrier."The life preserver of community care is itself in need of rescue." That's Dr. Diane Roston, medical director of West Central Behavioral Health in Lebanon, writing in a VTDigger commentary. But she's not just talking about the staffing shortage facing community mental health clinics. “No” is a common answer to requests for help throughout medicine these days, she writes, with too few doctors, nurses, therapists, case managers, and other staff, and it's taking a toll not just on patients, but on providers. She explores what happens when you're doing the best you can, but know you still have to do better.
That's Claudio Fort, CEO of Rutland Regional Medical Center, talking to Vermont Public's Nina Keck about the impact the state's shortage of nursing home beds is having on hospitals. “Every single day, we have 50 to 70 beds taken by people who don't need hospital care, but can't leave the hospital," says UVM Med Center's president. It's a national issue rooted in staffing shortages—"a public health emergency," say national groups. The state hopes to create a new 100-bed skilled nursing unit for the most complex patients.
Oh, by the way... Remember that "Antiques Roadshow" hullabaloo in VT last summer? Some 17,000 people applied to get the stuff they'd always wondered about looked at when the show pulled into the Shelburne Museum in July to film its first-ever Vermont show; 3,000 showed up for the taping. Now, WCAX reports, they've announced the air dates: April 24, May 1, and May 8 next year. Rev your calendars!True Grit. Let's just say that after reading JB MacKinnon's long but never less than entertaining article of that title in The Atavist, you'll never think of cows the same way. MacKinnon recounts the events surrounding Hurricane Dorian in 2019, when a huge storm surge swept over a speck of land off the Outer Banks known as Cedar Island. It was home to a relative handful of people, a small but famous herd of wild horses, and an even smaller and mostly ignored herd of feral cattle. Over half the horses were swept away. So were most of the cows. Then, a month later, cow-prints showed up on an island miles away...The Wednesday Vordle. If you're new to Daybreak, this is the Upper Valley version of Wordle, with a five-letter word chosen from an item in the previous day's Daybreak.
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This evening at 7, the Peabody Library in Post Mills will host Thetford writer and freelance journalist Matt Hongoltz-Hetling, reading from and talking about his epic exploration of Grafton NH, A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears). Bears, the Free State Project, the Free Town Project, and small-town New Hampshire all collide...
Also at 7, online only via Hanover's Howe Library, novelist Rachel Barenbaum interviews Rubén Degollado about his new debut novel, The Family Izquierdo. Set in the Texas borderlands, it follows three generations of a Mexican-American as they grapple with what may be a family curse and the larger struggles that beset complex families, all told by multiple, Tejano-inflected voices.
"To say that Caamp is having a moment in the indie folk scene is an understatement. Caamp is
leading
the indie folk scene right now," a Milwaukee reviewer wrote earlier this year. Though, really, it's more folk-rock. The Ohio-based band—anchored by Taylor Meier on guitar and lead vocals and banjo player Evan Westfall, who got things going at Ohio University in Athens a decade ago—has been surfing the college circuit, pulling hordes of fans to Red Rocks and other venues, and, recently, touring with The Lumineers.
The vocals are a little muddy, so if you want to follow along,
(Thanks, AFG!)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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