Daybreak Wednesday, 4/1/26

Mostly cloudy, maybe a little sun later. We’re entering a lull between systems today, as yesterday’s moves off to the east (there may still be some rain first thing) and tomorrow’s is still off to the west. Skies will remain mostly cloudy, though there might be a bit of sun for a while starting late morning. Highs today in the upper 40s or low 50s, moderate winds from the north. Chance of rain starts up again toward morning tomorrow, and with cold air held in place by Canadian high pressure, there’s a chance of sleet as well. Lows in the low or mid 30s.

Soon enough! When it’s like this out, it’s nice to be reminded of what’s coming: Here are crocuses pushing up through the grass in Lyme, from Lynn Sheldon.

“These kids were bringing up the same issues that they’re talking about in the legislature every day. And you’re like, ‘Right, kids see everything.’” That’s Robyn Palmer, who among other things runs Vermont’s new Kid Governor program, talking to Dartmouth senior Madeleine Saraisky. One of the new members of the Kid Governor cabinet is 10-year-old Gaelen McNaughton, who lives in Weathersfield, and in today’s “Story in Sound,” Saraisky checks in with him—an active fifth-grader who runs, plays hockey, hangs out with friends, but also has ideas about how to make the state better and some hope that adults might listen.

Man dies by apparent suicide at Lebanon Airport. There’s not much detail available from the LPD. At about 1 pm yesterday, the city’s police and fire departments “responded to a report of a deceased adult male” and, after arriving, cordoned off a section of the parking lot for their investigation. Valley News photographer James M. Patterson reports that airport operations continued as usual. “The only other thing I’d say is if you see someone, a friend or relative, who is exhibiting some difficulties, try and get some help for them,” airport manager Carl Gross told him. If you or anyone you know is struggling: the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is at 988 or 988lifeline.org.

An ex-Chicago cop deals with Ireland’s “intricate webs, constructed over centuries, that bind people to one another, to their land, and to their past.” That’s a line from Tana French’s latest mystery, The Keeper, out yesterday. It’s the final book in a trilogy following Cal Hooper, a Chicago PD veteran who retired to an Irish village expecting peace and quiet—but, well, there are murders to solve. As the Norwich Bookstore’s Carin Pratt writes in this week’s Enthusiasms, while mysteries may drive the books, French delves into other themes, too: What’s it like to be a stranger in a rural community? What to do about a small-town bully? How to write about Irish weather?

Wait! Before you bust me I just have to drop my kid off at school! Around 8:45 yesterday morning, reports Valley News Live’s Gracie Jackson, West Fargo police tried to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation near 9th Street East and 13th Avenue East. The driver didn’t stop, but he didn’t exactly speed off, either: He “fled at a low-speed rate” toward Cheney Middle School, says Jackson, “where a juvenile passenger got out of the vehicle in the school’s drop-off lane.” Then the 43 year-old driver began “aggressively engaging” with police officers. He was arrested for fleeing a peace officer and preventing arrest, and was taken to Cass County Jail.

Car catches fire at NH’s Bedford toll plaza; governor and her security team help out. WMUR’s Maria Wilson reports that Gov. Kelly Ayotte and her security detail came upon the crash shortly before noon yesterday. “State Police Col. Mark Hall said a trooper assigned to Ayotte's security detail and two other people who stopped pulled the driver from the burning vehicle,” reports Wilson. The driver of the EV is from Massachusetts. Bedford Deputy Fire Chief Eric Dubowik tells Wilson the crash is still under investigation, but similar crashes have involved high speeds. The booths, he says, “are designed to take cars hitting them, and they actually flip them."

And while we’re talking rescues… On Monday, a snowboarder hit a tree and was seriously injured after he caught an edge “while navigating through a steep, rocky section” that was out of bounds at Cannon Mountain, reports NH Fish & Game. It was late in the day. “Unable to evacuate or move through the very steep terrain with the severity of the injury,” his group called the ski patrol, which called Fish & Game, which called Pemi Valley Search & Rescue. In its writeup, which includes plenty of photos, Pemi SAR reports that “rope lines were used to belay [a litter] down steep sections, and to secure handlines for team members to descend safely at several points.”

Turns out, bears don’t climb just trees. A Springfield, NH resident sent this in to WMUR’s u local New Hampshire FB group the other day (here via MSN).

Last year in NH, more 40-year-old couples than 20-year-old couples tied the knot. Looking through the state’s vital records, reports David Brooks on his Granite Geek blog (the unpaywalled version of an earlier Monitor article), he found that that’s because the numbers of young people getting married have been shrinking: “We found that the number of marriages of 20- and 25-year-olds has fallen consistently, while the number of marriages of 30- and 35-year-olds has risen. Surprisingly, the number of marriages among 40-year-olds has stayed pretty consistent.” This echoes a national trend: the median age for first-time brides was under 21 in 1973; now it’s almost 29.

Two spots in NH, one in VT make James Beard Award finals. Once again, Bethlehem’s Super Secret Ice Cream is one of five places nationwide in the running for Outstanding Bakery; it was a finalist last year as well, and a semifinalist in 2024. Dover, NH’s Evan Hennessey, at Stages, is also on the list for Best Chef Northeast. He’s facing off against Paul Trombly, chef-owner of Fancy’s in Burlington’s Old North End. His restaurant’s name, writes Jordan Barry in Seven Days, grew out of his time in an activist collective in his early 20s, when “friends teased him for carefully plating and garnishing the free community meals he cooked, dubbing him Mr. Fancy Chef Man.’”

VT’s new cartoonist laureate is “an example of how cartooning is serious business in Vermont.” That’s New Hampshire’s David Brooks (yes, him again), who talked to Windsor’s Stephen Bissette about not just the business side of things, but whether the Granite State might ever follow suit. To which Bissette replied, “If any state had a [cartoonist laureate] it should have been” NH. He pointed to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Dover) and Bob Montana, who created the Archie comics in a Meredith lakeside cottage. And Al Capp’s habit of joking that Li’l Abner’s Dogpatch was based on Seabrook. But for the moment, it’s still VT that gets laureate bragging rights.

Neither rain nor missile exhaust nor stubborn mules … Witness 250 years of postal service, distilled into a chatty three-minute video from Encyclopaedia Britannica. It runs down the many ways mail has been delivered (yup, missiles and mules included, plus dog sleds) and how the USPS came to be. Turns out George Washington needed a way to get word to Congress and, for that matter, to his own army. We can thank Ben Franklin, the first Postmaster General, for finding a solution. And the tiny works of art known as stamps? They’re chosen by the Citizen Stamp Advisory Committee. “Most people are not used to working on such a small canvas.”

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HEADS UP
Every year, Naulakha, Rudyard Kipling’s home for three years in Dummerston, VT, throws open its gates for an estate and rhododendron tour in June. And every year I figure I’ll include a notice about it in this space—but by the time I get to it, it’s sold out. So this year, I’m giving you a chance to jump on it: Tickets just opened up for June 6 & 7, with time slots every 20 minutes.

And for today...

JS Bach wrote his six-part Partita No. 2 in C Minor for keyboard—so maybe it’s not such a big leap for Sergey Sadovoy to adopt the Sinfonia, the suite’s opening, for classical accordion.

Oh, and before you email me about that Valley News Live item from Fargo, ND up above? Check today’s date.

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