Daybreak Wednesday 9/3/25

No lathering, no rinsing, but definitely repeating. Once again, we start with fog and clouds. Then, not long from now, everything magically disappears and we’re back to near-full sun, with temps climbing into the upper 70s. Mostly clear skies and lows again in the low 50s tonight.

As fall approaches, a slant of light. In two spots, as it happens…

In Bradford, VT, a breeding ground for the archery tag elite. Never heard of archery tag? You’re not alone. But it’s growing, and a month ago, the US national team defeated Canada in a closely fought match at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando. There for the glory were coach Mike Morrissette, who owns Running Water Recreation Center in Bradford, where lots of people train, and Windsor's Mikey Steel and E. Corinth's Roger Wholey, who played on the winning team. In his last piece for Daybreak, Matt Golec delves into the sport (which involves heavy-duty masks and foam-tipped arrows), the US-Canada game, and how to get involved yourself.

Charges dropped against Grafton County sheriff’s husband; harassment accuser jailed in separate incident. The VN’s John Lippman went up with a tangled story from Lisbon, NH over the weekend. You probably remember that last fall, a guy named Robert Thomsen accused James “Jamsie” Myers III, husband of then sheriff-candidate, now Sheriff Jill Myers, of harassing him, along with three others. Late in July, prosecutors dropped misdemeanor counts of harassment and disorderly conduct against James Myers; instead, Thomsen is being held without bail after a “road rage” incident this past summer. Lippman details the events.

SPONSORED: The Handel Society of Dartmouth College is holding auditions! They’re for all voice parts and will run from 3 to 9 pm on Monday 9/8 and Tuesday 9/9. Orchestral and choral director Filippo Ciabatti and assistant choral conductor Erma Mellinger will lead our first rehearsal Wednesday 9/10 at 7 pm as we prepare Joseph Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass for our November 18th fall concert. Please email [email protected] with any questions. Sponsored by the Handel Society of Dartmouth College.

An 11-year-old unlikely hero (in her own eyes) helps eight-inch-tall creatures relocate. From a library. That hero is Gwen, neglected by her parents, who in Jeanne Birdsall’s middle-grade book The Library of Unruly Treasures is sent to live with her uncle and, in the children’s section of the local library, discovers a crowd of small, winged, turquoise-haired people who can only be seen by young kids and, somehow, her. It’s an adventure, and in this week’s Enthusiasms, Liza Bernard writes that Gwen “finds surprising strength and courage with the support of her recently discovered relatives, an opinionated dog, a creative librarian,” and others.

SPONSORED: Eighteen different EVs in one place! Federal tax credits for buying or leasing electric cars and trucks are available through September 30, so now is a great time for fantastic deals on new or used EVs. Talk with dealers, individual owners, e-bike riders, solar installers, and more at the FREE Upper Valley EV Expo: Saturday, September 6, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lyman Point Park, 171 Bridge Street, WRJ. Pre-register to get a free raffle ticket! Sponsored by the Hartford Energy Commission.

The drought. We’re definitely in it, and as NHPR’s Mara Hoplamazian reported recently, it’s hitting most of NH, which at least as of last week was in “moderate drought” status (the next US Drought Monitor update will come out Thursday). Just a couple months ago, most of the state had gotten three or four more inches of rain than normal. Now, says the state’s Ted Diers, “parts of the state are three or four inches below normal for the year. That's a pretty dramatic change in a pretty short period of time.” And it’s not just NH. A good chunk of VT, including the Upper Valley, is in moderate drought, too. Hoplamazian looks at the impacts.

NH backs off wind power. For a time under former GOP Gov. Chris Sununu, writes Canary Media’s Sarah Shemkus (here via NH Bulletin) the state “seemed on the verge of embracing offshore wind.” But that was then. With a new administration in DC openly hostile to wind power, this year’s legislative session saw a series of bills aimed at forcing state government “out of the business of offshore wind,” Shemkus writes. And one of those bills, now law, removes a mandate to support offshore wind and disbands state programs aimed at workforce training and port facilities helpful to the wind industry. Still, says one leading Democratic legislator, maybe it’s just “a pause.”

NH creates committee to review domestic violence fatalities; first case will involve North Country woman. The fatal shooting of Marisol Fuentes-Huaracha by her estranged husband in July has already been in the news: a judicial branch review last month found the courts and police had failed on multiple occasions to intervene. Now, reports Sruthi Gopalakrishnan in the Concord Monitor, AG John Formella says the new review committee—with 17 experts from different fields and ”designed to ensure that we are learning from these cases, strengthening our systems, and doing everything we can to prevent future fatalities”—will also look at it.

Bad feelings all around: Lt. Gov. John Rodgers and his fight with Glover, VT. It’s been grabbing attention since this summer, and VTDigger’s Henry Fernandez takes an extended look at what’s got Rodgers and town officials so heated up: a dirt road that runs through land Rodgers owns and farms—and which the town claims in its entirety, while Rodgers contends his family owns a Class 4 section of it. It’s not an uplifting story, what with Rodgers’ charges that road crew members tried to run him and his wife off the road and counter-charges that he’s a bully. But, says one townsperson, “Its kind of brought people together….I’m sorry to say this, but they’re kind of laughing about it.”

“Pizza will survive the apocalypse. We can only hope it’s this good.” That’s Seven Days food writer Melissa Pasanen on the pizzas that Barre’s Pearl Street Pizza managed to pull out of its oven just two days after devastating floods hit downtown in 2023. Her reminiscence is part of a package of most memorable meals put together by the alt-weekly’s remarkable crew of food writers, both past and present. There are the crispy pig ears at a “nose to tail” dinner Suzanne Podhaizer at at Shelburne Farms in 2007, an unexpectedly “enchanted” outdoor meal from a chef “at the top of his game” in S. Londonderry, Sally Pollak’s food scraps-and-compost meal in Waterbury…

Students “are still waking up, coffee in hand, trying to act like this isn’t their first day at sausage school.” Could be the first day at any university, but this is Hot Dog U. It’s real and it’s serious, writes Celia Aniskovich in Switchboard, but it’s so much more than a training course in a utilitarian building in Chicago. The students have nothing in common but “the deeply American belief that a sidewalk, a spatula, and a dream might still be enough.” This is a gem of an article about “professor of encased meats” Bill Murphy and the people who show up to learn to sling dawgs, open carts across the country, and change their lives forever. Honest. Just read it.

Today's Wordbreak. With a word from yesterday’s Daybreak.

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HEADS UP

Les Girafes at the Sharon Elementary School. The Flynn Center’s traveling back-to-school celebration, Playing Fields, pulls into the playing field between the elementary school and TSA’s middle school at 6 this evening, with France’s Compagnie OFF and their “monumental street show” featuring a herd of five, 27-foot-tall red giraffes accompanied by music and special effects. “Influenced by clowns, vaudeville, and circus arts, the show is perfect for family members of all ages.” Food trucks, too.

Up Artistree’s hill in S. Pomfret, Sensible Shoes and The Illustrious Subs. It’s an evening of “dance floor grooves” and originals from the seasoned ensemble of pianist and vocalist Barbara Blaisdell, NRBQ’s Joey Spampinato, guitarist Tim Utt, trumpeter and keyboardist Kami Lyle, and Trey Anastasio Band drummer Russ Lawton. Starts at 6:30, and you’ll definitely want a blanket and a picnic.

In Etna, “The Hidden History of Lake Winnipesaukee”. Sponsored by the Etna Library, author and historian Glenn Knoblock gives an NH Humanities talk on the lake’s colorful history, from the religious sect on Gilford’s Governors Island that thought the world was ending to Massachusetts’ early efforts to claim NH territory as its own. 7 pm at Trumbull Hall.

MaMuse at the Chandler in Randolph. The acoustic Chico, CA folk duo of Sarah Nutting and Karisha Longaker play upright bass, guitar, mandolin, flute, guitar, and keys to “create uplifting music to inspire the world into thriving.” 7:30 pm.

And for today...

Alison Brown and Steve Martin have a new album coming out next month, and the first single’s out: “Dear Time”, a collaboration with Jackson Browne and Jeff Hanna (once Browne’s Nitty Gritty Dirt Band-mate), filmed at the Troubadour in LA. "The Troubadour was the center of a controlled nuclear explosion for so many careers,” Martin told Rolling Stone. “To play again, with Jackson and Alison, on the stage where so much began for me was indeed a delirious moment."

See you tomorrow.

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