Pond at dusk, Norwich, VT. By Irit Librot.
Welcome to “Dear Daybreak”, a weekly Daybreak column. It features short vignettes about life in the Upper Valley: an encounter, a wry exchange, a poem or anecdote or reflection… Anything that happened in this region or relates to it and that might strike us all as interesting or funny or poignant.
Want to submit your own Dear Daybreak item? Just go here!
Dear Daybreak:
I’ve begun feeding our local skunk. I didn’t plan to feed it. I threw some old bread out onto the driveway one morning for the birds, but the birds didn’t seem interested and the bread was still there when night fell. That’s when the skunk waddled out to take care of it. Ours is an endearingly humble-seeming skunk. It ambles about the driveway, unconcerned when the motion-sensitive outdoor lights click on, carefully vacuuming up anything the birds have left, like a portly janitor.
We do not have a dog. When I was a boy, we had a golden retriever and there were a couple of times when he came home, reeking. The smell was as unmistakable as the skunk’s high-contrast black and white markings. Skunks are marked like police cars, and for the same reason: black and white is as high contrast as you can get. If you want to be seen, black and white is the way to go. Skunks may be retiring and they may seem humble, but their markings make them unmistakable.
And those markings are of course matched by the smell of the oil they’ll douse you with if you get too close. That smell is fantastically bad. It makes your eyes water and your stomach heave. The stench of a skunk is uniquely its own.
One thing that always makes me smile as I watch our resident skunk plodding about our driveway is the name the French colonists gave to the skunk: L’Enfant du Diable. Child of the Devil. It seems wildly out of keeping with the short-legged, long-haired, little creature. In their defense, the French probably encountered rabid skunks—skunks who were out in the daytime, and who ran towards them rather than waddling quickly away. To be attacked by a rabid skunk, particularly in a time when there was no cure for rabies, would be a terrifying prospect. It would combine the savage offense induced by rabies with the potent defense for which the skunk is famous. That, combined with the extremely grim prospect of contracting rabies… well, L’Enfant du Diable indeed!
Tonight it is raining, and our little skunk with its quiet ways and loud attire has not visited our driveway. I hope it is snug in a warm den. Tomorrow I will throw out some bread for the birds and hope they will not eat it all. I hope that, as the weakening afternoon light fades and the evening rises like mist from the hollows in the hills, there will be at least a little left to help our little Enfant du Diable fatten up for the winter ahead.
— Glenn Wylie, Strafford
Dear Daybreak:
Men’s Group
Gathered in the cloister
of a cluttered wood shop
minds sharp as saw teeth
eager to fix anything
other than personal flaws
passed around the room
like samples of failed
glue joints until
one hand drifts
into a bulging box
of odd-sized pine
and maple too short
or too thin or too narrow
for any practical purpose
each man finding
a choice piece
to build and balance
higher and higher
one discarded scrap
propped upon another
like vexing problems
perched over their
shaky solutions
forming a wildly
impermanent
towering display
of the fragile
messy beautiful
and somewhat
superfluous lives
of aging men
— Danny Dover, Bethel
Dear Daybreak:
A friend recently had a partial stroke resulting in a paralyzed right side. While visiting her after her return home from the hospital, I inquired if she wouldn’t benefit from having a La-Z-Boy recliner to rest in. She said no. The levers are on the right side, she explained, and she wouldn’t be able to manipulate it.
The next morning I was up early, reading the List Serve. “Free very comfortable electric recliner in Norwich,“ it said. “Eureka!” I said out loud. I immediately replied to the listing! I texted my friend, saying I had found a chair I thought she could benefit from….and if she didn’t want it she could say so. Her husband replied for her: Yes! Only trouble, the giver couldn’t help lift it due to recent surgery. Well, my friend’s sister-in-law and partner were going to be in Norwich stopping at King Arthur on their drive north from Boston after doing the Head of the Charles. Strong Athletes! They could meet us!
Turned out the chair-giver was a Dartmouth classmate of my husband—they’d even played lacrosse together! A quick catch up!
The rowers got the chair in our truck, we drove north, placed it in my friend’s home, tears of happiness running down her cheek. The stars had aligned!
The next day her husband texted me. “The chair is awesome. She had a great night sleep last night, and a long nap this afternoon. Now that’s she mastered the controls she is feeling confident.” She’s on the road to recovery. ◦
— Ann Thompson, Piermont
And did you miss Dear Daybreak last week? You’ll find it here.