E - The Commons

Transcription

E - The Commons

PRIMARY ELECTION • AUG. 28
Three Democrats vie for
two state Senate seats
Candidate profiles this issue
Jeannette White
Peter Galbraith
• Jeanette White, page A2
• Peter Galbraith, page A3
• Mary Cain, page A4
Mary Cain
Railcateg
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Brattleboro, Vermont
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 • Vol. VII, No. 31 • Issue #163
WINDHAM COUNTY’S AWARD-WINNING, INDEPENDENT SOURCE FOR NEWS AND VIEWS
Voices
MEMOIR
Dreaming
of India
page D1
VIEWPOINT
Why we’re
leaving BF
page D1
The Arts
DANCE
VPL uses
dance to tell
stories of BF
women
page C1
Food &
Drink
WENDY M. LEVY
It’s never
too hot
for cheese
page B2
TOM BEDELL
Catching
up with a
microbrew
pioneer
page B3
Federal jury
convicts former
treasurer of
embezzlement
UNION
STAT I O N
Past, present,
and future
Former Algiers Fire District
official charged with
taking more than $80,000
from sewer ratepayers
BRATTLEBORO—A
51-year-old Guilford woman
who was the treasurer for the
Algiers Fire District was convicted of embezzlement by a federal grand jury last week.
According to the Office of the
U.S. Attorney for the District
of Vermont, a federal jury in
Brattleboro last Thursday found
Sherry Roebuck guilty of federal program embezzlement and
mail fraud after a two-day trial.
These convictions stem from
charges that Roebuck embezzled
more than $80,000 from the fire
district.
Senior U.S. District Judge
J. Garvan Murtha continued
Roebuck’s release on conditions
pending sentencing, which has
not been scheduled.
In October 2011, a federal
grand jury in Rutland returned
a two-count indictment accusing Roebuck of embezzling more
than $80,000 from the Algiers
Fire District, which was established in 1993 by residents of
Guilford to provide sewer service to people who lived in the
village of Algiers.
Between 2007 and March
2011, Roebuck served as the
treasurer of the fire district, mailing out quarterly bills to district
members, receiving payments,
and handling the district’s banking. According to the indictment, beginning in late 2007
and continuing until March
2011, Roebuck embezzled from
the district by writing numerous checks to herself without
authorization, then cashing the
checks at local banks.
Roebuck’s theft was not uncovered until early 2011, shortly
after she resigned. According to
the Burlington Free Press, local
officials discovered the embezzlement when the fire district’s
account ran out of money. Board
member Herb Meyer told the
Free Press last year that the volunteer board did not scrutinize
the district’s bank statements.
In court papers, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Gregory Waples stated
that Roebuck had written checks
to herself totaling $84,000.
Evidence from her banking records showed that she paid off
her $518 monthly car loan in
cash, according to court papers.
Five times, those payments came
immediately after cashing a fire
district check written to her,
court papers said.
The Free Press reported that,
according to court records,
Vermont State Police seized
records from Roebuck’s house
that showed she was in financial
trouble — including letters from
creditors — and that Roebuck’s
boyfriend, Bruce Gilman, told
police that she sometimes borrowed money from the fire district but that she told him she
repaid it.
The U.S. Attorney’s office
says that Roebuck faces up to
20 years of imprisonment and a
fine of up to $250,000. The actual sentence will be determined
with reference to federal sentencing guidelines.
CHRISTOPHER
EMILY COUTANT
RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/THE COMMONS
The new look of Depot Street in Brattleboro, as
seen last week before a ribbon-cutting ceremony
marking the completion of the first stage of the
Union Station project.
A downtown
anchor
undergoes
a rebirth,
along with
the rest of its
neighbors
By Randolph T. Holhut
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—Stand
at the corner of Bridge and
Depot streets near the train station, and look around.
The contrast between what
the landscape looked like in
March, and what it looks like
RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/THE COMMONS
VY employees allow
water to drain from
spent fuel pool
By Anne Galloway
vtdigger.org
Members of Vermont Independent Media
receive The Commons in the mail.
Visit http://donate.commonsnews.org.
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BRATTLEBORO, VT
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PERMIT NO. 24
page B1
P.O. Box 1212, Brattleboro, VT 05302
www.commonsnews.org
■ SEE STATION, PAGE A6
Veronica “Ronny” Johnson, left, and Helene Henry, longtime members of
the Union Station Committee, hold pieces of the ribbon that was cut to mark
the completion of the first step of the long-running construction project.
Cooking up
your squash
surplus
Vermont Independent Media
now, is amazing.
Look toward Hinsdale, and
you see green space instead of
derelict buildings.
Look across the street, and
you see the Whetstone Station
Restaurant and Brewery, the
newest addition to the local
dining scene.
The spent fuel pool at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.
LAURA FROHNE/NEWS21.ORG
VERNON—About 2,700
gallons of water from the spent
fuel pool at Vermont Yankee
Nuclear Power Plant drained
into a wastewater system on
July 22.
The 300,000 gallon pool contains 2,500 spent fuel assemblies
removed from the reactor core.
The spent fuel assemblies are
submerged below more than 20
feet of water.
The water drained about six
inches over the course of about
30 minutes when employees who
were working on the fuel pool
cleanup system left drain valves
open. Operators in the control room discovered the problem after an alarm system went
off, according to Rob Williams,
spokesman for the plant.
The radioactive water drained
into a wastewater collection tank.
■ SEE FUEL POOL, PAGE A3
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T h e C ommons
• Wednesday, August 1, 2012
SPECIAL FOCUS: ELECTION 2012
A publication of
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participation through publication
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Reed Jr., Jane Noyes, Meghan
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About The newspaper
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community newspaper published since
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Inc., a nonprofit corporation under section 501(c)3 of the federal tax code.
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Checking off (most) campaign promises
Former ambassador seeks
second Senate term
By Olga Peters
The Commons
TOWNSHEND—Senator
Peter Galbraith reads his 2010
campaign brochure. He checks
over his list of campaign promises, assessing which ones he met
in his first term.
Settled on an overstuffed
couch in his Townshend home,
the former ambassador and author has swapped his customary suit and tie for shorts, a
button-down shirt, and bright
blue Crocs.
In 2010, Galbraith promised
to expand health care, attract investment and jobs to Windham
County, advance a green-energy
future, keep Vermont special by
protecting its open spaces and
making farming economically
viable, extend cell coverage and
broadband Internet throughout
the county, and make Windham
County’s needs a priority in
Montpelier.
Galbraith nods at his first-term
accomplishments. He voted in
favor of the state’s health-care
reform and, on the economic
front, he helped orchestrate two
Senate Economic Development
Housing and General Affairs
Committee (SEDHGA) hearings in the county.
Galbraith quickly adds that
Windham County was the only
county with field hearings last
session. The SEDHGA hearings helped focus attention on
the county. The committee’s
attention helped funnel money
to the Southeastern Vermont
Economic Development Strategy
(SeVEDS) for two consecutive years.
Committee Chair Senator
Vince Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans,
and Galbraith contributed to
legislation to assist Vermont’s
mobile home parks, inspired by
the lawmakers’ visits to TriPark
in Brattleboro.
Galbraith also introduced a
successful bill to ban the practice of hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “fracking,” in
Vermont. He developed a compromise for the clean-energy
bill that had stalled in committee. According to Galbraith, the
compromise “enabled Vermont
to go forward with small-scale
clean-energy projects.”
Galbraith, who jokes about
standing on a rock in his backyard for a cell signal, advocated
for expanded broadband and cell
coverage in the county.
In 2011 he co-sponsored
the telecommunications act
that grew out of the SEDHGA
committee. He said the bill
served as one step in the state’s
broader path toward statewide
cell coverage.
“Retire Vermont Yankee as
scheduled in 2012,” he reads on
the brochure.
“Well, you can’t win them
all,” he said.
Galbraith is running against
fellow Democrats, incumbent
Senator Jeannette White of
Putney and challenger Mary
Cain of Brattleboro, for one of
two Senate seats in the Aug. 28
primary.
Skills and floor
debates
Galbraith describes himself
as “a fighter,” willing to stand
to protect Vermont, its sense
of community, and strive for
fairness in the government and
economy.
“I believe we ought to be
taking care of each other,” he
said, adding that he likes to
take a “pragmatic” approach
when finding solutions to policy
questions.
Galbraith complimented
the work of his colleagues on
the Windham County delegation, who he feels share a deep
commitment to Vermonters.
Although he came to the group
with a different set of experiences, he believes that his skills
fit with those of other Windham
County lawmakers.
When asked what were
his weaknesses as a Senator?
Galbraith laughed, responding,
“I work too hard.”
When that response didn’t fly,
he nodded and admitted that he
can be impatient with the political process.
After 24 years in federal government, Galbraith said he’s
“mindful” of inefficiencies in
Montpelier.
Galbraith pointed to the
Senate and House not working
on the same bills simultaneously,
and a failure of Senate leadership
to schedule important bills earlier
in the session. In his opinion, a
better schedule could shorten the
legislative session by two months.
The amount of committee
work also irks him. According to
Galbraith, the Senate routinely
deferred to committees, rather
than opening an issue to debate
on the floor.
Decisions made during a floor
debate are made by the entire
Senate, he said. In contrast, committee decisions depend on five
to seven committee members.
Galbraith said he was more effective when he operated on the
Senate floor than in committee.
He plans to continue bringing
big issues to the floor for debate.
The voters elected their
Senators and are entitled to a
record of the representatives’
voting record. In contrast with
Senate activity on the floor,
which is streamed on the Internet
and recorded, unless the public
is physically in the committee
room, much of the record is lost.
A lot of discussions in committee
happen among people without
any special expertise with only
lobbyists in the room, he said.
Although the meetings are
taped, Galbraith considers those
records essentially “inaccessible”
to the general public.
“On the whole, the leadership would prefer to not debate
the big issues,” he said adding,
“There’s a little too much of the
herd mentality [in Montpelier].”
Randolph T. Holhut/Commons file photo
State Sen. Peter Galbraith is going for his second
term in the Vermont Senate.
toward a second term.
“At this stage of my life, I’m
not looking for a higher office,”
he said. “I’m very proud of my
public service career. There’s
more to do.”
Galbraith spent 24 years as a
diplomat before returning full
time to Vermont.
He still laments the
Legislature’s vote against studying a proposed state purchase of
the VELCO transmission lines.
Galbraith, Illuzzi, and Timothy
Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, proposed
the amendment, calling on the
state to set aside $250,000 for
the study.
Seven Days reported Feb. 10
that Senate President Pro Tem
John Campbell had “called the
idea crazy” and “called Illuzzi
into a closed-door meeting with
the chairs of the Senate Finance
and Appropriations committees
to cut a deal to avoid the floor
amendment.” Galbraith and
Ashe were not invited.
Galbraith interprets the legislature’s resistance to the idea as
pressure from special interests.
According to Galbraith, the
electricity transmission network
comes with a 14 percent rate of
return. The state could have borrowed the money to purchase the
network at 3 percent.
“I think that is something we
are going to regret, like we regret
not buying the Connecticut River
dams,” he said.
He also expresses disappointment about the House’s defeat
of his amendment aimed at returning $21 million to Central
Vermont Public Service (CVPS)
ratepayers as a condition of the
company’s merger with Green
Mountain Power. The amendment required electric utilities
that have received a loan from
the ratepayers to repay the loan.
The Senate passed the
amendment.
In Galbraith’s opinion, the
electric utilities received a
“sweetheart deal,” while the
CVPS customers “were ripped
off.”
He concedes work in the legislature sometimes proved frustrating. “All legislatures are.”
That’s because the Montpelier
establishment doesn’t like
change, he said.
“I make no apologies. Yes, I
made people uncomfortable,”
he said of his direct nature
that sometimes teetered into
confrontational.
Next session, Galbraith anticipates health-care reform to top
the list of issues.
“[Vermont] has the potential
to change the way health care is
done in the U.S.,” he said.
But, the state must finance
Green Mountain Care. The
GMC board will present its plan
for the health-care system to the
Legislature by early 2013.
Galbraith plans to “take an
active role” in the process. He
hopes the state will develop a
system that maximizes federal
funding. He agrees with Dr.
William Hsiao’s recommendation that the state enact a payroll tax to help pay for the new
health-care system.
According to Galbraith, businesses could write off this tax as
a business expense.
Galbraith cites environmental
issues as a passion. Commercial
wind projects top his list of
undesirables.
Vermont’s “extraordinary
beauty” stems from its natural environment and its sense
of community, he said, adding
that “the idea of industrial wind
[projects] on ridge lines when it’s
opposed by the local community
is wrong.”
According to Galbraith, wind
power in Vermont is intermittent, yet requires damaging fragile ecosystems and disrupting
communities.
“None of that is compensated,” he said.
He plans to co-sponsor a bill
requiring commercial wind projects to receive a thumbs-up from
all the affected towns.
“If local communities want
it, fine,” he said. “But if they
don’t, I don’t think it should be
rammed down their throats.”
Galbraith has not dropped the
torch he carried last session for
campaign finance.
“It is a disgrace that Vermont
allows direct contributions to
candidates when they’ve been
banned under federal law since
1907,” he said.
House and Senate races in
Vermont cost very little compared to other races. Donations
totaling $100,000 to various candidates are “peanuts” to most
corporations, but have a “huge
impact” in the state, he said.
To him, the irony of the
Legislature voting in this year
against the Citizens United decision is that while it’s voting one
way, candidates simultaneously
say, “But don’t take away my
corporate check.”
Galbraith self-financed his
2010 campaign. He does not
apologize for having the deepenough pockets from which to
pay his own way.
“I was elected by the people of
Windham County, and I wasn’t
elected with an asterisk,” he said.
‘There’s more
to do’
Galbraith said he’s looking
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T h e C o m m ons
• Wednesday, August 1, 2012 NEWS
A3
SPECIAL FOCUS: ELECTION 2012
Working together to affect public policy
Jeanette White seeks her
sixth term in State Senate
By Olga Peters
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—
Downtown bakes under a summer’s sun. Humid air sticks to
the skin and clothes of pedestrians shuffling from one air-conditioned building to another.
Inside Mocha Joe’s, Windham
County Senator Jeanette White
drinks an iced coffee. While
other patrons melt into their
seats, White grins.
Fresh from a presentation
with fellow legislators to highschool students participating
in the Governor’s Institute
— Current Issues and Youth
Activism, White is animated. She
talks about student free speech
and the censoring of student
newspapers.
School administrators have
blacked out portions of student
newspaper articles, she said.
She points to disturbing consequences if such censorship is
allowed.
“If kids never learn to say
things in a civil way, how do we
expect adults to do it?” she asked.
White, a Democrat from
Putney, is vying for one of two
Senate Windham County seats
in Montpelier. She will go against
fellow Democrats — incumbent
Peter Galbraith of Townshend
and newcomer Mary Cain of
Brattleboro — in the Aug. 28
primary.
If re-elected, White will serve
her sixth term.
“I grew up with the notion that
you had to be involved,” said
White of her inspiration to take
up political life.
In an indirect way,
McCarthyism helped launch
n Fuel pool
Employees didn’t follow
proper procedures, Williams
said. Entergy Corp., which owns
the plant, will be reviewing maintenance protocols.
Vermont Yankee did not send
out a press release about the incident. Williams said notifying the
public was not necessary because
safety wasn’t at issue.
Neil Sheehan, spokesman
for the Region 1 District office for the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, said the plant has
clear-cut reporting criteria. If a
fire at the plant lasts for more
than 15 minutes or if offsite firefighting assistance is called in, for
example, the plant is required
to report.
This incident, he said, “fell in
the category of not having to be
reported because it was a very
low level risk and it was caught
quickly.” Employees were not at
risk of exposure to radiation because the amount of water over
the assemblies provides ample
shielding, he said.
The NRC’s resident inspector
is reviewing the incident, he said.
“There’s no good reason for
this to happen at any point,”
White’s political career.
White said she grew up in
a “politically committed family” in Minnesota. Her parents
belonged to the DemocraticFarmer-Labor Party and were
members of the National
Farmers Union. They became
involved in politics out of embarrassment by both U.S. Sen.
Joseph McCarthy and the
Wisconsin Republican’s antiCommunist crusade that damaged the lives and careers of
many liberals in America.
In her school years in the
1960s, White said she participated in anti-war protests and
the Civil Rights movement.
“When I wasn’t getting in
trouble in school for defying the
rules, my mother was,” White
said.
After moving to Vermont,
White served nine years on the
Putney Selectboard.
“I really like doing public policy,” said White about why she
remains in public service.
Advocacy and policymaking
are not the same thing, she said.
Acting as an advocate is simpler, White said. An advocate
only thinks of his or her mission.
Policymakers have to consider
everyone under their purview.
White enjoys working through
a tough problem and finding a
solution benefitting Vermonters.
Not all issues are black and
white, she said. The 40,000
people in Windham County
will have “40,000 different
opinions.”
Sometimes people can or can’t
compromise on policy, she said,
“but compromise is not bad and
does not dilute the necessary.”
Consideration for how
from SECTION FRONT
Sheehan said. “It speaks to human error and attention to detail,
no question about that.”
Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear
engineer and former member
of a Vermont Yankee oversight
panel, said several steps in a
procedure were skipped by employees. He is concerned about
oversight and employee training
at the plant as older workers retire. Procedures, he said, must
be much more specific.
“It’s a big deal, it’s a safetyrelated system, we’re not talking about mowing the lawn at
VY,” Gundersen said. “There’s
300,000 gallons in the pool, and
it lost 1 percent of the water in
30 minutes. It is radioactive water, it’s not like what you put in
a water cooler.”
Gundersen said last year employees worked on the wrong diesel engine. One was shut down
and they inadvertently shut the
other one down, he said. “These
kinds of mistakes shouldn’t be
happening,” Gundersen said.
The NRC treated the incident as “business as usual,”
Gundersen said.
Randolph T. Holhut/Commons file photo
State Sen. Jeanette White is going for her sixth term
in the Vermont Senate.
her decisions might affect
Vermonters’ lives underlies all
White’s policy considerations.
Even the best system can generate negative consequences,
she said.
“Nobody writes a budget so
they can hurt people,” White
said.
White anticipates healthcare reform and job creation to
dominate the upcoming legislative session.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling deeming the federal
Affordable Care Act as constitutional removed immediate uncertainty surrounding Vermont’s
Green Mountain Care plan.
Determining how to pay for
the state’s new health-care plan
and designing equitable coverage are the next hurdles, she said.
Fallout from Tropical Storm
Irene still lurks in the joints of
Vermont’s economy. How the
state reacts to the pressures on
the economy will determine
whether jobs are saved or created, she said.
White was disappointed the
Legislature did not delve into
the state’s open meetings law
last session.
She pledged to continue working on issues of government
transparency. She also wants to
continue her focus on campaign
financing — like which people
make contributions, and how
they do so.
White feels voters have the
right to know who donates to
political candidates. White wants
PACs (political action committees) to list their donors.
She said she hopes to help
change Vermont’s corrections
and judicial system. The state
imprisons people who might not
need to sit behind bars, she said,
and some inmates require mental health services, not jail time.
The Legislature had a good
bill to decriminalize marijuana
in last session, said White. She
hopes to pick the bill up in 2013.
According to White, people who offend yet stay out of
jail are less likely to re-offend.
When someone enters the prison
system, inmates often acquire
“new skills” that lead them to
new crimes.
Finally, said White, parole often carries “insane standards”
that most people can’t meet.
White estimates it costs about
$55,000 a year to house a male
prisoner and about $70,000 for
a female prisoner. What if the
state took that money and spent
it on other restorative justice programs, she asks.
College is cheaper than jail,
and the results are better for everyone, she said.
White chairs the Senate
Committee on Government
Operations and serves on
the Senate Committee on
Judiciary. For her first six years
in Montpelier, she served on the
health-care committee and later
on the institutions committee.
She loves serving on “government ops,” which she described
as the committee that takes on
the structure and issues central
to Vermont’s democracy.
When she served on institutions committee, White said it
wasn’t her first choice, “but you
serve your constituents wherever
you are, and everyone has to play
with the team.”
When asked about her legislative achievements, White said,
“None of us can take individual
credit for anything.”
White said that over her five
terms, she has worked on multiple big decisions like the 2010
vote to deny Vermont Yankee
a Certificate of Public Good
hearing.
White said she also introduced
legislation to regulate genetically
modified organisms (GMOs)
in her second term, worked on
health-care reform, and pushed
to pass marriage equality. She is
also the main sponsor of legislation to help undocumented farm
workers.
“There’s very little any of
us can take accolades for,” she
stressed again, adding that she
thinks voters should know their
legislators work hard but that
they should refrain from taking
individual credit.
Credit is due, she said, for
working with 180 legislators and
getting bills passed.
White’s first term taught her
the lesson of building relationships in Montpelier.
Constituents at Santa’s Land
in Putney contacted White. Park
owners solicited help with getting
permission to house elephants
at the former park. The business had a permit from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture but
couldn’t get one from Vermont
Fish and Wildlife.
White took up the cause, hoping to change the state’s classification of elephants to domestic
animals to make the permit possible for Santa’s Land.
According to White, the male
Republican legislators stopped
saying “hi” when they passed
her in the hall, swapping the
greeting for imitations of elephants. White’s work became
the brunt of four end-of-session
cabaret skits.
Although she said the reclassification attempt eventually
tanked for another reason, the incident taught her to always work
with the Montpelier relationship
system among fellow legislators,
voters, and lobbyists.
“The lobbyists are
Vermonters,” she said at the
mention of the loaded job title.
According to White, a lobbyist for Monsanto one year
might well work for the Sheriffs’
Association the next.
“We don’t have D.C.-style
lobbyists,” she said.
A difference of working styles
raised its head last session when
White and fellow Windham
County Senator Galbraith served
on the government operations
committee.
One point of contention was
White’s lapse in delivering the
campaign finance bill to Senate
leadership after it was voted out
of the government operations
committee in 2011.
“I have to admit I just forgot
about it,” she said, adding that
she had expected that the Senate
wouldn’t take up the bill since
the body was busy with redistricting. “It’s a bad thing to do,
but that’s what happened.”
Although he had voted against
the bill in committee, Galbraith
wanted to introduce amendments once the bill hit the Senate
floor.
After receiving questions from
the press about the bill’s whereabouts in January 2012, White
said she realized she hadn’t delivered it. She found the bill accidentally filed with other draft
bills.
“I’ll take full responsibility for
it,” she said. “I should have never
misplaced it.”
White said the pair took different approaches to issues and
disagreed on solutions.
They often agreed, however,
on the issues themselves, she
said.
White stressed that the disharmonious relationship never
harmed Windham County’s
representation.
To White, the benefits of good
policy and working relationships
extend beyond counties to the
entire state.
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NEWS A4
AROUND THE TOWNS
Family-friendly policies
Newcomer Cain sets sights on State Senate
Paid family leave
By Olga Peters
The Commons
BRATTLEBORO—State senate hopeful Mary Cain’s bright
blazer adds spark to the atmosphere of the The Works Bakery
Cafe in downtown Brattleboro.
“It’s critical to realize that the
very same tools for managing a
family, decision making, budgeting time and money are the same
as being able to multitask in the
field of politics,” said Cain reading from her two typed pages of
talking points.
“Encouraging women to run is
critical to making family-friendly
policies in the work place,” she
said.
The Democratic candidate is
challenging fellow Democratic
incumbents Jeanette White of
Putney and Peter Galbraith
of Townshend in the Aug. 28
primary.
Cain has centered her campaign on developing familyfriendly policies such as paid
parental leave, equal pay, ending childhood hunger, and revitalizing Windham County’s
economy.
Cain, a justice of the peace,
Brattleboro Town Meeting
Member, and single mother, said
she has won every race she has
entered. A keen ability to “frame
the conversation” underscores
her success, she said.
Cain’s resume on the networking website LinkedIn lists years
of event planning and marketing
experience.
For Cain, running for the state
senate serves as a natural progression for her as a woman active in her community.
“We have to change the face
of political leadership so that
women look like that they are
your next door neighbor, who
jogs, organizes clothing drives,
schleps her kids to soccer practice and still represents her community,” said Cain.
Like the protagonist of the
film Slumdog Millionaire, Cain
said she feels her entire life has
prepared her for to serve as State
Senator.
“Women are acting in the
community. It’s only natural they
should seek to make a difference
in politics and policy,” she said.
“I have been advocating for
most of my life, starting from the
first election [class president] I
won in 1974,” she said. “I have
been at school board meetings,
town and Selectboard meetings, interactive TV, and at the
State Capital giving testimony
for issues.”
She counts former governor
and ambassador Madeleine M.
Kunin as a mentor and referenced Kunin’s 2008 book Pearls,
Politics, and Power: How Women
BCTV
Mary Cain, a justice of
the peace, is running as a
newcomer to state office.
Can Win and Lead throughout
the interview.
In that book, Kunin writes
about the need for a new “political leadership” in America.
In the introduction, Kunin attributes a quote to 17-year-old
Jessica Riegel, and her mother,
who wrote to Kunin saying, “We
have to change the face of political leadership so that ‘the woman
who looks like their next-door
neighbor, who jogs in the morning, who loves horror movies,
spills coffee, organizes clothing
drives, schleps her kids to soccer practice and orders takeout,
is responsible and driven enough
to represent them [the voters]’.”
“You can be assured that I will
listen, I will help, and I will try to
revitalize our Windham County
community through getting more
jobs, by thinking Vermont in decision-making and by helping to
show how by working together,
all of us can make Vermont a
better place to live for ourselves
and future generations,” she said.
Cain said she has listened
to the concerns of seniors at
Brattleboro’s Melrose Terrace
housing complex afraid they’ll
be forced to leave their homes.
She said she has also heard the
concerns of new graduates facing
the decision to leave their home
state to find jobs.
She said she would like to see
Vermont partner with local food
suppliers to eliminate childhood
hunger.
“I’d like to see a program implemented similar to WIC in
which [food] is delivered to the
homes of our most vulnerable
senior population, which would
help sustain these Vermonters
with a minimum of healthy food
so that they can stretch their
Social Security dollars for other
areas.” said Cain.
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Pointing to Europe, Cain said
that paid family leave could act
as an economic development
driver by supporting women’s
earning potential, removing the
fear some women carry of losing
their job if they choose to have
a child, equalizing gender roles,
and making Vermont an attractive place to potential businesses
looking to relocate.
“The marketing possibilities
are endless in implementing this
small change,” said Cain.
In her own experience,
California’s paid family leave
program helped her raise her
three small children while living
on the West Coast. She said she
empathizes with single parents
trying to juggle family duties
while trying to make ends meet.
Cain, who once worked as
a caterer, said she helped set
up the delivery of leftover food
from events she has supervised
to shelters.
Her experience in catering
brought Cain to work at the
Vermont Yankee nuclear power
station in Vernon, helping to
feed refueling outage contractors. This experience provided
insight into the VY issue from
both outside and inside the plant,
she said.
The prospect of more green
energy projects in Vermont also
excites Cain, she said.
Disappointment inspired
Cain to run for state senate. She
expressed frustration with aspects of Vermont government,
like the languishing of the early
education workers unionization
bill, H.97.
Cain said it’s hard for lower
to middle income Vermonters
to take an active role in politics. The time commitment facing Vermont’s citizen legislators
requires them to have financial
stability before running for office. For Cain, meeting this need
translates into someone who
is wealthy, retired, or self-employed, she said.
Windham County residents
need someone who understands
them, said Cain. The county also
needs a passionate marketing
professional to promote the area.
Cain said, if elected, she would
travel to trade shows to help attract environmental and familyfriendly companies to the region.
On her campaign website,
www.cain4vt.com, Cain also celebrates her Cavendish childhood, lists herself as a member of
the Brattleboro District Agency
of Human Services Advisory
T h e C o m m o ns
Rockingham Old Home Days
returns to town this weekend
ROCKINGHAM—For the
first time in more than a decade, Rockingham Old Home
Days is back in The Square.
The Great Falls Regional
Chamber of Commerce, the
Bellows Falls Downtown
Development Alliance, the
town of Rockingham, and the
Old Home Days Committee
teamed up bring this annual
celebration back downtown.
With the exception of an
antique truck show at Bellows
Falls Union High School,
all the events scheduled on
Saturday, Aug. 4, will be in and
around The Square.
The day begins with the
Bring It Home 5K road race
in the morning. The rest of the
day features a sidewalk sale,
live music from local bands,
games and children’s activities, a pizza and ice cream eating contest, and assorted other
activities before the day ends
with a fireworks display starting at 9:30 p.m.
Food vendors will be on
hand from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.,
and American Legion Post 37
will host a chicken barbecue
from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. A townwide tag sale will also be held.
For a complete schedule
of events, go to www.gfcc.org,
or visit the Rockingham Old
Home Days Facebook page.
Brattleboro, Westminster receive
economic development grants
BRATTLEBORO—Two
Windham County projects
are among the recipients of
seven Vermont Community
Development Program grants
totaling $1.9 million that were
announced by Gov. Peter
Shumlin and Commerce and
Community Development
Secretary Lawrence Miller
at a ceremony July 27 in
Morristown.
The town of Brattleboro will
be getting $325,000 for a loan
to Carbon Harvest Energy,
which will complete work on an
agricultural facility and create
nine new jobs in the process.
Located at the Windham
Solid Waste Management
District facility on Old Ferry
Road, Carbon Harvest is currently generating 250 kilowatts
of electricity from methane gas
from the decomposing trash in
the now-closed 30-acre landfill.
The company plans to use
the waste heat from electric
generation to heat a 20,000
square foot greenhouse for
year-round aquaculture and
Council 2007-2010, and details
her pride at being the granddaughter of a veteran who served
in the Navy’s Construction
Battalions, otherwise known at
Seabees.
The website states that she
possesses traditional family
values, earned a University
of Vermont degree, and is
what she called an “unofficial
Ambassador” for Vermont.
“I hope the people of
Windham County think it’s a
great match,” she said.
Cain’s website also promotes
her as “an award winning Justice
of the Peace.”
During the interview, Cain
said she understood that no
plant production.
grant, which it will loan to the
According to the company’s Windham & Windsor Housing
website, carbonharvestenergy. Trust for the renovation of a
com/projects/brattleboro-carbon- multi-family residential buildharvest, the system will supply ing in the village of North
high quality fish and fresh veg- Westminster.
etables to local markets, with a
The renovation will increase
portion going to the Vermont the total number of affordable
Foodbank.
units from four to six.
Carbon Harvest president
The Vermont Community
Robert McCormick described D e v e l o p m e n t P r o g r a m
the process in October 2010 money comes from the apwhen the Brattleboro facility p r o x i m a t e l y $ 7 m i l l i o n
opened. He said nutrient-rich Vermont receives annually
water from the recirculating in Community Development
aquaculture system will be Block Grant funds from the
filtered and then recycled as U.S. Department of Housing
fertilizer for plants grown hy- and Urban Development,
droponically, a technology which must be used principally
known as “aquaponics.” This to benefit persons of low and
water will also be used, along moderate income.
with carbon dioxide from the
The awards leverage more
power plant, for a research than $13 million in other
project to grow algae for bio- funds from private and pubfuels and feed.
lic sources.
As McCormick described
The state awards the comit, it will be a “circular model petitive grants based on recthat is sustainable and wastes ommendations of the Vermont
nothing.”
Community Development
The town of Westminster B o a r d a n d a p p r o v a l o f
also received a $150,000 Secretary Miller.
awards exist for justices of the
peace.
Cain explained this sobriquet
as “semantics.” Cain said that
she has won numerous awards
since the 1970s, including a
recipe contest. She is also a justice of the peace. Therefore,
this combination earns her the
title of award-winning justice of
the peace.
Cain landed in hot water this
month when she signed a marriage license for the wedding of
Jennifer Dusenbery and Michael
Martin, now deceased — a wedding Cain did not officiate at.
This action is against
Vermont statute. The Vermont
State Police confirmed it
is investigating the incident,
but would not comment
whether Cain is targeted in the
investigation.
Despite the flap, Cain is seeking support.
“My campaign is a grassroots
one which focuses on issues, not
in wasting money on signs that
are strewn all over our Vermont
landscape and then frequently
left for weeks, unpicked up,”
said Cain. “The money that I
spend will be in getting the message out to Vermonters, so that if
they wish to see real change, then
they should join the Citizens for
Cain campaign and elect me to
represent them.”
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THE COMMONS
NEWS
A5
MILESTONES
Births, deaths, and news of people from Windham County
Obituaries
• N a n c y J.
Burbank, 65 ,
of Townshend.
Died July 25
at home. Wife
of John H.
Burbank for 33
years. Mother of
Melissa Burbank-Gonzalez and
her husband, David Gonzalez,
of Dover, N.H., and the late
Mark Dennis Shuey. Stepmother
of Patricia Burbank Lloyd of
Audenried, Pa., Sandra Burbank
Zarek of Cheshire, Mass.,
and the late Yvonne Burbank
Hudson. Born in Montpelier, the
daughter of Helen (Seckington)
and the late William Dillon, she
was raised in Brattleboro and
graduated from Brattleboro
Union High School in 1965. She
worked for many years as a telephone customer service representative at the Edge Company
and received many awards for
her outstanding service to customers. MEMORIAL INFORMATION : A service will be held to
celebrate her life at St. Michael’s
Roman Catholic Church in
Brattleboro on Saturday Aug.
4, 2012 at noon. Following the
service, there will be a reception
at a site to be determined later.
Donations to the Grace Cottage
Hospital’s Messenger Valley
Pharmacy renovation and expansion fund, in care of the Grace
Cottage Foundation, P.O. Box
1, Townshend, VT 05353.
• Robert
“ R o b b ” T.
Cross, 61, of
and prided herself on regular
completion of the Sunday New
York Times crossword puzzle.
Most of all, she enjoyed many
special times with friends and
family, in Durham, Tucson,
and Wilmington. MEMOR I A L
INFORMATION: A service to celebrate her life will be held on
Saturday, Aug. 18, at 10 a.m.,
at Our Lady of Fatima Church
in Wilmington, with burial to
follow in Riverview Cemetery.
Donations to UNC Hospice,
P.O. Box 1077, Pittsboro, NC
27312, or UNC Lineberger
Comprehensive Cancer
Center, External Affairs Office,
UNC-CH CB 7295, Chapel Hill,
NC 27599-7295.
• D o r o t hy
Elizabeth
“ D o t ”
Parenchuck,
9 1 , formerly
of Brattleboro.
Died July 26
at Maplewood
Nursing Home in Westmoreland,
N.H. Wife of the late Chester
W. Parenchuck for 60 years.
Mother of Rose Noel of Dracut,
Mass, Carol Nason of Groton,
Mass, Dawn Whitney of
Richmond, N.H., and Donna
Foster of Orange, Mass. Sister
of George, Donald, Richard,
and Everett Field, Jr., Rose Fate,
and Florence Geso. Stepsister
of Wendell Cook. Born in
Hinsdale, N.H., the daughter
of the late Everett and Eveline
(Stewart) Field, she graduated
from Hinsdale High School,
Class of 1939. She had been a
former resident of Orange and
Brattleboro, and prior to becoming a patient at Maplewood,
she made her home with her
daughter, Dawn, in Richmond,
N.H. She had been employed
at the former Erving Paper Mill
in Erving, Mass. and Georgia
Pacific Paper Mill in Brattleboro,
where she retired from in 1986.
Previously, she had worked for
N.D. Cass Toys in Athol, Mass.
She had attended St. Mary’s
Catholic Church in Orange.
She enjoyed ceramics, knitting,
and bowling. She also cherished time spent with her family, especially her grandchildren.
MEMORIAL INFORMATION: A funeral services was held July 31
at Atamaniuk Funeral Home in
Brattleboro, with burial in Pine
Grove Cemetery in Hinsdale,
where she was laid to rest next
to her husband. Donations to
Maplewood Nursing Home,
201 River Rd., Westmoreland,
NH 03467.
Brattleboro.
Died July 21
of cancer.
Son of Arthur
and Helen
(Talmadge) Cross. Father of
Jason T. Cross and Jesse CrossNickerson. Brother of Edward
Cross. Significant other of Doris
Severinghaus. He was an accomplished sailor and enjoyed
sailing “Limin,” his own boat,
and spending time with his boating friends in Rhode Island.
He was a NASCAR enthusiast, racing his own cars in his
younger days. He also played
guitar in rock and blues bands
throughout his life. He loved vacationing in the Caribbean, Bob
Marley, and a good rum cocktail. The company of his family and many friends gave him
great joy. MEMORIAL INFORMATION : A celebration of his life
was held July 28 at his home.
Donations to the Nicholas G.
• Jeffrey
L. Sheehan,
Giamartino Scholarship Fund,
in care of Brattleboro Union
27, of Weston.
High School, 131 Fairground
Died July 19
Road, Brattleboro, VT 05301,
at the Rutland
and the Oncology Department at
Regional
Brattleboro Memorial Hospital,
Medical Center.
17 Belmont Ave., Brattleboro,
Son of George
VT 05301. Condolences may and Marianne Carroll of Weston.
be sent to Atamaniuk Funeral
Home at www.atamaniuk.com.
• Albert Ernest Johnson,
69, of West Dover. Died June
20 in Franklin, Tenn. Son of the
late Ernest Albert and Lea Marie
Kanerva Johnson. Former husband of Sharon Johnson. Brother
of Ron Johnson. He was an insurance agent and served in the
Army in Vietnam. MEMORIAL INFORMATION: Graveside services
with military honors were held
July 28 at Spring Hill Memorial
Park. Donations to Windham
County Humane Society, P.O.
Box 397, Brattleboro, VT 05302.
• L a n a
W a r n e r
Palumbo, 75,
of Durham,
N.C., formerly
of Wilmington.
Died July 25 at
her home following a long illness. Mother of
Andrew Palumbo and his wife,
Kristina, of Durham. Born in
Bangor, Maine, the daughter of
the late Gordon Chase Warner
and Hazel Thorne Warner.
She was a direct descendant of
Andrew Warner, who in 1636
was a founder of Hartford,
Conn., with the Rev. Thomas
Hooker. She graduated from
Smith College in 1959 with a
Bachelor of Science degree.
Following graduation, she spent
four years as a research biologist at Yale. In 1963, she spent
her first winter in Vermont and
relocated permanently in 1964
running the Handle House Inn.
During a period that encompassed nearly four decades, starting in 1968, she was involved
with Art on the Mountain, serving as chairwoman for several
years. She was also a member of
the board of the Deerfield Valley
Health Center Volunteers, and
her organizational skills were
important to the extraordinary
financial success of that project.
She was Administrative Assistant
for the town of Wilmington as
well as a Lister, serving the town
faithfully from 1991 until 2008,
when she moved to Durham
to be closer to her grandchildren. She was an avid reader,
Brother of April Brown of
Chester; Amber Hubner and
her husband, Jason, of Putney,
Erin Carroll of Weston, Patricia
Carroll of Ft. Myers, Fla, and
Christian Carroll of Miami, Fla.
Born in Brattleboro, he attended
Flood Brook Elementary School
in Londonderry and graduated
from Burr & Burton Academy,
Class of 2006. He was employed
at the Vermont Country Store in
Weston. He enjoyed landscaping and did odd jobs for many
people in the town of Weston.
He was also assistant sexton
at the Old Parish Church. He
loved life, loved people, and
was an advocate for his friends
with disabilities. He loved playing video games, enjoyed comedy, and was an avid fan of the
Red Sox and the Patriots. He
also enjoyed swimming, hiking,
kayaking, yoga, horseback riding, skiing, snowshoeing, cooking and fishing, and he loved
animals. MEMORIAL INFORMATION : A memorial service will
be celebrated on Sunday, Aug.
5, at 2 p.m., at the Old Parish
Church in Weston. Donations to
the Old Parish Church, P.O. Box
125, Weston, VT 05161, or to
Lincoln Street Global Campus,
374 River St., Springfield, VT
05156.
• Christine Alison (Rice)
Soule, 43, of Sanford, Maine,
formerly of Rockingham. Died
July 22 at the Gosnell Memorial
Hospice House. Mother of
Kelsey and Jensen Doiron of
Sanford. Sister of Howard Rice
Jr. of Falmouth, Mass., Rebecca
Thompson of Richmond, and
Amy Sciacca of Westminster.
Born in Rockingham, daughter of Howard and Donna
(Nims) Rice, she graduated
from Bellows Falls Union High
School and received a Bachelor
of Music degree from Keene
State College. Music brought
her joy and she spread that love
of music throughout her life. She
moved to Maine in 1992, and began teaching piano lessons, both
privately and through Sanford
Community Adult Education.
She also served as Sanford High
School Marching Band Assistant
and Color Guard Instructor for
six years. Her true passion was
working with children, and she
was proud of her 10 years as a
teacher at St. Thomas School
and her four years at Wells
Elementary School. She was
a compassionate person and
spent time working with others through both Home Instead
Senior Care and Waban, Inc.
She spent many summers working for the Sanford Recreation
Department and for the past nine
years had volunteered tireless
hours as a coach, board member, registrar, and VP through
the Sanford Soccer Association.
Her most important and beloved job was raising her two
girls. M E MOR I A L I N F OR M A TION : A funeral Mass was held
July 25, at St. Therèse of Lisieux
Parish, Holy Family Church,
in Sanford, with interment on
July 26 at the New Westminster
Cemetery. Donations to Safe
Haven Humane Society, 1616
Post Rd., Wells, ME 04090.
College news
• C a s ey A . D e M a r s i c o
of Newfane and B e t h E .
Honsaker of Putney both received first honors on the Clark
University Dean’s List for the
Spring 2012 semester. Adam
P. Boyle of Brattleboro and
Daphne L. Kinney-Landis of
Guilford received second honors.
• Ashley Morgan, a junior
majoring in chemical engineering, from West Townshend, and
William Parker of Guilford, a
freshman majoring in mechanical
engineering, both were named
to the Dean’s List at Worcester
Polytechnic Institute for the
Spring 2012 semester.
• Nicole Daniels, a junior
majoring in chemistry and political science from Brattleboro,
was named to the Dean’s List at
Hartwick College for the Spring
2012 semester.
• Benjamin Harwood of
Brattleboro was named to the
Dean’s List at Tufts University
for the Spring 2012 semester.
School news
• Elise Huntley, a homeschooled student from
Wilmington, recently received a
bronze medal in State University
of New York at Oswego’s second annual GENIUS (Global
Environmental Issues — U.S.)
Olympiad, a global high school
science, art, creative writing,
and design competition focused
on the environment. Huntley
presented a science project titled “Are Macroinvertebrates
Vermont Strong? Monitoring
One Stream’s Recovery and
Water Quality after Tropical
Storm Irene and Investigating
the Conventional Belief that
Flooding and Stream Dredging
Have an Inverse Impact on the
Overall Health of a Stream” during an exhibition in the college’s
Campus Center arena at the
GENIUS finals.
Editor’s note: The Commons
will publish brief biographical information for citizens of Windham
County and others, on request, as
community news, free of charge.
Submit obituaries, births, scholarships, high-school and college
achievements, awards, and the
like to news@commonsnews.org.
Deadline is Friday for the following week’s paper.
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To place your employment ad,
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Dutton
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Farmstand & Bakery Help
Full or Part-Time
8:00 AM – 7:30PM • Includes Weekends
Apply in person
rte 30, newfane or rte 9, West Brattleboro
Brattleboro Housing Authority
PROPERTY MANAGER
The Brattleboro Housing Authority has an exciting opportunity
for a Property Manager with responsibility for 3 sites and a total
of 132 housing units. The successful candidate will have excellent
skills and abilities in: property management; regulatory interpretation, compliance and enforcement; interpersonal relations;
verbal and written communication, work organization and computer competency. Experience in property management, assisted
housing or working with low-income individuals is desirable,
but not essential. Send resumes to chhart@sover.net or Christine
Hart, ED, BHA, P.O. Box 2275, Brattleboro, VT 05303.
Closing date is August 10, 2012.
Position open immediately. EOE.
Public Housing caPital imProvement
and redeveloPment manager
The Brattleboro Housing Authority has an Immediate opening for a
Capital Improvement & Redevelopment Manager to manage the capital
fund program including all procurement, construction projects and
Needs Assessment, as well as the redevelopment of public housing sites.
Experience in nonprofit housing development in Vermont helpful, but
other nonprofit or public housing development experience is sufficient.
Must be a detail-oriented team leader with excellent communication and
computer skills and experience in development collaboration.
Send resumes to chhart@sover.net or Christine Hart, ED, BHA,
P.O. Box 2275, Brattleboro, VT 05303.
Closing date is August 10, 2012. Position open immediately. EOE.
Medical Receptionist needed for a busy clinic.
Must have strong people, phone and computer skills, and
be able to multi-task in a fast paced, team oriented office
environment. This is a part-time M-F position with shift
ending typically by 7:30pm. Pays $9.50 - $10.75 BOE.
Please send resume and cover letter to:
Sojourns Community Health Clinic
Attn: FD 4923 US Rte. 5
Westminster, VT 05158
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NEWS A6
T h e C o m m o ns
n Union Station
from SECTION FRONT
Look up the hill toward
Malfunction Junction, and you
see the new Brattleboro Food
Co-op building, the first major new commercial building
in downtown Brattleboro in
decades.
Finally, look down Depot
Street, toward Merrill Gas and
the Barrows & Fisher fuel depot.
Where construction machinery
and piles of dirt and gravel sat
just a few short weeks ago, now
an iron fence, a new sidewalk, a
freshly-paved parking area, new
streetlights, and a bus shelter
can be seen.
Taken together, the panorama
of progress suddenly hits you.
After more than three decades
of discussion, false starts, bureaucratic snafus, and funding
uncertainties, the Union Station
project is finally becoming real,
and its impact on the lower
end of downtown Brattleboro
near the Whetstone Brook is
undeniable.
On July 25, the town celebrated the progress made on
the Union Station project with
a ribbon-cutting ceremony featuring most of the people who
have been involved in the final
push toward turning an eyesore
into an asset.
A postcard showing Union Station in the 1920s.
The project’s
backstory
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CELEBRATING
20
YEARS!
At a cost of $75,000, Union
Station was built for the Central
Vermont and Boston & Maine
railroads in 1915. For the next
five decades, it served as the
town’s rail center. But when
passenger rail service ended on
Sept. 1, 1966 — the result of the
Interstate Highway System and
changing travel habits — the station closed and quickly fell into
disrepair.
The building was sold to the
town, and there was talk of
tearing it down and turning it
into a parking lot, but instead,
the building was rescued. In
1972, the top two levels became
the home of the Brattleboro
Museum & Art Center. The station’s ground floor became the
new waiting room for passengers when Amtrak resumed rail
service to Brattleboro in 1973.
Instead of becoming a parking
lot, Union Station ended up on
the National Register of Historic
Places in 1974.
But the area around Union
Station still reflected the industrial legacy of Brattleboro,
a legacy that was slowly fading
away. It presented a neglected
landscape to passengers coming
into town on the train.
Veronica “Ronny” Johnson
and Helene Henry wanted to
do something about that, and
pressed the Selectboard in 1977
to apply for grant money to do a
study of the site.
Town Manager Barbara
Sondag said that was when the
first mention of renovations to
Union Station took place at a
Selectboard meeting.
The Selectboard decided to
go forward with a $100,000 feasibility study, and that marked
the beginning a long-running
saga of a project that looked like
it might never happen.
The initial feasibility study was
conducted in the 1970s, but languished for nearly 20 years until
1998, when town officials proposed a two-phase, multi-modal
project that included a downtown parking garage and a refurbished Amtrak station.
The project received $8 million from the Federal Transit
Administration; $1.8 million
in state grants; $4 million in local funds raised by bond issue;
and $1.2 million through other
sources. Sondag credited former
U.S. Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt.,
for providing most of the funds
through the earmark process.
The parking garage, which
also includes a local and intercity bus station, was completed
in 2003, but the Union Station
renovations and the purchase of
land across the tracks from the
station on Depot Street, proved
harder to complete.
Lawsuits, a federal audit of the
project’s funding, environmental concerns, and other delays
forced the project to be scaled
back. Sondag said the original
plan, to build a covered passenger platform, had to be shelved
because the town lost some of
its original funding. The focus
shifted across the tracks.
The town pressed ahead, and
by the end of 2011, work was
finally set to begin on Depot
Street. Sondag said that it took
years of teamwork and determination to get the project to
that point.
“We’re here today to celebrate
a really collaborative effort,” said
Sondag. “There are so many
people that were involved in
this project, and so many unique
problems that we experienced
with this project, that sometimes
I think if we didn’t have each
other, it could have been a really
bad situation.”
Today, and
tomorrow
Work finally began in March
with the demolition of the old
Brattleboro Gasworks and
Scalehouse buildings. The land
was capped with soil and soon
was transformed into a small
park.
A new sidewalk was built in
front of the 17-space parking
area. This will be the new place
for people waiting to pick up or
drop off train passengers, as the
current parking area at the station will be converted into a passenger platform.
A small timber-frame bus
shelter, designed and built by
Monica MacNeille, was installed
near the corner of Bridge and
Depot streets.
Still to come are improvements to the station itself, which
is one of the busiest in Vermont.
“Now we have to work on the
back of the station,” said BMAC
director Danny Lichtenfeld.
“It’s a little scruffy now, but it
wouldn’t take much to make it
look better.”
It could become even busier once upgrades to the rail
line between Brattleboro and
Springfield, Mass., speed up
travel times and return passenger
trains to the Connecticut River
Valley route through Greenfield,
Northampton, and Holyoke,
Mass., on the way to Springfield,
New Haven, Conn., and New
York City.
As for the Union Station
area, one last big piece is still
missing — the construction of
the new Hinsdale-Brattleboro
bridge. The current two bridges
that carry Route 119 over the
Connecticut River were built in
1920, and have been slated for
replacement for years.
However, the state of New
Hampshire, which owns the
bridges, has balked at the estimated nearly $37 million cost
of building the replacement span
downstream between the former
Norm’s Marina and the former
Morse’s Feed Store, and has indefinitely deferred the project.
If the new bridge gets built,
the 1920 spans would become
pedestrian bridges and a longtime traffic bottleneck would be
removed. The new bridge would
cross the railroad tracks, eliminating traffic backups around
Malfunction Junction when
trains pass through.
Also ahead is determining the
next use of the former Archery
Building at 28 Depot St. It was
originally targeted for demolition until the state Division for
Historic Preservation deemed
the 19th century building historically significant and worthy
of saving. Old photographs of
the building from the turn of the
20th century suggest that it was
a meat-packing house.
The Archery Building has
been secured. The town is now
accepting proposals for reuse of
the building. A site visit will be
held on Aug. 7 at 1 p.m.
Proposals are due by 10 a.m.
on Sept. 12. They will then be
reviewed by an ad hoc committee comprised of members of the
town’s Union Station, SBA, and
Arts committees, the Planning
Commission, and the Recreation
and Parks Department, who will
then forward a recommendation
to the Selectboard.
Because the property was
bought with funding from
the Federal Transportation
Authority, it cannot be sold to
a private enterprise. The town
hopes to lease it.
All in all, Sondag said that
while there is still much to do,
the project to this point can be
considered a success.
“We don’t have the project we
initially envisioned back in 1997,
but I hope people will see that we
have a green field where there
used to be a brownfield, that removing the parking to over here
gives us a safe train platform, that
we now have a lovely view when
people get off the train, and that
we’ve removed some fire hazards by removing some derelict
buildings.”
“We’re not finished yet,” she
added, “but I think this is a successful project.“
It was sentiment echoed by
Selectboard Chair Dick DeGray.
“This corner of the community has seen dramatic change
over the past year,“ he said.
“This is what happens when people have a passion in the things
they believe in.”
Henry and Johnson, who
started the ball rolling in 1977,
are still on the Union Station
Committee and were among the
guests at the July 25 ceremony.
Johnson had the honor of cutting
the ribbon.
THE COMMONS
FOOD & DRINK
S E C T I O N B1
B
FOOD & DRINKMonthly
Wednesday,August1,2012
• page B1
Tender
sweet
flavor
can reign
supreme
in the
latesummer
kitchen
Passionate
about
pickling
Author and food maven
Andrea Chesman shows
how it’s not just for
cucumbers anymore
By Richard Henke
Vermont Associates for The Commons
B
RATTLEBORO—
Earlier this month,
celebrated food
writer Andrea
Chesman came to
Everyone’s Books in Brattleboro
to talk pickles.
Facing a table in the bookstore set out with a tantalizing
spread of varieties of homemade pickles for the tasting,
paired with palette-cleansing
crackers, an eager, pickle-crazy
crowd was excited to try her
delicacies. They also longed to
hear this cooking and canning
expert speak to them on the art
of fermenting food at home.
“Millions of Americans
are discovering that growing
and harvesting their own vegetables is only half the fun,”
Chesman said.
“It’s even more gratifying to
preserve that produce for yearround eating — and there’s no
tastier way to stock the pantry
shelves than by making pickles
and relishes.”
Chesman was in Brattleboro
to promote her new book on
pickling, The Pickled Pantry:
From Apples to Zucchini, 150
Recipes for Pickles, Relishes,
Chutneys & More.
A resident of Ripton, a
small town near Middlebury,
Chesman is a food writer and
gardener. Some of the many
cookbooks she has authored
include Recipes from the Root
Cellar, Serving Up the Harvest,
and Pickles and Relishes.
She had been contributing
food editor for Vermont Life
for 10 years, and had a regular column on food in both the
Burlington Free Press and Edible
Green Mountains.
“Mostly, I have written
about vegetables,” she said.
“I’ve also written about cooking with the seasons, roasting vegetables, and healthy
eating.” She co-wrote Mom’s
Best Desserts, Mom’s Best OneDish Suppers, and Mom’s Best
Crowd-Pleasers.
Chesman’s latest work, The
Pickled Pantry, is a guide to
pickling the harvest. She said
the book provides 150 recipes
for pickling everything from
apples to zucchini. “There
are techniques for making
fermented pickles, salsas, relishes, and chutneys; freezer
and refrigerator options; and
recipes that feature pickles
front and center.”
She added that there are
“instructions for single jars
and small batches, as well as
ways to preserve a bumper
crop of produce. Backyard
gardeners, farmers’ market
shoppers, and CSA shareholders will all find what they are
looking for.”
Chessman introduces readers to the foundation techniques of pickling before
delving into the recipes, explaining ingredients, equipment, preparation, and safe
pickling procedures. Profiles
of pickling experts throughout
the book include Sandor Katz,
author of Wild Fermentation;
blogger Tigress in a Pickle;
and Addie Rose Holland and
Dan Rosenberg, owners of
Real Pickles in Greenfield,
Mass.
She was eager in this book
to include voices of others who
are passionate about the art of
pickling.
A whole world
of pickles
Chesman’s pickled recipes
in The Pickled Pantry are astonishingly diverse — from
Korean kimchi to French
herbed jardinière, from chutneys to chow chow, and from
classic bread and butters to
rosemary onion confit, Italian
tomato relish, and old-fashioned watermelon rind pickles.
She explains to her readers how to use all of the pickled produce, with almost 40
recipes for a wide range of
dishes, including fried pickles, creamy dilled smoked fish
pasta salad, oven-baked barbecue ribs, Korean bulgogi tacos
with kimchi, and even German
chocolate sauerkraut cake.
“I got started in pickling
back in 1974 when I worked in
a community garden in Ithaca,
N.Y., as a way to preserve my
first harvest,” she explained.
“I asked my grandmother how
to pickle, and she said you add
just enough salt until you gag.
I guess my gag reflex was not
as developed as hers, because
I did not add nearly enough
STOREY.COM salt. My first attempt at pickA u t h o r A n d r e a ling was a failure, as it came
Chesman.
■ SEE PICKLING, PAGE B4
Simplicity in
SQUASH
ASHLEY E. BLOM (QUARTERLIFECUISINE.COM)/THE COMMONS
Zucchini boats with tomato and cheese: a ridiculously tasty and simple way to use up those unfairly
maligned squash.
A
Brattleboro
UGUST IS a magnifi-
cent month for many
reasons, not the
least of which is that
the zucchini crop seems still
controllable.
An early-morning search in
the garden, gingerly parting
those large prickly leaves, produces delicate green fingers of
squash, a smattering of glorious buttery blossoms with not
a late-season monster in sight.
Zucchini grow at an alarming rate. Those lovely blossoms
can turn into 8-inch fruit in just
a few days. If you are slow to
pick them, you end up with a
garden full of torpedoes. A web
search for “largest zucchini
ever grown” identifies one that
weighs in at 65 pounds. That’s
a lot of zucchini bread.
Many of our mothers
served up all varieties of summer squash in bland, overcooked, mushy mounds whose
tepid, watery residue would
run all over the plate into the
mashed potatoes. Generations
of squash haters were thus
created.
I propose to lure them back.
Harvested while still young
and tender, zucchini and its
cousins — the pattypan and
yellow summer squash — have
more than enough culinary potential and tender sweet flavor
to reign supreme in the latesummer kitchen.
Summer squash is delicious when combined with
fresh herbs, which are themselves just now coming into
their own, or with the addition
of a few early tomatoes, a smattering of scallions, and some
basics like pasta, eggs, and
cheese.
Summer begs simplicity.
CHRISTOPHER
EMILY COUTANT
The World on My Plate
No one wants to spend hours
in the kitchen when the sun
is shining and the outdoors
is calling, so summer foods
should focus on the ingredient,
not some fancy combination of
flavors.
Dinner should be easy to
make; at the same time, it
should showcase the beauty of
the produce we or our neighbor farmers have worked so
hard to grow.
So here are five simple recipes that will make even the
most skeptical among you a believer. These recipes are made
to feed two people (adjust accordingly for more), and they
use uncomplicated ingredients that can all be put together
from start to finish in less than
45 minutes.
Pasta with
summer squash
and zucchini
The other night, the refrigerator yielded some squash —
a great basis for a simple and
delicious pasta dish. There was
a bowl of cherry tomatoes on
the counter and scallions in
the garden, as well as basil and
mint.
Squash does have a high water content, so they need to be
sliced thinly and cooked down
to evaporate some of the liquid
they throw off.
Put on a pot of water to boil for
the pasta.
Dice 3 scallions or 1 small
onion.
Wash 2 small yellow summer squash and 2 small zucchini.
Halve lengthwise, then slice into
thin half moons.
Halve ½ cup of cherry
tomatoes.
Wash and dry ½ cup of basil
leaves and ¼ cup of mint leaves.
Over medium low heat in
a medium sauté pan, melt 1
■ SEE SQUASH, PAGE B4
ASHLEY E. BLOM (QUARTERLIFECUISINE.COM)/THE COMMONS
Summer squash and zucchini can form the basis of a simple and delicious
pasta dish.
The summer-sipper short list
Lighter wines go best with lighter food in the heat of the season
T
Brattleboro
HE DOG DAYS of
summer are upon us,
and they certainly affect how and what
we eat and drink.
As a wine lover, I look forward to the changing seasons
guiding my wine selections. I
look for wines that pair with
the settings in which I’ll enjoy a glass and the foods that
we’ll be consuming. Now is the
height of my “summer sippers”
season.
What makes a wine a candidate for the summer sipper
short list?
First, and probably most
obviously, it is served chilled.
On hot evenings when we sit
out on the porch, waiting for
the deer to show up in the
meadow, listening to the call
and response of the myriad
birds, and declaring that life
is good, we look forward to a
nicely chilled wine to accompany la dolce vita.
Valpolicella and Bandolino
are Italian blends that are often served chilled as well.
Popping any of these into the
fridge 20 to 30 minutes before you expect to pour them
MARTY
should bring the wine to a good
RAMSBURG
temperature.
Try any of these wines with
Wine Notes
meats right off the grill or with
Most probably, it is a white
grilled flatbreads. You will see
or a rosé, but there are reds
for yourself that lightly chilled
that can accommodate a light
reds earn their place in the
chill quite nicely. So long as the summer sippers line-up.
wine is not tannic (see sidebar),
even red wines can be chilled
A SECOND PROPERTY that
characterizes whites and rosés
and therefore candidates for
as good summer sippers is a
summer sippers.
Wines made from red grapes healthy dollop of acidity.
When I have a chilled, acidic
like Gamay (Beaujolais),
wine at 7 p.m., it is energizing,
Dolcetto, Cinsault,
Tempranillo (Rioja and Ribera not enervating, the way many
ponderous reds lull me to sleep
del Duero, but be sure these
after half a glass.
are unoaked), Mondeuse
Acidity provides a little tinNoire (Savoie), and some
gle in my mouth right when the
Cabernet Francs (usually enMARTY RAMSBURG/THE COMMONS
try-level Chinon, Saumur, and wine enters, but it is most proThe Danube in Wauchau, one of the areas that produces grapes that make light
nounced on the wine’s finish.
Bourgueil) are low in tannins
summer wines.
■ SEE SUMMER WINE, PAGE B2
and can be enjoyed chilled.
Proof generated July 31, 2012 9:25 AM
FOOD & DRINK B2
T h e C o m m on s
It’s never too hot for cheese
Cool cheese choices for meals to beat the summer heat
E
Brattleboro
ven if you’re one of
the lucky ones who
has air conditioning in
your house during the
summer heat waves, it’s pretty
likely you want your meals
to be as low-maintenance as
possible.
It’s great that all these lovely
vegetables are available this
time of the year so you can
make simple salads, but nobody but a rabbit wants to eat
salad three times per day, every day.
To make life more interesting, you could add some cheese
to your summer diet.
Unlike with meat or beans,
with cheese you don’t have to
cook or even open a can to get
the protein you need. Cheese
has already gone through the
fermentation process and is
more easily assimilated into
your body, so it’s less likely
than fresh milk to upset your
stomach on even the hottest
days, and you won’t have to
worry about not getting enough
calcium in the summer.
A very easy way to prepare a
lovely summertime meal is to
borrow from the Italians and
put together a cold antipasto
plate.
I grew up in a region of the
United States with a great
many Southern Italian immigrants and their descendants,
and in any Italian restaurant,
from the most casual pizza
joint to the fanciest white-tablecloth establishment, you
could be sure to find a cold antipasto plate — for me, a childhood comfort food — listed as
WENDY M. LEVY
The Cheese Log
an appetizer.
Usually divided into rough
sections on a large oval platter:
crisp iceberg lettuce dressed
with a vinaigrette, mixed olives, big chunks of aged provolone cheese, slices of Genoa
salami and pepperoni, strips of
roasted red pepper, marinated
artichoke hearts, big chunks of
dark tuna packed in olive oil
(not light tuna, and not packed
in water!), and a few long anchovy fillets draped over the
top.
Your antipasto can incorporate pretty much anything you
like, but the general idea is to
arrange a variety of chopped or
sliced foods that you could eat
with your fingers if you’re too
lethargic to set out the forks:
some fresh vegetables, some
pickled vegetables, cured meats
(or chilled cooked meats),
cheese and olives.
Serve bread alongside, and
that’s it.
You have all of your main
food groups there, the food is
filling without being heavy, and
if you’re sharing this plate with
friends or family, just put out
a big platter in the middle of
the table and everyone can take
what he or she wants. The only
labor involved is chopping, and
you can recruit help.
You can go even simpler
n Summer wines
from section front
Wines with more acidity leave
one’s mouth salivating. That
reaction is one that really wakes
up my mouth, in effect cleaning it up, getting it ready for
more good tastes.
In short, the overall effect is
Tannins
and chilling
T
annins are a component found in the
skins and pips (seeds) of
red grapes. Since grape
skins also provide a lot of
flavor and color, the juice
for red wines is often macerated, or left in contact
with the skins to extract
those desirable properties.
The presence of tannins
also lends a particular texture, or mouthfeel, to the
resultant wine. You can
tell that a wine is tannic if
your mouth feels drier after you take a sip of wine.
Tannins are accentuated by colder temperatures, one of the reasons
we generally serve red
wines at cellar or room
temperature.
refreshing.
Grapes that have a nice balance of sweet ripeness and high
acidity are abundant, but some
of my favorites for summer sippers include Grüner Veltliner
(entry level), Vermentino,
Sauvignon Blanc, Vinho Verde
(Portuguese blend), Garganega
(Soave), Verdejo (Rueda),
Godello (Bierzo), dry Rieslings
(especially from Austria), and
Grenache Blanc (Empordà or
South of France).
The body of a wine refers
to its weight in your mouth.
Think about the difference between skim milk and whole
milk; if you are used to drinking whole milk and you take
a sip of skim milk, it feels like
there’s nothing there. Wines
vary every bit as much.
My summer sippers are relatively light bodied.
One of the principal factors
contributing to a wine’s weight
is alcohol. The higher the alcohol, the weightier it is.
Alcohol is a function of the
ripeness of the berries in the
winemaking process. The riper
the berries, the higher the sugar
content, and it is sugar that the
yeast converts to alcohol.
Those big reds from
California (Zinfandel,
Cabernet Sauvignon,
than that: make a salad, get a
loaf of bread, and find a cheese
you like. There’s dinner.
Some of the smaller sized
cheeses are ideal for this purpose, especially if it’s a dinner
for two. Willow Hill Farm’s
Summertomme, Alderbrook
and La Fleurie come to mind,
as does Jasper Hill’s Moses
Sleeper. For goat fans wanting
an ideal “cheese for two” for a
meal, try Blue Ledge Farm’s
Crottina.
Once the tomatoes are ready
to be plucked from the vine
and the basil is begging to be
picked, don’t forget the classic
salad of fresh mozzarella, sliced
tomatoes, and fresh basil.
Dress with salt, pepper, oil
and vinegar; no other preparation is necessary. Round it out
with some bread and perhaps
some chilled roasted ham or
chicken, and you’ll find yourself full and happy.
Maplebrook Farm in
Bennington makes not only
wonderful fresh mozzarella but
also an exemplary burrata, another fine summer cheese.
Burrata originated in
Puglia, Italy, and so did
Domenico Marchitelli, one of
Maplebrook’s cheesemakers,
who brings with him 25 years
of experience.
You can get Italian burrata in some markets, but like
fresh mozzarella, burrata is best
served as fresh as possible. I
don’t know about you, but I’d
rather have my burrata travel
only just over the Searsburg
Ridge.
Burrata is a pouch of
fresh mozzarella filled with
cream-enhanced fresh mozzarella curds. It comes in either
eight, four or two ounce pieces.
To serve, simply place each
ball into a dish, drizzle with a
small amount of the best olive
oil you have in the house, and
grind some fresh black pepper
over the top.
Another fine way to incorporate cheese into an easy summer meal is to cut the cheese
into little cubes and put the
cheese in a salad.
Nearly any semi-firm or firm
cheese will do: cheddar, OssauIraty Brebis (the aged Basque
sheep cheese), Parmigiano (use
a vegetable peeler and shave
the cheese into curls), Gruyère
(or any other aged Swiss cheese
like Appenzeller or HochYbrig), aged Gouda, Pecorino
Toscano, your favorite blue
cheese — the list goes on.
When you add cheese to
salad, also try adding some raw
or roasted nuts and seeds (unsalted is best) and fresh fruit,
such as halved grapes or cherries or chunks of fresh peach
or strawberries. Cheese, a natural friend to fruits and nuts,
will turn a salad into something
more special than a bunch of
ripped-up leaves.
Are you the grilling type? If
so, and you’re getting bored
with endless stacks of hot dogs
and hamburgers, you could always grill cheese. Not “grilled
cheese,” but cheese you can
put right on the grill.
Yes, for real!
Halloumi is a dense, brined
cheese from Cyprus made
of a combination of sheep’s
maplebrookvt.com
Maplebrook Farm in Bennington makes an exemplary
burrata, a fine summer cheese served as fresh as
possible.
and goats’ milk. Because it’s
brined, it’s a bit salty, but it’s
not strong.
You can grill it right over an
open flame, or fry it in a pan,
and because its melting point
is very high, it retains its shape,
but develops a nicely browned,
crispy crust.
Cypriots traditionally serve
Halloumi with fresh watermelon and mint.
A similar meal from a similar
region of Europe is Saganaki.
This fried-cheese dish comes
from Greece, and is simply
a thick slice of Kefalotyri or
Kasseri that’s been fried in a
small metal pan or on top of
a flat grill. If you don’t have a
grill, you can make Halloumi
and Saganaki in the house, using a heavy-bottom pan.
Like Halloumi, Kefalotyri
and Kasseri are dense enough
to retain their shape, becoming
slightly gooey inside and crisp
and browned on the outside.
Saganaki is traditionally
served with lemon wedges,
black pepper, and plenty of pita
bread. If you have a small pan
or baking dish (with low sides)
A
short list of some of my
favorite summer sippers:
• 2011 Anton Bauer, Grüner
Veltliner, “Gmork,” Wagram,
Austria: We tried all of the entry-level Grüners available to
us when the 2011s were released, and this one had the
perfect trifecta: great flavors,
long finish, and tons of energy
— wow!
Flavors include tart Granny
Smith apples, lime zest, fresh
peas, and a beautiful white
pepper finish that just goes on
and on. Speaking of peas, get
some and try them with this
wine, just straight out of the
pods.
I call this my happy wine
because it always puts a smile
on my face. A bottle is always
chilling at home.
Grüner is a very versatile grape, producing wines
that range from 12 percent to
14.5 percent. If you are looking for a summer sipper, remember to look for a lower
Merlot), the South of France
(Grenache, Syrah), parts of
Spain (Grenache, Cabernet,
Carignan) and Australia
(Shiraz) come from areas with
long, hot summers capable
of allowing those varieties to
alcohol one. The Gmork lists
12.5 percent and feels almost
weightless in the mouth.
• 2011 Balnea, Rueda
(Verdejo): More citrus, though
this time more along the lines
of orange peel, along with
some fresh herbs like parsley
and chervil. I get a little something like clove on the finish.
We call this one our “shower
curtain” wine because of its
label design.
Like Grüners, there is
considerable range among
Verdejos. We also love
Shaya’s verdejo, but I would
hesitate to label that one a
summer sipper. It’s dropdead delicious, but with more
weight, it wants to be paired
with bigger food.
• 2011 Broadbent Vinho
Verde: Vinho Verdes come
from the northern region of
Portugal and vary widely since
there are something like 15
different varieties from which
it may be produced.
attain their sweet ripeness.
When their sugars are converted to alcohol, they produce
wines that weigh in from 14
percent to 16 percent alcohol;
that is a mouthful of wine!
In contrast, summer sippers
Buy Direct from the Farmer
• Homemade Jam
Green Beans
New Potatoes • Lettuce
Zucchini & Summer Squash
Herbs • Garlic • Beets
Peppers • Cucumbers
Early Apples
Peaches • Currants • Plums
Fresh-Cut Flowers & Glads
• Local Cheeses
• Apples
• Maple Syrup
• Maple &
Black
Raspberry
Creamies–
Made with
our Own
Fruit!
If you still feel you
haven’t gotten enough cheese
in your summertime meal,
don’t forget that cheese makes
a divine dessert.
Make a platter of Consider
Bardwell Farm’s Mettowee,
Twig Farm’s Washed Rind
Wheel, and Green Mountain
Blue Cheese’s Boucher Blue,
and serve with fresh berries and
mint iced tea.
You can bake a cake when
the temperature goes back
down below 98, right?
Favorite summer sippers
The white Vinho Verdes
usually are very low alcohol.
Vinho Verde, after all, means
“green wine,” a term thought
to refer to the ripeness of the
grapes when picked. Since
they are not very ripe, and
therefore sugar levels are not
high, alcohol levels are correspondingly low.
That makes Vinho Verde
a great brunch or late-afternoon wine since you can have
a small glass and still carry on
with your day.
Want to reward yourself
for weeding that section that
has been annoying you for so
long? How about a glass of
Vinho Verde at 4 p.m.? You
can still go on a walk or get
back to work.
• 2011 Suavia, Soave
Classico (100 percent
Garganega): For those of you
of a certain age, remember
when Soave had no identity?
Well, no more! This one has
a pretty nose of lemon-lime,
usually measure 11 percent to
13 percent alcohol, and they’re
often made from berries that
just don’t get that long to mature because they come from
cooler climates.
These wines feel lighter and
Tomatoes - Blueberries - Sweet Corn
• Fudge
that can withstand the heat
and flame of your grill, you can
make Saganaki outdoors.
You could also use a thick
piece of aluminum foil, but
don’t wrap the cheese; it’ll
steam and not develop the delicious crust.
While you have the grill on,
take some fresh goat cheese,
otherwise known as “chèvre.”
Slice it, then lay it down on
some thick aluminum foil.
Grill it for just a few minutes
and serve on salad or grilled
vegetables.
Perennial
Sale!
Shortcakes, Breads, Rolls,
Cookies & Pies- Fresh Baked from Scratch
with our very own berries & apples!
Special Orders Welcome!
Fruit Trees & Berry Bushes!
www.duttonberryfarm.com
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O p e n D a i ly 9 a M –7 p M
Route 30,
Route 9,
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West Brattleboro
802-365-4168
802-254-0254
We Accept
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802-362-3083
white flowers, wet rocks (like
the ones on which you sit
while talking with friends,
dripping and air-drying, after
coming out of the river).
We visited Suavia a few
years back. Meri Tessari, one
of the three young women
who now run the winery
handed down across generations, told me that she loves
coming home from trips,
walking in the vineyards, and
getting restored. The wine
generates the passion of this
family.
• Rosé: We are lucky in the
past several years to have a
veritable deluge of rosés enter
Vermont’s market. My favorite is no longer available this
year, but generally speaking,
if you look at alcohol levels
and pick something from the
South of France or the Loire,
you might find your own summer sipper.
friskier in the mouth, and that
helps make them good candidates for the kinds of foods we
are likely to want on a hot summer evening: fresh fruit, salads,
vegetables simply prepared,
and grilled meats.
The most important factor
to consider when pairing food
and wine is weight. Because
the foods of summer are lighter
than the roasts, stews, and casseroles of winter, our wines
should be lighter as well. We
want the wine to complement,
not overwhelm, the food.
Chill, Acidity Body =
Refreshing!
So, back to the front porch,
7 p.m. It is still sunny, but the
shadows of the trees are starting to lengthen, and soon “our
deer” will show up.
We are connecting on the
front porch, sharing observations about our respective days,
listening to the sounds of summer in the background: birds,
now tractors mowing hay, and
bike tires on our dirt road as
the area’s many cyclists get out
for an evening ride.
I reach for my summer
sipper.
La dolce vita, in Green
River, Vt.
C
lose friends contribute to our
personal growth. They also
contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound
sweeter, the wine taste richer,
the laughter ring louder because
they are there.
—Judith Viorst
The Commons
FOOD & DRINK • Wednesday, August 1, 2012 B3
Keeping the
game fresh
A microbrew pioneer
reflects on more than 25
years in the business
into the round at the
Purpoodock Club in
Cape Elizabeth, Maine, when
someone asked David Geary
where the name “Purpoodock”
came from.
“It’s from one of the Maine
tribes,” he said. “It means:
Where the wind is in your face
— on every hole.’”
What? This isn’t a golf column? No worries. Although
part of the purpose of the jaunt
north was certainly to have a
go-round on Geary’s home
course, it was more to talk
about beer, and his pioneering role in establishing New
England’s first microbrewery.
Geary was a medical equipment salesman in the early
1980s, when he became something of a regular at Three
Dollar Dewey’s in Portland,
then being run by Alan Eames.
“Eames did everything
wrong,” said Geary. “That
is, everything that conventional wisdom said was wrong.
There was no Budweiser, no
Heineken, no television. There
were benches at long tables
covered with copies of the New
York Times, classical music
playing and people drinking
Guinness and other virtually
unknown imports.”
(Eames would later replicate
the Three Dollar Dewey’s experience in Brattleboro — the
forerunner to McNeill’s — and
continue his beer adventures
until his untimely death in
2007.)
“Back then, almost all the
good beers were imports. We
barely knew about the microbreweries out West — there
were fewer than 15 in the
country at the time — and we
couldn’t get any of the beers
anyway.
“But the beers Eames was
serving — Gale’s Prize Old Ale,
Traquair House Ale — were a
revelation to me. Until I tasted
it in beer, I thought ‘ester’ was
a girl’s name.”
The men became friends,
and at one point Eames said to
Geary, “You need to get into
the booze business.”
“Eventually I met Peter
Maxwell Stuart of Traquair
House and we, too, became
friends. He stayed at my house
on a visit over from Scotland
and told me, ‘If you ever need
anything, I’ll start you on your
journey.’”
tom bedell
Bedell on Beer
of England, doing hands-on
unpaid internships at various breweries and studying at
the Heriot-Watt University in
Edinburgh.
The plan for a brewery was
taking shape, and a recipe for
the first beer was being formulated. But first, Geary said, “It
took us about a year and a half
to put together a business plan,
find a location, design packaging, and raise enough money.”
On December 10, 1986,
Geary’s Pale Ale went on sale.
“That was close enough to the
end of the year that we thought
we could celebrate our 25th
anniversary in both 2011 and
2012.”
The beer was patterned on a
traditional England brew, using yeast that Geary had obtained from the former Hull
Brewery in Yorkshire. The
yeast has outlived the brewery,
now an office complex; Geary
has propagated the yeast 4,000
times in a quarter century.
It wasn’t all clear sailing
from the start.
“Everything was a bit of a
struggle in the beginning, because there were no road maps
back then,” said Geary. Not everyone who tried similar journeys in craft beermaking made
it; he mentioned Steve Mason,
who started the Catamount
Brewing Company in Vermont
in 1986, an enterprise that
went under in 2000 after an
overly ambitious expansion.
“We were never that close
to going out of business,”
said Geary. “It was never an
option.”
David Geary, a Maine brewer who established the state’s first microbrewery in 1983.
and the Maine Beer Company
than Geary’s products.
(Brattleboro Food Co-op beer
and wine manager Jeff Houle
said he expected to have some
soon, as it’s now being distributed in the state by the Craft
Beer Guild of Vermont.)
Some of this stress shows
on Geary, who has a roadmap
of a face and a bum knee that
knocked him out of the golf
round early. But he clearly still
has a zest for the game and
a sly humor to help see him
through.
He fondly recalled the marketing campaign for the company’s Hampshire Special Ale,
originally a winter seasonal
beer that was “[a]vailable as
long as the weather sucks.” But
the beer proved so popular that
it’s now available year-round,
no matter the weather.
“We’re a 22,000-square foot
brewery brewing in 18,000
square feet,” Geary said.
“We’re doing 150-barrel brews
in two shifts five days a week,
about 18,000 barrels a year.”
“But in late fall we’re attaching a new building that will add
15,000 square feet and allow
us to do 22-ounce bottlings,
ramp up to seven days a week
brewing, and do some contract
It still isn’t, though Geary
said older microbreweries
have to keep their game fresh:
“Initially we had plenty of buzz
just because we were new, and
we had great demographics.”
The company was almost
the only game in town for a
time for people looking for
something different.
But that’s all changed.
Portland is now a hotbed of
craft brewing, and nationwide
the brewing universe seems to
going through its version of the
Big Bang, ever expanding.
The Brewers Association
The journey began in ear- figures from late July showed
nest when Geary and his first
2,126 U.S. brewers in operawife, Karen, incorporated
tion, with 1,251 breweries in
as the D.L. Geary Brewing
the planning stages.
Company in 1983. In 1984,
Indeed, it’s been easier in
Geary took off on a four-month these parts lately to find beer
journey to the highlands of
from Portland upstarts like
Scotland and the south coast
Allagash Brewing Company
brewing,” he added. “The demand is there.”
The Pale Ale is still the flagship beer, except when overtaken in the warmer months
by the Summer Ale, available
from April to September. It is
also evidence of trying to keep
the game fresh.
The company awards an annual $5,000 scholarship to a
Maine College of Art undergraduate who submits the best
design for the Summer Ale
packaging. (This year’s winner:
Annie Mora, a junior studying
graphic design.)
My favorite of the yearround beers is the London
Porter, a 4.2 percent alcohol
by volume (ABV) beer which,
by not trying to do too much,
succeeds splendidly. (It was
the top choice of a New York
Times tasting panel on porters
in 2006.)
As part of the anniversary
celebration, Geary asked some
of his former brewmasters to
develop some recipes, hence
some departures from the core
brands: an Oatmeal Stout, a
Tom Bedell/The Commons
Wee Heavy, a Red Ale, and an
Imperial IPA.
But surely Geary knew the
whole “Imperial” trend, slapping the term on a style and almost doubling its strength, was
a bit ersatz?
With that sly smile, he confessed that surely he did.
“Yes, I gave in,” he said.
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ride the horse in the direction
he’s going.”
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FOOD & DRINK B4
n Pickles
Ashley E. Blom (quarterlifecuisine.com)/The Commons
Harvested while still young and tender, zucchini and its cousins, the pattypan
and yellow summer squash, have more than enough culinary potential and
tender, sweet flavor to reign supreme in the late-summer kitchen.
n Squash
from section front
T h e C o m m on s
out a smiley mess.”
Pickling, whether in vinegar
or with salt, has a very ancient
legacy, often as a means to preserve food, or just for the taste
itself. “Cleopatra used vinegar
pickling, and the record of salt
curing vegetables goes way
back in history,” Chesman said.
Asked why she wrote the
book, she candidly replied, “To
make money. I make a third of
my income from my books.”
Her earlier book on pickling,
Pickles & Relishes, has long been
beloved by connoisseurs.
“In 1984, Garden Way
Publishers wanted to do a
book on pickles. I was a staff
writer there, and I was asked
to find an author or someone qualified on the subject
to write the book. When this
F
from section front
proved to be rather difficult, I
thought ‘Hey, I could do this
myself.’ My editor agreed, and
the book has never been out of
print. However, I never made a
dime on it because I wrote it as
a staff writer as part of my job.”
In some ways, this new pickling book is based on her first.
“Over the years, Garden
Way evolved into Story
Publishing, and 30 years later,
they wanted me to revise the
earlier book,” she said, “but I
essentially wrote a new book.”
Her new book includes more
ethnic cuisines. “People have
grown much more open to
these foods,” she said. “For
instance, I have three different
recipes for kimchi, that Korean
delicacy; and I use kimchi in
other recipes in the book.”
ollowing are two recipes from Andrea
Chesman’s book.
Chesman knows that all
pickling is not for everyone.
“Of course, there are many
kinds of pickling, and some
of it involves regional tastes,”
she said. “For instance, in the
South, they like their pickles far
sweeter than I prefer, since I
like my pickles to be of the salty
briny variety. I also have a hard
time with some of the Indian
pickles. But, you see, there are
pickles for all persuasions.”
H e r w e b s i t e , w w w.
andreachesman.com , gives
more detailed descriptions of
Chesman and all her books and
provides readers with many
recipes. Of special interest is
the section Roots and Leaves,
where she talks about the art of
eating seasonally and locally.
Classic bread and
butters by the pint
A farmhouse classic, bread and butters are
essential to the pickler’s pantry: sweet, spiced,
it all down, then break a fresh egg
Pattypans, with their scalcrunchy. They make an excellent addition to
over the cheese.
No-fail half-sour dill pickles old-fashioned macaroni salad. (Makes 1 pint.)
loped spaceship shape, are the
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, unVinegar gives a kick start to the pickling
adorable member of the squash til the white is cooked but the yolk
• 2¼ to 2½ cups thinly sliced pickling cucumprocess in these quick and easy pickles, guar- bers, blossom ends discarded
family. They make terrific reis still jiggly.
anteeing success. If you’ve never tried ferceptacles for all sorts of savory
• ½ small onion, thinly sliced
mented pickles, this is definitely the recipe to
ingredients.
• 1 tablespoon pickling or fine sea salt, or more
Lemon-marinated
start with.
Serve with the tops placed
if needed
squash salad
You can multiply this recipe as many times
jauntily ajar and accompany
• ½ cup cider vinegar
This next recipe is a bit of a
as you like, but these pickles are best enjoyed
with a fresh salad and some
• 1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
cheat on the 45-minutes rule,
at 1 to 2 weeks, so it makes sense to make
sliced tomato.
• ¼ teaspoon ground turmeric
in that it is put together quickly
small batches as the cucumber season proFind two perfect specimens of
• 1 teaspoon mixed pickling spices
but needs around 4 hours in
gresses. (Makes about 2 quarts.)
pattypan squash, each about 3
• ½ teaspoon celery seeds
• 4 cups water
inches in diameter. Wash and dry the refrigerator before serving.
• Boiling water
The result is cold, refresh• 2 tablespoons pickling or fine sea salt
them, then cut off the tops and
• Pickle Crisp Granules (optional)
ing, and lemony, full of the
• ½ cup distilled white vinegar
scoop out the interior, leaving ¼
1. Combine the cucumbers, onion, and salt
fresh flavors of summer. If you
• 1 dill head, or 6 sprigs fresh dill
to ½ inch attached to the shell.
in a large bowl. Mix well. Cover the vegetacan plan ahead, I highly recom• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
De-seed and dice the innards,
bles with ice water and let stand for at least 2
mend this dish as a light and
• 8 cups whole pickling cucumbers
then set aside.
hours, up to 6 hours. Drain. Taste a slice of
delicious accompaniment to a
1. Heat the water and salt in a saucePreheat the oven to 375 F.
cucumber. If it isn’t decidedly salty, toss the
summer cookout.
pan, stirring until the salt is fully dissolved.
Brush the squash and the tops
vegetables with an additional 1 to 2 teaspoons
You will need ½ to ¾ pound of
Add the white vinegar and let cool to room
with a bit of olive oil and put
pickling salt. If it is too salty (which it never is
any variety, or a mixed variety,
temperature.
them on a baking sheet, cut side
for me), rinse the vegetables in water.
of unpeeled small summer squash.
2. Slice 1/16 inch off the blossom end of
up.
2. Combine the cider vinegar, brown sugar,
Wash and trim them, then shave
each cucumber.
Bake for 15-20 minutes, until
and turmeric in a saucepan, stirring to dis3. Pack a clean 2-quart canning jar or crock solve the sugar, and bring to a boil. Bring a
you can pierce the flesh easily with them lengthwise into really thin,
with the dill, garlic, and cucumbers, in that
a sharp knife. Remove them from long ribbons. One of those inexkettle of water to a boil.
pensive Japanese mandoline slicorder. Pour in the brine. Weight the cucumthe oven, but leave them on the
3. Pack pickling spices and celery seeds into
ers is the best tool for the task, but
bers so they are completely submerged in the the clean hot 1-pint jar. Pack in the cucumbaking sheet.
brine.
In a small pan, sauté until ten- a wide vegetable peeler will work
bers and onions, leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
4. Cover the container to exclude the air.
der: 1 diced shallot, 1 diced clove as well.
Pour in the vinegar mixture. The vinegar mixSprinkle the ribbons with ½
Set the jar where the temperature will remain ture will not cover the vegetables, so top off
of garlic, and the innards that you
teaspoon salt, and let them sit on
constant: 65 degrees to 75 degrees F is ideal.
removed earlier.
with the boiling water, leaving 1/2 inch headpaper towels for about 15 min5. Check the jar daily and remove any scum space. Add a rounded 1/8 teaspoon of Pickle
Add 2 tablespoons of chopped
utes to drain. This step helps to
that forms on the surface.
dill, and spoon this mixture into
Crisp to the jar, if using. Remove any air bubget rid of all the water that can
6. The pickles will be ready in 2 to 3 days,
the squash shells, distributing it
bles and seal.
make squash soggy, giving it a
although full flavor will not be reached for a
equally.
4. Process in a boiling water bath for 10
week. If your kitchen is reasonably cool, you
Top each squash with a few ta- bad name.
minutes. Let cool undisturbed for 12 hours.
Gently blot the squash, becan leave these pickles out for up to 2 weeks.
blespoons of grated cheese. Tamp
Store in a cool, dry place. Do not open for at
ing careful not to tear the ribIf the brine starts to become cloudy, refrigleast 6 weeks to allow the flavors to develop.
bons, and put them in a medium
erate immediately to prevent spoiling. The
Kitchen note: If you slice your cucumbers
bowl. Mix the juice of 1 lemon, 1
flavor of the dill and garlic will continue to
paper-thin on a mandoline or other device,
crushed garlic clove, and 2 tabledevelop. The pickles will keep for at least 3
you will fit 2½ cups of salted slices into a pint
spoons of extra-virgin olive oil.
months in the refrigerator.
jar. If the slices are thicker, fewer will fit in.
Gently toss this mixture into the
Kitchen note: If your cucumbers are large, Extra-salted cucumber slices are tasty in salsquash.
you might want to cut them into spears
ads or enjoyed plain.
Cover and marinate in the
rather than leave them whole. Spears will
refrigerator for 4 to 6 hours.
pickle faster and more evenly than whole
The acid in the lemon actually
cucumbers.
“cooks” the squash, allowing it
Both recipes adapted from The Pickled Pantry, by Andrea Chesman. Copyright 2012 Andrea
to soften and soak up the tasty
Chesman. All rights reserved.
marinade.
When ready to serve, remove
same day.
the garlic clove, and add 2 table- shallow boats, and put them on a forte of squash cucina is the
fried zucchini blossom. If you
Fried zucchini blossoms
small baking sheet.
spoons of finely minced mint and
have never had the pleasure
must be eaten immediately afIn a little bowl, combine 8
dill, or parsley/basil/marjoram if
of eating one and this column
ter they are done, so plan your
diced cherry tomatoes with 2 tayou prefer.
time accordingly.
blespoons of minced fresh oregano provides the opportunity, you
You can keep the picked
and a splash of red-wine vinegar. will have made me the happiest
Zucchini boats
blossoms in the refrigerator
Mound this mixture inside your of cooks.
with tomato
Zucchini blossoms come in
for a day, stored loosely inlittle boats. Drain off any excess
and cheese
side a plastic bag in the veggie
liquid and mound this mixture in- male and female just like us,
Here is another ridiculously
and for the same reason. The
drawer. I gently shake the blosside your little boats. Tear a ball
tasty and simple way to use up of high-quality mozzarella and
male pollen fertilizes the female soms upside down to dislodge
those unfairly maligned squash. scatter these on top of the tomato. blossoms, and a zucchini is
any small bugs that might be
With a salad of bitter greens, a
born, so to speak.
hidden inside.
Bake for 20 minutes. If you
loaf of great bread, and a glass
Either blossom can be fried,
This recipe uses 12 blosprefer the tops crispy, place the
of rosé, this meal is a short trip baking sheet under the broiler for but if you want to practice zuc- soms. I use a 12-inch pan and
Custom Cut Local, Imported, to the Amalfi coast.
chini birth control, use the fecook 6 blossoms at a time.
a few minutes until the cheese is
Pre-heat the oven to 400 F.
male blossoms. (They don’t
I fry in a mixture of 75 perbubbly and brown.
Take 2 small zucchini — the
have pollen, and the flowers
cent canola oil and 25 percent
& Domestic Cheeses for the
Italian Romesco ribbed variety
grow atop a fruit instead of on olive oil. The olive oil gives flaworks well here — and slice them Fried zucchini
a simple stem.) Gather them
vor, but the canola oil gets hotDiscriminating Palate
in half lengthwise. Scrape out the blossom
early in the morning before the ter before it starts smoking, so
Speaking of Italy, the piatto
seeds, leaving the squash like little
sun gets hot, and use them that the combination works well.
Serve piping hot and crispy
with a small wedge of lemon.
Gently remove the female pistils
or the male stamen from the inside of the flowers, but leave some
stem to give you something to hold
onto when you dip the blossoms
Shop with Chef Nancy Cain
into batter.
Join Nancy as she shops the market after 4pm
Pour 8 ounces of cold seltzer
Then watch and sample what the summer harvest
or club soda into a medium bowl,
bounty inspires her to create and sign up for recipes!
and whisk in a scant 1 cup of unDebit, EBT & Farm To Family Coupons Welcome
bleached white flour and ½ teaspoon of salt until just this side of
Fresh, local produce, meat, dinner choices & more.
smooth.
802-869-2141 or farmersmarket@postoilsolutions.org
Heat 2 inches of oil to 350
degrees on a deep fry thermometer in a large, cast-iron
fry pan with sides. If your stove
has an exhaust fan, now’s the
time to use it!
When the oil is hot, take
each blossom and, holding
onto the stem, quickly dip it
into the batter, shake off the
excess, and lay it in the oil.
Don’t crowd the pan.
It should take just a couple
of minutes for one side to get
brown. Carefully flip the blos:PVSMPDBMTPVSDFGPS
:PVSMPDBMTPVSDFGPS
(SBTT'FE#FFG
(SBTT'FE#FFG soms and cook the other side,
:PVSMPDBMTPVSDFGPS
(SBTT'FE#FFG then remove them to a paper
t 3FUBJMDVUTBWBJMBCMFGSPN"OHVTTUFFST
towel. Salt them while hot!
CPSOBOESBJTFEPOPVSDIFNJDBMGSFFQBTUVSFT
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t (VBSBOUFFEIPSNPOFBOEBOUJCJPUJDGSFF
tCPSOBOESBJTFEPOPVSDIFNJDBMGSFFQBTUVSFT
If picked when small and
(VBSBOUFFEIPSNPOFBOEBOUJCJPUJDGSFF
handled
simply, summer
t (VBSBOUFFEIPSNPOFBOEBOUJCJPUJDGSFF
squash deliver a more subtle
4XFFU5SFF'BSN4VHBS)PVTF
reward than other August har3PVUF&BTU%VNNFSTUPO7FSNPOU
vests, but their quiet and pure
3PVUF&BTU%VNNFSTUPO7FSNPOU
flavor should not be belittled.
3PVUF&BTU%VNNFSTUPO7FSNPOU
TXFFUUSFFGBSNDPN
We can reserve those lateseason
monsters for someone
TXFFUUSFFGBSNDPN
else’s zucchini bread.
tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Put in the scallion or onion, then cook until soft.
Add the squash and the tomatoes,
plus a dash of salt and pepper.
Lower the heat and cook, covered, around 7 to 12 minutes.
Stir occasionally. Keep cooking, stirring and lifting the cover
to see if the liquid is becoming a
bit thicker. You are going for a
creamy, slightly homogenous mixture that will have a varied texture with various sized pieces of
squash, the tomatoes, and the
onion.
Make sure the pan is just
barely simmering and add a bit
more water if there is any threat
of burning.
Meanwhile, cook 2 ounces of
whatever dry pasta you have
in the cupboard. 1 ounce of dry
pasta will yield ½ cup of cooked.
Cut the herbs into thin ribbons.
When the pasta is done to your
liking, drain it and add it to the
pan with the vegetables. Cook
gently for a minute, tossing everything so that the pasta is coated
with sauce. Take it off the heat
and toss again with the herbs,
then add salt and pepper to taste.
If you want to add some protein, ½ cup of crumbled feta
doesn’t do this dish any harm at
all.
Stuffed pattypans
Who Cut
The Cheese?
WE Cut The
Cheese!
Coming Soon To
Downtown Brattleboro
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Open: Tues & Thurs
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TXFFUUSFFGBSNDPN
THE COMMONS
THE ARTS
S E C T I O N C1
C
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 • page C1
VPL kicked off its
summer residency with
choreographer Victoria
Marks and filmmaker
Ann Kaneko on June
26. These artists will
be developing Action
Conversations: Bellows
Falls with five teen
and five adult women
from the Bellows Falls
community.
Film in
Déjà vu
progress
Vocalist who came to area
from New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina donates
song proceeds to Vermont
Disaster Relief Fund
BRATTLEBORO—Blues
and jazz vocalist Samirah Evans
of Brattleboro has chosen the
Vermont Disaster Relief Fund
(VDRF) to be a beneficiary of
sales from her song, Strength in
Numbers, available for purchase
at www. (www.cdbaby.com)cdbaby.
com (www.cdbaby.com).
In 2005, the flooding brought
on by Hurricane Katrina in New
Orleans destroyed the home of
Evans and her husband, Chris
Lenois. The couple ended up
relocating to Lenois’ hometown
of Brattleboro. Six years later,
one day before the anniversary of
Katrina, they watched Tropical
Storm Irene bring similar ruin to
many parts of Vermont, including their own community.
While they were spared any
personal loss this time, Evans
and Lenois were deeply moved
by the tragedy and the outpouring of support from the community for those in need. They
wrote Strength in Numbers to be
performed at a fundraising event
in Brattleboro.
The song is a soulful and
heartfelt account of how tragic
and challenging circumstances
naturally galvanize the human
spirit to give strength and hope
to one another.
“I was devastated by the destruction of Vermont,” said
Evans. “Irene happened to land
one day before the sixth anniversary of Katrina. As one can
imagine, it took me back to the
horror of it all. In Katrina’s aftermath there was so much loss:
lives and livelihoods, physical
and emotional stability. It was
painful to witness and know that
people were going through similar circumstances from Irene. We
wanted to do something for our
community, and raising money
to help those who are still trying
to recover was top on the list."
So far, nearly $1.5 million has
been allocated to Vermonters
from the VDRF. However, with
the possibility of as much as $10
million still needed, and more
than 800 families with unmet
needs, it is as important as ever
for Vermonters to support the recovery, according to the fund’s
administrators.
“Even while we brace ourselves for another hurricane
season, there are hundreds of
Vermonters still not in their
homes,” said VRDF Executive
Director Betsy Ide. “Samirah’s
generosity is a heartening example of the unique ways
Vermonters can make a
difference.”
Strength in Numbers is available
for download with all proceeds
from purchases between now
and Aug. 29 (the seventh anniversary of Katrina) going to the
Vermont Disaster Relief Fund.
“It is my hope that this song
offers comfort as well as an opportunity for anyone, even those
who may not have much, to feel
good by offering a small donation that will help Vermonters affected by Irene get back on their
feet,” said Evans.
For more information, go to
www.vermontdisasterrecovery.com/
events/samirahevans.
captures
Bellows
Falls women
and their
community
walls
studio
WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/VERMONTPERFORMANCELAB
beyond the
of the
By Richard Henke
Vermont Associates for The Commons
B
ELLOWS FALLS—
Choreographer Victoria Marks and
filmmaker Ann
Kaneko said they
believe dance can become a civic
conversation that can participate
in the life of the town.
On Thursday, Aug. 2, at 7
p.m at the Bellows Falls Opera
House, Vermont Performance
Lab (VPL) will be screening
their work-in-progress documentary Action Conversations:
Bellows Falls.
The presentation is the culmination of a six-week Vermont
Performance Lab residency led
by Marks and Kaneko with teen
and adult women from greater
Bellows Falls. The event will include an informal presentation
and a segments of Action Conversations, which captures the
stories and reflections of these
women and their community.
The VPL presentation is free
and open to the public, and is
wheelchair accessible.
Located in Guilford, Vermont Performance Lab is a
new type of performance incubator that takes the creation
of new work — in the words of
Marks and Kaneko — “beyond
the walls of the studio and into
the community by fostering
experimental approaches to research and performance.”
It provides performing artists
with research-and-development
residencies, where artists have
the resources to create new
work and to engage rural communities around the creative
process.
This year’s project, Action
Conversations, captures the stories and reflections of a group of
women and their community.
The work aims to bridge the
gap between adults and youth.
VPL Founder and ProducFACEBOOK.COM
ing Director Sara Coffey exVictoria
Marks.
plained that the goal of the
project was to engage Bellows
■ SEE CONVERSATIONS, PAGE C2
Guitar legend Bill Kirchen
comes to the region
Will play Aug. 5 at BF Opera House
BILLKERCHEN.COM
Bill Kerchen will perform
in Bellows Falls.
BELLOWS FALLS—
Bill Kirchen, whose
Commander Cody classic Hot Rod Lincoln drove
into the Top Ten in 1972,
will play a concert on
Sunday, Aug. 5, at the
Lower Theater of the
Bellows Falls Opera
House. The show is
presented by Vermont
Festivals, LLC, in association with Flying Under Radar
and Kicking & Screaming.
Known for his indelible
Telecaster sound on Hot Rod
Lincoln, Kirchen was a founding
member of Commander Cody
and His Lost Planet Airmen.
He’s released eight critically acclaimed solo albums and he’s
toured internationally with Nick
Lowe, and has performed with
Doug Sahm, Gene Vincent, Elvis
Costello, Dan Hicks, Emmylou
Harris, and Link Wray.
Named “The Titan of the
Telecaster” by Guitar Player
magazine, Kirchen celebrates
an American musical tradition
where rock ’n’ roll and country
music draws upon its origins in
blues and bluegrass, Western
swing from Texas, and California
honky-tonk.
His most recent album, Word
to the Wise, includes collaborations with Norton Buffalo, Paul
Carrack, Commander Cody,
Elvis Costello, Blackie Farrell,
Dan Hicks, Nick Lowe, Maria
Muldaur, and Asleep at the
Wheel alumna Chris O’Connell.
“We sent the tapes of Man
in the Bottom of the Well to
Vancouver for Elvis [Costello]
to put his vocals on, but the rest
of the time, we traveled around
the country and collected those
people,” Kirchen said.
In each case, the guests recorded their parts on top of basic
tracks laid out by the core band
of Kirchen, drummer/singer
Jack O’Dell, bass player Johnny
Castle, and keyboardist/guitarist/
ALL NEW 2012s MUST GO!
THE SMA R T C H OI CE
■ SEE KIRCHEN, PAGE C2
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THE ARTS C2
T he C o m m o n s
Main Street Arts offers painting classes
SAXTONS RIVER—Main
Street Arts is offering two opportunities for adults and teens
to explore painting in August.
Matt Peake will offer a
Plein Air painting workshop
on Sunday, Aug. 5, from 10
a.m. to 4 p.m., with a fee of
$42 for members and $56 for
non-members.
The group will meet at Main
Street Arts for a demonstration
and strategy session, then travel
to a nearby scenic spot to paint
(with pastels or water colors) or
draw with graphite/charcoal.
Outdoor easels are encouraged
but not necessary. MSA can
provide paper, charcoal, and
graphite, but participants need
to bring their own pastels, watercolors, and watercolor paper
if they want to work in that medium. In case of rain, the group
will work indoors from their favorite scenic photographs.
“Going outdoors to paint or
draw is sometimes more romantic a notion than an enjoyable
experience,” said Peake.
“The hot sun, the intense
light, the threat of rain, changing shadows, bugs, etc., all
make the experience challenging, to say the least, but I would
be willing to do this with that
disclaimer. And bring a lunch!”
Robert O’Brien will lead
Painting Spectacular Flowers
Using Watercolors on Saturday,
Aug. 18, from 9:30 a.m. to 4
p.m. for a fee of $57 for members and $72 for non-members.
The workshop is for all levels
of painting, with some drawing experience recommended.
Participants will learn basic floral painting techniques, with an
emphasis on values and composition. The session will begin
with a demonstration by the
instructor, followed by class
painting.
O’Brien will provide handson guidance through the process. The course will focus on
painting from photo-reference
of flowers in an artistic and
close-focus setting. There will
be a critique and class discussion at the end of the day. A
materials list will be provided
upon request.
O’Brien has been painting
in watercolors for 40 years.
He has received many awards,
most recently, in 2012, a gold
medal in the New England
Watercolor Society’s Spring
Juried Signature Members’
Exhibition in Boston. Examples
of his work can be seen on his
website www.robertjobrien.com.
mjpeakeart.blogspot.com
Registration is required for
classes by calling 802-869-2960 Instructor Matt Peake will offer a plein air painting
or emailing info@mainstreetarts. workshop. Above, an example of Peake’s own
landscape work (“Prominence,” 12 in. x 9 in.).
org.
n Conversations
from SECTION FRONT
Falls’ teenagers in conversation
with the community’s adults mediated through dance and film.
Marks had told Coffey when
the community-based project
discussion began two years ago,
“Listen to your community and
find out where there needs to be
a conversation.”
After much “amazing conversation” with Youth Services of
Windham County, with whom it
is co-producing the project, VPL
ultimately chose a community of
women in Bellows Falls.
“Five teenagers and five
adults, who have limited interBRATTLEBORO—For 37
action with each other and thereyears, the Vermont Jazz Center
fore many misconceptions, met
(VJC) has presented its summer
for for four mornings each of six
jazz workshop, encouraging stuweeks as choreographer Marks
dents from down the street and
translated their intense civic diaaround the world to hone their
logue into movement, which ulimprovisational and musiciantimately was filmed by Kaneko,”
ship skills while getting away to
Coffey said.
For the five teen women, this
a country setting.
On Thursday, Aug. 9, at 8
project served as part of their
pm, VJC presents the summer
job training with Youth Serworkshop faculty concert, where
vices’ summer youth employteacher/musicians get to show
ment program. With the help of
their stuff. The concert features
an advisory committee, VPL revocalists Sheila Jordan and Jay
cruited five adult women to doClayton, Howard Brofsky and
nate 60 hours of their summer
Jeff Galindo on trumpet, Scott
to participate with the youth on
the project.
Mullett and Jake Whitesell on
Youth Services Youth Develsaxophone, Helmut Kegerer on
guitar, Harvey Diamond, Ray
opment Director Bianca Barry
Courtesy photo
Gallon, and Eugene Uman on Jay Clayton, left, and Sheila Jordan will be the featured vocalists when the said, “We were especially excited
piano, Cameron Brown, George Vermont Jazz Center presents its summer workshop faculty concert on Aug. 9 to be able to work with VPL to
Kaye, James Robbins, and David at the Currier Center at The Putney School.
place this project in Bellows
Picchi on bass, Satoshi Takeishi
Falls, where the gap between
and Claire Arenius on drums, and Julian Gerstin, percussion. several piano trios. This concert
Both concerts will take place marginalized young people and
Tickets are $20 and can be will be divided into two sections, at the Michael S. Currier Center the community-at-large is particularly wide.”
purchased at the door, online the first will start at 3:30 p.m., at the Putney School.
at www.vtjazz.org , or at In the and the second show will resume
The VJC’s summer work“We’re thrilled to provide
shop was founded and attained an opportunity for these young
Moment Record Shop on Main at 8 p.m. after a dinner break.
Street in Brattleboro. Call 802Singers will be accompanied nonprofit status in 1974 when women to experience working
254-9088 for reservations.
by a professional jazz trio and the founding director Attila Zoller with two powerful female artOn Friday, Aug. 10, the VJC piano trios will be assisted and officially organized the informal ists like Ann Kaneko and Vic
summer workshop will showcase perform with a faculty bassist. gatherings of guitarists he held Marks,” she added.
faculty-coached student ensem- Also performing will be a num- at his home in Newfane.
Kaneko is an Los Angelesbles with numerous vocalists and ber of faculty-coached ensemThe VJC encourages an inter- based independent filmmaker
bles, usually comprised of horn, generational balance where par- who has produced numerous
CAT LOST in EAST PuTnEy piano, bass, and drums. For the ticipants of all ages learn from award-winning shorts and docustudent concert, a $5 donation each other, gleaning from both mentaries that tell the stories of
Small, white with muted
is suggested.
the wisdom of jazz’s “old school” what she called brave individucalico/tiger markings.
and the pedagogical advance- als trying to survive the odds.
ments put forth in today’s devel- She participated in the American
11 years old, blind in one
oped system of jazz education. Film Institute Directing Workeye, feisty, wearing old
The VJC’s summer workshop shop for Women and received
collar with tags, will be
emphasizes
the importance of an MFA in film directing from
very thirsty. Missing since
improvisation and small-group UCLA.
Friday, July 6 from Lower
dynamics within the context of
Marks is a professor of choCassidy Rd., near East
jazz, encouraging participants to reography in the Department
Putney Brook Rd. & Route
find their own voices using the of World Arts and Cultures at
5. Her name is Ramona.
jazz language.
UCLA, where she began teachThe courses offered include ing in 1995. Over the course of
Any info, please call
jazz theory, composition, mas- her career, she has been the re802-387-1194 or
ter classes in each instrument, cipient of multiple grants and
802-380-5567
focused listening and faculty-led fellowships from the National
ensembles.
Endowment for the Arts, the
New York State Council on the
Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Marks employs movement as a
powerful tool for self-expression,
claiming she “enjoys being inserted into a civic dialogue.” Her
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in a film also called Action Conwww.delectablemountain.com
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SPECIALTIESGiuffre
FROM FAR AND NEAR
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The
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Concerts
in the
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A small, independent
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Ann Kaneko.
grocery store
to this responsibility.”
Difficult
conversations
She said that while the conversations among the women in
Bellows Falls this summer have
been very rewarding, they seldom have been easy, and often
have been raw.
One of the adult participants,
Laura Simoneau said, “It’s been
really...how should I put this...I
mean it’s been great. But it’s
been intense and exhausting
since it’s about living and our experiences here in Bellows Falls.
What I really love is that we are
talking about issues that don’t get
talked about on a regular basis.”
As conversation among the
Bellows Falls women developed,
Marks would translate their issues into gestures of dance.
“Talking yields movement,
and movement yields talking,”
Marks said. “Tiny dances are
created to tell the story of what
has happened among the women
in this room. I am asking what
is this thing called choreography, for this project pushes the
boundaries in certain interesting ways.”
“Unlike many projects I have
worked on,” she added, “this
does not end up with a live public performance. It did not make
sense to me to have the ultimate
outcome of this choreographed
experience to take place on the
stage, but rather on film. We are
doing something unusual here.”
Simoneau agreed that something special was happening.
“We are engaging in a civic dialogue filtered through an art
framework,” she said.
Barry spoke on behalf of the
teenagers in the program, saying, “The Vermont Performance
Lab project was an amorphous
evolving process that was deeply
felt by the youth participants,
which changed the lives of the
five young women in significant
ways.”
The complete documentary
Action Conversations: Bellows Falls
is intended to be shown locally
and nationally.
VPL plans to present the premiere of the completed film of
Action Conversations: Bellows
Falls in 2013, in Bellows Falls,
perhaps in conjunction with
the Women’s Film Festival in
Brattleboro.
The Action Conversations:
Bellows Falls project is made
possible in part with funding
support from the Vermont Arts
Council, the Copper Beach
Foundation, the Oswald Family
Foundation, and VPL’s Creation
Fund donors.
n Kirchen
from SECTION FRONT
vocalist Austin de Lone, the former leader of pub-rock band
Eggs Over Easy.
Tickets are available at Village
Square Booksellers and Fat
Franks in Bellows Falls, Turn it
Up! in Brattleboro, Misty Valley
Books in Chester, as well as online at www. (www.brattleborotix.
com)brattleborotix.com ( www.
brattleborotix.com).
The Bellows Falls Opera
House is located on the Square
in downtown Bellows Falls.
Free parking is available at the
Centennial and Elks Club lots.
Doors open at 7 p.m. For more
information, call 802-463-9595.
Janet Langdon,
featuring Marty Ehrlich & Cameron
PurveyorBrown
of fine meats, Janet
cheeses, Langdon, M. Div., NCPsyA
Faculty
Masterfulconcert
improvising and killer arrangements
salads, soups, wine and beer
Thursday, August 9th
at 8 pm improvising and killer arrangements
Masterful
Student Concerts
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AXTONS
RIVER
Friday, August 10th
VILLAGE MARKET
with sets at 3:30 & 8 pm
Averill Larsen, Proprietor
72 C otton M ill H ill
25 Main St., Saxtons River
B r attleBoro, Vt 05301 www.vtjazz.org
802-869-2266
M O N . – S AT. 7 – 7, S U N . 7 – 6
o ff e xit 1, i nterstate 91 (802) 254-9088
Psychoanalysis
Pastoral Counseling
Individuals and Couples
River Road, Putney VT
näÓÎnÇxx{ÇÊUÊiÃJÞv>À«Ì°iÌ
THE ARTS
Wilmington Town
Clerk’s office to
close for move
WILMINGTON — The
Wilmington Town Clerk’s office
will be closed on August 1, 2, 3
and 6. During those days, the
Town Clerk’s office will be moving from its temporary quarters
at Shaw’s Plaza, 97 East Main
St., back to its former permanent location of 2 East Main St.
For those customers needing motor vehicle renewals processed, check with the Dover
Town Clerk’s office or use the
online renewal service at https://
secure.vermont.gov/dmv/express
(secure.vermont.gov/dmv/express).
First Baptist to serve
Italian-style buffet
BRATTLEBORO — First
Baptist Church, 190 Main St.,
will host the second in a series
of monthly fundraising dinners
held during Gallery Walk. This
month’s will be held on Friday,
Aug. 3, starting at 5 p.m.
The Italian-style buffet features homemade sausage lasagna, spaghetti with a choice of
three homemade sauces, salad,
and garlic bread, plus beverages
and dessert. The suggested donation is $10 for adults, $5 for
children age 5-12. Children under 5 eat free.
All proceeds benefit the
church’s ongoing mission programs to feed the hungry. To
make a reservation, call 802-2549566 or 802-257-4216.
Women’s Freedom
Center offers summer
camp for local girls
BRATTLEBORO — The
Women’s Freedom Center is offering a free summer camp to all
girls entering grades 7-9.
The focus of the camp is
healthy relationships. The camp
provides a fun and supportive
space where girls have the opportunity to look at their lives, their
relationships with friends and
dating partners, as well as their
relationships with the media,
food, etc. Girls will learn strategies to navigate adolescence,
identify healthy/unhealthy relationships, and create change in
both their immediate lives and
the world around them.
A fun-filled week is planned.
Some activities will include hiking, swimming, games, buttons
and jewelry making, video design, power tools, and more.
Lunches will be provided, and
transportation can be supported.
The Quest camp is offered in
Bellows Falls the week of Aug.
6-10 and in Brattleboro the
week of Aug. 13-17. Contact
Kate at 802-257-7364 for more
information.
Windham County
Democrats to
open campaign
headquarters
BRATTLEBORO — The
formal opening of the 2012
Campaign Headquarters for
Windham County Democrats
will take place Friday, Aug. 3, at
80 Flat St., in the former Probate
Court space in the J.F. Church
Building.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony
will take place at 5:30 p.m. with
State Sen. Peter Galbraith, State
Treasurer Beth Pearce, Attorney
General Bill Sorrell, and
Secretary of State Jim Condos;
as well as Windham County’s
representatives to the Vermont
House; and other state and
county Democratic candidates.
Many of the candidates will then
proceed to Main Street to greet
the public during Gallery Walk.
Along with the festivities at the
Flat Street Headquarters, a Main
Street Windham County and
Obama Campaign Showroom
will also be open to the public
during Gallery Walk hours on
Friday, at the Catherine Dianich
Gallery in the Hooker-Dunham
Building, 139 Main St.
The Flat Street and HookerDunham locations will host
campaign activities on behalf of Obama for America,
the Vermont Democratic
Coordinated Campaign, and all
county Democratic candidates
though Election Day on Nov.
6. Joan Bowman of Putney
has been appointed as Field
Organizer for the Democratic
Coordinated Campaign, and assumed her post at the Flat Street
headquarters on Aug. 1.
Volunteers for Obama For
America (OFA) can call the
Headquarters reception desk
at 802-490-2396 after Aug, 3.
A main activity for OFA will be
door-to-door campaigning in
nearby Cheshire County in New
Hampshire. The number to call
to volunteer to support to other
state and local Democratic candidates is 802-579-1134.
Townshend Common
Farmers’ Market
celebrates National
Farmers Market
Week with Pie Day
TOWNSHEND —
Townshend Common Farmers’
Market is getting ready to celebrate National Farmers Market
Week on Thursday, Aug. 9, with
its first-ever Pie Day.
Market vendors will have a
plethora of pies for sale whole
or by the slice. In addition, both
market vendors and the public
are invited to enter their favorite
pies featuring the bounty of the
harvest season in our Farmers’
Market Pie Contest.
Prize categories will include
sweet, savory, most creative, and
most Vermont. Entries should
be brought to the “Pie Tent”
by 4:30 p.m. Between 5-6 p.m.,
judges will be sampling all the
entries to determine the winners. Entry fee is $2, proceeds
go to support our Market Match
Program making fresh local food
more affordable and accessible
to all.
The market is open every
Thursday through Oct. 11
from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on the
Common at the intersection of
Routes 30 and 35. EBT, Debit,
and Farm to Family coupons accepted. Market Match coupons
are available for EBT shoppers
to turn $10 into $20 every week.
For more information, contact
Sherry at 802-869-2141 or farmersmarket@postoilsolutions.
org (mce_host/site/editsystem05a/
farmersmarket@postoilsolutions.org).
Little Arrows Early
Childhood Center
hosts open house
BRATTLEBORO — The
Little Arrows Early Childhood
Center will host a series of three
open houses on Aug, 9 from 5-7
p.m., Aug. 11 from 9:30-11:30
a.m., and Wednesday, Aug. 15
from 5-7 p.m..
Little Arrows is an educational program under Vermont
Center for the Deaf and Hard
of Hearing, Inc. Little Arrows is
open to serve the greater community in addition to deaf, and
hard of hearing population.
Children age 6 weeks old to
5 years old are eligible. Little
Arrows has three classrooms; an
infant room, a Toddler class and
a Preschool class.
Open Enrollment and the announcement of the new Toddler
Room will be celebrated; opening their doors to new families
for the fall in all three of the
programs.
A Bilingual Communication
approach is practiced at the
center. Children are taught and
communicated with both spoken English and American Sign
Language (ASL) The communication mode used will provide the children with the skills
to communicate with their deaf
peers, their deaf parents/siblings
and the program staff.
Because Little Arrows is a
part of VCDHH, children have
access to the campus’s various
facilities and resources, including the Austine School for the
Deaf’s library and gym, and the
campus nature trail and pond.
The beautiful campus is wide
and safe and provides an excellent environment in which Little
Arrows children can explore and
discover
Vermont Center for the Deaf
& Hard of Hearing, Inc., provides comprehensive educational
and support services to deaf and
hard of hearing children, adults,
and families. For additional information, call 802-258-9500 or
visit www.vcdhh.org.
Got an opinion?
(Of course you do!
You’re from
Windham County!)
Got something on your mind? Send contributions to our Letters
from Readers section (500 words or fewer strongly recommended)
to voices@commonsnews.org; the deadline is Friday to be considered for next week’s paper.
When space is an issue, we give priority to words that have
not yet appeared elsewhere.
HELP CHARLES
C
harles Marchant of Townshend has a
collection of 20,000 postcards and historical photos, and he would like to know
more about the people and places they
show. Each issue we will publish one of his
images with a question or two in the hopes
that readers can help him preserve a piece
of Vermont history for future generations.
Can anyone identify this mill
dam and pond? It’s a postcard
mailed from Charlestown, N.H.
to Quaker City (Unity), N.H.
If you can help
Charles Marchant,
please call him at
(802) 365-7937
or email
West River Valley
Veterinary Services
Publication of this postcard
is underwritten by:
720 Vt. Route 30, Newfane, VT • 802-365-9362
Mon.,Tues., Thurs., Fri. 8-5pm; Wed. 8-8pm
helpcharles@commonsnews.org.
EMILY COX AND HENRY RATHVON
THE COMMONS CROSSWORD
“Not John Smith”
NOT JOHN SMITH by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
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Wrap in diapers
Resembling a Nile viper
Red Rocks site of Arizona
Fizzy water brand
Humble home
Latin American plains
Harmonizes
Hannibal the Cannibal
Quakers in the woods
First Internet factoid, part 1
The NCAA’s Sun Devils
Kosovo minority
Thessaly mount
Red Ryder ammo
Fido annoyer
Choice in loaves
Cookbook writer Rombauer
Margin jottings
Metal-on-metal sound
Public transport, quaintly
Narc’s org.
Rough or vulgar
First Internet factoid, part 2
Suffix on morph
Mornings, briefly
“__ Misbehavin’”
Untanned
Ancient computer
Tiny speck
Hind end
Wall Street letters
Urban’s opposite
Bill Monroe’s bag
“Ivanhoe” author
Not so much
Change states
Bit of Viking writing
Pronounced
Duel tool
Rich earth
Caustic cleanser
Sch. founded by Jefferson
Second Internet factoid, part 1
Montana’s capital
Attila follower
Perilous current
Fix, as copy
Army doc
City near the Sphinx
GPS heading
Diplomacy
Kin of bro
“Ginormous”
Old stone slab
“Boston Legal” fig.
Second Internet factoid, part 2
Harangue
Long cold spell
__ fizz
Star, in Paris
List of Sox, e.g.
“Color of the Year” company
Person who e-mails
Records
Suits for lane racers
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© 2012 by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Foppish footwear
Ram in a flock
Line from the heart
Rhythmic thumping
Jurassic critters
Sauterne sediment
Formerly, formerly
5-Down example
Comes across as
Arcade game with ghosts
Absorbed by
WWII shooter
Birch family member
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
27.
28.
33.
35.
36.
38.
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73.
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78.
79.
Bridge feats
Other
Fist-bump greeting
Mild, as chili
Malarkey
Palliated
Jazz ensemble
“Sixpack” muscles
Dance with handclaps
News bits
Column crossers
Chief Norse god
Arms treaty goal
Brat’s stocking stuffer
Moving-day rental
Roofing option
Do some yakking
Permeate
Gets warmer on a search
Sentence breakdown
Gets off the fence?
Doo-wop’s “Duke of __”
Window with a hinged sash
Not in the pink
Audibly
Avail
Mammy of Dogpatch
Wozniak or Jobs
Sicilian top-blower
Epitome of redness
Grapevine product
Fork out
Natural tabletop
Assad’s land
Frog central
Prefix for everything?
Skater’s jump
“Soap” family
Iron ore
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
89.
90.
93.
94.
96.
94
99
109
107
93
92
98
97
102
101
77
87
89
95
61
60
66
81
88
59
70
80
63
49
58
74
62
45
57
73
19
53
69
68
18
40
44
65
78
39
52
64
17
33
48
55
16
29
32
51
54
15
28
47
50
DOWN
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
2
1
ACROSS
106
98.
99.
100.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
108.
Hard-to-pin-down bit
The __ Cat
Pickers of nits
Spotted
Art lover
Cambridge campus
JFK’s prep school
Neptune, e.g.
Wild weather cause
Villainous look
100
Egger-on
Treat with tea
De Mille of dance
Just sitting there
Keynes’s subj.
The Lakers’ Jerry
AOL and such
Insult follower
A hand
Last issue’s solution
“The Hunger Games”
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THE ARTS C4
The Commons
a r t s & c o m m u n i t y C A LEND A R
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Instruction
2
n
.
Shall We
Dance? Rumba.: Ballroom Dance
Classes. n 7:30 p.m. n $10/drop in. n
BRATTLEBORO
Stone Church, 210 Main Street.
3
n
.
Shall We
Dance? Ballroom and Latin
Dance.: Brattleboro Ballroom dance. n 7
p.m. n $8 singles; $15 couples; $5 teens &
seniors. n Stone Church, 210 Main Street.
5
n
BRATTLEBORO
BRATTLEBORO
.
Balkan
Dance: Participatory line and circle
dances from the Balkans, with live music
by Xopo, featuring Becky Ashenden, Chuck
Corman, Gawain Thomas, Annie Guion, Addie
Holland and Joe and Barbara Blumenthal.
Music
Please bring a water bottle and clean, softsoled shoes to protect the dance floor. All
levels welcome. n 7-10 p.m. n Suggested
donation $12. n Stone Church, 210 Main
Street. Information: rachelleackerman@yahoo.
com or call 802-257-9513 or 802-254-2040.
8
n
.
African
Dance and Drum Summer
Class: All levels are always welcome and
BRATTLEBORO
the classes are accompanied by accomplished
drummer, Namory Keita from Guinea along
with Jason Graves and other drummers. n
7 p.m. n The cost is on a sliding scale of
$12-15. n Stone Church, 210 Main Street.
Information: africandancevt@gmail.com or
call 802-258-6475.
Art walks and tours
3
n
BRATTLEBORO
.
Gallery
Walk: 35 to 50 galleries and other
exhibit venues host art openings during this
year-round first-Friday festival of the arts,
many with meet-the-artist receptions and
live music. Most exhibits are up all month
long. n 5:30-8:30 p.m. n Free. n Gallery
Walk. Information: 802-257-2616; www.
gallerywalk.org.
3
n
.
Double
Japanese Festival at Gallery
Walk: At the park downtown at the foot of
BRATTLEBORO
Main St., between the Co-op and the Museum,
Asian Cultural Center of Vermont (ACCVT) presents Tanabata-Obon Festival. Obon is a celebration of ancestors and reconnection with
Spirits. Tanabata is a star festival for communities to make wishes for the future. Join
a walk on a lantern-lit path to the Table of
Remembrance. n 5:30-8:30 p.m. n Free.
n Gallery Walk. Information: (802) 579-9088.
Film and video
2
n
.
Workin-Progress Screening of
"Action Conversations:Bellows
Falls": This is an informal presentation and
BELLOW FALLS
a work-in-progress screening of segments of
a docu-dance film of the project.
n
7 p.m. n Free. n Bellows Falls Opera House,
7 The Village Square.
3
n
.
Waste
Land: Filmed over nearly three years,
BRATTLEBORO
this documentary follows renowned artist Vik
Muniz as he journeys from his home base in
Brooklyn to his native Brazil and the world's
largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. n
8:30-10 p.m. n n Brattleboro Museum
and Art Center, 10 Vernon Street. Information:
802-257-0124; www.brattleboromuseum.org.
teacher treasures
2
n
The written
word
.
Open
Mic: Kevin Parry hosts Open Mic every
BRATTLEBORO
2
n
.
.
Featuring:
School Year
Hours
Wed-Fri 2-5
Sat 10-5
Rte. 30, Newfane - Just North of the Village
802-365-4811
lustrations of a 5-month journey in India. The
opening will be taking place during Gallery
Walk. n 5:30-8:30 p.m. n Free. n Twilight
Tea Lounge, Arch Street. Information: http://
dreamingindia2012.blogspot.com/.
3
n
PUTNEY
.
Concert: Music by Brett Dean,
Dmitri Shostakovich, Stefano Gervasoni, and
George Enescu. n 8 p.m. n $22. n Yellow
Barn, 63 Main Street. Information: 802-3876637; info@yellowbarn.org.
4
n
.
Folksongs and
Sacred Works : Counterpoint,
GRAFTON
Vermont's 12-voice professional vocal ensemble, under the direction of Artistic
Director Nathaniel G. Lew. presents "The
Voice of My Beloved." The concert highlight
the ensemble's stylistic versatility, with
African-American spirituals (a well-known
Counterpoint specialty) and folksongs from
America, England, Venezuela, and Eastern
Europe. Also included are jubilant sacred
works by Dmitri Bortniansky (a Russian contemporary of Mozart) and Johannes Brahms.
n 8 p.m. n $20 for adults, $15 for seniors,
$5 for students. n White Church in Grafton,
Main Street. Information: 802-540-1784. www.
counterpointchorus.org. Tickets also available
at the Grafton Village Store.
4
n
.
Yellow Bar n
Matinee Concert: Music by Erich
PUTNEY
Wolfgang Korngold, Bela Bartok, Brett Dean,
and Robert Schumann. n 12:30 p.m. n
2
n
WEST CHESTERFIELD
.
Mauritius: Stamp collecting doesn't
seem like much of a subject for a play, but
Theresa Rebeck's drama brings out the best
and worst in its characters, two half-sisters
fighting over their recently deceased mother's
stamp collection, and three men with shady
backgrounds and motives who want to get
it. n 7:30 p.m. Through Saturday, August 4.
n Thursdays are $12 (Students $6); Fridays
$15 (Students $8) and Saturdays all tickets
are $15. n Actors Theatre Playhouse, Corner
$18. n Yellow Barn, 63 Main St. Information:
802-387-6637; info@yellowbarn.org.
5
n
.
Draa
Hobbs: Sunday Brunch at the Marina
BRATTLEBORO
with guitarist Draa Hobbs playing a variety
of standards and Jazz classics. n 11 a.m.-1
p.m. n Free with Brunch. n Marina, Putney
Road. Information: 802-257-7428; www.
kevinparrymusic.com.
5
n
.
Live:
Bill Kirchen: Justly famous for
BELLOW FALLS
his indelible Telecaster sound on "Hot Rod
Lincoln," his 1972 Top 10 hit with Commander
Cody, Kirchen has been everywhere since he
first plugged in during the mid-1960s. He
was a founding member of the legendary
Brook & Main St. Information: 802-254-4714;
WWW. Actors-Theatre.Info.
LOAN SPECIAL
Forlano appears globally in theater, cabaret,
club, and outdoor venues. He performs in
the universal style of the great clowns with
contemporary comic and dramatic influences,
verbally and nonverbally. n 10:30 a.m.
n Free. n Living Memorial Park, Guilford
Street Extension.
bmousel@durandonline.com
www.durandtoyota.com
Ben Mousel
“Same Face, New Place”
6
n
.
"Week
of Rock" camp: For all ages and
BRATTLEBORO
abilities, established groups are welcome.
Spend the week playing rock music of different genres, getting coaching from professionals on performance and band development,
including topics on gear, rehearsing, groove,
soloing, and accompanying. The week will
culminate with a performance at Headroom
Stages on Elliot Street. n . Through Friday,
August 10. n n Headroom Stages, 17 Elliot
St. Information: 802 254 5054 or email info@
openmusiccollective.org.
Kids and
fa m i l i e s
BRATTLEBORO
BRATTLEBORO
P.O. Box 497 6896 Route 5 South
Bellows Falls, VT 05101
Refinancing from another Financial Organization
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
n Doors open at 7 p.m. n $18 general admission. n Bellows Falls Opera House, 7 The
Village Square. Information: 802-463-9595.
.
(800) 639-2037 ext. 328
(802) 463-3300 ext. 328
Cell (802) 522-5864
Fax (802) 463-4089
this engaging and educational activity with
their children. n . n n KidsPLAYce, 20
Elliot St. Information: 802-254-5212; www.
kidsplayce.org.
Government
7
n
.
Townshend
Democratic Caucus
Meeting: The Townshend Democratic
TOWNSHEND
Caucus will meet to elect nominees to serve
as Justice of the Peace for the town of
Townshend. Contact Kathy Greve, Democratic
Town Chair, for more information. n 7 p.m.
n n Townshend Town Hall. Information:
802-874-4403.
www.members1cu.com
10 Browne CT
PO
Box 8245
Acupuncture
N. Brattleboro, VT
05304
Chiropractic
NCUA
Insured to
250,000
*Annual Percentage Rate
Tel. (802) 257-5131
General Family Medicine
Fax (802) 257-5837
Lifestyle medicine
205 Main Street
Brattleboro, VT 05301
Phone. 802.275.4732
Fax. 802.275.4738
info@biologichealthcare.com
www.biologichealthcare.com
[
Massage Therapy
Naturopathic Medicine
Nutritional
Assessment/Individualized
Programs
Physical Therapy
Psychotherapy
instant oil change, llc
668 Putney Road • Brattleboro, VT
www.stopngooil.com
stopandgo1@myfairpoint.net
802.254.5050 • Fax: 802.251.7274
auto sales 802.257.3033
NORTHFIELD
DRIVE•IN THEATRE
★ double feature ★
fri., Sat. & Sun., aug. 3, 4 & 5
1st
:25
at 8
BRAVE
Dark Knight Rises
www.northfielddrivein.com
(603) 239-4054
Northfield - Hinsdale Rd. (Rt. 63)
Visual arts
and shows
3
n
membership could mean much at your nonprofit community newspaper. we all know
that $55 doesn’t buy as much as it used to.
Sarah Adam focus on silhouettes and patterns
made by natural and manufactured objects,
including tree branches, vines, and icicles.
Paintings are primarily acrylic on various surfaces. n 5:30-8 p.m. n Free. n Latchis
Theatre, 50 Main Street. Information: www.
madsahara.com.
Ideas and
education
.
Medicine for
the People talks: Greg Carder
PUTNEY
will discuss indigenous medicine. There will
be time for questions after the information
session. n 7-8:30 p.m. n Free. n Medicine
for the People, 25 Main St. Information: 802387-3028; info.medicineforthepeople@
gmail.com..
Fundraising
and
awareness
events
2
n
our printing costs for about a month.
by the Brattleboro Branch of the American
Association of University Women raises funds
for college scholarships for local girls and
women. Good used fiction and nonfiction,
antique and collector editions, audiobooks
too. For more information, call 802-3802805 or email amblerj@sover.net. n 9
a.m.-5 p.m. Through Saturday, August 4. n
n Centre Congregational Church, 139 Main
St. Information: 802-380-2805 or email amblerj@sover.net.
Government
7
n
.
Townshend
Democratic Caucus
Meeting: The Townshend Democratic
TOWNSHEND
Caucus will meet to elect nominees to serve
as Justice of the Peace for the town of
Townshend. Contact Kathy Greve, Democratic
Town Chair, for more information. n 7 p.m.
n n Townshend Town Hall. Information:
802-874-4403.
Together, we can make The Commons
VIM members get the paper in the mail and join us for occasional
special events. We gratefully accept donations of smaller amounts,
but we cannot mail the paper.
ADDRESS ________________________________________________________
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preciate every one of you.
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comm-memb.form04.indd
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Yes!
STATE_____ ZIp ___________ pHONE _________________________________
it all matters. you all matter.
.
AAUW
Book Sale: Annual 3-day book sale
BRATTLEBORO
I want to help support Vermont Independent Media and the
work of The Commons, www.Commonsnews.org, the Media
Mentoring Project, and VIM’s outreach to journalism programs in schools.
My NAME ________________________________________________________
but if 100 readers do the same? that covers
.
Adam's
art opening: New paintings by
BRATTLEBORO
you know you’ve been meaning to
you might not think that your single $55
.
L ev i
Fuller A435 Extravaganza:
BRATTLEBORO
Use tools to tune found objects to Levi Fuller's
famous A435 tuning. Use electronic tuners to
check your results. Perform a piece using your
newly tuned instrument. Starts at the Estey
Organ Museum, ends at Morningside Cemetery.
n 2-5 p.m. n n Estey Organ Museum,
108 Birge Street. Information: 802-246-8366;
info@esteyorganmuseum.org..
7
n
Story and
.
3 Snack: Hosted by Brattleboro
Food
3 Comedy by Daniel Physical
Forlano: n
n
Co-op. All parents are encouraged to enjoy
DuranD
6.5%APR* Vehicle Buying New, Used or
Special good until the end of July.
draahobbs.com
Guitarist Draa Hobbs will perform standards and
jazz classics at The Marina on Aug. 5.
Performing arts
“The SMALL Credit Union with a BIG HEART”
Credit Union Quoted Rates on Recreational Vehicle Loans.
4
n
Yellow Bar n
MEMBERS 1ST CREDIT UNION
1 ½% Reduction On Members 1st
Credit Union Quoted
Recreational Vehicle Loans!
Beyond
Description
Indian
photo exhibit: "Surrender" are ilBRATTLEBORO
BRATTLEBORO
his writing before, you will discover s a treat
of naturalist writing. You may not be familiar
with the birds he talks about, but you'll want
to be after his talk. n 6 p.m. n Free. n
Everyone's Books, 25 Elliot St. Information:
802-254-8160; www.everyonesbks.com.
Brett Dean, Anton Webern and Gerald Finzi.
n 8 p.m. n $18. n Yellow Barn, 63
Main St. Information: 802-387-6637; info@
yellowbarn.org.
3
n
.
Chris
Petrak discusses "More Tails
of Birding": If you haven't encountered
Yellow Bar n
Concert: Music by Benjamin Britten,
PUTNEY
A Teacher Resource Store & More!
Teacher Created Resources
Creative Teaching Press
House Mouse Designs
Home-Schooler & Christian Materials
Scrap Booking
Used Books & Lending Library
3
n
Thursday at the Marina Restaurant. Musicians
can sign up in advance by calling. n 710 p.m. n Free. n Marina, Putney Road.
Information: 802-257-7563.
Please make checks payable to Vermont Independent Media.
VIM is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Your donation is tax deductible.
THE COMMONS
VOICES
VOICES
S E C T I O N D1
B
D
Wednesday, August 1, 2012 • page D1
OPINION • COMMENTARY • LETTERS
Join the discussion: voices@commonsnews.org
DISPATCH
MEMOIR
My first day
knowing
‘He’d said he would go
to college at night and
work during the day. And
now? Now that I was
pregnant, he was leaving.’
I
Townshend JUDITH
DRESSED for school,
putting on my plaid
polyester skirt, zipping it up. It fit fine,
but how long would I be
able to wear this school uniform? How long before I
started to show? I put on a
white blouse and my maroon
sweater. I looked the same
but didn’t feel the same.
All day long at school, I
felt like I had a special secret inside. I couldn’t wait to
get home and call Kevin with
the news.
“Guess what?” I asked
when he answered.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant!” I exclaimed happily. During
classes that day, I’d daydreamed about being parents
together, holding and caring
for our infant.
“I’m going home tonight,”
he said. “My parents want
to talk.”
It was as if he hadn’t heard
what I said, so I said it again.
“I’m pregnant.”
“I know,” he said. “I
heard you.”
“I was hoping you’d be
happy. It’s not like this is a
mistake,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, I know. I’m just
confused.”
I wanted him to be thrilled
with the news, but he wasn’t.
We made plans to get together that night.
WHEN I ARRIVED at his
parents’ house, Kevin met
me at the car and said his
parents wanted him to stay
home. Then, I was confused.
I’d driven some distance to
see him, and now he was
saying I couldn’t come in.
He stood beside the car with
his family’s large brick colonial home behind him.
“I’m going to go to
school,” he said. “My parents said I could go even
though we’re still engaged.”
“But I’m definitely pregnant,” I said, wanting him to
remember that he’d promised to marry me.
“Yeah, and I’m going to
school.”
I didn’t understand. We’d
been talking about what we
were going to do for weeks.
He’d been living at my house
and then his brother’s. He’d
been out of his parents’
house for three whole weeks.
He’d applied for jobs. School
had already started.
He’d said he didn’t want
to go. That he wanted to stay
with me. He’d said he would
go to college at night and
work during the day. And
now? Now that I was pregnant, he was leaving.
I started crying. Not just
a little. A lot. I was totally
shocked.
DICKERMANNELSON’s memoir Believe
in Me: A Teen Mom’s
Story, from where this piece
was excerpted, was recently
published by Jefferson Park
Press. Her poetry and prose has
appeared in numerous journals
and anthologies. Information:
bit.ly/judithd-n.
He held out two slips of
paper.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“They’re names of counselors,” he said. “Places
where you can go to give a
baby up for adoption. My
dad got them.”
“What are you talking
about?”
My head was spinning.
Adoption? He knew I was
adopted. He knew I would
never give our baby away.
He knew that I didn’t know
who my birth parents were,
and I’d told him how that
made me feel like a part of
me was missing.
He was still talking about
what he and his parents had
discussed, but I couldn’t
hear him. Suddenly, I felt
like I was drowning and his
words were swirling around
me as if I was immersed in
water.
“I still want to marry
you,” he said, and I heard
that, like he had thrown a life
preserver into the water.
“You do?”
“Yes, of course. But I
don’t think I can be a father
right now.” I didn’t know
what to say, and I couldn’t
talk if I’d wanted to because
I was crying so much.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he
said.
“I thought you couldn’t
see me,” I managed to say.
“Yeah, well, a little walk
won’t hurt.” He held out his
hand.
I stepped out of the car
and took his hand, and we
walked around the neighborhood until we came to a big
rock at the end of a road.
“I still love you,” he said,
and tried to kiss me. I pulled
away.
“Hey,” he said. “I do.”
And he tried again. This
time I let him. My face was
wet from crying, and he’d
been crying too. We stayed
there hugging and talking for
about a half an hour. I didn’t
want to let go because it felt
like I was losing him.
When we went back to his
house, I didn’t want to leave.
But again he didn’t ask me
to come inside. He kissed me
goodbye, but I didn’t know
when I would see him again,
and it hurt not knowing, like
■ SEE PREGNANT, PAGE D3
D R E A M I N G of
INDIA
The crazier it
sounded and the
scarier it became,
the more we
had to take on
this adventure
I
Brattleboro
WANTED TO pinch my-
self several times as I
stood above the lower
level of the airport. My
gaze overlooked the overflowing immigration line and became glued to the large hand
mudras within the Delhi
airport.
Why here and why now?
Was it the letters that I exchanged for a short time with a
high-school friend, Veenu, who
traveled between India and the
United States?
Was it the poster-sized picture of the Taj Mahal that I
purchased 10 years ago and
placed upon the walls of my
first office?
Was it Indu Sundaresan’s
book with magnetic images of
17th-century India? Or the epic
I stayed up all night watching
which included swirling saris,
belly dance lessons in caves,
and a dramatic love story all set
in India?
Was it my increasing fondness for the many stories of
the Hindu gods and goddesses
Krishna, Radha, Hanuman, or
the epic Bhagavad Gita?
These tales entranced me
and perhaps joined with many
other events in my life in a
lovely conspiratorial mix that
led me to the place that was
India.
THERE WAS also a more
SHANTA L.E. CROWLEY/SPECIAL TO THE COMMONS
Elephant ride in India: “Funny thing: the ride only lasted a few minutes but I
was so terrified could not speak and asked to get off.”
SHANTA L. E. CROWLEY’s photo exhibit, “Surrender,”
about her journey to India, is now on display at the Twilight
Tea Lounge, 41 Main St. Her “Dreaming of India” blog
(dreamingindia2012.blogspot.com) includes the music she heard there;
she also blogs regularly at www.reformer802.com/realtalk. Contact her at
Shantavns@gmail.com.
logical reason for the trip — or
at least it was logical to my husband and me.
We were both unemployed, and life appeared to be
more glaringly uncertain. As
Women at a street vendor in Agra, India.
someone who has been working since I was 13 years old,
this was the first time in 19
years that I was without a job,
a title, or any answers to the
question, “What do you do?”
SHANTA L.E. CROWLEY/SPECIAL TO THE COMMONS
On my way home after my
last day of work, my 2004
Nissan refused the response of
my foot upon the accelerator
as it slowed down on the highway during rush-hour traffic.
It did not matter at this point,
as I had to return my car to the
bank and plot my next move.
At some point during this
wave of confusion, we hatched
something of a plan: use this
time to go to India, see another
part of the world, take a break
from the economy.
We did not have any firm
contacts, friends, or family in
India, and this would be our
first time immersing ourselves
into another culture for five
months.
The idea of taking the little
money we had to try to make
it abroad instead of hunkering down to find work and pay
rent, utilities, and day-to-day
living seemed crazy.
Our friends and family either
supported us, quietly doubted
whether we could do such a
thing, or asked in a reserved
voice, “Why India?”
The crazier it sounded and
the scarier it became as we
packed up our apartment, the
more we just knew that we had
to take on this adventure.
After only a month — and
only a couple of weeks of being
married — we arrived in India.
ACCORDING TO a guy named
Vishnu, who was corresponding with my husband over
■ SEE INDIA, PAGE D2
VIEWPOINT
Why we’re leaving Bellows Falls
‘I am hitting my head on a brick wall, because it is a very lonely existence
when you try and try and try, and all you get is ridiculed and bullied’
Bellows Falls LESLIE FLANAGAN has “lived in many areas, from my
hometown of Baltimore, Md., to Enosburg Falls, Vt. Along the way, I
have met many people and have enjoyed the time we have spent in the
three years ago. I am
communities we have lived in. Again, until we decided to move here.”
not originally from New
England, but I lived in
northern Vermont several years
ago.
That is to say, until our deci- respect, especially from the
My family and I have never
sion to move to Bellows Falls.
children of this community.
had any issues with residents of
We came to Bellows Falls
I am not sure to whom I am
a particular area that we have
for medical and employment
supposed to direct my conchosen to move to. We have
reasons. We did not move
cern, but I do know that as a
always gotten along with the
here and expect to find instant community, no one has made a
residents, respected the comfriendship, but I never thought successful attempt in fixing our
munity, and tried to fit in.
that I would have to fight for
problem.
I
MOVED HERE almost
This does seem to be a community-wide problem, because
I am not the only “new” resident who have had problems,
but ours does seem to be constant and severe. Our community needs to be aware that
times are changing, and that
people are moving in and out
of their town.
OUR PROBLEMS began in
our neighborhood when my
children began meeting the
neighborhood children. One
child in particular was not
happy that my daughter was
becoming friends with another little girl she had grown
up with.
I had to watch as my children were ignored, then bullied. I even tried to go to the
parents of the children who
were taking part in these activities, with no success. Instead
of parents taking responsibility
for their children’s behaviors, I
was told that my daughter was
trying too hard to make friends.
Our problem then took
root in the elementary school.
Things escalated, and finally a
teacher told me what was going
on. My children had been filling me in but were leaving out
many details for fear that they
would get in trouble with me.
My husband and I are strict
parents, and we watch closely
what our children do. I feel
■ SEE BELLOWS FALLS, PAGE D2
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that we have taught our children well and we have spoken
to them about bullying.
I finally spoke to the principal and was told that there
would be a meeting with the
children accused of the bullying and that my children could
attend if they felt comfortable
enough to do so. I was also reassured that the topic of being
new in a community and acceptance would be delivered. I
never found out if the parents
of those children involved were
contacted, and I needed to let
go of the situation and move
forward.
Last summer, we tried to
get out and about to meet the
residents of our community.
However, we were never fully
accepted and never approached
to join in or become part of the
neighborhood to which we now
pay taxes.
It seemed the more we
tried to be accepted, the more
we were looked upon with
contempt.
Last summer, neighborhood children — the very same
children we had issues with at
school — would stand at the
foot of our driveway and laugh
and point at us. We would be
stared at in public, and all we
could do was stand by and
take it.
We kept our children home
and away from any potential
problems. I then contacted the
middle school principal for a
meeting before the start of the
new school year.
I was not going to sit back
and experience yet another
year where my children are targets. I explained that there is a
real fear behind my concerns,
because my children and I suffer from two genetic bleeding
disorders, and if we cut ourselves or bump or fall, we will
bleed uncontrollably.
As parents, we have spoken
to our children about ignoring
these kids, but what happens if
one of my kids are tripped and
they hit their head — all out of
ignorance?
So my husband and I had
this meeting and spoke about
our concerns, our experiences,
and our ultimate fears. For the
most part, the school year was
uneventful because my children were busy working and
getting straight As.
My son was even recognized as being head of the fifth
grade last year, and my daughter was busy with her own academics and art projects. They
do not walk the streets, nor do
they cause problems. Everyone
who meets my children have
from SECTION FRONT
moved closer to the door. I saw
this and felt threatened because
I could clearly see her trying to
make it harder for us to leave.
All the while, they were coughing and laughing — with us
My husband and I purchased passes for each of our
standing right there.
children to swim this summer.
The girl who has caused us
In addition, we enrolled them
the most problems was trying
in another swimming lesson
to hide her head on the table,
session.
but it was too late. I saw her
It is very hard for us to simparticipating, and she knew I
ply pay for extra things outdid so. I live around the corner
side of our budget because I
from her and directly across the
am on disability, and treatstreet from her grandmother.
ing my medical condition and
This child did something to
my medications cost a small
my kids the year before. I did
fortune. My weekly transfutry to tell her parents, but only
sions alone cost $10,000 and
managed to speak to an older
we are responsible for the codaughter. I asked that the parpay, every week, every month, ents speak to me but nothing
and every year. This also does
ever materialized.
not include my other monthly
As I now saw my exit with a
medications and preparations. leg in front of it — the leg of a
So, my children began uschild, mind you. If I had fallen
ing the pool and started their
and hit my head, I would have
swimming lessons. They were
had a major bleed in my skull.
due to finish their lessons on
After having been ridiJuly 20. On July 19, while at
culed, taunted, and teased by
their lessons, I was in the park- these 11-to-12-year-old girls, I
ing lot waiting for them to fin- stopped at the table that they
ish. We noticed the very girls
were sitting at and asked, “Why
they have always had probare you doing this? Why do you
lems with entering the rec cen- bother us when my child and I
ter at the start of the swimming do not bother you?”
lessons.
I just wanted to know why!
This meant that my children
It is also funny that when
had to walk past them to get to these girls need help with
the pool. As they did so — and school work, they will be nice
I was with them — the “trouble to my kids because they know
girls” began coughing loudly
that my children will give them
and laughing. This happened
a direct and honest answer. But
every time they saw us thereaf- otherwise, they are made fun of
ter — every time.
and teased relentlessly.
After my kids were safely at
the pool, I left them and went
I am writing this because we
are now moving.
back to the parking lot to wait
We have had it with this
the 30 minutes for them to finish. As I walked through to the community and just as soon
as the school year ends, we are
exit, I too was coughed at and
out of here. This has been by
laughed at.
When the lessons were over, far the worst experience of my
life.
I entered the rec center to get
I have had so many intermy children and again was
nal bleeds due to stress from
coughed at and laughed at.
the antics that take place here
Now, it was louder, and when
in this small town. I have tried
I turned around to see these
and tried to make friends, and
girls, they were pointing and
I could go on about our many
laughing at me.
other bad experiences.
Now they are disrespectI am also writing because afing an adult, and if this is what
ter I asked these girls why they
they do to an adult, what are
were bothering us, the woman
they capable of doing to anadult at the rec center looked
other child? I told the gentledirectly at me and told me
man at the rec center, “I hate
that they were doing nothing
when kids do this.”
wrong. I was furious; I still am.
While saying this, I saw my
I will find out this town emdaughter, stopped speaking to
the attendant, and grabbed my ployee’s name, and I want to
file a complaint because those
child because I just wanted to
girls were clearly taunting us. I
get out of there. My son was
am sick and tired of no one dostill changing, but I needed to
get out of there because I have ing anything about the constant
bullying that takes place in this
had enough.
town.
As I neared the exit, one of
Does someone have to
the girls who was sitting nearest
the door stuck out her foot and get seriously hurt before we
nothing but positive, wonderful
things to say about them.
This is why I am so angry,
upset, and beside myself.
recognize that there is a real
problem here?
I think this is real shame,
because I liked Bellows Falls
at first. My children love the
school and have done exceptionally well. But the residents of this place need a
serious wake-up call. Bellows
Falls should have caution tape
wrapped around it, preventing
people from moving in and trying to set up house.
In all of the places where we
have lived, we have never experienced the things that have
happened to us here. I buy locally and respect the town. We
are law-abiding citizens and are
teaching our children the same
values.
But I am hitting my head on
a brick wall, because it is a very
lonely existence when you try
and try and try, and all you get
is ridiculed and bullied.
These are now the memories
my children will have of the
time we spent in Bellows Falls,
while their parents tried to set
up a safe home for them.
I don’t know what the answer is, but there is a problem.
Maybe a welcome committee could be established to help
outsiders fit in. The community needs to be aware when
people move in, set up house,
and help the community to
thrive.
It is such a shame because I
know that many of these problems begin at home, behind
closed doors, and with the parents of the children of this
community.
I am concerned about safety
issues, but all I can do from
here is alert the middle school
about what has taken place. I
saw firsthand what these kids
can do, and that action of sticking out of the foot told me to
be concerned. Again, if this girl
was willing to trip me, she will
trip my kids.
It is unfair for an outsider
to have to go through what we
have gone through — all because we were not born and
raised here. We have rights,
too, and we have been violated
too many times now to count.
But this has been hard because of children being involved and bullying. Things
that have happened to us were
always on the right side of the
law, and we were forced to sit
back, shut up, and take it.
No more.
We are just as important as
residents of Bellows Falls as the
next person, and we do not deserve to be treated the way we
have been treated.
n India
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moments of stares, individuals running to take my picture,
or random conversations that
always seemed to involve personal questions, like “Why isn’t
your husband black like you?”
To say our experience was a
culture shock might be a bit of
an understatement. It would be
more apt to say that India molested my senses on every level.
At any moment walking in
the streets or interacting with
various people, I had to intensely use all five senses, in
addition to trying to process
what was taking place.
There were moments where
I cried for the familiarity of
home and the comfort of my
bed, where I wished for the absence of coconut beetles or for
a hot shower that did not involve hitting a switch.
Many times, I asked myself
if I was in over my head, especially when it took 44 hours (25
hours by train and mostly delay
due to the fog) to travel from
Varanasi to Rishikesh. There
were numerous train rides
with bunks that would give a
claustrophobic a lifetime of
nightmares.
There was also the headon rickshaw accident that took
place in Alleppey; it left me
with minor bruises but forever PTSD’d-out over what I
call the drunk-game-of-chicken
driving that best describes the
road rules.
Yet I managed.
Tears I shed over being
homesick also competed with
tears over the poverty in India,
or over varying forms of what
my Western mind would call
“cruelty.”
On many levels, I felt powerless as I saw many people of
all ages in the streets who were
disfigured (some on purpose as
a way to generate money) and,
in some cases, barely clothed.
Yet, true to my feeling that I
was involved in a dysfunctional
relationship with India, I fell in
love with it.
The Taj Mahal was one
place where I felt as if my
life dream unzipped right
During the five months, we before me as the thick fog
would experience many intense slowly undressed its splendor
the past couple of months via
Facebook, a taxi driver would
greet us at the airport holding a
sign with our names.
Upon spotting us in this
crowded Delhi airport, our
driver picked us up to take us
to the ashram in Rishikesh to
meet Vishnu so we could begin our adventure up to the
Himalayan Mountains for our
yoga-meditation retreat.
Vishnu was a new contact, but we’d never Skyped
or talked on the phone; we
just somehow trusted that all
of these arrangements would
work just as they sounded in
the emails.
This was certainly a far cry
from the streets of Brattleboro,
or the dark apartment where I
would fantasize about a life that
was better than the so-called
reality of Hartford, Conn.
Because it was so early in
the morning, it took a while for
the morning sun to pull back
the curtains of where we were.
Smoke filled the air, and I sat
in the back seat, nearly passing
out because of close calls from
the lack of turn signals and the
chaos from the beeping that
seemed to signify “I’m coming through — move out of the
way!” I tried to use the music
to calm myself.
The streets did not smell like
one big incense cloud, as some
of our friends said it would.
Instead, there seemed to be an
obsession with burning many
things; those odors commingled with other smells and
made my stomach flip-flop.
The cab driver stopped at a
street stand along the way for
us to grab some chai. I remember reading that we weren’t
supposed to be doing this, yet
I did not want to miss out on
my favorite addiction — Indian
chai.
As I sipped the chai slowly,
the moment became intense,
as we were the only foreigners
amid many of the locals. We
all seemed to be in some weird
stare-off because we were
unique to the environment.
from SECTION FRONT
right before my eyes. I just
stood there staring in awe,
speechless.
Places like Munnar and
Alleppey seemed out of a storybook as each became a familiar
neighborhood, complete with
our favorite restaurants and
corner-store vendors.
There were many beautiful moments and challenges I
faced every day as I adjusted to
the culture and to being gone
for such a long time.
I had expectations upon going to India thinking that I
would find answers, that I
would somehow finally get on
the guru bus (besides the one
I’d been riding that says I am
my own teacher) that so many
people in the U.S. seemed to
dig so much, perhaps even
plunge deeper into Tantric
practice.
I even stopped drinking from
the cup of judgment as I made
initial plans to get my yoga certification while in India, challenging my long-held belief that
it was just a bunch of posturing
and big business in the U.S.
I came to a place just before
leaving India that I was okay
with what did and did not happen for me on the trip. Letting
go was the constant theme.
Suspending assumption and
withholding judgment and expectation of a previous norm —
all that became daily practice.
I am forever thankful to
India for an opportunity to
challenge who and what I
thought I was, and who and
what I would want to be.
Though it has been about
five months since my return,
I continue to ask myself if I
truly have any of these qualities
that I had relinquished or suspended during our experience.
Before coming back to the
U.S., I encountered many
teachers who came in many
forms.
Some teachers were self-proclaimed. Other teachers were
students, business owners,
children, animals, fellow travelers, the naked yogi I encountered in the Himalayas with a
surveillance camera in his cave
— and the overall day-to-day
experience itself.
Our many experiences
handed me back to myself in
a certain graceful, gentle judo
that at times left me disoriented
but then quickly grasping the
point: to be present and embrace what is in my way.
The moment I stepped upon
the plane to India was the moment I crumpled up whatever
life I thought I knew. The familiar became unfamiliar and
the unfamiliar started to feel
like home, especially when I returned to Brattleboro.
Post-travel depression set
in, as I felt like an alien who
landed from another planet, yet
one who was happy to re-engage with friends and family.
At times, it even felt like I was
still asleep in India and only
dreamed so lucidly about being home.
I am no longer the same me
as a result of this journey; my
home is not the same home.
And so the list goes on and on.
This beautiful transformation still continues. I am left
with not only my memories,
but also the 12,000 pictures
that I took on this wonderful
adventure.
LETTER
Townshend
ordinance:
illegal
R
E: “It’s our job”
[Viewpoint, July 25]:
I wholeheartedly agree
with Ryan Hockertlotz. I also
contacted the Townshend
Selectboard and advised them
that I thought the ordinance
was illegal and didn’t want to
see my tax dollars wasted to
defend it when challenged.
Fran Allen
West Townshend
THE COMMONS
NEWS
LETTERS FROM READERS
Clearing up the
VY euphemisms
T
he English language is full
of euphemisms: for example, Vermont Yankee’s
“Emergency Planning Zone”
as mentioned in Richard
January’s letter [July 11].
I won’t quibble with the actual title of the zone in question. I do, however, question
the purpose of the “Emergency
Planning Zone.”
If it isn’t to alert and prepare us for the possibility of
evacuation, why do we receive
each year a beautiful historical calendar that overflows with
detailed (and unrealistic) information about where to go
and how to get there in case of
an evacuation required by an
“event” at our friendly, local,
and economically beneficial
nuke?
And, as a topper, why did we
recently receive a letter from
the Vermont Department of
Health reminding us about the
importance of updating our
supply of potassium iodide
tablets as part of “Vermont’s
continuing emergency preparedness effort?”
I’ll happily replace my “VY
Evacuation Zone” sign with
one that says something like,
“VY Emergency Planning
Zone for Nuclear Disaster
Evacuations.” That would
clear up all the euphemisms.
Robert Rottenberg
Brattleboro
Drain the river, close
Vermont Yankee
I
t’s time we recognized all the
benefits that we are getting
from Vermont Yankee.
First, there is the electricity, right? Didn’t VY produce
two-thirds of Vermont’s electricity? Well...VY might have
produced it, but they didn’t
provide it! Vermont Yankee is
a merchant plant, selling electricity to the highest bidder,
and it certainly didn’t all go to
Vermont.
Why am I speaking in the
past tense? Because since
March 22, Vermont hasn’t
been buying any power from
Vermont Yankee. Don’t believe me? Call the Vermont
Department of Public Service
and ask them.
What about all the electricity that goes out onto the grid
from Vermont Yankee?
Won’t there be rolling blackouts if it is shut down? Rolling
blackouts, my sweet rumpus!
Typically, 4,000 extra megawatts is available on the grid.
Vermont Yankee produces
one-sixth of the excess available
electricity. That’s why the plant
can shut down for a whole
month when workers change
the spent fuel rods. Don’t believe me? Watch the figures on
the ISO New England daily reports. That organization regulates electricity sales. I’ve seen
as much as 10,000 megawatts
on the grid with no buyer.
So... let’s take a look at what
else we get from Vermont
Yankee.
Google: “Vermont Yankee
annual radioactive effluent
reports.” Then get on the nrc.
gov website.
Here’s what we got from
Vermont Yankee in 2011:
Released into the atmosphere in the form of gaseous
effluents as particulates: radioactive iodine-131, known to
cause thyroid cancer (see recent letter to post office boxholders from the Vermont
Department of Health); tritium, shown through epidemiological research to be
correlated with Down’s syndrome; carbon-14, which
causes leukemia.
Trucked out as waste sludge,
spent resin, and irradiated
parts: cesium-137, known to
cause breast cancer, cobalt-60,
associated with liver cancer;
strontium-89 and -90, associated with leukemia.
For a complete list, see the
reports at nrc.gov.
Here is what I don’t understand. Our governor, Peter
Shumlin, who got elected on
his anti-nuclear policy, has
not yet shut down Vermont
Yankee.
All it would take is to close
off the Bellows Falls dam
for a day or two each week.
This strategy would drain the
Connecticut river all the way
to the Vernon Dam and cut off
the necessary coolant so that
VY would have to shut down
repeatedly.
It can be done. We don’t
have a contract to provide water to Vermont Yankee.
Peter Van der Does
Brattleboro
EDITORIAL
Barriers to voting have
no place in a democracy
I
T’S EASY to
take for granted how markedly different Vermont’s attitude toward voting and
elections is, compared to the rest of the nation’s.
It’s easy to register to vote in Vermont, and
registration drives at sites from schools to nursing
homes happen regularly. Early voting takes place six
weeks before an election, and voters can cast a ballot
ahead of Election Day for any reason they offer.
No photo ID is required at polling places (a good
thing, as Vermont is one of the few states that issues
driver licenses without photos). Granted, most towns
are small enough that the Town Clerk knows who you
are without an ID, but every voter’s identity is still
checked against the names and addresses on the voting rolls.
In short, the default position of the state of
Vermont is to make it easy as possible to vote and
to run the elections accordingly. Democrats and
Republicans benefit equally.
That’s why participation in elections here is higher
than most places.
COMPARE THIS attitude to what we are seeing elsewhere in the nation. The voter ID laws so vigorously
backed by Republicans are ostensibly about preventing voting fraud, an act so rare in most jurisdictions
that it’s nearly non-existent.
No, these laws are really about making it more difficult to register to vote.
They are about frightening off groups that want to
hold voter registration drives.
They are about requiring voters to have photo ID
cards, then making it difficult to obtain them.
They’re about curtailing early voting periods, then
making it difficult to get an absentee ballot.
In short, these laws illustrate the exact opposite of
Vermont’s approach to voting.
Republican-controlled state legislatures are pushing restrictive new voting rules for one simple reason. Put up as many bureaucratic hurdles as possible,
and you might be able to discourage or block enough
people from voting — mostly the poor, the young,
the elderly, or the blacks and Hispanics who usually
vote for Democrats — to ensure that Republicans get
elected.
According to the nonpartisan Brennan Center
for Justice, 1 in 10 eligible voters lacks the necessary ID to vote. That figure includes 1 in 4 African
Americans, and about 1 in 5 senior citizens.
How would this affect an election?
The Brennan Center estimates that more than 5
million people will have a significantly harder time
R
VA: Great care for me
R
I had a weight on my chest.
get engaged.”
“And then you used sex to
ON THE DRIVE home, I
manipulate him.”
thought about how long it had
“It’s not like I forced him!”
taken to find out I was pregI said. It was as if his famnant. Would it have made any ily had another story about
difference if we’d found out the what had happened, and it was
news while he was living at my not the same story I was livhouse and looking for work?
ing. It seemed to me they were
Would he have stayed with me the ones who were doing the
then? The whole way home,
manipulating.
I kept wiping my eyes with a
“He’s leaving for school tonapkin.
morrow, and you won’t see
The next day I called him,
him then,” she said, and she
and his mother answered.
sounded pleased, smug even.
When I asked for Kevin, she
Leaving for school?
said, “He’s busy right now. But Tomorrow?
I’d like to speak with you. You
“Please let me talk to
thought you could trap Kevin
Kevin,” I said, a whine rising in
by getting engaged. Well—”
my voice.
“Wait a minute,” I said, cutI was left standing there, the
ting her off. “Kevin wanted to
dial tone sounding in my ear.
THE BRENNAN CENTER recently looked at 10
states that recently passed restrictive voter ID laws:
Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi,
Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and
Wisconsin.
Five of the states have passed laws that are
currently in effect (Georgia, Indiana, Kansas,
Pennsylvania, and Tennessee). The other five are either awaiting federal approval (Mississippi, South
Carolina, and Texas), on appeal after being found
unconstitutional under state law (Wisconsin), or not
scheduled to go into effect until after 2012 (Alabama).
The Brennan Center found that about a half-million eligible voters will find it nearly impossible to obtain the necessary ID because they live in households
without access to transportation and live more than
10 miles away from an ID-issuing office.
Because many of these voters might not have driver’s licenses — and nearly all live in rural areas with
limited public transportation — it could be significantly harder for them to get an ID and cast a ballot.
Even if you have a way to get to the office that issues IDs, there’s no guarantee it will be be open during regular business hours.
Not surprisingly, the Brennan Center found that
the areas with the highest concentration of people of
color and people living in poverty had the least access
to an ID-issuing office.
Then there is the other problem: tracking down
the birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce decrees, and other documentation that some states now
require to get a voter ID. Even though voter IDs are
free, the time and expense of coming up with these
documents is beyond the reach, financially and logistically, of many potential voters.
That’s why these voter ID laws are being challenged in courts around the nation. Practically speaking, they become barriers that discourage voter
participation. They are laws that are simply unworthy
of a democracy.
For democracy to work, voting must be a universal
right not subject to the partisan whims of whoever is
in power.
When those in power decide to curtail that right,
no matter what the excuse, our nation suffers.
BHA: Nothing is off the table
S
■ Pregnant
casting a vote in the 2012 election, and that the states
which have already cut back on voting rights account
for 171 electoral votes in this year’s election.
That’s 63 percent of the 270 electoral votes needed
for victory.
Editorials represent the collective voice of The Commons and are written by the editors or by members of the Vermont Independent Media Board of
Directors. We present our point of view not to have the last word, but the first: we heartily encourage letters from readers, and we love spirited dialogue
even if — especially if — you disagree with us. Send your letters to voices@commonsnews.org, or leave a comment at www.commonsnews.org.
E: “Eight possible sites for
public housing” [July 25]:
We started with a list, compiled by Stevens & Associates,
of properties that might be
enior Solutions (formerly
available and were considered
back home. Others park their
the Council on Aging for
worth studying. Most were revehicles in the Senior Lot.
Southeastern Vermont) has
Some cannot walk easily or far. moved from the list because
long had a local office in the
they were too expensive, too far
Someone has decided to
Brattleboro Senior Center.
from services, too hilly, no wamove this Senior Solutions
Senior citizens gather week- office to the Brattleboro
ter, and other such reasons.
days at the center for activiThe eight “survivors” will be
Municipal Center, up and
ties and meals, where they can across Main Street, then up a
carefully vetted, with a rough
meet easily and privately with
development plan provided for
steep hill, effective Aug. 8.
Senior Solutions staff.
each.
Is this a senior solution?
Some arrive via public transNo decisions have been
Howard Fairman
portation directly from and
Vernon made at this time. As BHA
Executive Director Chris Hart
remarked, “Nothing is off the
table.”
New properties might be
looked at, and the “losers”
might come back up if new
E: “Single-payer health
profit-driven so care is what its information suggests it. The
care works: Just visit a VA staff concentrates on.
desired 152 units might be
hospital and see” [Viewpoint,
As for those who think that
concentrated in one or two
July 18]:
the Affordable Care Act is a
As a disabled Vietnam vetbad solution to health care,
eran, I agree wholeheartedly
they need to look more closely
with Robert Miller. The VA
at what our government has
has provided great care for me been doing for our veterans
since I first entered a VA hospi- over the years. Maybe this is
tal in Boston in 1969.
the system that should be used
The White River Junction
for all Americans.
VA is exceptional in the care
Louis Cayer
they give our veterans. And as
West Dover
Mr. Miller states, the VA is not
Is this a senior solution?
D3
locations, or distributed among
a greater number of sites. Some
sort of mixed-income development, such as we have at the
A.W. Richards Building, is also
a possibility.
Ideas and suggestion from
the public are welcomed.
The BHA can be reached at
802-254-6071 or at bha@sover.
net.
Tom Finnell
Brattleboro
The writer serves on the
and on its Housing Alternative
Study Committee.
Komen should be shut down
R
E: “Local Komen chapter shouldn’t suffer consequences” [Letters, July 25]:
The students and current
football players at Penn State
will suffer due to the horrible
actions of a few. But suffer they
must. Sometimes the innocent
suffer from the punishment of
those who did wrong.
I happened to see the movie
Pink Ribbons, Inc.; I will never
again donate to any organization aligned with Komen.
EDITOR’S
NOTE
When such a small fraction of
the money raised really goes to
discovering the cause of cancer, donations are wasted.
Komen should be shut
down, and the good local organization should be reconstituted under some other name
and commit that 90 percent of
funds will go to uncovering the
causes of cancer.
Steve Morgan
Amherst, Mass.
T
his week, between the
contributions from
readers, comments from
the website, and the usual
mix of food for thought
that we find for you, your
editor was working with
approximately three times
the amount of material
than he usually has for the
Voices section.
We are still working on
a roundup of local viewpoints in the aftermath of
the Colorado shooting,
which should appear in
next week’s paper.
We’ll plan to run letters
about the primary election
in several batches.
Thanks, as always, for
making Voices an eclectic,
vibrant, and growing section of this newspaper.
PREPARE TODAY FOR TOMORROW’S JOBS
FROM SECTION FRONT
How was it that one evening
we were making plans to get
married and two days later, he
was getting ready to leave for
school? I felt dizzy. My world
was spinning out of control,
and I didn’t know what to do. I
hung up and just stood there.
LATER THAT NIGHT, the
phone rang. When I heard
Kevin’s voice, I was glad. But
as he spoke, my eyes welled
with tears.
“I’m going to be there for
you in the end,” he said. “I
love you.” More than anything,
I wanted to believe him. But
he was leaving, and this latenight phone call was our quiet
goodbye.
APPLIED BUSINESS PRACTICES
Register Now! Financial aid available.
Learn more about all of our degree,
certificate and continuing education
options at www.ccv.edu or call 1-800-228-6686.
D4
THE COMMONS
SPORTS & RECREATION
Shrine game returns to Dartmouth’s Alumni Field
T
his Saturday is the
59th Shrine Maple
Sugar Bowl and, for
the first time since
2008, the game is back at
Dartmouth College’s Alumni
Field.
The annual match-up between the top high school
graduates of Vermont and
New Hampshire starts at 2:30
p.m. in Hanover, N.H., site
of 48 previous Shrine games.
Renovations to Alumni Field
forced the game to McLeayRoyce Field in Windsor for the
past three years.
There’s only one local representative on the Vermont
squad this year, Brattleboro
wide receiver and kick returner
Soren Pelz-Walsh.
Pelz-Walsh, who lives in
Dummerston, was a standout
wide receiver and team captain for the Colonels in 2011.
He was a first-team selection
on the Vermont Division I AllStar team as he helped lead the
Colonels to a 5-4 record.
A three-sport star, he was
also captain of the basketball
and baseball teams in the 201112 school year. He’ll be going
to the University of Vermont
this fall.
The Vermont squad is
coached by Rutland’s Mike
Norman. Mike Beliveau of
Souhegan High School leads
the New Hampshire team.
New Hampshire leads the
all-time series, 43-13-2, and
has won the last 11 Shrine
games.
Quick exit for
Post 5 in Legion
tourney
• Brattleboro Post 5 didn’t
stay long in the Vermont
American Legion Baseball
Tournament in Rutland and
Castleton.
In the opening game last
Thursday, Post 5 lost to
Addison County, 8-2. Charlie
Stapleford threw a completegame one-hitter with 11 strikeouts to get the win. Addison
County pounded Brattleboro’s
pitchers for 16 hits.
The next day, Brattleboro
was knocked out of the doubleelimination tournament with a
7-5 loss to Lakes Region.
The two best baseball teams
in the state, Bennington and
Essex, reached the state finals,
and it was Essex that prevailed
with a 11-10 win on Monday.
Essex now advances to the
rain-shortened game between
these teams, Keene won, 6-5.
The Newport Polar Bears
are hanging with those two
teams at 7-7. They split a doubleheader with the Brattleboro
River Rats, winning the first
game, 5-1, and losing the second game, 6-2.
Ludlow now has a 6-7 record, followed by Brattleboro
(5-9), Saxtons River (5-10),
and the Putney Fossils (4-10).
• The Green Mountain Club
(GMC) recently put out the
first edition of the Manchester
Area Hiking Trail Map, featuring hiking trails in southern
• Health Care and
Vermont.
Rehabilitation Services
The Manchester Section,
(HCRS) will host its fifth anone of the 14 chapters of the
nual Golf Tournament for
GMC, maintains the hikAutism on Friday, Aug. 17,
ing trails in the Manchester,
at Tater Hill Golf Club in
Stratton, and Bromley area.
Windham.
They helped put together this
The tournament has a shot- pocket-sized, waterproof map
gun start at 1 p.m. and will be
which includes hiking trails on
a mixed-scramble based on
Bromley, Stratton, Equinox,
best ball. Players will have an
and White Rocks mountains.
opportunity to compete for
It is the fifth in the club’s series
some hole-in-one prizes, as
of regional maps that also inwell as prizes for longest drive
clude Camels Hump, Mount
and closest to the pins. In adMansfield, the Northeast
dition, a silent auction will be
Kingdom, and Killington areas.
held throughout the day and
In addition to regional
an awards banquet will be held maps, the GMC offers a numfollowing the tournament.
ber of comprehensive hiking
The entry fee is $130, and all trail publications including
proceeds will be used to help
the Long Trail Map, the Day
support area individuals and
Hiker’s Guide to Vermont, and
families living with the ongoing the classic Long Trail Guide.
challenges of Autism. For more To learn more, visit www.
greenmountainclub.org, or stop by
information, contact Alice
Bradeen at HCRS at 802-886- local outdoor gear and bookstores around the state to pick
4567, ext. 2191.
up your map.
Youth Services’
Golf Tournament
Brattleboro’s Soren Pelz-Walsh (14), seen here last year blocking for teammate nets more
Hassan Cansler, is the lone area representative to the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl. than $22,000
RANDOLPH T. HOLHUT/COMMONS FILE PHOTO
RANDOLPH T.
HOLHUT
Sports Roundup
regional tournament at Old
Orchard Beach, Maine next
weekend.
Softball roundup
As the regular season of
the Brattleboro Area Men’s
Softball League nears its conclusion, the races for the top
spots in the four divisions are
getting close at the end of last
Need New flooring?
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HCRS hosts fifth
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t
Best of the Bes
ning
12 Yearst Run
Surveyors
prize for Women’s Closest to
the Pin while Iedje Hornsby
won Closest to the Line.
In the Men’s Division, Ward
Dannemiller took the prize for
Longest Drive. Steven Sayer
took Closest to the Line with
Joe Bartlett winning Closest
to Pin.
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week’s games.
The Brattleboro Elks (124) remain in first place in
Division 1, but the Moose (115) are only one game back
and Fletcher’s Auto (10-5) are
not far behind. Sportsmen’s
Lounge/Hotel Pharmacy (2-12)
trails the field.
Roadhouse Bar & Billiards
and In Pursuit 365 are tied
atop Division 2 at 10-7, with
Zooters/Green Mountain
Creamery in third place at 8-8.
Westmoreland Auto remains in
the basement at 2-15.
In Division 3, Hescock Lawn
Care (12-5) remains in first,
but three teams — Newton
Business, Aerodyne, and GSP
Coatings — are all tied for second at 11-6. Marina/DMI (107) is two games back in fifth,
followed by VFW (9-7) MT3/
DJ’s/Goodenough (6-9), W
& B Maintenance (5-10) , GS
Precision (5-12) and Stark
Outdoors (2-14).
Falvey Pools is cruising atop
Division 4 with a 16-1 record, while Mocha Joe’s (115) is in second. Twin State
Auto (10-6) is third, followed
by Frankie’s Pizza/McNeill’s
Brewery (9-6), Chelsea Royal
(7-8), the Firefighters (7-9),
• Ninety-two area golfers
participated in Youth Services’
27th annual Golf Tournament
at the Brattleboro Country
Club on July 25. The event
generated over $22,000 to
CRVBL roundup
help underwrite the agency’s
• With two weeks left in
programs.
the Connecticut River Valley
The team of Jeff Morse,
Baseball League’s regular sea- Tammy Morse, Barb Henry,
son, the Chester Crush is still
and Hugh Barber won First
in first place with an 11-3 reGross, with the team of Ken
cord, but the Claremont
Whitworth, David Ross, Eric
Cardinals are just a game back Carpenter, and Brian Baker
at 10-4.
finishing First Net, for the secClaremont kept pace with
ond year in a row.
a 13-4 win over the Saxtons
The team of Elizabeth
River Pirates on Sunday, while Walker, Eileen Ranslow,
Chester split a doubleheader
Dough Dannemiller, and Toby
with the Ludlow Athletics, win- Munsill took Second Gross
ning the first game, 8-5, and
and Steve Hellus, Chip Hellus,
losing the second game, 3-2.
Dan Harrison, and Henry
The Keene Black Dawgs
Scott took Second Net.
and Walpole Wild Blue are tied
Barb Henry won the prize
for third at 7-6. In Sunday’s
for the Women’s Longest
Drive. Sabine Rhyne won the
Tony Farnum Construction
(5-10), UNFI (5-12), and
Brattleboro Family Health
Care (2-15).
Jamaica Healing Arts & Wellness Center
Raise your vibration,
uplift your body & spirit!
Margaret R. Miller, M.Ed
Jamaica, Vermont
Now Scheduling for
Reiki, Theraputic Massage,
Acupuncure, &
Myofascial Release
Counselor, Pastor, Reiki healer,
weaver, and Mistress of Ceremonies.
(802) 874-7201
margaret@margiesmuse.com
Reiki and Intuitive Counseling
Bi-weekly Tuesday healing meditation gatherings at the
Confluence of Massy and Ball Mountain Brooks
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802-257-5100
www.brattautomall.com
MORE
AROUND
THE
TOWNS
AARP driver training
offered in Townshend
TOWNSHEND — The
AARP Driver Safety Program,
a classroom driver refresher
course for mature drivers, will
hold a class in Townshend at the
Grace Cottage Hospital Wellness
Center on Saturday, Aug. 11.
The course explains the changes
that occur in vision, hearing,
and reaction time as people age.
Content includes coverage of
changes in highways, vehicles,
and Vermont state law that affect drivers.
There is a $14 fee for the program, which is reduced to $12
for AARP members. A special
Educator Promotion is in effect for classes taken during the
months of July and August. All
current and former school employees are eligible to take the
class for $5.
AARP Volunteer Instructor
Elliott Greenblott will offer the
course using a combination lecture, discussion, and video presentation which will begin at
8:30 a.m., and conclude at approximately 1 p.m. To register
or for more information, contact
Elliott Greenblott at 802-2544489 or egreenblott@comcast.
net (mce_host/site/editsystem05a/
egreenblott@comcast.net).
Brattleboro Area
Hospice plans fall
training for volunteers
BRATTLEBORO —
Brattleboro Area Hospice will
offer its fall volunteer rraining
beginning Thursday, Sept. 6 and
continuing until Nov. 15. The
trainings run from 6-9 p.m., and
are held at BAH, 191 Canal St.
Applications are due Aug. 17.
Hospice volunteers help and
support neighbors and their
families who are living with lifethreatening illnesses throughout
Windham County. Help may
range from errands and gardening to emotional and physical
support.
Volunteers report the work
is challenging and very rewarding. Training topics include
Hospice philosophy, nuts and
bolts of volunteering, ethical issues, personal attitudes toward
death and dying, and grief issues.
Presenters include professionals from the community as well
as Hospice staff and volunteers.
For an application, call 802-2570775. There is a $40 contribution requested to cover the cost
of training materials.

E - The Commons

Transcription

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