For Stephen Baker, Sept. 21 is a date with poignant family and patriotic significance.
In 1861, on that day, soldiers marched from a hastily-established military encampment in Brattleboro to the train station, the first leg of their journey to Washington, D.C., and eventually, the battlefield of the Civil War.
The 1,043 men, including his great-grandfather, Franklin Stockwell, comprised the Fourth Vermont Regiment, a unit mostly made up of young Vermonters who left their fields and farms to fight for the Union cause on Sept. 21 of that year.
Forty-five years later, to the day, “Defenders of the Union,” a monument created by sculptor Allen George Newman from granite quarried in West Dummerston, was dedicated on the site of the encampment.
I am not a ghoul. In real life, the only dead bodies I've ever seen have been close relatives in boxes - and those were disquieting experiences that I would rather not repeat. Yet you might as well make “Murder” my middle name. I am one of those poor...
The Crowell Park playground provides a serene, natural space for young children to play; one which is, and has been, heavily utilized by parents and their pre-school and school-age children. As it is now, the playground allows neighborhood children to relax, play, picnic, and interact with one another and...
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has completed its inspections related to the tritium leak at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and has given the plant the thumbs up. According to a letter sent from the NRC to Vermont Yankee Site Vice President Michael Colomb dated Sept. 20, the agency's goal behind the inspections was to assess VY's ongoing monitoring and remediation of the tritium plume detected in early 2010 as it flowed with the groundwater toward the Connecticut River.
The town has determined that it has spent some $106,450 to date to fix damages caused by Tropical Storm Irene . Irene crashed through Vermont Aug. 28, drenching the state and sending floodwaters down Windham County's streams and rivers. The water tore up roads, washed away buildings, and deposited mud and debris in its wake. The Whetstone Brook flooded its banks, turning Flat Street into a river strong enough to carry away cars. The town's payroll related to Irene totalled...
When my wife and I decided to move to southeastern Vermont, a key factor in our decision was finding a place where community meant something. As a psychologist, I believe that a sense of community is an important and underappreciated human need. I don't want to get glossy-eyed about how catastrophes like the Putney General Store and the Brooks House fires and now the devastation from Tropical Storm Irene bring out the best in people. Our personalities and relationships aren't...
Registration has begun for the Brattleboro Way To Go! Fall Commuter Challenge, to be held Oct. 3-7. This event encourages the use of healthier, more earth-friendly transportation, and less expensive alternatives to driving alone. The Fall Challenge is open to anyone who lives or works in the town of Brattleboro. Participants who pledge to walk, bike, telecommute, carpool, take the bus or use any alternative to driving solo at least one day during the week will be eligible to win...
I needed some light electrical work done in my house. I called a local electrician and received a quote of $65 an hour with the promise of a few hours of work plus materials. Hmmm. Then I went to Brattleboro Time Trade and listed my electrical installation needs. Within a few days, two local men offered to do the work, for free. Well, almost for free. They would be getting paid - in the form of time. However much time...
A recent cover of The New Yorker shows construction on the post office on 8th Avenue and 32nd Street in Manhattan. You can read the end of the quote carved into the marble façade along the front of the building. “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” it reads. A construction guy is working, mid-word, on a continuation of the quote along the rest of the...
The Healthy Communities Coalition of Windham County (HCC), an initiative of Meeting Waters YMCA, has been chosen as one of four “model success stories” by YMCA of the USA. It will be featured in upcoming publications and online content by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and YMCA of the USA, the national resource center for the YMCA movement in America. HCC is part of the Pioneering Healthier Communities initiative-a national partnership between these two leading national organizations.
This letter is in response to Joyce Marcel's column (“We Were Lucky,” Sept. 7). While I have no issue with most of her article - I enjoyed reading how she and others pulled through Hurricane Irene in tough Vermont fashion, and I agree that she, and others, could have had it much worse - I do think she could have chosen her words more carefully than she did in one particular paragraph. In response to other unfortunate events that have...
The Brattleboro Retreat, in collaboration with the Flickers North Country Film Festival, will host a two-day festival of more than a dozen full-length features and film shorts at the Hooker-Dunham Theater and Gallery, 139 Main St., on Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 1 and 2. Proceeds from the event will be donated to the United Way of Windham County Irene Flood Relief Fund. Anna's Vision Film Fest is named after Anna Hunt Marsh, the New Hampshire visionary who in 1834 founded...
The Brattleboro Rotary Club is seeking applicants for a Group Study Exchange program to northwestern Germany that will take place from May 15 through June 14, 2012. The application deadline is Oct. 15. Sponsored by Rotary International's Rotary Foundation, the Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for businesspeople and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40. The GSE team consists of one Rotarian group leader and four non-Rotarian team members who typically...
The Windsor-Bellows Falls game is one of the highlights of the high school football season for both schools. The teams play for the Dale Perkins Trophy, named in honor of a former coach at both schools. Last year, these two teams faced each other for the Division III state championship. The game is usually well-attended, which makes a big difference for the athletic budgets for these two small schools. But the long-running football rivalry was almost scuttled last week because...
The town's recycling rate for the past two months has risen to 30 percent from the mid-20s, according to town Recycling Coordinators Moss Kahler and Cindy Sterling. According to Kahler, this increased recycling rate has dropped the town's tipping fees from the $328,000 budgeted to $297,000 at the close of the previous fiscal year in June. If the recycling trend continues, Kahler expects the town's tipping fees to come in even lower. For the current fiscal year, he said, the...
We'll admit it. It has been a tough six months for us here at The Commons. In these past six months, we've seen the fire at the Brooks House on April 17, the Entergy v. Vermont court proceedings in Brattleboro in June and September, flooding in Westminster West in May, the slayings of Melissa Barratt in July and Michael Martin in August, and finally, Tropical Storm Irene, the worst natural disaster to hit Windham County since the Hurricane of 1938.
Town Attorney Robert Fisher advised the Selectboard last week that board members' use of social media to communicate with members of the public during a warned meeting violates Vermont's Open Meeting Law. Local news organizations had questioned Selectboard member Ken Schneck's use of Facebook during meetings to connect with citizens not present at the meeting. In past interviews with The Commons, Schneck has voiced his goal of using technology and social media to engage more residents in the municipal process.
I believe that Vermonters have been hoodwinked by a few activists and politicians who mistakenly believe they must protect the citizens of Vermont from a hypothetical Vermont Yankee accident. Their statements, appearing in letters and news articles, are riddled with untruths about how nuclear power works and unsupported personal attacks on the intelligence, honesty, and commitment of Vermont Yankee employees. Vermont Yankee workers are all safety-conscious, professional people. The forefront of their work ethic has always been the health and...
The Windham Child Care Association, a regional child care resource and referral agency, recently named Lisa Harris, owner of Rock River School in Williamsville, as this year's recipient of the Early Childhood Educator of the Year Award. After spending her adult life in various educational settings, Harris opened her program 10 years ago when her son, Max, was born. Over the years, she said she has learned to observe and listen to what children are telling her with their actions,
Fred Eaglesmith knows what it's like to try to work the land, only to have your dreams shattered. As a boy in Southern Ontario, he put in full days doing grown man's labor when his father took a job “in town” to try to keep the family's farm from foreclosure. It didn't work. They lost the farm. That's why, when he was asked to help out southern Vermont farmers who were hit hard by Tropical Storm Irene, Eaglesmith had one...
As the economy continues to crumble, more people are committing property crimes. Burglaries are on the rise. With the space program out of the way, it looks as if crime has become the last frontier of American society. Being a criminal in Vermont isn't easy. The pickings are slim, for one thing. Most burglars make off with a mixed bag of odds and ends that they would be lucky to get a few bucks for at a flea market: a...
Elizabeth (Betsy) Whittemore MacArthur will exhibit her acrylic paintings through the month of October at the Crowell Gallery of the Moore Free Library, 23 West St. “In 1973 my four children and I moved to Marlboro, Vermont where we had always spent our summers,” MacArthur writes on her website. “In 1975 I started for my degree in Art at Windham College, and found an excellent teacher and lifelong friend in Peter Forakis, the sculptor.” She moved to Marlboro from Princeton,
The 15th annual Green Buildings Open House will take place on Saturday, Oct. 1. The public is invited to visit two dozen sites in Windham County, many of which are new to the event this year. Diverse in style and function, they all showcase energy-saving features. Among the 10 homes and businesses featured in Brattleboro are “some great examples of solar hot water and electric systems, along with biomass heat, recycled materials, and energy efficient construction”, said Paul Cameron, Director...
The nonprofit group Friends of the West River Trail has recently acquired ownership of the West River Railroad bed, from near the Marina Restaurant on Putney Road to the old quarry in West Dummerston. Friends of the West River Trail is a 501c3 organization which was formed in 1992 and has successfully been working since then to make the upper 18 miles of the old West River Railroad bed, from South Londonderry to Townshend via Jamaica State Park, available to...
My immediate response to bad news is to cook. The comfort of the kitchen has always soothed me, and I like to imagine that through its refuge I have sometimes soothed those around me who are in pain. The kitchen is one of the few places where I can maintain the illusion that I have some control over my life. It is estimated that more than 700 families in Vermont lost their homes through the effects of Hurricane Irene. Many...
Mount Holyoke College professor Christopher Benfey will discuss the effect Gilded Age New England and Old Japan had on each other in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on Oct. 5. His talk, “The Great Wave: New England Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council's First Wednesdays lecture series and takes place at 7 p.m. Benfey will look at how Gilded Age New England intellectuals, disaffected by America's materialistic...
The Safe and Green Campaign and the organizers of the Positively Charged Music Festival give a big thanks to all who helped make the Festival a sweet success. More than 400 people enjoyed a perfect late-summer afternoon on the weekend of Sept. 17 at the Amazing Planet Farm. The farm provided a beautiful and spacious venue, while its solar collectors pumped energy into the power grid even as we were drawing upon it for the sound and lighting systems. Thirty-five...
I would like to clarify my position and a few comments made in The Commons' Sept. 21 article, “Brattleboro skatepark plans in legal limbo,” which discussed my filing an appeal of the decision by the Brattleboro Development Review Board (DRB) to approve installation of a skateboard park in Crowell Park. I filed the required “Notice of Appeal” regarding the DRB's decision in order to ask the Vermont Environmental Court to consider particular questions regarding the DRB decision, not in an...
Flat Street Brew Pub and Tap Room sustained serious flood damage during Tropical Storm Irene on Sunday, Aug. 28. It must replace nearly all of its equipment, furniture, and décor. The restaurant has been closed since Tropical Storm Irene hit. With the help of the community, it aims to reopen its street-level pub area within a few months, and has longer term plans to reopen the Tap Room Restaurant. In order to get the pub back on its feet, and...
Valley Cares, the independent community-based nonprofit that staffs and manages West River Valley Senior Housing, announces the award of a $575,000 grant from the Vermont Community Development Program to go toward expanding West River Valley Assisted Living. Valley Cares and partnering nonprofit, Housing Vermont, plan to co-develop 12 new 1-bedroom units of assisted living by adding onto their award-winning facility in Townshend. “The first phase of the Valley Cares assisted living facility has demonstrated the success of our partnership,” said...
In reference to The Commons article in the Sept. 21 issue, “Proposed Skate Park Trapped in Legal Limbo,” it was striking to see the total absence of information regarding the concerns of our recently formed local neighborhood coalition, the Save Our Playground Coalition (SOPC), provided almost two weeks prior to this story. This information would have made the basis for our collective opposition to the location of the skate park in Crowell Park clear. It was also disappointing to read...
The town of Brookline and the NewBrook Volunteer Fire Department have completed the installation of a dry fire hydrant on Hill Road. This is the third hydrant installed in Brookline with the assistance of the Vermont Rural Fire Protection Task Force, and town officials say that it greatly enhances the ability of the NewBrook Fire Department to protect the residents and property within the town. Dry hydrants are the preferred method of providing water for firefighting in areas where there...
FEMA provides $14 million in grants to families MONTPELIER - Just three weeks after Sept. 1, the date Vermont received a major disaster declaration due to the effects of Tropical Storm Irene, FEMA has approved nearly $14 million in assistance grants to individuals and families. That includes over $13 million for housing assistance to help repair, rebuild or replace housing and for rental assistance, as well as more than $708,000 for assistance with other needs, such as replacement of personal...
Two driving forces in food and agriculture in Vermont are celebrating seminal birthdays on Saturday, Oct. 1 - the Putney Food Co-op its 70th, and the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) its 40th. Sustainable agriculture and the idea of neighbors feeding neighbors have played an important role in launching the healthy food movement. While the Co-op and NOFA are not directly connected, the demand for healthy food grown by local farmers is an offshoot of a movement started in Putney...
Hurricane Irene ripped apart the tiny village of South Newfane where I live. I was in Philadelphia when she struck. The village was physically isolated, with every road washed out in multiple places and many bridges reduced to rubble. Communication was severed. It was three days before I could make contact with any neighbor. When I was finally able to return to South Newfane, I found my home safe, but the leach field for my septic system was gone, along...
After a musical piece Blanche Honegger Moyse had been rehearsing ended too abruptly, violinist Anne Hooper remembers the Bach conductor exclaiming, “Don't place an ending note like a plate on the table.” Hooper was a longtime member of the Marlboro Bach Festival, which Moyse conducted until she retired in 2004. She recalls Moyse as a master of pithy expression. Arguing for a pure style in performing Bach, Moyse once memorably proclaimed: “Vibrato! It's like lipstick. Some people think they put...
Owners of downtown businesses hit by Tropical Storm Irene can apply for grants to help them rebuild their livelihoods on Friday, Sept. 30. The relief fund grants made possible from numerous donations are intended to help business owners offset any replacement costs or repair expenses. Adam Palmiter, of Palmiter Realty Group, set up a charitable website to help his neighbors recover from Irene's damaging floods, which inundated downtown Wilmington last month. “Unfortunately, flood insurance and FEMA rarely give support to...
Town officials want to make the rebuilding process easier for downtown businesses and residents by streamlining the official permitting process for buildings within the special flood hazard area (SFHA). Business owners, residents, and contractors met Monday night with town officials, state, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) representatives to ask about the requirements for rebuilding their properties. On Aug. 28, Tropical Storm Irene flooded downtown Wilmington, washing out roads and swamping buildings. The downtown flooding surpassed the previous high-water mark...
Lisa Sullivan, owner of Bartleby's Books and Music in downtown Wilmington, said the flood-ravaged store will reopen by November. Tropical Storm Irene's record-breaking floods filled the store with almost five feet of water in August. Sullivan and her husband, Phil Taylor, watched the rain and Deerfield River waters fill Main Street from their three-story building. Taylor, a contractor, decided to break the store's front picture windows to help release some of the pressure the five feet of flood waters were...
The Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) on Tuesday announced plans to open temporary bridges on Routes 30 and 100 by Oct. 15. These temporary bridges will remain in place throughout the winter and until permanent bridges can be built. They will provide the public access over brooks and rivers where Tropical Storm Irene damaged permanent structures, rendering them unusable for public travel. “Erecting these temporary bridges will eliminate more than half of the storm-related road closures remaining along Vermont's state...
BFMS band plans fundraiser BELLOWS FALLS - The Bellows Falls Middle School band will perform on Friday, Sept. 30, beginning at 4 p.m., at the Bellows Falls Farmers' Market at the Waypoint Center in Bellows Falls. The band, led by Stan Rumrill, will play several sets of their marching band music to entertain market goers and get the word out there about their trip to New York City in the spring. Band Friends of Music Students will also have a...
The Vermont Yankee nuclear power station reduced power to 46 percent this week after one of the two recirculation pumps malfunctioned. According to VY spokesperson Larry Smith, on Sunday at 11 p.m., the motor generator unit stopped working in a reactor recirculation pump (RRP), called “Bravo” by engineers. The failure had “no health, safety, or nuclear implications,” said Smith. Recirculation pumps are critical for electricity production, said U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesperson Neil Sheehan, adding VY is “compliant at this...