December 6, 2010: Driving south on Interstate 91 this morning as I crossed the border into Massachusetts, I saw a blue sky with patches of pink clouds shaped in a huge cross whose vertical part touched the earth.
Long lines of evergreens stretched on either side of gray asphalt, reminding me of childhood drives to Bayport, Long Island, to catch the ferry for Fair Harbor, Fire Island - vacations I took for granted.
How much of this country consists of long stretches of gray asphalt that run through forests and housing developments, past cities like Springfield and Hartford, past shopping malls that contain Barnes & Nobles, Best Buys, Bed, Bath & Beyonds?
It is hard to imagine what the Eastern seaboard looked like before the Industrial Revolution. It is harder to imagine that Americans will give up their addiction to gasoline in spite of its increasing price, not to mention global warming, extreme weather, and food shortages.
A dozen 11th- and 12th-graders at the Compass School have spent six weeks studying films, writing screenplays, and producing their own short films in preparation for the seventh annual Compass Student Film Festival, which was held on April 14 as the culminating event for their filmmaking class. Professional filmmakers...
The Brattleboro Colonels started their first week of the baseball season with mixed results. The Colonels lost their home opener to Monument Mountain of Great Barrington, Mass., 11-3, on April 12. Brattleboro was not sharp in any aspect of the game, as losing pitcher Tommy Heydinger was hit early...
Obituaries 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. • The Rev. Monsignor Thomas J. Ball, 77, Rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Burlington. Died April 17 at his residence. Born in Dover, N.H., the son of the late William and Elizabeth (Bragg) Ball, he was educated in Somersworth, N.H., schools, St. Anselm College, St. Mary's University and the Blessed Sacrament...
Music • Mal Blum headlines concert for Marlboro College Women's Resource Center: Rising indie singer/songwriter Mal Blum headlines a benefit concert for the Marlboro College Women's Resource Center on Thursday, April 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the college's Campus Center. Blum has opened for national artists including Amanda Palmer, Kimya Dawson, and Melissa Ferrick. Her music earned top 10 status on the 2009 Click List, a feature of the LGBT television and web network, LOGO. Deborah Singer of Hear/Say magazine...
I think there should be a National Service Year (NSY), a program that would be a win-win situation for American youth and for our country. This training would settle youth down and give them needed self-confidence. It would give them experience in self control and in working within a group of other young people, who would be able to choose a work training program that would give them a head start on a future career. Young people who intend to...
Bellows Falls Union High School students made a total of 3,505 paper cranes for the rebuilding efforts in Japan. The BFUHS Student Council wanted to get the high school involved in a fundraiser for Japan and were looking for ideas. They decided on the idea of students making paper cranes through a project that the University of Vermont is coordinating. For every paper crane a student makes, Student Rebuild, an organization promoting the Paper Cranes for Japan project working with...
Strolling of the Heifers has announced several deadlines for parade and entertainment applications and for registrations to exhibit at its Live Green Expo. The organization is also looking for volunteers who wish to help out during the 10th annual Stroll Weekend, June 3-5. For organizations wishing to participate in the parade (which takes place on Saturday, June 4, at 10 a.m.), the deadline to apply is May 2. Applications that come in on deadline will be notified of acceptance by...
At the successful close of Leland & Gray's production of Footloose, the Players thank all those who made the experience possible. At every show played to a packed - or overflowing - house, the crowds were treated to lively acting, singing, and dancing on stage. It is the efforts of those behind the scenes, however, that truly deserve recognition. Distracting as all the passing neon and drastic hairstyles must have been, the set was yet another artistic success, combining the...
Traditionally, voter turnout in Brattleboro hovers between 16 and 27 percent of registered voters. A group of interested citizens hopes to raise that percentage. The goals of the Double the Number of Voters Initiative entail increasing twofold the number of Brattleboro voters showing up at the polls by March 6, 2012 and eliminating the barriers between people and the ballot box. More than 20 community members turned out April 12 for the initiative's inaugural meeting hosted by freshman Selectboard member...
Write Action presents its sixth annual Poetry and Prose Writing Contest. The theme for 2011 is “How did I end up here?” This question may be interpreted literally, figuratively, or any combination thereof. Entries in each category will be judged anonymously by a distinguished panel of published authors. The first place winners in each category will be awarded a $50 gift certificate, while the second and third place winners receive a $25 gift certificate to a Brattleboro bookstore. There will...
Thanks to the amazing support of the Windham County community, Bowl For Kids' Sake grossed more than $60,000 on April 2 to support the Big Brothers Big Sisters program at Youth Services. More than 500 fundraisers came out to bowl, and gathered pledges of support from thousands around the county and beyond to make this 30th-year celebration the biggest success ever. As a Big Sister in the program, I can attest to the incredible growth in the self-esteem of my...
It wasn't quite an Irish wake, since the guest of honor was still very much among the living. But the Guinness and the stories flowed at the law office of Thomas Costello last Thursday as the friends and colleagues of Timothy O'Connor gathered to pay homage and to salute his 50 years of service as an attorney and public official in Brattleboro. The 74-year-old O'Connor, who has worked as a lawyer in town since 1961, retired on April 1. Aside...
Two fire-displaced Brooks House residents seemed anything but troubled on Monday as they milled around the Gibson-Aiken Center on Main Street, their refuge for the time being. On Sunday, Deanna Garcia, who's lived at Brooks House for about five years, was glad to be back in her fourth-floor apartment after convalescing at Thompson House for six weeks, recovering from hip replacement surgery. She'd been home for only one night. When she first smelled smoke, she said she wasn't that bothered,
American Red Cross Green Mountain Chapter and the United Way of Windham County are both accepting donations to assist with relief efforts. At this time, financial donations are most helpful to the current efforts. Donations can be designated for immediate Red Cross relief efforts (such as emergency shelter or clothing) or long-term needs to be coordinated locally (such as security deposits or furniture). Both the Red Cross and United Way of Windham County will accept donations for the immediate Red...
Louisiana-based Entergy Corp. is suing the state of Vermont in order to continue operating the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant after its state operating license expires in 2012. Richard Smith, president of Entergy Wholesale Commodities, made the announcement Monday morning, shortly after the corporation filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Vermont. Entergy sought a license to continue running the plant for an additional 20 years. Vermont Yankee provides about one-third of the state's electricity and employs 650 people (about...
State and local officials are assessing the damage done to the Brooks House after a devastating fire Sunday night left as many as 60 people homeless, and the future of the town's largest commercial building in doubt. The owner of the building, Jonathan Chase, said Tuesday that he is determined to save the Brooks House. “If I have anything to do with it, that building will still be standing there,” he said. Chase said he is working with engineer Bob...
The death of George Brooks, the creator of the Brooks House, at age 68 was just one of the many events in local history that have taken place in and near the buildings on Main Street. But who was he, and why did he care to put the sum of $150,000 - the equivalent of which in today's currency is $2.7 million - into a monstrous hotel from which he expected no profit? The answer lies in Brooks's employment history.
The Preservation Trust of Vermont and Building a Better Brattleboro have started working together to help downtown rebound from Sunday night's five-alarm fire at the Brooks House at the corner of Main and High streets. “It's obviously a real tragedy for the community,” said Paul Bruhn, executive director of Preservation Trust of Vermont. Bruhn said that the trust has released $1,000 in grant money to Bob Stevens of Stevens and Associates, P.C. to do a structural assessment of the building.
In Brattleboro, the Brooks House stood on the corner of Main and High streets, almost fortresslike, for generations. Those of us who live and work in this community, especially downtown in the shadow of this iconic building, are heartbroken by the devastating fire that has displaced 80 people and almost a dozen businesses. If you have never had to witness - or, heaven forbid, fall victim to - a major fire such as the one we had in our community...
Ellen Fairchild Martyn “I have so many memories from the meat counter at the First National, to getting my hair cut up in the cupola when Bill McInerney had his place up there, and getting ice cream sodas at the fountain after ballroom dance classes. Mom had offices there for a while where they had little Frisbees to throw through the connecting doors, fresh cookies with the kids at the Upper Crust Bakery, and years of buying books at the...
Here is one response to Entergy Corporation's April 18 press conference announcing its federal preemption lawsuit against the state of Vermont. • Entergy took several hundred words to say to Vermont what Maine's governor could have taught them how to say in three. • Entergy went to lengths to describe the lengths to which the $14 billion corporation had gone to accommodate Vermont, including its application, accompanied by the testimony of ten witnesses, for a certificate of public good (CPG)
Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) announced on April 18 that two of its subsidiaries, Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee, LLC (ENVY) and Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc. (ENOI), have filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the District of Vermont seeking a judgment to prevent the state of Vermont from forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to cease operation on March 21, 2012. This request for declaratory and injunctive relief follows the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission's March 21, 2011, renewal of...
These articles were written with materials in the collection of the Brattleboro Historical Society, in room 301 of the Brattleboro Municipal Center. All of the society's collection is open to the public. Extensive picture files and articles from the past are carefully organized to make them user friendly for the public, and members are on hand to help you research your topic and to answer your questions. The society is open on Thursday afternoons from 1 to 4 p.m., and...
On the day after the night that the Brooks House was destroyed by fire, I went downtown to see it for myself. I parked up near Union Street, where I could smell the acrid smoke, and walked toward the corner of Main and High. The Brooks House came into view, a devastating sight. This historic red brick Victorian pile has anchored Main Street since it was built in 1871. It was the heart of Main Street. Now it looked fragile,
Perhaps it takes someone who works big to see the beauty in things small. Kim Ray is a muralist who paints sides of walls that can be as big as 6 feet by 24 feet. Precisely because it would be completely opposite from the way she usually works, she conceived of the current exhibition for her Londonderry gallery as “The World's Tiniest Art Show.” The show features 11 members of the Mountain Painters and Artisans group exhibiting more than 50...
A five-alarm fire Sunday night heavily damaged the historic Brooks House complex on Main Street, displacing as many as 60 tenants and 1o businesses. However, the teamwork of 23 area fire departments, combined with a working sprinkler system, prevented deaths or injuries. Firefighters' efforts saved the bulk of the 1871 building from the fire that started as a result of a staple penetrating an electrical wire in a space above a ceiling, according to Brattleboro Fire Chief Mike Bucossi. And...
Since its humble beginnings around 1762, when a grist mill began operating just above the area of the Whetstone Bridge on Main Street, downtown Brattleboro has been built, only to be rebuilt over and over again as the result of fire - one after another, every ten years or so. In fact, on Oct. 31 of that year, it was the Great Fire of 1869 that took down all the buildings on the west side of Main Street between Elliot...