Mark Redmond had been trying – and failing – to get some sleep since ten-thirty at night. He was on the front lawn of the Unitarian Church at the north end of Burlington, Vermont’s Church Street, curled up in his sleeping bag against the March cold, a flattened cardboard carton between him and the snow. […]
Category Archives: Vermont
01
Mar
Mar
Every so often, politicians on the campaign trail will hold something they call a “town meeting.” They’ll round up a hundred of the locals and answer questions — though the questions tend to be carefully scripted and there are TV cameras present to capture the candidate’s carefully scripted responses. These town meetings are nothing like […]
15
Feb
Feb
A few winters ago, a childhood friend from Connecticut contacted me on Facebook. I had gone to elementary school with him and we had lost touch when my family moved to Florida just before I started eighth grade. He wrote how happy he was that I loved Vermont, but surprised that my wife and I […]
08
Feb
Feb
Lincoln’s Andrew Furtsch works out at the gym in Bristol in a pair of ratty Converse high tops. On the white toecap of one he has written in permanent black marker, “J.H.V.” On the other he has penned “2.8.11.” It was four years ago today that our friend John Henry Vautier passed away: February 8, […]
01
Feb
Feb
It says a lot about our respect for meteorologists that once again tomorrow morning we will all pretend it is the Middle Ages and look to a six- or seven-pound rodent to forecast the weather. Moreover, we will not merely ask a groundhog’s prediction for the next day or two … we will ask the […]
04
Jan
Jan
A lot of my friends here in the Land of the Polar Tomato – aka, Vermont – are not big fans of January. Those post-holiday blues, which are universal, are exacerbated by withering cold, dicey roads, and days that are very, very short. Admittedly, the days are growing longer, but those June and July evenings […]
14
Dec
Dec
This coming Thursday evening around 5:30, you’ll see a small crowd assembled on the exterior steps of Burlington, Vermont’s City Hall, looking out upon Church Street. Sometimes there are 30 people and sometimes there are 50. It might be snowing, but they’ll still be there. They’ll be holding candles and doing something poignant and powerful […]
30
Nov
Nov
Here’s the scene: A conference room in what once was a private home in Burlington, Vermont. The year is 2003. A recently retired direct marketing advertising executive is on one side of the table, a 13-year-old boy on another. They’ve never met and it’s just the two of them. They have to sit there for […]
16
Nov
Nov
The other day, a woman brought her cat into Dr. Peggy Larson’s Cat Spay and Neuter Clinic in Colchester. She wanted the animal spayed, but stressed that she was pro-life and did not want the cat to have an abortion if it was pregnant. Larson asked whether there was any chance of this, and the […]
02
Nov
Nov
Politicians don’t campaign at the town dump here in Lincoln, Vermont the way they used to. Of course, the town dump isn’t really a dump anymore. It’s a transfer station. But it’s still only open on Saturday mornings, and so a lot of us in the town assemble there at the start of the weekend […]
