Features
Life Here: The Valley is beautiful, except for this symbol
By DEB BEAUPRE
I love the landscape here. I do. It is so beautiful and especially at this time of the year. There are so many shades of greening going on, the commute to work is breathtaking.When my son was holed up in an office in Philadelphia a few years ago, I...
Danbury couple brings Merrimack Wonder Pepper back to life
By SARAH EARLE
Part of the back-to-the-land migration of the late ’60s, Tom Curren took up residence on Potato Road in Canaan, where he tried his hand at farming while working in the nonprofit sector. It was cold. Not just ordinary New Hampshire cold, but...
Listen if you dare: Guinness says whistling West Lebanon man hits the highest of notes
By DAN MACKIE
Setting world records might leave you breathless, but an Upper Valley resident has whistled his way to the top.Andrew Stanford, 20, of West Lebanon, recently set a record for the highest note whistled, as recognized by Guinness World Records, the...
Norwich artist Penelope Bennett looks back, and ahead
By NICOLA SMITH
Penelope Bennett began making art in circumstances in which art might be the last thing on anyone’s mind.During the German bombardment of London in World War II, Bennett’s mother urged her two young daughters to draw and paint to take their minds off...
Cooking in sap is a sugarhouse tradition
By SARAH EARLE
Bette Lambert feeds people.For decades, she filled the bellies of a husband and six kids while they worked the family farm. Then came the grandkids, “almost too many to count,” hanging out on threadbare sofas and piles of coats in the sugarhouse...
Handmade bagels are available in the Valley, if you know where to look
By SARAH EARLE
Alden and Sarah Jones didn’t choose bagels. Bagels chose them.The Upper Valley wanted, nay demanded, an authentic New York-style bagel made by local hands, from local ingredients. And the recent closing of a couple of bagel enterprises had left a hole...
Highlights: Festival brings plays by black women to the Valley
By DAVID CORRIVEAU
The first two times Jarvis Antonio Green featured works-in-progress by African-American playwrights, in February 2017 and 2018, he pitched them as one and then another small step for diversity in theater in the Upper Valley.Consider this weekend’s...
Piermont Man Builds a World Out of Model Trains
By Dan Mackie
The glory days of model railroading are past, but the hobby hasn’t reached the end of the line.Off the beaten track in Piermont, Bob Kivela has engineered what he believes is the longest home train display in New England. He recently opened the little...
Author Examines the Legendary 1968 Harvard-Yale Game
By Steve Pfarrer
In 1968, America appeared to be coming apart at the seams. Assassins had taken the lives of charismatic leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. The Vietnam War had bitterly divided the country, with antiwar protests increasingly pitting...
The Outside Story: Sympathy for the Thistle
By Laurie D. Morrissey
There will always be thistle, said the late U.S. Poet Laureate Maxine Kumin in one of her poems, because “Sheep will not eat it / nor horses nor cattle / unless they are starving.” She described it “choking the sweet grass / defeating the clover,” and...
The Outside Story: Contender for the Cutest Moth Award
By Barbara Mackay
The church service was about to begin when a group of breathless children pulled me out of my seat to “come see this awesome, pretty, pink-and-yellow, fuzzy baby moth!” on the Sunday school door. It was a rosy maple moth, Dryocampa rubicunda, notable...
What Happened to the Sugar on My Frosted Mini-Wheats?
By Christopher Ingraham
The whole point of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats is summed up right there in the name: It’s the frosting. At some point in the mid-20th century somebody at Kellogg’s got the brilliant idea to spray a layer of frosting over an otherwise bland bale of...
Thetford Resident Recalls Her Life in Vietnam and Years of Travel
By Nicola Smith
Le Lieu Browne brings bowls of pho, the national dish of her native Vietnam, to her dining room table. Pronounced “fuh,” it’s a meat broth with transparent rice noodles, onions, thin slices of beef, ginger, fish sauce, whole cloves and the faintly...
Among the Undead in Woodstock
By EmmaJean Holley
By modern-day standards, 20-year-old Frederick Ransom was dead to begin with.But when someone died of tuberculosis in 1817, one could never be too careful. Before modern medicine shed light on the idea of contagion, even doctors in Woodstock thought...
Summer Guide: Rainy Day Activities in the Upper Valley
By Kelly Burch
Last summer I planned to take my then-3-year-old camping for the first time. We would be easing into it, participating in a guided hiking weekend for preschoolers put on by the Appalachian Mountain Club. At night we were staying in the AMC’s Cardigan...
Summer Guide: Upper Valley Swimming Spots
By John Lippman
The Upper Valley in summer is a paradise for fresh water swimmers. A note of caution: Many (although not all) of these swimming spots are marked as public access but are unsupervised. So it’s always advisable to swim or wade with friends: the ledges...
Miss Manners: Is Nose-Blowing Acceptable at the Table?
Dear Miss Manners: I was out with a lady friend of mine when my nose started to run. I pulled out my handkerchief and blew my nose. She then told me that it is rude to do so at the table. This is the first time in my 59 years of living that I ever...
A Bar Is Born: Couple Refreshes a Bethel Landmark
By Nicola Smith
“What is a Chicago dog? Well, I’m glad you asked,” said Owen Daniel-McCarter, who, along with his husband, Jesse Plotsky, is the owner and proprietor of Babes Bar, a new bar specializing in drinks and finger food in Bethel’s former train depot.A...
Highlights: College Ensembles Perform Together, on Separate Stages
By David Corriveau
In Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrushka, a diabolical puppetmaster called The Charlatan shows no mercy while pulling the strings of the doomed title protagonist.To pull off their modern adaptation at the Hopkins Center this weekend, the Dartmouth Dance...
Eyes on the Land: Years of Observation Shape a Corinth Farm
By Liz Guenther
May 2It’s been a long winter on our small farm in Corinth. A week ago I looked out my kitchen windows and scanned Hurricane Ridge hopefully, searching for the deepening burgundy hue that means the buds on the hardwoods are swelling. I saw it, but I...
