This is one of a whole herd of phones that have been cemented to the sidewalk around town over the past few weeks. Very subversive.
After
A couple of years ago, Brattleboro tore down some decrepit buildings on this site, opening up a tiny piece of our waterfront. Today, a group of concerned citizens cleaned up the brush, trees and so on to open up the view. It’s practically a Destination now!
Deja vu all over again
We joined a few dozen of our fellow Brattleburgers this morning for an informational meeting about proposed renovations to our police and fire facilities. When we went to a similar meeting three years ago, the expensive proposal was tepidly supported by the Selectboard and eventually voted down by a vocal but small group of CAVEmen (citizens against virtually everything).
This time, our new Town Manager presented a range of options in a coherent if long-winded manner, and I hope we can stop the dithering and do these renovations.
Sailor take warning, II
This is not a picture of Al Roker. He was scheduled to make Brattleboro the 48th stop on his record-setting 50-state tour at 9 PM last Thursday. We duly headed out, enjoyed special discounts and an overwhelming crowd at Duo restaurant (seriously guys, if you email the whole world, go ahead and put on another bartender), and watched carefully through the drizzle.
By following the great man’s progress on Twitter, it was clear that 9 PM wasn’t happening. He made it finally around 10:45, still a remarkable logistical feat, and completed his trip the next morning. Money was raised to help hungry people. We were asleep.
The thing of standing in the weather with a cardboard sign hoping for a glimpse or a handshake is a thing that I just can’t get excited about, whether it’s a weatherman, a candidate, or a Pope. I once paid relatively big bucks to attend an event only to be rewarded with a blurry picture of Hillary Clinton’s bodyguard’s earphone from the back, but that came with a delightful lecture by Madeleine Albright and outstanding hors d’oeuvres. Otherwise, no thank you, I’ll stay home.
So, Al, sorry we missed you, congrats on your new World Record, stop by again sometime when you can stay a little longer.
For me, Friday the 13th started out great… I found a penny on my morning walk and saw this pale rainbow. Somebody paid me an overdue debt, and I was off and running.
After work I went down to my local for a pint, and that’s when the news got to me that Paris had been attacked. Like so many people, my memories of Paris are among my most vivid and exciting… Everything that happens to a visitor there is better… because Paris.
But now, again, some crazies with guns and bombs try to take all that away, for reasons I can’t begin to understand. I love our modern world (he says to his iPhone from his warm house with his full belly) and it doesn’t seem like blowing it up is much of an answer to much of anything.
I hope we find some way to stop this trend of killing and terrorizing, as naive as it sounds to just say that. I don’t think we can reason with these people, and I don’t think we can kill them or isolate them completely. I don’t know what we can do, actually, but we certainly have to keep trying, keep funding the solutions and experiments and ideas for peace and goodwill, keep reaching out. As long as we keep our own values clear — tolerance and freedom must rule over punishment and violence — I suppose there aren’t really any bad ideas.
Not the First Person After All
We found a gravestone a few weeks ago that claimed its honoree, one Colo. John Sergeant / Sargent, was the first (white) person born in Vermont. But I’ve now found two other sources giving that distinction to Timothy Dwight, about seven years earlier.
How sad to have held onto a self-aggrandizing but ultimately meaningless story your whole distinguished life (Sargent was an important figure in the early history of Vermont) only to have people come along and question it later… should we think less of his many legitimate accomplishments because of this fib/misremembrance/embellishment?
It ought to be a singularly unimportant question: who cares how a politician (or a journalist, or even a memoirist) drones on about how grand they’ve been up to now, the tough childhood they had, the details of their military and professional exploits, the scholarships they’ve been offered? We don’t believe most of their statements about tax reform or foreign policy, so why does the personal story matter so much?
Ah, but I say it does matter, because if you won’t keep your own life straight in your own head, if you’re so compelled to go a little beyond the truth on stupid little stuff, then how can I possibly trust you when lives are on the line? Col. Sargent commanded a few dozen men with horses and single shot rifles, and his lies might have mattered a little bit as he used his influence to negotiate Vermont’s place in the Union. If he had bad ideas but people listened to him because of his “story”, then his bad ideas got more weight than they deserved. Today, I think those little personal stories matter a ton more, Dr. Carson, when you propose to put your finger on The Button and your God in a hundred million textbooks.
Prospect Hill Cemetery
If this ridiculously expensive faucet does decide to drip someday, it won’t go unnoticed.
For only a couple of minutes this morning the fog turned a spectacular rosy pink.
Earlier this week, Nick Widomski became the third person to die on our nearby railroad tracks in the four+ years we’ve been in the area. This shrine sprang up by the footbridge near the Co-op.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 