When it comes to learning about American history, the best teaching aids are the people who inspired the lesson in the first place.
I came away with that conclusion after meeting the Rev. James Breeden, one of the “Freedom Riders” during the Civil Rights Movement.
In the early 1960s, the Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the still-rigidly-segregated South in an effort to force the federal government to enforce a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stated racial segregation in public transportation violated the Interstate Commerce Act and was illegal.
The Supreme Court case, Boynton v. Virginia, overturned a judgment that convicted a black law student for trespassing by being in a restaurant in a bus terminal designated “for whites only.”...
There have been several letters published recently by folks wondering why Vermont Yankee's employees always cite economics and jobs. I submit this letter in response to those who may truly wonder. The answer is quite simple. As VY employees, we think some things are self-evident. We know the plant...
It's been a few years since the Brattleboro Colonels have been in the Division I football playoffs, but after Friday night's 40-0 win over Spaulding at Natowich Field, there is an outside chance that the Colonels might be one of the eight teams in the tournament. The winless Crimson...
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. • Robert Aldrich “Bomber” Brown, 81, formerly of Jamaica. Died Oct. 7 at Vernon Green Nursing Home. Husband of Carol A. Jacques for 46 years. Father of Sally Hescock and her husband, Richard, of Wardsboro; Carl Brown and his wife, Rhonda, of Jamaica; David Brown and his wife, Alison, of Wardsboro. Brother of Mary Ward...
Brattleboro leaf collection schedule announced BRATTLEBORO - The town's curbside Fall Leaf Collection takes place on Friday, Oct. 21 and Friday, Nov. 4. The whole town gets picked up on these two Fridays. All leaves and clippings must be in biodegradable brown paper leaf bags and at the curb by 7 a.m. on scheduled leaf collection days. Acceptable waste includes leaves, grass, clippings, garden waste, and twigs (no branches larger than 1 inch in diameter and 2 feet long). No...
Homeowners, landlords, small business owners, and other residents looking for ways to cut rising energy bills are invited to a free solar workshop presented by Brattleboro Climate Protection and Co-op Power. The workshop will be held on Saturday, Oct. 22, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Marlboro College Graduate Center, 28 Vernon St. Workshop attendees will learn the advantages of installing solar hot water and solar electric systems, and about the different types of systems that are available. Local...
On the third Friday of every month, downtown Bellows Falls opens its doors for an evening of art, music, local shopping, food, and fun. Here is what's happening on Oct. 21 for the harvest edition of Bellows Falls Third Friday: • Bellows Falls Farmers' Market: Height of fall season produce. Live Funkology 101 radio broadcast with Professor Funk, 4-6:30 p.m. • Canal Street Beads: The store, at its newly expanded location of Canal Street Beads in the Exner Block, will...
Community radio station WOOL, 100.1 FM, Black Sheep Radio, will host MasqueRadioke, a Halloween Extravaganza karaoke competition on Saturday, Oct. 29, from 7 p.m. until midnight. The only rule: You must be in costume to compete. Prizes will be awarded for best performance and best costume, and a $200 first prize will be awarded for best singing. The contest will take place live on the air, from 9 to 10 p.m. in front of a studio audience. Would-be contestants should...
Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center is getting ready for its annual theatrical performance, the Forest of Mystery. Each fall, audiences are enchanted by the stories that appear before them while walking Bonnyvale's forest trails by lamplight. This year's Forest of Mystery will take place Friday, Oct. 21 and Saturday, Oct. 22, with a rain date of Oct 23. The hour-long journey begins every 15 minutes between 6:15 and 8:30 p.m. The Deer and The Shadow, written and directed by Michael Nethercott,
Smokin' J's Flood Fest, a concert featuring a cast of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Louisiana musicians, will take place on Friday, Oct. 28, from 6-11 p.m. at Smokin J's Real Memphis Barbeque, 167 Route 100 North. The surprise musical guest of the evening is Chip Wilson, a staple of the New Orleans music scene. Wilson was devastated by the effects of Tropical Storm Irene on Vermont, and offered to help raise money for those affected by the flooding. “I lived in...
The Dummerston Energy Committee (DEC) has increased its capacity to work on energy projects for the town of Dummerston with the help of Nicole Davis, an energy intern from Student Conservation Association (SCA), funded by a grant from the Community Catalyst Fund of Clean Air – Cool Planet. Davis is a graduate of the School for International Training, and has recently interned with Vermont Energy Investment Corp., which sponsors Efficiency Vermont. The SCA Energy Intern program is part of the...
Howard Shaffer Those of us who work in nuclear power know that “safe” doesn't mean “perfect,” and “reliable” doesn't mean “never has a problem.” Opponents demand perfection as a political tactic. We are always working to improve. Edward Jaffe I'm sorry, Howard, but for certain situations zero failure is what is required, because the consequences of certain failure modes are beyond unacceptable. You are dealing with massive spent-fuel storage and an old, hot-rodded plant. Not every failure leads to systemic...
Vermont's food sector employs 56,000 people - or almost one in five private jobs in the state. Can the number of food-related jobs increase in the middle of an unemployment crisis? About 150 Vermonters involved in food production, marketing, and sales recently gathered at Lake Morey in Fairlee to find out. Participants in the two-day Farm to Plate conference charted how to boost food and farming jobs. The bottom line? Selling more Vermont-produced food - both to Vermonters and out...
Brattleboro Community Television, a nonprofit public access television station, has trained volunteer producers and videographers and has broadcast news, opinion, event announcements, meetings, and just about anything else that anyone would like disseminated for the past 35 years. Cornelia “Cor” Trowbridge, BCTV's executive director, calls the operation, “a little, flexible organization with a broad vision that connects people with their community.” And lately that connection has expanded. In the past decade, BCTV's income has risen by more than $100,000, from...
German environmental leaders are urging Vermont officials to follow their country's lead and drop nuclear power. In May, the German government announced plans to phase out all nuclear power plants by 2022. The decision came in the wake of mass anti-nuclear power protests across the country after the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station disaster. The Fukushima incident is considered to be the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. In March, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused explosions and leaks of radioactive...
Rural Vermont and Post Oil Solutions announce a collaboration to facilitate discussions about local food sovereignty in the Brattleboro community. The first meeting will be held at the Marlboro Graduate Center, Room 2 East, 28 Vernon St., Brattleboro, on Nov. 3 at 7 p.m. A half hour video presentation featuring Bob St. Peter's discussion about Sedgwick, Maine's local food and self governance ordinances will be aired to stimulate the conversation that will follow. St. Peter, who organized the passing of...
Small to midsize nonprofit organizations across Vermont will make a leap forward in the area of performance measurement over the next two years. A $200,000 federal grant to Marlboro College's Benchmarks for a Better Vermont (BBVT) program is targeted to help nonprofits develop specific ways to gather data and assess the impact of their work. This technical support comes at a critical time. A recent report from the Vermont Community Foundation pointed out that the growing demands for Vermont's nonprofit...
The first draft of the new Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan is about 600 pages long, including appendices. Thankfully, the public comment period has been extended to Nov. 4, so people have more time to wade through the document, which addresses Vermont's energy future regarding electricity generation, thermal energy, transportation, and land use. The most notable element of the plan is that it proposes a shift in all of Vermont's baseload electric energy sources. This plan calls for the baseload, defined...
To all Marlboro residents: By now you will see work being done on all our roads to repair the storm damage and prepare for winter. Initially, all efforts were directed to opening all roads in town (especially Ames Hill, Higley Hill, North Pond, Butterfield, Lower Dover, Stratton Hill, and Adams Brook) and to rescue residents who were totally cut off by the enormous flooding on the Branch Brook. The town is contracting with various heavy equipment operators to supplement the...
On Friday, Oct. 21, Windham Child Care Association will present its first Award for Exemplary Service in Early Childhood Education to two retiring educators: Peggy Frehsee and Mary Copans, both of Brattleboro. Both Frehsee and Copans have made incredible contributions to early care and education in our community, and their commitment to our community's children has spanned decades. Frehsee has been working in early childhood education in Windham County since her grown sons, Cory and Robin, were young children. A...
At the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center's annual meeting on Sept. 9, the center elected two new board members. Jeffrey J. Morse, president and CEO of River Valley Credit Union, was elected a new board member and also elected Vice Chair. Kelli Corbeil, general manager of WTSA Radio, was elected as a board member. The board gave its thanks to outgoing members John Wilcox, Patty Gilbert, Jason Henske, and Carl Fuhs, and recognized their years of service to the center.
With the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations now taking place throughout the United States, this seems to be an appropriate time for receptive people to look closely at the example of those who have given much for the advancement of justice and peace. It's coincidental that one of those people, S. Brian Wilson, will be in our area on Oct. 21 to talk about his life, as described in his new memoir, Blood on the Tracks. In his introduction to the...
In June of 1991, a workplace shooting took place about five miles north of where I worked in San Diego, Calif. Two executives were targeted and killed. The company designed electronic components and had a stellar reputation as a wonderful place to work and a producer of great products. I heard and read the reports and thought I understood what happened. Not true. I heard the information at an intellectual level, but not at an emotional or heart level. Six...
Sojourns Community Health Clinic announces a series of workshops for homeschoolers ages 8 to 11 on how to achieve and maintain good health. The workshops will be held on Oct. 21 and 28 and Nov. 4. This special series marks the first time a clinic rooted in biological medicine - a holistic approach to health that involves strengthening the body's life force by removing blockages, relieving toxic load and improving metabolism - has taken on the work of educating young...
I found Karl Meyer's Viewpoint [“Failed salmon program doesn't deserve new life,” Oct. 12] to be grossly inaccurate. I think it would be better suited for publication in the National Enquirer. Karl, you might want to consider working for that paper.
A hundred or more “Scenes of Guilford” will be on display on Oct. 21-23 as part of the town's year-long 250th anniversary celebration. This special exhibit of works by more than two dozen area artists will be mounted in the gymnasium of Guilford Central School, 374 School Rd. The art show will feature landscapes and other views of the town by both Guilford-based artists and those from nearby towns who have been inspired by the countryside in town. A number...
For the first time since Tropical Storm Irene struck Vermont on Aug. 28, all 216 miles of Route 100 are open from the Massachusetts border to the Northeast Kingdom. On Saturday, the Vermont Agency of Transportation (AOT) opened temporary bridges on Route 100 in Jamaica and along Route 73 in Rochester. Opening the Jamaica bridge means Route 100 is now open in its entirety for the first time since the storm, while opening the Rochester bridge allows residents who for...
RE: Karl Meyer's Viewpoint [“Failed salmon program doesn't deserve new life,” Oct. 12]. The effort to bring back the salmon was but a six-generation attempt of serious restoration. That is much too short a period of time. The herring run also needs an answer that has a bearing on the poor salmon returns.
Wall Street came to Main Street on Saturday afternoon. More than 200 people crowded around the Wells Memorial Fountain to be part of a event held in conjunction with hundreds of others around the world in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York. Oct. 15 was designated as a global day of protest, with events in more than 80 countries and nearly 1,000 cities worldwide. And Brattleboro did its part with an event that saw a mix...
Luminz and Open Music Collective will present a night of collaborative dance and music featuring the faculty of both performing arts schools. When teachers at both schools realized they each were involved with a week-long intensive, they decided to create a collaborative workshop. The show, which takes place Saturday, Oct. 22, at 8 p.m., will offer a mix of solo, duo, trio, quartet and larger ensemble performances and build upon the work done in the workshop. Different combinations will bring...
What started out as a one-man protest in the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park in New York has turned into a interesting legal dilemma for the town. Anthony Gilbert, 37, of Ann Arbor, Mich., has been camped out on the common since Oct. 7. Brattleboro Police have politely asked him to leave several times over the past week, but Gilbert has declined to so. On Monday morning, Gilbert met with Town Manager Barbara Sondag and...
A Listening Festival, will be held on Sunday, Oct. 23, from 2-5 p.m., at Geryunant near Stickney Brook in West Dummerston. Jointly sponsored by Geryunant and by Brattleboro Time Trade, this event is free and open to all Windham County residents reeling from the traumatic events of the last few months, and provides a structure in which neighbors can speak their experiences, feelings and thoughts and be well heard. Why a Listening Festival? Carrying around experiences and feelings that one...
The people on Wall Street are cold, so I just sent some money for sleeping bags for the protestors in their dandy little plastic handcuffs. In general, I believe in the religion of revolution. I'm going through one myself right now, which comes on the heels of a tremendous amount of pain. And pain, I've figured out, is really the only way the spirit or society can get us to revolutionize. That mediocre place of mild satisfaction is an anesthetic...
An ad hoc committee recently created by the Selectboard is studying possible new criteria for issuing liquor licenses. The committee held its first meeting on Monday, and Selectboard member Ken Schneck said the initial goal is to “pinpoint what happens in the Selectboard's process and [determine] what questions the board can ask” people seeking liquor licenses. Town staff and the state Department of Liquor Control (DLC) look at the backgrounds of individuals applying for licenses, while the Selectboard looks at...
It has been suggested that it was the pear, not the apple, that tempted Eve in her act of defiance. Just one look at its shape is pretty convincing. Its elongated form suggests that of a voluptuous woman, tapered at the top and rounded at the bottom. Apples seem to me pretty straightforward and accessible, while pears appear sensuous, mysterious, and complicated, the perfect choice for temptation. They are in full season this time of year and readily available for...