The Friends of Brooks Memorial Library invite you to their 8th Annual Holiday Book Sale in the Library on Friday, Dec. 6 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 7 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Gift-quality books and gently used fiction, non-fiction, children's books, and CDs are offered. Non-fiction titles include a world of art, cooking, gardening, history, music, and so much more.
Stop by the front desk any time beforehand and grab sale discount coupons.
A special collection of 400 music CDs, mainly jazz, is also on sale, and is in perfect condition.
When I was about 8 years old, my mother explained holiday greetings to me. It was simple. If someone is Christian, say “Merry Christmas.” If someone is Jewish, “Happy Hanukkah” is appropriate. And if you don't know, “Happy Holidays” or “Happy New Year” always work. For my mom, it...
I love living in downtown Brattleboro. Among its many perks is the fact that we have a vibrant town center which offers a range of essential offerings, from a diverse culinary carte du jour, a co-op grocery, coffee shops, and a farmers' market, to a family-owned sporting goods store,
Our local animal shelters are what's known as “no-kill” shelters, meaning that every animal is cared for and every opportunity is used to place a dog or cat in an appropriate foster home, no matter how long it takes. Also, pet owners in New England have been so diligent about spaying and neutering their pets, there are fewer animals available for adoption. At the same time, in too many other shelters outside New England, it's not unusual for animals to...
Newfane Garden Club to meet NEWFANE - The Newfane Garden Club will hold a holiday party and wreath decorating event on Thursday, Dec. 5, at the Newfane Congregational Church, beginning at noon. Attendees should bring a favorite dish for the luncheon, and a small, wrapped gift suitable for patients at Grace Cottage Hospital or for Newfane Meals-on-Wheels recipients. Following the luncheon, wreaths will be decorated for placement on public buildings in Newfane, Brookline, and Townshend. Hostesses are Winnie Dolan and...
Road races on Thanksgiving Day can be elaborate affairs. Then there's the annual Turkey Trot in Brattleboro, sponsored by the Red Clover Rovers (RCR) running club. It's a three-mile out-and-back race on the RCR's fun run course on Upper Dummerston Road. There's no advance registration and no entry fee, save for those attending being asked to bring a food item. The items are collected during the race check-in, and then runners pick out an item as their award after they...
There is nothing about Ronald Ramos, a handsome man of Puerto Rican descent who exudes Old World charm and gentleness, that obviously reads as “homeless” or “food insecure,” other than the place he happens to be standing. Ramos, 51, stands in the parking lot of Our Place Drop-In Center, whose mission is simple: “Connecting people to food and each other.” Ramos is one of those people. He is homeless, as he has been on and off for a year. The...
Births • In Aspen Colo., (Aspen Valley Hospital), Nov. 5, 2013, a son, Harlan Axle May, to Kelly and Bryan May of Aspen, formerly of Brattleboro; grandson to Laurie and Mitch May of Stuart, Fla., formerly of Brattleboro; and great-grandson to the late Janet Olson. Transitions • The Next Stage Arts Project has added three new board members to its Board of Trustees. Stephen Phillips, Herve Pelletier, and Amelia Struthers join Billy Straus, John Burt, Eric Bass, Anita Dunlap, Virginia...
My adopted daughter is now a beautiful, healthy 20-year-old student at Greenfield Community College, but my recent passage through the Miami International Airport brought back the painful memory of her first trip from Colombia to the United States. With every story I hear about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, formerly the Immigration and Naturalization Service, detaining someone on the border or in an airport, this day also floods back. I have no idea how Colombian adoptions proceed today, but 20...
The Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network has bestowed an award on the Brattleboro Energy Committee for its successful efforts to advance and implement clean energy measures around town. VECAN noted in a press release that the Brattleboro Energy Committee helped advance energy efficiency goals here by helping Brattleboro convert streetlights to LED fixtures, working to establish a PACE district for residential energy financing, promoting weatherization of town buildings, and participating in the Vermont Home Energy Challenge. “It has also...
On Friday, Dec. 6, at 8 p.m., the Vermont Jazz Center presents a gala performance with the VJC Big Band backing internationally acclaimed vocalist Kevin Mahogany. This is a dance concert, and more than half the floor will remain open for people to move to the sounds of the VJC's 18-piece orchestra. According to Newsweek, Mahogany is the standout vocalist of his generation. Born in 1958 in Kansas City, Mo., Mahogany grew up listening to the richly diverse musical sounds...
Celebrating the kickoff of the 15th year, the New England Youth Theatre's artistic director, Stephen Stearns, will direct the return of “Oliver!” This musical, based on a novel by Charles Dickens, was the last show that NEYT performed seven years ago in its original space in the Latchis complex before the company moved from a former Chinese restaurant to its new theater on Flat Street. Returning to “Oliver!” is a sentimental journey for those involved with NEYT, including cofounder Gerald...
Entergy Corp. representatives and Vermont officials met Dec. 2 in Gov. Peter Shumlin's office to negotiate a number of issues related to the shutdown of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. It's the second time in several weeks that the governor, high ranking members of the governor's staff, the Vermont attorney general, and officials from the Louisiana-based company will discuss a wide variety of issues concerning the plant in Vernon, which is slated to close a year from now. When Entergy...
Night work continues on the project to replace two bridges over the West River on Interstate 91 with a single, four-lane structure that will accommodate northbound and southbound traffic. Northbound I-91 traffic has been relocated to one of the lanes on the southbound bridge while demolition crews continue removing the decking of the northbound bridge, starting in the middle and moving outward. Night work, which took a break for the Thanksgiving holiday but resumed Dec. 2, will continue Sunday through...
Over the past couple of years, the state has been working to bring universal broadband Internet service to Vermont. At the same time, it has also been working to find ways to use the technology to foster community. Front Porch Forum (www.frontporchforum.com) is a free, Vermont-based, privately operated online service that started in a few neighborhoods in Burlington in 2006, spread out through Chittenden County, and now has about 60,000 participating members, mostly in the northern part of the state.
Next Stage Arts Project presents two indie rock bands, Brattleboro-based quartet The Snaz and Keene-based trio Jake McKelvie & The Countertops, at Next Stage on Saturday, Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m. The Snaz is a young, original rock band featuring Dharma Ramirez (15, lead vocals and guitar), Mavis Eaton (15, keyboards and backup vocals), Zack James (13, drums) and Sally Fletcher (15, bass). They have won “Battle of the Bands” competitions in Brattleboro and Northampton. Their prize for the Brattleboro...
I can certainly identify with Tom Howe's frustration over getting high speed Internet service to his Putney location. We were first promised DSL on our little island in 2004. In 2005, we finally got dial-up service, though we soon realized that it often took as many as thirty tries to get a connection. In 2006, we got the DSL service we'd been promised, but it was hardly faster than dial-up, and the connection failed over 45 percent of the time.
Crowell Art Gallery features handmade quilts by longtime Newfane resident Vera Rink Harrington throughout December. The exhibit opens on Saturday, Dec. 7, with an 11 a.m. reception celebrating the 102-year-old quilter and her works, which have been sold worldwide. Displayed at the Gallery are the last 12 of her hand-pieced and hand-stitched quilts. The exhibit also includes a quilt by Kelby Doyle, 14. Crowell Art Gallery, at Moore Free Library, 23 West St., is open Tuesday through Friday from 1...
Paws for Prevention, a family- and pet-friendly winter holiday photo event for pets and their people, takes place Sunday, Dec. 8, at Achille Agway in Brattleboro, 1277 Putney Rd., from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Paws for Prevention encourages pet owners, families with children, and community members to participate by having a professional photo taken in a winter holiday scene. A suggested donation of $20 benefits the Brattleboro Area Prevention Coalition (BAPC) and the Windham County Humane Society (WCHS). The...
Atamaniuk Funeral Home is sponsoring its 17th annual Holiday Support Program and a Service of Remembrance on Tuesday, Dec. 10, for bereaved families and friends. The event is again held at the VFW Carl M. Dessaint Post 1034 Home, 40 Black Mountain Rd., at 7 p.m. Facing the holidays, with their expectation of togetherness and tradition, can be wrenching for families suffering the loss of a loved one. Atamaniuk believes this seminar, which honors celebrations and special family traditions, is...
The Center for Digital Art (CDA) will present an exhibition and talk by contemporary digital artist Matthew Ostrowski, who will highlight his current work to “re-process” and “re-synthesize” Hollywood films using unique computer algorithms. In these videos, Ostrowski appropriates scenes from Hollywood films and uses computers to distort their narratives to create what he calls “a new order of visual and sonic information.” The talk coincides with a free reception and refreshments to kick off an exhibition of Ostrowski's work...
Equally at home on the concert stage as she is at a folk festival, Grammy Award-winning Cape Breton, Nova Scotia fiddler Natalie MacMaster is one of the most versatile and exciting young musicians on both the folk and Celtic music scenes. Her many projects have seen her collaborate and perform with Alison Krauss, Carlos Santana, the Chieftains, Paul Simon, Pavarotti, and Yo-Yo Ma. Kingdom County Productions and Marlboro College present MacMaster in her holiday-themed concert, “Christmas in Cape Breton,” on...
Looking in the rearview mirror from my home in Florida, I see a municipal solid-waste recycling, compost, and transfer facility that is failing. Before my retirement two years ago, I managed the Windham Solid Waste Management District's operations for the past 20 years and need to set the record straight. When George Murray, past executive director, and I left the district, we noted to the board of directors the need for change in operations to keep pace with the ever-changing...
Kingdom County Productions and Marlboro College present acclaimed clown Bob Berky in his one-man show, “A Feast of Fools.” The show is Sunday, Dec. 8 at 2 p.m., at Next Stage Arts. Berky is funny. He might speak through a kazoo, mime a hell-bent ride on a motorcycle, or amble around the stage in camouflage and goggles to spy on birds. Or maybe he'll get tangled up in pushed buttons, pulled switches, and mis-connected wires in a loopy battle of...
A group of West Brattleboro residents hopes to grow the village's community, one cup of coffee at a time. A group of eight residents is eyeing half of the first floor of the Stockwell Building as the future home of a café and art gallery. Panda West restaurant occupies the other half of the first floor. The building, at 911 Western Ave., sits near the West Brattleboro green. Approximately five potential sites occupy the group's list. The group, loosely called...
Young Shakespeare Players (YSP) East-New England (as the satellite is named) presents “Macbeth” on Saturday, Dec. 7, and Sunday, Dec. 8, at the Hooker-Dunham Theater, 139 Main St. Showtimes are 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., and admission is free. Here tackling “Macbeth,” which contains some of the most exquisite language in Shakespeare's canon and is considered one of his darkest and most powerful tragedies, are two casts of actors aged 7 to 18. There are two Macbeths (one per cast):
Dec. 23 of this year marks the 100th anniversary of an important event in American history. It is the day that our Congress sold us into slavery by passing the Federal Reserve Act. The Federal Reserve Act was drafted during a secret meeting of bankers and government officials on Jekyll Island off the Georgia coast in November of 1910. Owned by the wealthy of the day - Paul Warburg, J.P. Morgan, John Rockefeller - Jekyll Island was a retreat for...
In Belgium, a group of students at a Jewish school are assaulted by neighborhood youth. In a small town in the Czech Republic, vandals topple 80 tombstones at a Jewish cemetery and damage a Holocaust memorial twice. In Finland, swastikas with anti-Semitic slogans are spray-painted on public buildings. The son of a rabbi in France is attacked outside his home by men shouting ant-Semitic slogans. Reports continue to grow in Spain of incidents that include vandalism, verbal harassment, and anti-Semitic...
When Ricky Davidson was a teenager in the early 1980s, “we knew about AIDS - well, we had heard about it - but no one we knew had it. We just knew it was an automatic death sentence, names were in the paper almost daily of those who had died, but it was always someone else, someplace else.” That attitude, he said, was much different than what he hears from the teens we works with today at the Brattleboro Boys...
Let's take a group like 350.org. It gets its power from people who have a common interest coming together to organize, raise money, form activist groups, protest, and try to influence legislation such as allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built. Bully for them! That's their right. Should anyone be able to limit these rights and somehow determine if they're acting for the public good? That idea is laughable and incredibly un-American. Should their status be granted for a limited...
Friends of Music at Guilford, for a 43rd year, invites singers and music lovers in the tri-state region to start their holiday season with its annual Community Messiah Sing on the first Saturday in December. Set again at Centre Congregational Church, 193 Main St., the Sing's permanent home since 1982, the event is a benefit for agencies serving the area's homeless. This year the first Saturday falls on Dec. 7, and the program is set to begin as usual at...
A few decades ago, Dorothy Bush, then a Grafton resident, was asked if she could make something out of Bob Barrett's mound of old silk ties. As Dorothy tells it, “Ginna, Bob's wife, wanted to get rid of them, so he asked me to make something out of them.” And she did: Dorothy made them into a unique multi-colored quilt, which the Barrett family recently donated to the Grafton Historical Society's museum. “I had never made a quilt before, so...
In a special addition to the opening exhibit of Liz LaVorgna's “Dapper” photography exhibit, the Northampton Divas Drag Kings 4 Life will appear at the Hooker-Dunham Theater & Gallery Friday, Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. Shameless DeVille, Loo D'Flyest Priestly and Izzy MJ Forrestor will take to the stage to perform during the Gallery Walk artist's reception. Viewing of the art will continue during the show, and refreshments will be served. Green Mountain Crossroads sponsors the exhibit, show, and reception.
The Open Music Collective presents a pair of end-of-the-semester concerts featuring students from this fall's classes. On Sunday, Dec. 8, at 4 p.m., OMC presents the ensembles' concert, “Standards, Bebop, and Beyond!” Three bands will share the stage presenting music they worked on since October with different focuses, connecting the schemes and displaying a larger view of lineage in the history of jazz. The standards band, which meets on Wednesday evenings, will perform a list of favorites featuring Lou Erlanger...
The prospect of consolidating the complex system of town and village governments into one administrative operation and one tax base under one entity - the town of Rockingham - has created a wave of extremely hostile and emotional responses. In the wake of a cancelled Dec. 3 agenda item for a “Plan of Merger” discussion at the joint meeting of the Rockingham Selectboard and the Bellows Falls Village Trustees, a spate of emails from irate village residents last week -
On Thursday, Dec. 12, from 6 to 8 p.m., the West Brattleboro Association (WBA) will host its annual holiday party at The New England House, 254 Marlboro Rd. This is a time for people and businesses in West Brattleboro to get together socially and to celebrate the Association's numerous accomplishments in this past year. The evening will feature a cash bar with hors d'oeuvres prepared by the restaurant. The WBA suggests a voluntary donation of $5 toward the food. In...
The agricultural community will not take any chances during a budget season where all municipal programs, services, and jobs are on the table. Farmers voiced favor for the town's farm tax stabilization program to the Selectboard despite the program not being up for reconsideration at the board's Dec. 3 meeting. The tax stabilization program, according to farmers interviewed, waives a farm's municipal property taxes, though farmers still must pay the education portion. “It's an example of people putting their money...