It takes a very special person, a very special pet, and a very special connection between the two to make a rescue work for both the pet and human involved. It also takes time, love, strength, and devotion to the cause to carry it through and to give it your all.
It's a terrible thing what some so-called humans do to these poor, defenseless furry babies. Then the shelters end up trying to fix these poor, broken pets and try to train them time and again to believe that another so-called human will not do the same, so they get placed from one wrong place after another because the special connection needed in the first place just wasn't there.
Before adopting out a pet to a home, educating the adoptee is a necessary part of the process, or it just will not work and might further damage the pet.
It is a very difficult job indeed to work at a shelter. It would kill me, too, to see some of the terrible, awful things firsthand that so-called humans can do to destroy a defenseless, loving pet.
The Selectboard recently received a letter of complaint from a resident regarding “a number of unregistered vehicles parked at a residence” at Barry Aleshnick and Martina Sczesny's property on 215 Melendy Hill Rd. At the May 11 board meeting, Selectboard Chair Anne Rider read excerpts from the letter, which...
Beautifully written! It's easy to lose sight of the ones we do help when we focus our hearts on the ones we can't.
Dial 911. A dispatcher answers. Paramedics, firefighters, or police respond to the emergency. It's simple for the public to call emergency services, said Chief of Operations for Rescue Inc., Drew Hazelton. For emergency medical services (EMS) to respond, however, an intricate system of moving parts is required - a system that the public takes for granted. This week, local EMS organizations will participate in National EMS Week, designed to honor and highlight the work of emergency responders. “We want to...
Amid the national advertisements, Vermonters watching their favorite television shows on the entertainment-streaming website Hulu this week saw an ad with a local flavor: EMTs in Vermont. The OnCall for Vermont initiative is an effort by the Vermont Department of Health to recruit more volunteers to the state's ranks of emergency services. The department noted that a 2014 survey of emergency medical services (EMS) heads of service showed that about 86 percent of Vermont EMS agencies use volunteers but two-thirds...
New trash rules go into effect July 1TOWNSHEND - As of July 1, all household garbage taken to the compactor must be in the new Town of Townshend bags. The 33-gallon purple bags will cost $2.50 each this year. They may be purchased from the Town Clerk, Riverbend Market, Harmonyville Store, and the West Townshend Cafe. Recycle bins will, of course, still be available for household recyclables. No cash will be taken at the compactor. If what one has to...
The Boys & Girls Club of Brattleboro was one of 12 state organizations to receive grants from the Vermont Women's Fund to support skill-building programs for young women and girls around the state this year. The Women's Fund, a component fund of the Vermont Community Foundation, awarded $97,700 through its competitive grant round this spring to 12 organizations. The grants support programs that provide young Vermont women ages 15-25 with positive relationships and role models; development of self-advocacy skills; and...
A local methadone clinic is participating in a pilot program by the Vermont Department of Health to distribute free opioid overdose rescue kits. The kits contain naloxone hydrocloride, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioid poisoning, in the form of a nasal spray. Sprayed into the nose of someone who has overdosed, naloxone (also known as the trade name Narcan) blocks the opioids and restores normal breathing. Habit OPCO, located on Town Crier Drive, announced last week that...
After nearly three years of delays, design problems, and permitting issues, the Bellows Falls Terriers finally got to play baseball under the lights at Hadley Field last Thursday. Longtime Westminster resident Alvin Southwick, who died in 2011, had donated money to the school to put up a lighting system for Hadley Field's baseball diamond and football field, as well as new scoreboards at all the BFUHS fields. The lights were installed in 2012. Soon after they were turned on, Ruth...
Vermont Performance Lab (VPL) will launch its first Open Lab on Saturday, May 30, on the campus of Marlboro College in Marlboro. This year's theme is dance. VPL's Open Lab is a one-day event that starts with an afternoon picnic, followed by open rehearsals, workshops, films, and talks. Each year, VPL's Lab provides artists with residencies and support to research and develop new work in dance, theater, film, and music. This year, VPL's Open Lab invites participants to the studios...
A unique fusion of traditional music with opera, Perception: Portrait of Tony Barrand, will premiere in two performances on Saturday, May 23, at 7 and 8:30 p.m., at the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, 29 South St., West Brattleboro. Perception will be performed by baritone John Moore, of opera stages worldwide, and a frequent participant at the Marlboro Music Festival. He will be backed by an all-star cast of traditional musicians: Peter Amidon, Fred Breunig, Andy Davis, Keith Murphy, Becky...
On Sunday, May 31, at 4 p.m., Brattleboro Area Hospice will host its 18th Annual Memorial Planting Service. The event will take place at the Hospice Memorial Garden located at Living Memorial Park on Guilford Street in Brattleboro. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. The event will offer the community a time to join together to honor and remember loved ones who have died. Activities include planting flowers, painting memorial messages on stones to be placed in the...
The 85-member River Singers Chorus will perform an eclectic concert of world music on Saturday, May 30, at 7:30 p.m., at The White Church in Grafton. The River Singers, a multi-generational community choir led by Mary Cay Brass, is in its 23rd year of singing a variety of traditional music from many cultural and musical traditions. Brass will be joined by guest conductor, singer, and virtuoso gospel piano player, Dr. Kathy Bullock of Berea, Ky. Bullock has been a professor...
Police step up seat belt enforcement BRATTLEBORO - Throughout the month of May, the Brattleboro Police Department has been participating in a high visibility traffic enforcement campaign, sponsored by the Vermont Governor's Highway Safety Program. Officers are conducting extra traffic patrols, with the goal of reducing crashes by enforcing occupant protection laws and other violations. Motorists are reminded to use proper safety restraints and to use care while traveling on roadways. This is also a reminder that the use of...
College news • Two local students have been awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program grants. Theresa Chockbengboun, a graduating senior biology major at Marlboro College, will be teaching English at a university in Laos while pursuing research opportunities in public health. Luke Drabyn of Grafton, a member of the Class of 2015 at Bowdoin College with a major in government/legal studies and Russian, will study and conduct research in Ukraine. • Sarah Harlow of Putney and Amy Blazej of Windham were...
My colleague Richard January wrote about the safety of Vermont Yankee's used fuel, saying it is safe in the fuel pool. He is right. Here's why. In operation a reactor gets 93 percent of its heat from atom splitting and 7 percent from the decay of the radioactive atom splitting pieces (fission products or other atoms). When the atom splitting stops (reactor shutdown), that heat stops immediately. The heat from the fission products continues. The fission products are radioactive, which...
Theatre Adventure actors with and without disabilities will perform “Tales of King Arthur” on Thursday, May 21, at 10:30 a.m., and Friday, May 22, at 10:30 a.m. Both performances are at the West Village Meeting House, 29 South St., West Brattleboro. The play begins with young Arthur, also known as Wart. The audience will witness the lessons from Merlyn who is determined to train young Arthur to become the future king of England. Wart's adventures lead to the tournament where...
This year's concert to benefit the Guilford Free Library will take place on Saturday, May 30, at 7:30 p.m., at the Guilford Center Meeting House. The concert, Cello Celebration, features Peter Wiley, Paul Wiancko, and Judith Serkin, who also organizes the concert. Wiancko first performed in Guilford two years ago with Serkin at the Cello Duo Concert to benefit the Guilford Library. He is a composer and cellist. Serkin and Wiley played one of his compositions at their first cello...
Brattleboro will once again be host to one of the longest on-going Dawn Dances in the country, held twice a year on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends for up to 400 dancers at the Gibson-Aiken Center, 207 Main St. Featuring three callers and three bands for the contra dance portion, which runs from 8 p.m. on Sunday, May 24, until 7 a.m., on Monday, May 25, this dance draws people of all ages from Maine to California, northern Vermont...
The Leland & Gray Players close their 19th season on May 28-30 with the zany farce and slapstick of Commedia dell'arte in Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters. In a madcap Italian comedy of love, disguise, duplicity, and dueling - adapted for today by Jeffrey Hatcher and Paolo Emilio Landi - betrothed couple Silvio and Clarice are devastated when a previous fiancé reappears, back from the dead. In this farce, people, places, and things are not what they seem...
The Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) has received a $11,250 Universal Recycling School Grant from the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to “implement recycling and organics diversion programs,” at Brattleboro Union High School, Brattleboro Area Middle School, Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School, and Twin Valley Middle School & High School, one of just four such grants awarded. The funds will help schools comply with Act 148, Vermont's Universal Recycling Law. Under Act 148, schools are...
The Vermont State Police Arson Unit is requesting information from the public to assist with investigations of residential house fires in the area. More than a dozen open investigations range back to 2005, including a May 5 fire that destroyed a seasonal residence on the Under the Mountain Road. Many of these fires - including the latest one - have been classified as suspicious, and investigators have identified “striking similarities in each,” according to a state police press release from...
On Saturday, May 30, the Brattleboro Ukulele Society hosts an afternoon and evening of ukulele music at the Hooker Dunham Theater, 139 Main St. All proceeds from this event will benefit the Open Music Collective of Brattleboro, whose mission is to brighten lives and build community through music. To start, a 90-minute afternoon beginner/intermediate workshop, hosted by Jim and Liz Beloff, of “Jumpin' Jim's Ukulele Songbook” fame, begins at 4:30 p.m. Next, a concert, featuring Jim and Liz Beloff, Ben...
Community Hope and Action presents the final concert of its Last Saturday Concert Series on Saturday, May 23, from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Townshend Town Hall. The series of free monthly performances and supper for all ages concludes with a contra dance with local talents Sally Newton and live fiddle music by Michael Donahue, Bob Naess, Alicia Moyer, and Colin Blazej. The public may come early to attend a new event before the show: a bruschetta cooking class...
Recent scattered rain showers have not provided enough water to soak an unusually dry Windham County landscape. That is why the Brattleboro Fire Department is reminding residents that the statewide burn ban remains in effect for Windham and Bennington counties. The state imposed a statewide burn ban, prohibits all open burning, on May 5. After rains soaked much of northern Vermont last week, the state lifted the ban except for its two most southern counties. “It's abnormally dry this spring,
Emergency operations plan adopted NEWFANE - The Selectboard adopted a local emergency operations plan at its May 4 meeting. This document is used to guide the town and its officials on procedures to follow in the event of a disaster. Administrative Assistant Shannon Meckle said she met to review the plan with David Moore, the town's former emergency management coordinator, and Selectboard Chair and Road Foreman Todd Lawley. Meckle said she also received input from the town's Emergency Management Committee.
Nearly 100 participants at the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont's 28th annual Walk for Life downtown on Saturday raised $27,500 for area treatment and prevention efforts. Shirley Squires, an 84-year-old Guilford great-great-grandmother walking in memory of her son, the late Democratic Rep. Ronald Squires, reaped 80 percent of the event's take by raising $22,500, a personal record. Soliciting 800 family members, friends, and organizations statewide, Squires has gone from collecting $1,000 in her first walk in 1993 - just after...
Friends of Music at Guilford (FOMAG) is hosting its seventh annual Spring Recital and Holiday Cookout beginning at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 24, at Tree Frog Farm. This year's Tracker Organ program focuses on music from the North German baroque, repertory for which the circa-1897 instrument is uniquely suited, according to organizers. All the works on the program, except one, are concerted. The exception is Dietrich Buxtehude's Toccata in F, played by the afternoon's guest organist, Ken Olsson. It...
Patricia Neer was recognized for her significant contributions to the American Association of University Women (AAUW) at the recent annual meeting of its Brattleboro branch. Neer was cited as a woman of distinction for her volunteer work with the branch, especially during the annual book sale that raises funds for scholarships for local women. She is also active locally with Centre Congregational Church on its Mission and Service Committee, delivering food donated by church members to the Brattleboro Drop-in Center...
Pamela Simmons: I believe that the death penalty is ridiculous. No lesson learned - the young man is getting what he wanted. He is looking forward to dying. He believes in what he did. He should be in a jail cell for the rest of his life. It costs more to house inmates on death row, in housing and in appeals. He shouldn't be allowed interviews, either; to glamorize what he's done is almost worse than the act itself. Christian...
Town Hall repairs continue PUTNEY - “The front of this building is driving me crazy,” Town Manager Cynthia Stoddard told the Selectboard at the May 6 board meeting, as she updated the board on the Town Hall's necessary repairs. All of the items are on a “hurry up and wait” status. Stoddard said she is awaiting a part on an automatic door opener, and she is waiting to hear from contractors about repairing the crumbling concrete steps in front of...
After the most recent inspection of the Salmon Brook Bridge, the Selectboard has decided to begin preparing for the span's eventual replacement. Road Foreman Lee Chamberlin told the board that the most recent report from the state Agency of Transportation, which inspects all town bridges every two years, said the “entire guardrail system” for the bridge on East-West Road “is long overdue for upgrading with standard rail materials,” though, he noted, the guard rails are “not falling off.” In addition,
At press time, The Commons received unconfirmed results of the annual village election on Tuesday. In the only contested race, which drew three candidates for two two-year trustees' seats, Evelyn Weeks received 163 votes, with 137 voting for incumbent Trustee Colin James. The third candidate, Deborah Wright, received 78 votes. Nancy McAuliffe, who ran unopposed, remains village president for the next year. During Monday night's budget debate, voters rejected a motion to reduce the budget, which might have eliminated most...
An estimated 600 family, friends, and Landmark College community members gathered at the school's bi-annual commencement ceremony on May 16 to honor 77 new graduates. Associate degrees were awarded in liberal arts, general studies, business, life science, and computer science, and awards were presented to five students for outstanding achievement and contribution to the community. Graduate speeches are a distinctive feature of the Landmark College ceremony, and in keeping with tradition, more than 30 grads addressed the audience from the...
When I saw Molly Osowski's long, thoughtful, and achingly beautiful post on Facebook in March, I knew I was reading something special. It was a voice from someone from the region who was writing clearly and from the heart about a problem that is alternatively ignored and talked to death - heroin. We have published pieces in these pages from young people who have struggled with addiction, but this Viewpoint was something new. It was from a sober young woman...
With President Obama recently easing travel and trade restrictions with Cuba, Americans can now visit Cuba for approved purposes, including educational activities, without having to obtain a Treasury License. One local farmer recently took the opportunity to visit the island as part of a volunteer “farmer exchange program” to trade information on agriculture. Howard Prussack, who owns High Meadow Farms in Putney, made the 11-day trip in early-spring with Mimi Arnstein, owner of Wellspring Farm in Marshfield, former farmer Charles...
Last week's wreck in Philadelphia showed the need for massive investment in rail infrastructure in America. Instead, one day later, the House of Representatives voted to cut investment in Amtrak in 2016. The argument goes that operator incompetence - “taking a 50-mile-an-hour curve at 102” - caused the wreck, not an infrastructure problem. This makes my head hurt. The curve is there because the right-of-way was laid out 150 years ago. There should be a state-of-the-art right-of-way for a system...
I recently attended one of the pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) informational meetings at Oak Grove School, where I was shocked to learn that I would have to purchase $3 non-recyclable plastic trash bags to participate in this mandatory program. It was not the cost but the fact that I was being forced to purchase a harmful product and create more trash that shocked me. According to The Wall Street Journal, people in the United States use and dispose of 100 billion plastic...
“I have been singing Sacred Harp for 60 years and have never seen it led so well,” said the late Pete Seeger when he saw Peter Amidon leading the Old Songs Festival Sacred Harp Sing. Peter Amidon has become something of a musical legend in the New England area for his performing, arranging, and teaching of traditional American folk music. Members of the Amidon family have become magnets for musicians who have been attracted to the area to study with...
How long does it take a single mom with three children under the age of five to wash a load of laundry? Prudence Pease, Working Bridges resource coordinator with Granite United Way in New Hampshire, posed her question to an audience of 30, representing 15 businesses, last week. Considering nobody watches their washer or dryer as it's working, but instead does other tasks until the machine finishes, said Pease, the hypothetical mom will focus on that one load of laundry...