Dec 9-15, 2020
Virus Response Showcases Vermont National Guard’s Versatile Skills; What’s the State’s Plan for Distributing a COVID-19 Vaccine?; Pete’s Pines and Needles Is a Unique Yuletide Tradition
Cover Story
Essential Soldiers: Virus Response Showcases the Versatility of the Vermont National Guard
A week after the coronavirus pandemic prompted Gov. Phil Scott to declare a state of emergency in late March, Lisa Kromer of Essex got an unexpected phone call. The 30-year-old special education teacher had been a part-time combat medic in the Vermont Army National Guard for seven years, but she’d yet to put her skills to…
Farm-to-Table Restaurant Oakes & Evelyn to Open in Montpelier
After a decade at the Hanover Inn’s Pine restaurant, executive chef Justin Dain has left to open his own restaurant: Oakes & Evelyn, coming to Montpelier in early February 2021. The chef-owner will be joined by chef Amanda Champagne, his longtime “right-hand girl” at Pine, Dain said. Oakes & Evelyn will be located at 52…
Wedding Announcement: John W. Spinney & Susannah K. Baumer
John W. Spinney (parents Pam Sargent Spinney and Randall and Karen Spinney; four siblings; one nephew) and Susannah K. Baumer (parents LaVonne K. Baumer and Eric and Joyce Baumer; eight siblings; 17 nieces and nephews) joined their lives in an intimate elopement at 11:11 a.m. on November 11, 2020. The couple, with minister John Zimmerman-Hardman…
Obituary: Marion “Marianne” Josephine Birchall Goodson, 1929-2020
Stowe woman made countless contributions to the Vermont arts community
Obituary: Michael James Smolin, 1931-2020
Engineer was an early innovator in environmental cleanup processes
The Magnificent 7: Must See, Must Do, December 10 to 16
1. Sauced Up Award-winning drag performer Taylor Mac gives the gifts of kitsch, camp and glam this season with the virtual spectacular Holiday Sauce … Pandemic! Through a fabulous mix of music, film and burlesque, Mac, who uses the gender-neutral pronoun “judy,” subverts capitalist traditions and highlights the power of chosen family. Pay what you…
Free Will Astrology (12/9/20)
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): I’m envisioning a scene in which you’re sitting on a chair at a kitchen table. At the center of the table is a white vase holding 18 long-stemmed red roses. The rest of the table’s surface is filled with piles of money, which you have just unloaded from five mysterious suitcases…
The Unique Yuletide Charm of Pete’s Pines and Needles in Waltham
The signs start appearing along Route 7 just outside Vergennes about a week before Thanksgiving. They’re crudely made and kind of cryptic. “Trees!” reads one made of cardboard, with an arrow hand-drawn in black marker pointing left as you head south. Another, pointing south and visible from the northbound lane as you travel from New…
Mountainsong Expeditions Brings Fresh Faces to Vermont Hunting
Murphy Robinson wasn’t always a hunter. In fact, the Worcester-based wilderness skills educator grew up vegetarian. “Guns were not an acceptable thing in [my family’s] world. I really grew up thinking hunters were evil,” Robinson said. “That began to change because I became a wilderness guide and a ecological educator, and the more that I…
Why Did the U.S. Government Change Its Naturalization Test?
Most weeks, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot seeks to answer questions that befuddle or pique the curiosity of our readers and staff, such as: “Why are there suddenly so many rabbits around?” “What’s that golf ball-shaped dome overlooking St. Albans?” and “Why can’t Vermonters be composted when they die?” Other times, the column highlights outrageous, absurd or…
From the Deputy Publisher: Citizen Action
“It’s not supposed to be like this.” That’s what my wife and I have said to our kids too many times in the past few years, referencing the impeachment hearings, the Coronavirus Task Force briefings, the mask wars, and the bitterly contested November presidential election and its aftermath. We’ve watched it all with Graham, 14,…
The Big Jab: Vermont Preps for First Shipments of COVID-19 Vaccine
Who goes first? Vermont officials have been pondering that question for months, when the prospect of a COVID-19 vaccine still seemed like wishful thinking. Now, with packages of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine poised to reach the state in a matter of days, they’re racing to put their plan into action. Consistent with federal guidelines, the Vermont Department…
Vermonters Make Merry With These Festive Holiday Happenings
Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! taught us all that the holiday spirit comes not from fancy parties and grand feasts, but from the bonds between loved ones. (What it didn’t teach us: WTF is roast beast?) This season, Vermonters are adapting to challenging circumstances and finding novel ways to share good cheer. We’ve…
Romanian Documentary ‘Collective’ Offers a Searing Look at the Breakdown of Public Trust
Our streaming entertainment options are overwhelming — and not always easy to sort through. This week, I watched the Romanian documentary Collective, which has racked up a string of accolades and could be an Oscar contender. It’s available to stream through the Vermont International Film Foundation’s Virtual Cinema portal, now through December 17 and from…
How Do I Train Myself to Stop Using My Friend’s Old Pronouns?
Dear Reverend, My best friend, whom I’ve known since high school, is transitioning from male to female. I think that’s fantastic, but I keep making mistakes by using the wrong pronoun and calling her by her old name. She says it doesn’t bother her, but it bothers me. How do I train myself to get…
Vermont Institutions Collect the Drawings of Renowned Architects Marcel Beaudin and Donald McKnight
The midcentury architects who brought a modern, Bauhaus-influenced aesthetic to Vermont can be counted on two hands. Perhaps not by accident, two came from Barre: Marcel Beaudin (1929-) and Donald McKnight (1933-2020). Architectural drawings and other records of both of those architects’ long careers are or soon will be available to the public. McKnight’s drawings…
An Outdoor Art Installation Celebrates Famous People From Middlebury’s Past
If you stroll through College Park in Middlebury between now and the end of the year, you’ll meet some impressive figures from the college town’s past, including farm equipment icon John Deere, America’s first Black college graduate Alexander Twilight and former Vermont governor Jim Douglas. Or rather, you’ll encounter lifelike portraits of those people —…
Locked Down and Broke: 20,000 Vermonters Could Lose Unemployment Benefits
Twenty thousand Vermonters will lose their unemployment benefits on December 26 if two federal programs that expanded the social safety net amid the pandemic are allowed to expire. Vermont cannot afford to extend the programs itself, and while federal lawmakers have said for months that they support renewing them in some way, negotiations in the…
Shelter in Place: The Pandemic Provides a Path to Housing the Homeless
James Pocock had been spending his nights huddled in a downtown Burlington ATM vestibule when the coronavirus arrived in Vermont. On March 18, an acquaintance told him that the state had agreed to temporarily house people experiencing homelessness in hotels and motels in order to keep them safe. “I said, ‘All right. I’ll get a…
West Bolton Residents Try to Save Wheeler Field With ‘Semi-Neked’ Calendar
It’s not quite “The Men of Maple Corner” calendar — the famous fundraising venture that showcased some coyly nude Calais fellas and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars back in the early aughts. But “Our Semi-Neked Friends of Wheeler Field 2021 Calendar” took its inspiration from that national sensation, Jen Dudley-Gaillard readily admitted. The West…
Soundbites: Josh Glass and Friends Release New Holiday Compilation
The holidays are upon us, and that means seasonally festive music is almost certainly pouring out of every ceiling-embedded loudspeaker you’re likely to pass under. A little recommendation for Burlington’s independent businesses planning to blast their customers with some holiday selections: Keep it local by playing Joshua Glass and Friends’ new album Merry Christmas From…
Award-Winning Animated Film ‘Malady of Mine’ Was Burlington Born
When designer Jon Portman got inspired to make a short animated film, in 2018, he didn’t have to look far for collaborators. A 2013 Middlebury College graduate and cofounder of Oxbow Creative, Portman was among the first tenants of Burlington’s Karma Bird House, the Maple Street office, gallery and café space opened in 2013 by…
Wren Kitz, ‘Early Worm’
(Sophomore Lounge/Feeding Tube Records, LP, digital) Wren Kitz’s musical evolution during the past several years has been a stimulating and fascinating ride. He’s a truly experimental artist, and not just because the music he makes is often unconventional. The descriptor applies wholly to his modus operandi, especially as a live musician. Kitz frequently experiments with…
KingZeek, ‘While We Can’
(Astrology Day Records, CD, digital) Nine times out of 10, when artists dub their new work “experimental,” you know you’re in for some borderline unlistenable content. To be clear: It isn’t that experimental music, per se, is unlistenable — on the contrary, the genre is filled with absorbing work. It’s that artists crossing over from…
Letters to the Editor (12/9/20)
Sorry, Wrong Number Perhaps others have already chimed in on the wildly miscalculated number in the December 2 publisher’s column [From the Publisher: “Pressed for Time”]. Paula Routly correctly states the number of estimated U.S. deaths from the 1918 flu pandemic as 675,000 but says this was roughly 28 percent of the U.S. citizenry at…
Obituary: Elizabeth Amaden, 1943-2020
West Topsham woman “had a way of bringing happiness” to others
Business Is Mushrooming for St. Albans’ Funj. Shrooming
“In the U.S., there’s this fear of mushrooms,” Kevin Melman told me one morning last month. “Like, if it’s not the one that’s on pizza, it’s probably going to kill you.” Melman is trying to put an end to mycophobia, one mushroom at a time. In August 2019, the 24-year-old University of Vermont graduate founded…
Northfield Farmers Market Sets Up Virtual One-Stop Shop for Winter
Customers of the Northfield Farmers Market won’t be able to wander from vendor to vendor this winter, but they will be able to browse the wares on their phones. Because its usual cold-weather location, the Plumley Armory at Norwich University, is closed to outside visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the market has set up a…
