The order came over the intercom: Managers, meet now in the lobby. Social worker Tiffany Smith knew what it meant. If the latest test for the coronavirus at Birchwood Terrace Rehab and Healthcare had been negative, she would have heard through a text message, the same way she had previously learned that residents with a…
‘Good times’ and ‘heartbreaking times’ defined life of Burlington man who struggled with substance abuse
Longtime City of Burlington employee took pride in keeping streets and sidewalks safe
Jazz guitarist played gigs until his nineties
Builder and private pilot “embraced life with all his might”
101-year-old lived last quarter of her life happily at Wake Robin in Shelburne
ReDiscovery Channel With which cliché phrase should I start this week’s column, the one that’s historically all about what to do and who to see at the annual Burlington Discover Jazz Festival? If you’d like me to begin with, “Under normal circumstances…,” press 1. If you’d rather read the words, “In simpler times…,” press 2.…
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “It’s OK to live a life others don’t understand,” writes author Jenna Woginrich. That’s a healthy attitude for an eccentric person like her who taught herself by trial and error how to run a small farm with a meager budget while all alone in the middle of nowhere. But does her…
(Self-released, digital) How long does it take for a musical trend to circle back around? Twenty years or more? Much of current indie rock sounds like it was channeled directly from the mid-’90s. And chillwave, the darling micro-genre that briefly dominated the indie-tronic world in the late 2000s and early 2010s, recalled some of the…
The days might be warming up, but a Jericho dad and his two sons are still in the swing of collecting firewood for next winter. But it’s not all for them. Since last November, Eric Axelrod and the boys — Devin, 13, and Logan, 10 — have been stacking fuel to give to those in…
(Self-released, digital download, cassette) Burlington rockers Wolfhand specialize in what they call “cinematic heaviness,” and rarely does a band’s own bio nail its sound so perfectly. Sonically, the quintet hails from the hinterlands, where desert rock, doom metal and good old country music overlap. On paper, that description may come off as contrived. But Wolfhand’s…
Are you working from home? That phrase conjures something different for everyone. Whether “home” is a house in the country, a shared apartment with roommates in Burlington or another arrangement, there are plenty of ways to spruce up your abode and make the most of your personal space. For Brett Bashaw and Natasha Lawyer, working…
For Trevor Crist, founder and CEO of Inntopia, the winter of 2019-20 was on course to be a bluebird season. Hefty snow blanketed much of the country, prompting skiers and snowboarders to hit the slopes in higher-than-average numbers in the Northeast, the Rockies and the West Coast. That was good news for the Stowe-based booking…
Selectboard meetings in Canaan can be lively. Residents of the remote northeastern Vermont town — population 972 and literally steps from the Canadian border — congregate every other week to complain about rogue snowmobilers or weigh in on the purchase of a new police cruiser. The coronavirus, though, put the in-person gatherings on pause. In…
When the pandemic brought Vermont to a halt in mid-March, Paul lost most of his freelance work and found himself marooned at home in Burlington. He and his roommates diligently whiled away their days: They took five Zoom yoga classes a week, worked in the yard and processed their feelings. As the sameness of self-isolation…
Butch Hawkes, my fiftysomething customer, and I were driving south on Route 7 en route to his home in the tucked-away Addison County town of West Cornwall. He had come up to Burlington a couple of days earlier for shoulder surgery. Butch was sitting in what I call the “wayback” seats of my minivan. He…
Nearly every person who arrived at South Burlington Middle School last Thursday wore a mask — a pandemic-imposed requirement for those entering the city’s polling place. Inside, election worker Tim Barritt sported a mask and a plastic face shield as he checked in voters and handed out ballots. Those in line spaced themselves at least…
Dear Reverend, I’m a woman, and I enjoy being identified as such — but I have a lot of hair that grows on my face. I don’t remove it because I’m cool with it. The other day a young cashier called me “ma’am” but then corrected herself and said, “Sorry, what’s your pronoun?” She was…
When Jake’s ONE Market opened in February, no one knew the coronavirus would begin to claim lives in Vermont the very next month, or that most businesses would shut down practically overnight. The store on North Winooski Avenue in Burlington is considered essential, because food, and has remained open. Like every other vendor in the…
Science fiction holds the promise of bringing readers to strange new worlds. The past couple of years have introduced a slew of stories about this very trope — portal fiction — in which intrepid heroes jump from one alternate world to another. TV shows such as “Fringe” and “Rick and Morty,” as well as Alix…
Race to the Bottom [Re Off Message: “Protest Leads to Confrontation With Police Brass,” May 31]. The obscene public execution of George Floyd on Monday night, May 25, by Minneapolis police has brought about righteous indignation and protests not only in Minnesota but across the country as the American public has finally had enough of…
The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum in Vergennes made the difficult decision last month to suspend all in-person visits for the 2020 season. Immediately, Chris Sabick began looking for other ways to connect to the museum’s constituencies. As LCMM’s director of research and archaeology, Sabick knew that his visitors couldn’t get more socially distanced than touring…
When lawmakers returned to Montpelier in January, one of their top priorities was to reduce the number of people imprisoned by the State of Vermont. They succeeded — but not the way they expected. The coronavirus pandemic has prompted prosecutors to avoid locking up all but the most serious suspected offenders, and it’s led the Department…
Loving wife and mother to be honored with a “book nook” at Shelburne library
As the crowd swelled and pulsed on Saturday night, the authorities were waiting in the wings. Officers with the Burlington Police Department stood by a heavy-duty emergency response truck in a gravel parking lot on North Avenue. The Vermont State Police stationed a tactical team at the nearby fire station, where another tactical truck held…
It’s been a whirlwind spring for Vermont’s farmers markets. On April 10, even as the winter season wrapped up and managers and vendors started making their summer plans, markets were temporarily shuttered under Gov. Phil Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order. The fate of farmers markets during the COVID-19 pandemic remained up in the air…
Ren Weiner, aka Miss Weinerz, imagined being a kindergarten teacher in Vermont, with a pottery studio and maybe a side gig as an EMT. As it turned out, Weiner is a baker in Burlington who approaches their work with the creativity and resourcefulness of the kindergarten teacher we all wish we’d had. (Weiner uses they/them…
