Wellness Issue 2022
Senior Olympian Flo Meiler Shares Her Secrets to Staying Fit; For Deaf Vermonters in Recovery, Accessible Support Services Are Often Out of Reach; How the Pandemic Helped Me Lose More Than 100 Pounds
New Monologue Series Shares Stories of Abuse at Former St. Joseph’s Orphanage
A new series of monologues shares the stories of former residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage. Call Me by My Name is an online presentation of five monologues that emerged from the work of the St. Joseph’s Orphanage Restorative Inquiry Writers’ Group. It debuts tonight — Thursday, January 27 — at 7 p.m. on Zoom (register to…
Obituary: Judith A. Blank, 1945-2022
Beloved mother, friend and social justice activist lived an outsize life
Clean: ‘Behind the Mask’ (1/24/22)
The sky was overcast and gray as I drove past a row of elegantly designed clapboard houses. I was three years sober, and I was on my way to the grocery store for the first time in several weeks. It had been nearly a month since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was…
Obituary: Helen Jackson Simon, 1956-2021
Children were the highlight of journalist and world traveler’s life
Obituary: James “Jim” Paul Tranowski, 1954-2022
Computer programmer was kind, intelligent, generous and interested in the world around him
Barre Opera House Reschedules Winter Shows
Citing the latest COVID-19 surge, the Barre Opera House has postponed four shows originally scheduled in January and February. Opera House director Dan Casey announced the news on Wednesday in a press release. “Faced with spiking COVID Omicron cases here in the Green Mountain State and continuing its efforts to maintain as safe an environment as…
Obituary: David Dodge, 1926-2022
Skier continued to race into his eighties, often beating competitors who were years younger
A Dairy Farm Is Defending a Pollution Lawsuit. Some Say Vermont’s Regs Are on Trial
Dennis and Vicki Hopper spend Vermont’s more temperate months at their lakefront home in Panton, which they purchased for $3.2 million in 2014. Their primary residence is in Houston, Texas, where Dennis works in the oil and gas industry. Annie, their daughter, raises grass-fed lamb with her husband on her parents’ 140-acre parcel in Addison…
Soundbites: Ali McGuirk Goes Full Burlington, New Singles From Henry Jamison and Mikahely
You know how they tell you never to read the comments on social media? Sometimes it feels like the only way to maintain your sanity. I was a strict apostle of the Don’t Read the Comments Church for years. Unfortunately, I kind of need to read them these days, because feedback is important to my…
Fat City: How the Pandemic Helped Me Lose More Than 100 Pounds
Before the pandemic, I often wondered what would happen if I ever had the chance to do nothing. What if I had no obligations and could just sit and stare and not have to think about work or making rent or anything else? Short of winning the lottery, I never thought I’d find out. The…
Book Review: ‘Winter Recipes From the Collective,’ Louise Glück
Louise Glück begins her 13th collection of poetry with the modestly entitled “Poem,” which begins like a folktale about two children: Day and night come hand in hand like a boy and a girl pausing only to eat wild berries out of a dish painted with pictures of birds. There is a vision of oblivion:…
Private Auction Of Storage Unit Contents: Champlain Valley Self Storage, LLC
Valentino Anderson, last known address of 32 North Winooski Ave Burlington, VT 05401 has a past due balance of $295.00 owed to Champlain Valley Self Storage, LLC since 9/30/21. To cover this debt, per lease dated 1/29/2019 the contents of unit #134 will be sold at private auction on, or after January 22, 2022. Roger…
A Vermont ER Doctor Takes On Often Missed and Misunderstood Celiac Disease
When Martin Linseisen began experiencing numbness in his legs, he couldn’t figure out what was causing it, despite having spent years as an emergency room nurse practitioner and, before that, as a registered nurse. His doctors were at a loss, too. They sent him for repeated MRI scans of his head, neck and back and…
Easier Said: Welcome to the Wellness Issue
This year, I only made one real resolution. As the ball dropped in Times Square, the last of my Champagne disappeared and the calendar flipped from 2021 to 2022, I resolved not to beat myself up when I inevitably fall short on all my other resolutions. Could I stand to drink less, eat healthier, exercise…
Moondogs, ‘ACiD TeST’
(Self-released, digital) Genre in music has been dying a slow death for a while now. There’s no way to pinpoint exactly when the decline began, but the rise of streaming services and the fall of the big record label system were likely flash points. Since then, in a world of algorithms and AI-curated playlists, the…
An ALS Registry Could Help Find Environmental Risk Factors for the Incurable Disease
A single question plagued Dustin Keelty long after he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease: Why me? The Milton man wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, though no one would have blamed him. Rather, Keelty wanted to know what cosmic forces had combined to give him the rare, incurable and fatal illness.…
New Documentary Chronicles Vermonter Ben Feinson’s Long Trail Speed-Hiking Record
For someone on a “struggle fest,” Ben Feinson had a pretty good time. He ate Fritos, peanut M&Ms, and avocado-and-cheese sandwiches and drank beet juice. He hung out with his best friends for four and a half days in mid-July. He slept in the back of a van and received messages of love and encouragement…
Letters to the Editor (1/19/22)
Cooler Pastures My husband and I moved up to Vermont from Dallas back in November of 2019, just a few short months before COVID-19 became a full-blown pandemic. With the wretched mishandling of the pandemic and last winter’s “Snowmageddon” by elected officials in Texas, along with devastating, widespread disasters across the country due to tornadoes,…
For Deaf Vermonters in Recovery, Accessible Support Services Are Often Out of Reach
Read this story, translated into American Sign Language by Rae Heller, on YouTube. When Patricia Lambert started her recovery in 2004, she went to Alcoholics Anonymous every day. The goal was 90 days of meetings, or “90 in 90” — a common practice for AA newcomers. It took a year and three 90 in 90s before…
‘This Land,’ at the Hood Museum, Considers the Meaning of Place
The title of a current Hood Museum of Art exhibition is unremarkable — “This Land: American Engagement With the Natural World.” One might assume that its theme is the environment or the degradation thereof. To be sure, those concerns are represented. But the title obscures the real significance of this sprawling, 160-artist show: a broadly…
Antwon Levee & Dust, ‘Lake Effect’
(Self-released, digital) The duo of Antwon Levee & Dust hails from scenic Plattsburgh, N.Y. Over the years, they have built a rock-solid reputation as purveyors of quality beats and rhymes, churning out singles, remixes and collaborations. Their latest offering, Lake Effect, is gloriously out of step with the times, not just aesthetically but also sonically.…
I’m a Casual Smoker, and I Don’t Want to Quit. Am I Being Stupid?
Dear Reverend, I’ve been smoking cigarettes since I was 19, but I don’t consider myself “a smoker.” I never have a cigarette right when I wake up, and I don’t get cranky if I don’t have nicotine, but I do smoke just about every day. Sometimes one or two, but sometimes a bunch. It depends.…
Senior Olympian Flo Meiler Shares Her Secrets to Staying Fit
The University of Vermont’s Gucciardi Fitness Center was empty at 9 a.m. on a Friday, save for the slight figure of a woman running by herself. The slapping of her sneakers striking the track was the only sound other than the dull drone of the heating system as she finished her warm-up run. Granted, it…
Community Bands Together to Buy a Specialized Van for Young Woman With Disabilities
Georgia Reed is a survivor. During her first outing from home as a weeks-old infant, she was in a car crash that caused a brain injury and left her disabled. Her mother was killed. Her father, who remarried, died in a sailing accident when Georgia was just 12. Around that same time, following many surgeries,…
Vermont Yoga Therapists Offer Healing Through Mindfulness and Movement
Start by shaking out an arm or a leg, and feel the movement through your limbs. Notice how your breathing changes as you shift between stillness and motion. If you’d like, put your hand over your heart. Then ask your body a simple question: “What do you need right now?” According to registered yoga therapist…
Free Will Astrology (1/19/22)
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Self-help teachers and New Age gurus are fond of using metaphors about opening doors. They provide a lot of advice that encourages us to knock on doors, scout around for doors that are open just a crack, find keys to unlock doors and even kick down doors. I will not be…
WTF: Is Burlington Headed for a Laundry Apocalypse?
Laundromats are becoming scarce in Burlington. Since 2020, three of the city’s seven public laundromats have closed: the Wash Spot on Riverside Avenue, Winooski Laundry on North Winooski Avenue and King Street Laundry. That last business recently posted a sign on its door that reads, “Closed indefinitely … sorry. Too much theft and vandalism.” T.J.…
Golden Globe Winner ‘Drive My Car’ Offers a Mesmerizing Tribute to the Power of Theater
Great literature knows no national or cultural borders. In past decades, that was a bland, humanistic credo. In these days of rising nationalism, it’s a more controversial statement. But the idea has never been explored as literally or as compellingly as it is in Drive My Car, a 2021 film from Japan. Directed by Ryûsuke…
Now Playing in Theaters: January 19-25
new in theaters THE KING’S DAUGHTER: In this historical fantasy based on a Vonda McIntyre novel, Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnan) steals a mermaid’s life force in his effort to become immortal. With Kaya Scodelario and Bingbing Fan. Sean McNamara (Soul Surfer) directed. (90 min, PG. Capitol, Essex, Star) THE TIGER RISING: A boy’s discovery of…
From the Publisher: Shape-Shifting
I survived COVID-19 — or some version of it, anyway. It came on like a cold, which I blamed on a chilly locker room at the gym. For a few days, I was congested at night and sneezing and clearing my throat during the day, but I had no real cough or fever, no muscle…
Obituary: Virginia “Ginny” F. Walters, 1925-2022
One of the first U.S. women to earn her physics PhD dedicated her time to causes she believed in
Obituary: Margaret Cecilia Koval, 1937-2021
Grandmother of 23 loved to laugh and was a woman of profound grace and strength
Sisters of Anarchy’s Fruitful Biz Sells Ice Cream and Wellness Syrup
At Fisher Brothers Farm in Shelburne, Becky Castle and Bob Clark grow fruit for two wildly different end products: ice cream and wellness syrup. A sweet dessert and antioxidant-packed elderberry and Aronia syrups certainly make an unusual pairing. But the couple sells both under the business name Sisters of Anarchy — which is a clue…
Deb Kennedy, Author of a New Culinary Medicine Textbook, Dishes on Building Healthy Food Habits
Deb Kennedy is not a fan of so-called “energy” drinks. In fact, the health and nutrition consultant landed in the New York Times in 2013 for plainly stating in her Build Healthy Kids newsletter that children should never drink them. Monster Beverage, which makes Monster Energy, threatened to sue her for defamation even though she…
Ferrisburgh’s Starry Night Café Reopens With a New Chef
Robert Smith III, the new executive chef at Starry Night Café, had never even been to Ferrisburgh before his job interview there in November. But the 29-year-old chef, who grew up in Jericho, was immediately impressed by the destination restaurant on Route 7. It’s “one of the most beautiful restaurants I’ve seen in Vermont,” he…
Beer and Coffee Converge at Jericho Ale & Bean
The general store in Jericho Village, known locally as Mel’s, has long been a community hub. Now it has new owners, who are brewing up something fresh in the store at 51 Route 15. Two Jericho-based businesses, Lucy & Howe Brewing and Brew House Coffee, teamed up to open Jericho Ale & Bean on January…
Ellison Estate Vineyard Adds a Ski-Season Tasting Space in Stowe
Local wine lovers have a new reason to flock to Stowe during the ski season: Ellison Estate Vineyard is now running a tasting space inside Field Guide Lodge at 433 Mountain Road. Last summer, Ellison Estate owners Kendra and Rob Knapik opened their first tasting room at their vineyard in Grand Isle, where the family…
The Magnificent 7: Must See, Must Do, January 19 to May 25
Denizens of Darkness Friday 21 Whooooo’s out there? Birders, hikers and explorers alike bundle themselves up and strap on their headlamps for Owl Prowl at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee. Snowshoes are provided, opening up the nighttime forest to those hoping to catch a glimpse of their nocturnal neighbors going about their…
