Bravo for Dummerston and Vermont [“Dummerston bridge: repairs done at long last,” The Commons, May 2].
The notion that the bridge “represents a lot of what Dummerston is all about,” as Paul Normandeau said, sums it up for me.
You cared.
Contrast this with my state's attitude towards its civil engineering heritage. The most historic bridge in the Granite State, the Memorial Bridge in Portsmouth, N.H., was just replaced.
The bridge was one of two Granite State properties listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Eleven Top Endangered Sites. (The other, the Hotel Wentworth, was saved.) Rarely are nationally listed sites like the Memorial Bridge lost. Only in hard-boiled New Hampshire.
New Hampshire also decided to raze the historic Boscawen-Canterbury bridge. And Concord's Sewalls Falls Road bridge was damaged on May 1 and is now threatened.
We in New Hampshire don't care 'bout nothin' but money. In Vermont, you do. You have a sense of cultural and historic worth. You consider the community and the future.
I guess we can always travel to Vermont to see such marvels as Dummerston's Green Bridge.
I tip my hat to you. You have done well. You also give many outside your borders hope - hope for something better.