Saturday, Oct. 28 is the federal Drug Enforcement Agency's National Drug Take Back Day, and the Windham County Prevention Partnership is using this event to raise awareness about proper storage and disposal of prescription medications.
This initiative gives communities the opportunity to prevent prescription drug abuse and theft by ridding homes of expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs.
Simply collect your expired or unused prescription pills or patches in their original bottle or place them in a disposable bag. Be sure to remove or cover your personal information. Then, you may anonymously drop your medication at the nearest prescription drug drop box.
Keep in mind that the DEA cannot accept liquids, needles, or sharps - only pills or patches.
Next Stage Arts will present a double bill featuring "the reimagined historic spirituals and hymns of Walter Parks & The Unlawful Assembly, and "guitar noir"/"crime jazz" of Big Lazy, on Friday, Oct. 27 at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the...
The Vermont Symphony Orchestra (VSO) is returning to Bellows Falls on Sunday, Nov. 5, with a special matinee at the Bellows Falls Opera House. The performance is part of the VSO's 2023 "Made in Vermont" series, highlighting guest artists from the Green Mountain State's indie, folk, and rock scene.
October marks the start of a new 4-H year, bringing fresh opportunities for both youths ages 5–18 and for adult volunteers. Many 4-H clubs are enrolling new members for the upcoming project year. Current members will be able to sign up for projects ranging from livestock, clothing, and culinary to robotics, photography, and crafts. Adults will have the opportunity to organize and lead new clubs as well as support 4-H programming and events. Vermont 4-H also continues to add new...
College news • The following local students were honored for academic achievement during the summer 2023 semester at Community College of Vermont. Named to the Student Honors List were Marguerite Janiszyn-Lisai and John McCann of Bellows Falls; Tessa Clayton, Jessica Farquhar, Candace Kendrick, Daelyn Lynn, Emily Pinz, Alexandria Tupper, Sierra Ward, and Lindsey Wright of Brattleboro; Lucinda Weed of Jacksonville; Ryan Gardner and Shane Martin of Putney; Jessica Burbridge and April Worden of South Newfane; Kailuna Holmes of Townshend; Alexander...
In-Sight Photography named the winners of its first photo contest at an award ceremony and photo fair on Sept. 30 in the Latchis Theatre. Photographers from the region - 31 of them, ranging in age from 11 to 18 - won awards in five categories (Analog/ Film, Artistic, People, Places, and The New England Experience). A team of judges of local and national renown evaluated 89 images. Photographer Cathy Cone was honorary chair. Community members also weighed in on a...
Those who have ever tried to find a place to park their bike downtown when it was raining or snowing know sheltered bicycle parking spots are few and far between. The Brattleboro Coalition for Active Transportation (BCAT) announces the installation of a new bike parking shelter over the existing bike parking at the Brattleboro Food Co-op. The shelter will provide cover for up to eight bikes. A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at noon on Monday, Oct 30, on the...
Public invited to participate in community meetings about health care in southern Vermont MONTPELIER - The Green Mountain Care Board (GMCB) invites members of the public to participate in a series of virtual community meetings about the future of health care in southern Vermont. During these community conversations, organizers said that meeting attendees will have a chance "to share their first-hand experiences with navigating the health care system - what is going well, what do you want to see more...
The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) invites makers of all ages to design and build original Lego creations and display them at the museum for the 16th annual Lego Contest & Exhibit, which takes place Thursday through Sunday, Nov. 9 through 12. New this year is a special printmaking workshop featuring Legos as printing tools. Every entry submitted to the contest will be displayed 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day of the exhibit. Admission to the museum is...
Join Bartleby's Books for an event with author Ann McCloskey on Saturday, Oct. 28, at 4 p.m. Her memoir, These Dreams of You: A Mother's Story of Love, Loss, and Resilience, tells the story of a mother's love for and commitment to her gifted daughter, who developed anorexia at age 10 and subsequently died young. The narrative offers an unvarnished account of the 15 years the author strove to save her daughter from her perfectionistic goal of being the thinnest...
The Green Mountain Mummers will be performing this year on the weekend before Halloween. On Saturday, Oct. 28, and Sunday, Oct. 29, the group will present its symbolic death-and-resurrection street theater rain or shine in seven locations in Windham County (see full schedule below). The group of 10 (mostly) Windham County residents is probably the oldest continuing sword dance and mumming troupe in the United States. Founded in 1975, the group operates in the manner of the old English morris...
The Brattleboro Winter Farmers Market opens for its 18th season on Saturday, Nov. 4, once again in the Croker Hall gymnasium on the Winston Prouty Campus. The indoor market season begins on the first Saturday in November following the last outdoor summer market in October. Fans of the summer Brattleboro Area Farmers' Market in West Brattleboro can simply follow many of their favorite vendors indoors to the only weekly indoor farmers market in the region open every Saturday, 10 a.m.
Stage 33 Live, 33 Bridge St., presents a matinee double-bill with Friction Farm and Eric Phelps on Sunday, Oct. 29, at 3 p.m. Modern folk duo Friction Farm are internationally traveling troubadours based in South Carolina. Aidan Quinn and Christine Stay combine storytelling, social commentary, and humor to create songs of everyday life, local heroes, "and quirky observations filled with harmony and hope," according to the artists' website. They have been Kerrville New Folk Finalists and Falcon Ridge Emerging Artists.
The Brattleboro Music Center (BMC) Chamber Series presents Sō Percussion in a benefit concert for Groundworks Collaborative. The concert at the BMC is set for Saturday, Oct. 28, at 7 p.m. Groundworks Collaborative was established in 2015 following the merger of the Brattleboro Area Drop-In Center and Morningside Shelter. It partners with people and systems creating solutions to end hunger and homelessness for all people in the region, working toward a community in which all people have their basic needs...
Kudos to Kate Casa for calling for historical context and fair and balanced media coverage of the terrible conflict between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas are guilty of the slaughter of innocent people. We must bear witness to all the brutality occurring in an inconceivable escalation of violence that is killing civilian victims on both sides of the conflict. It's a conflict without end, unless our fading humanity can recognize the human cost of massive...
The current war has one solution: peace. What is peace? Peace is treating every person with the respect they need. Peace is creating economic environments for everyone to thrive, where everyone has the dignity of enough money to be purposeful in life and not subjected to stress of abject poverty, where everyone is encouraged to fulfill a personal purpose and develop personal strengths. Nothing about our economic reality currently fulfills this. However, were the political and banking class to attend...
Smoking was once common in the public square - in restaurants, on airlines, in parks, everywhere. Then the health risks (not just to the smoker but to others around the smoker) were made public. After that, smoking was banned everywhere, because it is a public health hazard. The author is onto something here - albeit misapplying the concept to cars. Why not take the approach to banning smoking and apply that to public drug use? Put up signs and outright...
How history repeats itself. As I encounter people saying that the Palestinian situation justifies the barbarism of Hamas, I think of the American leftists who wouldn't hear anything against Joseph Stalin. In his 30 years of power in Russia and, later, the Soviet Union, Stalin engineered the murder of millions -all in the service of creating a Communist utopia. He called for the eradication of the Kulaks, or peasants who owned more than 8 acres of land. He imprisoned in...
One championship down, one to go. The Twin Valley boys' soccer team finished the regular season undefeated with a 3-2 win over the Randolph Galloping Ghosts on Oct. 20 and, in the process, captured the Southern Vermont League C Division title. After a season filled with routs over less skilled teams, Wildcats coach Buddy Hayford viewed the showdown with Randolph as the perfect tuneup for his team heading into the Division IV playoffs. "We're playing our best soccer of the...
Most waterbodies marking a boundary between two states or countries have an imaginary dotted line running down their middle. The Connecticut River does not because, as everyone "knows," the river belongs to New Hampshire. However, as with all things human, the real circumstances are more complicated. The reality about river ownership started with the original land grants from England, modified during the time of the American Revolution, with the present-day boundary set by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. The English...
Kate Casa's headline in your paper got it all wrong - so surprising for someone who claims to be a journalist. Does she not remember several attempts by Arabs to bomb Israel out of existence? Was it not in 1948, when the first attempt was made, that leaders of the Muslim community told all the Palestinians in Jerusalem to leave their homes for several days because they were going to bomb Israel away? Remember, they were on Hitler's side. History...
In 1996, when Pat Burke was invited to attend a meeting of the Brattleboro Area Affordable Housing (BAAH) board, she went. She was young, new to the area and to human resources work, and she was flattered that someone thought her input would be valuable. She's been going to monthly BAAH meetings ever since. The September 2023 meeting was her last; she is leaving the volunteer board, but she won't stop working to assist people in need. "There was always...
The Oct. 4 edition of The Commons' Voices section offered a winning double header about the climate emergency and the role of car-centric culture. Then we had Indigenous Peoples' Day, when their leaders continued to tell us that we need to cut our consumption of everything, including the use of fossil fuels. In fact, Marcie Rendon. an Indigenous leader whose thinking I respect, asks us to cut our consumption in half this year and then in half the following year.
The executive director of the Groundworks Collaborative shelter and support program is set to depart for another human services post, capping a tumultuous year still unsettled by the violent killing this spring of one of the nonprofit agency's social workers. When Joshua Davis began as a graduate school volunteer at one of the agency's antecedent organizations 14 years ago, he didn't foresee he'd soon join the staff, then governing board, then leadership team. Nor did he expect he'd help merge...
More than 100 Windham Northeast Supervisory Union (WNESU) students visited the Miller Farm here recently, spending time with heifers, taking hay rides, and learning how to make butter. "I get to learn more things about where the milk comes from," said second-grader Adeline Chamberland, who added she sometimes drinks milk before bed and also has it with cereal. "I just like knowing stuff," said Maceo Mayhew, a third grader who likes both regular milk and chocolate milk. Miller Farm bottles...
Bass player and band leader Samson "Sam" Grisman, 33, of Nashville, Tennessee, tells us how excited he is about touring with his new band, Sam Grisman Project. The band's upcoming tour will bring the four members to The Stone Church on Thursday, Oct. 26 for an "acoustic and electric set of timeless music," he says. That music pays tribute to the offerings of two friends: Grisman's father, David "Dawg" Grisman, 78, and the late Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead.
Walter Parks, the 65-year-old guitarist, composer, founder and band leader of The Unlawful Assembly, lives in St. Louis and says it's a great music town. He founded the band earlier this year and plays guitar and sings, along with Ada Dyer on vocals and Steven Williams, drummer and producer. The Unlawful Assembly reimagines and tributes historic spirituals and hymns that universally inspire, empower, and unite. The Commons had an extensive phone interview (where Parks sang and broke out his guitar...
Stephen Ulrich, guitarist, composer, founder, and bandleader of Big Lazy, grew up in New Haven, Connecticut and moved to New York City at age 17. He lived in Brooklyn and Manhattan for decades and now makes his home in Jersey City, New Jersey, with his wife and two teenaged children. The 64-year-old Ulrich formed Big Lazy in 1990. He plays guitar and composes the band's music. Big Lazy also features Yuval Lion on drums and Andrew Hall on bass. Both...
We could not do it without you. The success of the Welcome Center fundraiser for the Guilford Volunteer Fire Department and Auxiliary would not have happened without both the local businesses' and our great Guilford bakers' donations. We received great praise from the visitors to our state, and many have stopped by our event many times and look forward to seeing us. They praised the variety we offer - "Best I have ever seen," we heard - and we must...
Ada Dyer, vocalist for The Unlawful Assembly, has lived in Manhattan since 1981. She's currently on break from a world tour with Bruce Springsteen, where she sings in his E Street Band. She joined Springsteen in January and began touring in February. Her favorite two places to visit so far were Amsterdam and Spain. * * * Victoria Chertok: Thanks for finding time to chat during your busy musical touring life! What is it like to tour with Springsteen? Ada...
For the first time in Vermont, officials with the Vermont Department of Forest, Parks and Recreation have confirmed the presence of a disease that infects the leaves of beech trees. Beech leaf disease, which was confirmed earlier this month in Vernon and, more recently, in Dummerston, is caused by invasive nematodes that spread in the tree's leaves. In the United States, the nematodes were first found in Ohio, then identified in 14 states, including New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts, according...
On a recent mid-October day, tourists mingled with locals in Village Square Booksellers, a young DIY-er in jeans bought a screwdriver at J&H Hardware, and clusters of lunchgoers sat in the windows of the Moon Dog Cafe. Groups of children, home from an early-release school day, played in the neighborhood park. A train chugged in the distance. Fall Mountain, a blaze of autumn color, towered over the falls that gave both the town and the mountain their names. And in...