Welcome to The Plymouth Press Online

8/18/24

Friday and Saturday were delightful, then rain greeted us on Sunday. I was glad for a couple of breaks during the day to accomplish a few outdoor tasks. The bears seem to feel free to make themselves at home all around my house these days. I opened the blinds in my bedroom the other morning & there was a large bear outside. I knocked on the glass and it was quite comical to see this huge creature actual jump in fright! Although I apparently surprised him, he didn’t amble away until I banged more vigorously. The hour of day seems to make no difference now, they are on the prowl for fortuitous food any time of the day or night.

The Book Group gathered at our charming little Tyson Library on Wed, 8/14 to talk about Blackcake and we enjoyed a lively discussion of this intricate and interesting story. We also considered books for the next three months, which proved a bit difficult with all of the compelling suggestions that were proposed. Eventually we settled upon: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri for our 9/18 meeting, Becoming Madame Secretary by Stephanie Dray for 10/16, and What the Fireflies Knew by Kai Harris for 11/20. Anyone who wants to join our discussions is most welcome!

When it becomes too cold to meet at Tyson Library, Tom at the Echo Lake Inn has agreed to let us meet in the comfortable living room there. BTW, the “local’s menu” as he calls it is available for the next several weeks Tues – Thurs, with delicious and reasonably priced specials. Be sure to make a reservation, however – 802-228-8602.

There will be a Select Board meeting on Monday, 8/19 at 6 PM. The full agenda is on the website, but included for discussion are: Farm & Wilderness – Forest Legacy Easement Support, the Listers, and Budget Review FY2024

I hope that people were able to attend some of the happenings at the historic site this weekend. I was busy with the Friends of Fletcher Memorial Library book sale on Friday and Saturday where I saw many local folks. Please be aware that we are able to use this terrific library. Thanks to all of those who donated the wonderful books, those who helped with the sale, and those who snatched up these great bargains.

You should already have on your calendar the noon “Shakespeare Alive” performance at the Union Christian church on 8/31, but don’t forget the Plymouth Folk and Blues Festival at the Historic Site on Saturday, 8/31 and Sunday 9/1 from 2 to 5p.m. Thanks to the hard work and organzation of Jay Ottaway and the sponsorship of many local businesses, this will be the 17^th year of this annual event. Enjoy the ambiance as well as the music on the lawn in this beautiful setting. It is free, but donations are always appreciated, plus bring a non-perishable items for the Vermont Food Bank.

Town of Plymouth, Vermont

Select Board – Regular Meeting

Monday, August 19, 2024 @ 6:00 PM

Municipal Building Meeting Room

Agenda

Topic: Plymouth Select Board Meeting

Time: August 19, 2024 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

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1. Call to Order:

• Consideration of Any Changes, Additions or Removals to Agenda:

• Approve Meeting Minutes:

a.   July 15, 2024 Regular Meeting

b.   July 29, 2024 Special Meeting

c.   August 5, 2024 Special Meeting

• Citizen Comments:

• Farm & Wilderness – Forest Legacy Easement Support:

• Listers Department:

• Budget Review FY2024:

• Other Business:

• Sign Warrants and Review Mail:

1. Next Select Board Meeting Date:

a.   September 9, 2024 Regular Meeting

1. Possible Executive Session:

1. Adjourn:

8/12/24

What a lovely weekend! I hope that everyone was able to get outdoors to enjoy it. The next book club selection is Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. The meeting is Wed, 8/14 at 6:30 pm in person at Tyson Library. Another reminder about the huge book sale at Fletcher Memorial Library in Ludlow this Saturday.

Get ready for the events coming up at the Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site this week.

Thursday, 8/15, at 11:00 AM Naturalization Ceremony, In partnership, The Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and the District Court of Vermont will host a naturalization. New citizens to the United States will take an Oath of Allegiance before a federal judge, receive a certificate of naturalization, and immediately have the opportunity to register to vote and obtain a passport. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

Friday, 8/16, at 07:00 pm Silent Film Night (free) Come enjoy Harold Lloyd’s 1925 silent comedy film, The Freshman at Wilder Barn. Some chairs will be available, but consider bringing a lawn chair. This event will be held rain or shine.

Saturday, 8/17, 2024 at 02:00 pm Vagabonds Reenactment. Enjoy amateur actors who will reenact the meeting in August 1924 when Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, and Harvey Firestone visited President Coolidge in Plymouth Notch. Quotes recorded by 1920s journalists who witnessed and documented the occasion will be used in this presentation.

Saturday 8/31 at noon. Shakespeare Alive! A Bard-Based Variety Show returns to bring their amazingly entertaining production with all-new scenes, skits, soliloquies and songs using Shakespeare’s beautiful Elizabethan verse. Come enjoy wonderful music along with hilarious parody and prose.

This year marks 100 years of Vermont State Parks, and 50 years of Vermont Humanities. We’ve joined together in celebration of our joint anniversaries all summer with Words in the Woods, a free in-person poetry series in State Parks across Vermont, with poets like Verandah Porche, Allison Prine, Elizabeth Powell, and Ellen “LN” Bethea.

The best part of it all? You! Thank you for making these days in the parks so wonderful, from M. Philo and Kill Kare, to Molly Stark and Knight Point. Our State Parks are so much better when we share them together.

We hope you will join us for the final Words in the Woods of the season this Saturday, August 10 at 11 a.m. at Coolidge State Park in Plymouth with poet Major Jackson!

This poem, originally published by the Academy of American Poets on 2021, shows the emotion that Jackson’s writing conveys in the form of glaciers, pines, waterfalls, and stars.

Let Me Begin Again

Let me begin again as a quiet thought
in the shape of a shell slowly examined
by a brown child on a beach at dawn
straining to see their future. Let me begin
this time knowing the drumming in my dreams
is me inheriting the earth, is morning
lighting up the rivers. Let me burn
my vanities: old music in the pines, sifters
of scotch, a day moon like a signature
of night. This time, let me circle
the island of my fears only once then
live like a raging waterfall and grow
a magnificent mustache. Let me not ever be
the birdcage or the serrated blade or
the empty season. Dear Glacier, Dear Sea
of Stars, Dear Leopards disintegrating
at the outer limits of our greed; soon we will
encounter you only in motivational tweets.
Reader, I should have married you sooner.
This time, let me not sleep like the prophet who
believes he’s seen infinity. Let me run
at break-neck speeds toward sceneries
of doubt. I have no more dress rehearsals
to attend. Look closer: I am licking my lips.

Major Jackson is the author of six books of poetry, including Leaving Saturn (2002), which won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for a first book of poems. He has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and has been honored by the Pew Fellowship in the Arts and the Witter Bynner Foundation in conjunction with the Library of Congress.

Register for Words in the Woods

Park entrance is complimentary for Words in the Woods attendees, thanks to our partners at Vermont State Parks who celebrate their 100th anniversary this year.

Words in the Woods is a free in-person poetry series created in partnership with Vermont State Parks and supported by the Vermont Arts Council, the WaterWheel Foundation, and a generous Northeast Kingdom donor in honor of poet Judy Chalmer.

Just Two Weeks until Crossroads opens at the St. Albans Museum!

St. Albans Museum and Vermont Humanities, in partnership with New Hampshire Humanities, are excited to welcome you to the opening reception of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street traveling exhibition, Crossroads: Change in Rural America on Saturday, August 24 at the St. Albans Museum.

Join us for a FREE special screening of the documentary Land of Promise accompanied by a panel discussion and Question & Answer session with local scholars after the reception.

RSVP to the Exhibit Opening

The exhibit, which will visit six communities in our two states through August 2025, explores the challenges and opportunities in rural settings across the United States throughout the past century.
Crossroads: Change in Rural America has been made possible in Vermont and New Hampshire by the Vermont Humanities and New Hampshire Humanities.

Crossroads: Change in Rural America is part of Museum on Main Street, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and State Humanities Councils nationwide. Support for Museum on Main Street has been provided by the United States Congress.

Photos: Courtesy of Beowulf Sheehan, and Library of Congress.
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The Plymouth Schoolhouse licensed childcare has openings for children ages two and up starting the first week of September. The program is located in the former Plymouth Elementary School, 35 School drive.

Contact Lauren Skaskiw-Harootunian at 802 417 6895 or email plymouthschoolhouse@gmail.com to arrange a visit to the program.

Subsidy happily accepted.

More creature encounters on my part! The other night as I was heading to my bedroom, something flew past my head. I knew immediately it was a bat. Since it was in the main living area and my bedroom is off to the side, I naïvely thought it would not follow me. Wrong!

I snuggled into bed a bit later than usual, when the familiar fluttering instantly made me wide awake. I got up, removed the screen and opened a window, hoping it would exit on its own. Wrong again!

Finally, I exited the room closing the door and went to sleep on the couch. Knowing that they sleep during the day, I was relieved the next night to be alone in my room.

A day or so later, I went to clean out the drain in my entranceway to the basement. When I opened the lid, three tiny creatures were there. They look like frogs, but they could be toads. It is not an uncommon occurrence to find them outside the door waiting to hop in. Then I have to chase them around my laundry room and try to save them. They move pretty quickly, however, so sometimes I lose them under the refrigerator.

Hope you have marked your calendar for the Tyson ladies aid bizarre at the veterans park in Ludlow on 8/10. Many wonderful baskets to be raffled, delicious baked goods, and also a terrific barbecue.

The following week, on 8/17 the Friends of Fletcher Memorial Library in Ludlow will hold the annual Book sale. Come join the fun – many great finds!

Moxie Day

The Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site is celebrating President Coolidge’s favorite soda – Moxie! It’s “wickedly good” and “distinctly different.” The site, in collaboration with the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, will reenact President Coolidge’s oath at 2:47 p.m. on the porch of the Coolidge homestead where Col. John Coolidge administered the unexpected oath to his son on August 3, 1923 at 2:47 a.m. Following the reenactment, visitors are invited to enjoy Moxie floats. Wear your Moxie apparel or pick up something new from East Coast Printers who will be on site to show off all the latest in Moxie gifts.

Also, The Book Sale on 8/17 at Fletcher Memorial Library.

Mark your calendar for the Tyson Ladies Aid Bazaar on Sat, 8/10 at the Veterans Green in Ludlow.

7/29/24

As we approach the end of the month I am beginning to wonder where the summer has gone! It does not appear that there is a regular Select Board meeting this evening, but please be aware that the major party primary is coming up on 8/13.

I heard an interesting animal story yesterday that provides another reason to be mindful of feeding the creatures with whom we share our beautiful world. Apparently someone was putting out food for a woodchuck – in case it was not getting enough by ravaging neighbor’s gardens. One day she heard noises coming from the kitchen and found a bear had entered through the back door and was rummaging through the her cabinets!

Sorry for the late notice. There will be a Village Harmony concert on Monday, July 29 at 7:00pm at the Bridgewater Grange Hall. They will be singing songs from Caucasus Georgia, the Balkans, and Corsica, American shape-note songs, and traditional Yiddish songs. Admission if by donation at the door.

7/21/24

I know we are all rather tired of the heat and humidity, but I headed south several days this week and believe me, we have nothing about which to complain! Nice to have it a bit more comfortable this weekend. As I am writing this on Sunday evening I am hearing some fireworks in the neighborhood. I have to admit that I worry about the animals.

Bears are definitely roaming freely through our area. I have been told about sightings of moms with two and even three cubs. I had not seen any deer in my yard in ages, but this morning there was a mom and two fawns. Happy to say they were on the other side of my driveway and seem to have left my hostas alone. I couldn’t resist take this picture of a grouse family crossing Dublin Rd. Actually there were several adults and many little ones, but they actually moved fairly quickly, so this is all I captured with my phone.

At the 7/15 Select Board Meeting, Elaine Pauley’s resignation from the Town Treasurer position was noted. She has been an integral part of our Town Office staff over the years, picking up the pieces and competently holding things together. She certainly deserves to move into retirement. For a time, in order to assure a smooth transition, she will be helping Cherry Nicoll who has been appointed to take her place. Cherry has been assisting with FEMA paperwork and is well acquainted with our town.

I feel very fortunate to have friends and family who give me a hand with many projects that are beyond me as I am aging. There are a myriad of tasks that those of us who are older and even some younger individuals need help to accomplish. One that has come to my attention recently is the stacking of wood. Please let me know if there is anyone who would be willing to provide such aid at a reasonable rate.