The nonstop rain has forced the postponement of fireworks at Burke Mountain, scheduled for Friday night at 9:00 PM.  All other Vermont Fourth festival events are going on as scheduled, including the concert tonight at the Tamarack Grill featuring the Wicked Smart Horn Band.

The fireworks will now take place as part of Lyndonville’s Stars & Stripes festival, on Saturday, July 18th.  It can’t still be raining then, can it?

Can it?

We’ll have pictures posted tomorrow of the concert at the college and other events; in the meantime, pretend…

Early on in the interview you can listen to below, I explain how I connected with Steve Bertrand, a remarkably talented singer/songwriter/guitarist/producer/etc. based out of L.A.  Steve is from Derby Line and is home for the first time in 3+ years. On Friday, he’s doing a homecoming concert/fundraiser at the Haskell Opera House in Derby Line.  On Saturday, he will help inaugurate the new amphitheater at Lyndon State College, part of the first Vermont Fourth Festival.

Steve stopped by the station Wednesday morning, still jet-lagging from his trip from L.A. but in fine voice and excited to be home.  We talked, we laughed, he played some music.

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Oh yeah…about the title of this post.  What’s that?  Well, when Steve came in this morning, I asked if his guitar had a name.  It does not, and Steve said I should name it.  Her?  Him?

Whatever.

Steve’s guitar is now named Roxy.  I forgot to tell him before he left.

See you Saturday at the festival.

–SN

…and Thomas Jefferson:

CLICK HERE and read a story about the Pursuit of Happiness.

It may not be midnight sun, but these final days of June, the skies begin to brighten just after four a.m. and if you look north, you’ll see dusk departing close to ten p.m.

Unfortunately, the long days haven’t been nearly as long as we’d like…we’ve had almost daily rain, high humidity and temperatures on a roller-coaster ride between 50 and 85F.   The bright side is the beauty offered by the ocassional rumbling of Mother Nature.  Meteorologist Chris Bouchard at the Fairbanks Museum in St. Johnsbury was out late Thursday night “practicing” one of his crafts…photographing the thunderstorms that rolled in ’round midnight.

The ten-day forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms daily, with high temperatures only in the low 70’s.  Gotta go, the radar shows a two or three hour window…to mow the lawn.

–SN

Exactly thirty-four years ago…June 26, 1975…The Jackson 5 at the Nanuet Star Theatre, Nanuet, New York.

photo courtesy of Mark “The Count” Glick, Theater-Go-Round tribute site.

R.I.P. Michael

Sooooo…Victoria Scheufler wants Caledonia North Supervisory Union board members to get out there and defend her honor against the dumpster-diving mutant subclass that’s plotting against her.

Well maybe she didn’t use those exact words in last Friday’s Caledonian-Record, but that was the vibe I got when I read how she asked the CNSU executive board to share her side of DaveCobbGate “at the dump or wherever you go and hear this stuff.” I wonder how the upstanding “Just Say NO To Sarcasm” school board in Lyndon felt about that dose of passive-aggressive behavior by their superintendent.  Did they turn red in the face, shake with anger, and stammer “You can ask all the questions you want…but that’s enough of the sarcasm!!!?”

Just wondering.

And I wonder if Victoria Scheufler is dissing the dump or is she dissing the people who go there?  It doesn’t really matter, because either way, it’s still just a heavy-handed swipe at all those who dare oppose her.  People are asking questions?  Just reach out and paint all dissent with a dump-colored brush.  Brilliant!

CITIZEN A: “See that guy over there? He wants to know why the principal at his kid’s school suddenly resigned.”

CITIZEN B:  “That guy? Don’t listen to him. He’s been to the dump!”

Seriously. This gal’s got a great future working for Karl Rove if she wants it.  It’s especially brilliant because ….and wait for it…..Lyndon doesn’t even have a dump!! Yet she was able to use this mythical place to cast a negative connotation onto anyone who complains about her.  It’s a classic election year strategy of vast-generalization warfare. And it’s based on complete fiction.

I am impressed.

Clearly, we fictional dump-goers are just not having the same kind of afternoon teas as those in the better backyards of East Burke.

But seriously, does the dump comment remind you of Leona Helmsley?  Leona Helmsley, the billionaire hotel magnate from New York City who famously observed that “….only the little people pay taxes.” Only here, the little people not only pay taxes, but apparently congregate at the imaginary dump, scavenging for imaginary table scraps and plotting against the queen.

Maybe Queen Victoria can see so much more than us because she sits so high atop the CNSU Tower, that grand and glorious tower made of stacked turtles.  Yep, she and King Yertle are superbly positioned to fight back against anyone who dares to rise higher.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe WE are the problem. Maybe all this mess is not because of a power hungry “My Way or The Highway” dictatorship supported by just enough school board enablers to keep it propped up.  Maybe it’s the rest of us…the unwashed masses…the cake eaters of the world…maybe it’s all because we didn’t trust our leaders.

No. It’s not us. It’s them, dammit, and that quote about the dump proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.  Any public official who would characterize the citizens they serve with a dump metaphor is both arrogant and stupid.  And there’s only one way for the arrogant and stupid to stay in power, and that is to have all the power. Get rid of anyone who dares question your wisdom. Nudge them aside if you can.  Force them out if you have to.  And then, if anyone starts asking questions, just smear them all with…the dump.

You know.  My way or the highway.

Todd Wellington

VermontMornings.com

There are gazillions of Self Help books out there.  Most are a waste of your time and money.

This is not one of those.  There’s no magical cure for what ails you, you will not become a healthy, buff overnight success when you read this.  If you want to get something out of this book, you have to commit to some of the authors’ suggestions for three to six months.  And then you have to go back and reread the book.  And keep at it.  Again and again and again.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is 250 easy to read pages.  You begin by taking an online test that will give you an Emotional Intelligence Appraisal.   Then you read.  Then you work on it.  I’m going to do that.

Co-author Travis Bradberry called in Monday morning  and gave an overview of what this is all about.  What this is all about is…AWARENESS.  Give a listen.

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If you decide you want to buy the book, you will save money (and help VermontMornings.com) by using the Amazon link below and to the right.

–SN

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Summer’s here, I’m for that. Got my rubber sandals, got my straw hat.
Got my cold beer, I’m just glad that it’s here.

Summer’s here, that suits me fine. It may rain today but I don’t mind.
It’s my favorite time of the year and I’m glad that it’s here.

Old man wintertime, he goes so slow. It’s ten degrees below, you know.
You can take your ice and snow, but let my balmy breezes blow.

Yeah, the water’s cold but I’ve been in. Baby, lose the laundry and jump on in.
I mean all God’s children got skin and it’s summer again.

Old man wintertime, he goes so slow. It’s ten degrees below, you know.
You can take your ice and snow, but let my balmy breezes blow.

Summer’s here, I’m for that. Got my rubber sandals, got my straw hat.
Drinking cold beer, man I’m glad that it’s here.
It’s my favorite time of the year and I’m glad that it’s here, yeah.

A weekend standoff in West Burke ended when police entered a home and found the owner dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Vermont State Police say they responded Friday to the Gaskill Hill Road area home of 33-year-old Edward Goodwin for a reported domestic disturbance. Police say Goodwin had threatened his family with a shotgun and had fired at least one shot into the air. His family fled the home and Goodwin barricaded himself inside. Authorities say that after several hours of negotiating with police Goodwin stopped communicating. The State Police Tactical Service Unit then entered the house and found Goodwin’s body. An autopsy has been ordered.

Something spectacular happens on Wednesday evenings in the summer at Bandstand Park in Lyndonville.  For many, many decades, the Lyndon Town Band, a loose aggregation of musicians from all around the Northeast Kingdom, has come to  play in the gazebo for their family, friends and neighbors.

Under partly cloudy skies, a new conductor led a collection of musicians young and old through their paces, beginning, as always, with a Sousa march.

The lines are a tradition too.  This was the first concert of the summer (or almost summer), so Carmen’s Ice Cream set up a table and scooped ice cream for an hour, filling dozens of cones and cups for grateful fans.

Official Summer is still a few days away, the solstice arriving as we honor our fathers on Sunday.  For now,  another unofficial piece of the puzzle is in place.

It’s better here.