North Puffin The furnace didn’t start when I turned it on Friday morning.
Regular readers may recall that we’ve had some water issues here. I installed a conventional, electric water heater this spring primarily because the “domestic coil” in the furnace had some issues but we figured we’d get another season out of the boiler itself.
We figured wrong.
“Won’t need it this weekend,” Liz Arden said.
Will Sunday!
It was about 44 Friday night with calls for frost. High Pressure to the north kept the weekend nice but cold. We flew the coop, not to return until last night in time for the eclipse.
Mid-State Our son lives in Barre. We drove to his house Friday. Stayed overnight.
Karl lives downstairs in a two-apartment house. It has but one thermostat and that is in his living room.
Cool, right?
Maybe not. As I understand it, the upstairs tenants might burn his car for heat if he turns down the ‘stat. It is always quite warm in his house.
I was very comfortable.
Worcester Our granddaughter and grandson-in-law invited us down for dinner (I’ll go a long way for a free meal and this was a good one) and to see their new house. It’s a lovely new house with a working furnace, views of Boston, and a driveway on Lombard Street. OK it’s not really Lombard Street but their street designer did his best.
It was c-o-l-d in their house Saturday night, even by my sleeping standards, and SWMBO kept pulling the quilt away. She slept quite well.
North Puffin It was a pretty, pretty day and the temp got up into the 70s for the ride back north but it was 60°F when we arrived back here. The breeze picked up to 8 mph or so out of the south when I quit shooting the blood moon eclipse at around 11.
We put the winter blanket on the bed and I was warm and cozy all night except when SWMBO pulled the blanket away and my butt froze.
Then I had to get up.
The furnace in question is 35-years old. It needs replacement. I don’t wanna. I particularly don’t wanna today.
We’ll limp along until that happens.
For the record, it was 81°F this morning in South Puffin with about a 30% chance of showers and thunderstorms all week from that system in the Gulf of Mexico. It will be mostly cloudy there today with a high of 88 and a 10-15 mph southeast wind which for some reason isn’t a breeze (the temperature here is coming up a bit on 13-21 mph southerly “breezes” this afternoon.)
It’s time to head back home. Maybe we should camp at Karl’s until we do. It’s nice and warm there! Meanwhile, I have socks on.
“This Sunday’s 25th anniversary Summer Sounds Benefit Music Festival [was] a fun way to bring the community together during Childhood Cancer awareness month and to support Camp Ta-Kum-Ta’s year-round programs” said the camp’s Executive Director, Hattie Johnson.
The Benefit Music Festival took over the Franklin County Field Days grounds yesterday with continuous music on two stages. The proceeds will benefit Camp Ta-Kum-Ta and help the Town of Highgate build a band stand.
Summer Sounds got its start 25 years ago when then-Town Manager Ray Tanguay came to me with $200 in his hand and said “Let’s have some concerts!”
Well.
You can’t put on a major concert series for 200 bucks, so I conned, er, invited most of the local businesses to kick in and it started a plan and a series. The plan was for the municipalities to underwrite the series and for local businesses to sponsor each concert. We encourage local nonprofits to “host” each concert with a social to show the flag and earn a few bucks for their own causes.
Over the years, more than half of the Franklin County towns have welcomed Summer Sounds. The concerts are always on Sunday night, always in a Town Park, always at 7 o’clock, and always free.
Yesterday we capped a quarter century of Sundays with just the best benefit concert: continuous music on two stages from 2 p.m. right through about 9; admission was by donation.
This has been a transition year for Summer Sounds. We’ve had stars from the first years of the series as well as some younger performers who will grow the concerts for the next 25 so we booked the same yesterday. All the bands and everyone else working volunteered their time.
Volunteering is the key. The bands jumped aboard right away. Our hosts had more than 30 “helpers” flipping burgers and serving up popcorn and snacks and coffee and desserts, with even more behind the scenes baking and helping. Half a dozen MVU High School seniors and a couple more BFA seniors helped SWMBO and our son, Karl, dip ice cream, serve sodas, and sell tickets. My friends at TimKath Productions did the sound magnificently and kept us on track despite the monkey wrenches I kept dropping in the schedule. The Highgate Highway Department turned out in force today to put the Field Days site back in order.
We all had one disappointment. We had room for thousands in the audience. We wanted hundreds in the audience. We didn’t get either.
My own daughter dropped in Saturday evening. “What ya doing tomorrow,” she asked.
“Going to the concert,” I said.
“Oh? What concert?”
<sigh>
We were all over our email list, the posters, the newspapers, the event calendars, the television, the radio, the Facebook.
“Oh? What concert?”
It was the Patriots v. Bills that everybody stayed in for (the Pats won). That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I just wish I had a magic wand that let me add my event to everyone’s calendar. Especially yours.
Bunch of people I need to introduce.
Starting in 1994, Jenni Johnson has played more Summer Sounds concerts than anyone else. She is the Billie Holiday of Vermont, except she was once a Supervisor of Physics and Counselor at MIT. Singing jazz, blues and funk has been the center of her life since she was a teen in New York City. Best jazz singer I know bar none and wonderful with kids. incaHOOTs has exploded in popularity across Northwestern Vermont this year. The Plattsburgh-based band first played Summer Sounds in 2003 and have brought their country-rock-jazz-pop music to venues from Highgate twice this year to Nashville last weekend. Jon Gailmor is about the most eclectic, emotional, exhilarating, optimistic, and provocative rock star I know and he’s done it in front of the flagpole in Highgate Municipal park and fronting the Vermont Symphony in the Flynn. His low in cholesterol original music, ballads, and ditties will make up for the ice cream and cake. He first played for me in 1997. OK, he’s actually a solo performer who is kind of folkie, kind of rocky, and sometimes a little dirty. Jennifer McConnell is gifted and inspirational singer and a music teacher in Franklin/Sheldon. She will be one of the two new leaders for the St Albans Community Band. The Sky Blue Boys are “just” a couple of fellows with a mandolin and guitar, but what a couple of fellows. Banjo Dan and Willy Lindner are actual brothers for this “brothers duet” that was the predominant format in this country in country music of the 1930s and 40s. They first appeared in Summer Sounds in 1994.
We introduced Summer Sounds, Gen II, (we called them the Summer Sounds Singers, musicians still in high school just getting their performance chops). There are a lot of these kids singing at open mics, in talent shows and school musicals, and in some cases in Fenway Park.
Drew Briggs went to school for French and linguistics and learning languages is his passion. He’s a standup comedian who really enjoys running improv games (think Who’s Line Is it Anyway?). Savannah Burns is 15, lives in Swanton, and attends MVU. She has been in two musicals, Annie and Shrek the Musical. She had a leading role as Cinderella in the one act play, Into The Woods, at Johnson State College. Soukaina Jamil is 13-year old seventh grader from St. Albans Town has been singing since she was in the third grade. She also plays the trombone and is teaching herself how to play the ukulele. Mingo Maquera is 17 and a senior at BFA-St. Albans where he is the male lead in the production of Footloose November 12-14th. He’s also an extremely accomplished vocalist and plays keyboard, all manner of guitar and the drums. As Andre and Wendy Maquera’s son, he has music in his blood. Rosie Newton is 14 and a freshman at BFA-St Albans. She’s frequently on stage in both school and local theater productions and is a member of the Contois School of Music band. Oh, yeah. And she sang the Star Spangled Banner at Fenway last year and for the Lake Monsters this year. Jaylin Seaman is 14 and a freshman at BFA-Fairfax. She plays Princess Fiona in Shrek the Musical at BFA-Fairfax November 12, 13, and is a member of the Vermont Musical Theater Academy at Spotlight on Dance.
It was a day of the best music around by everyone and wonderful memories for all of us. Here are some of mine:
Wednesday morning on the phone with Russell Crowe. Really. Green Mountain Coffee had promised us a donation but a technical glitch kept us from completing the order. Russell was the calm island in a sea of chaos, something you might not expect from the silver screen. “I wouldn’t mind getting just one of his paychecks,” he said. He also moved heaven and earth and the coffee arrived on time. It was c-o-l-d yesterday and people were glad to have it.
Friday, Hannafords manager Sara helping us load up my truck with a “pallet of pop.”
Sunday morning, early early, the geese in our little cove talking about how cold it was and planning to leave right away for Pennsylvania.
Jenni singing Happy Birthday to Soukaina Jamil who had just turned 13. We surprised and wowed Soukaina.
Chuck (the Junketeer’s pianist) accompanying Savannah.
Rosie singing Hallelujah. In the last decade or so, Leonard Cohen has finally grown into this song and is old enough to sing it. Rosie hit it out of the park. Her voice is right for the song and she brought the gravitas it deserves. That just blew me away.
Jon and I realizing we had spent some of our early childhood (where we never grew up) in Quaker country, 20 or 25 miles apart in Pennsylvania (he likes to say he was born in New York State and failed to grow up in Philadelphia, up by Overbrook when my grandfather was there for Temple). He’s a Penn grad.
It’s not because of the bugs. We have plenty of bugs in the Keys but that is apparently a new phenomenon in Black Rock City.
“DEET can save you in the Keys but we’re committed to the dry heat, not the tropics for our art,” founding board member Crimson Rose told me.
The Nazi Treasure Train and Donald Trump were trending on Facebook yesterday.
“Maybe you should write about the treasure train visiting South Puffin,” Liz Arden told me this morning.
Nah. Not much is happening in South Puffin right now. In fact not much happens in South Puffin at any time so it’s unlikely the train would make a stop here.
I got to playing with a Random Headline generator this morning because not much is happening in South Puffin right now.
Heat Fans Pissed about Kanye’s Honorary Doctorate, Administration Unfazed
That could be true but with a twist. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago did indeed grant the rapper an honorary doctorate for his “transformative, genre-defying work.” See, the college dropout grew up in Chi-town and did a quickie show for da Bulls after receiving the honor from SAIC. I’m thinking our Heat fans didn’t even know.
The “Cruel” Twist in Netflix’ Bloodline Spinoff
All 13 episodes of the original Netflix series were shot in and around the Upper Keys although the stars did appear in South Puffin’s excellent restaurants from time to time. As far as I know, Netflix has no plans to renew Bloodline, let alone spin off the disappointing Florida noir into black sheep Danny Rayburn (actor Ben Mendelsohn) running a grimy Carnival cruise ship aground in Boot Key Harbor.
I live kind of back of beyond. The directions to the house in Vermont are simple: “Drive to Canada. Turn left. Stop when you hit water.” The directions to my house in the Keys aren’t much more complicated.
Ms. Arden likes to remind me that there is not the Endless Entertainment (even on Wednesdays) that she finds in Southwest Puffin. With a million people, there’s a social event around every corner in Southwest Puffin. With hundreds of industrial employers, there are great jobs in Southwest Puffin. And, of course, get everywhere fast by subway, or bus, or trolley in Southwest Puffin.
I gave all that up for the blessings. Havana is closer to Key West than Walmart. Every big city has cars and factories and overpopulation, belching dirty air and dirtier water. Parking is impossible. Lines are long. Crime is high. The streets are n-o-i-s-y.
Almost every day, I can try to catch a cow on a hook for dinner. As Kenneth Grahame wrote, “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” Or messing about on the beach near the boats. And our criminals are much quieter.
Intrigue! For those who want the real story, two treasure hunters claimed to have found the “Nazi gold train” packed with gold, gems and money from 1945, all buried in a hill in Poland. The Silesian Research Group says they found the train two years ago but someone stole their treasure map.
Orange Is the New Hitler, quoth the Random Headline generator.
And none of the headlines are true in South Puffin.
This is the story of my second biggest contribution as a Republican Town Chair but first I have to give you some back story.
Back story 1: Fifty years ago, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, the sweeping law that assured the right to vote for all Americans by prohibiting the practices used to deny that right to racial, ethnic, and language minorities.
“Many people don’t understand that … the Voting Rights Act is under threat.” Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ said. “These voter ID laws which are being passed in many states have a disproportionate impact on poor folks.” The senator has introduced the Voting Rights Advancement Act aimed at preventing voter ID requirements.
I won’t comment on voter ID except to note that voting is our most important obligation and that the other advantages we have come to expect — driving our cars or picking up a book at the library — require identification.
Back story 2: In Supporting Parents I promised to tell what Vermont’s future governor and I were joking about on stage in 1984.
My friend Jim Douglas was Vermont’s Secretary of State then.
The office of Secretary of State pre-dates Vermont statehood in 1791.
The voter’s oath, formerly known as the freemen’s oath, is a citizen’s oath required to register to vote in the state of Vermont. Until 2007, the law was administered only by notaries public and similar officials. The Freemen’s Oath was a part of the 1777 Constitution of the Vermont Republic, the first constitution in the Western Hemisphere to grant universal suffrage to all men. Until the early twentieth century all official state commissions and certificates were headed by the words “BY THE FREEMEN OF VERMONT.”
The agency manages the State Archives so he preserved all state records and made them accessible to the rest of us. The State Archives preserve documents going back to the state’s founding as the Vermont Republic in 1777. The office licenses 39 different flavors of professionals from accountants and acupuncturists to tattooists and veterinarians. They register businesses and oversee all of Vermont’s notaries public. Most important to this story, they administer all national, state and local elections in Vermont, register voters and coordinate the Voter’s Oath, oversee campaign finance reporting, and implement Vermont’s lobbyist disclosure laws.
You solemnly swear (or affirm) that whenever you give your vote or suffrage, touching any matter that concerns the state of Vermont, you will do it so as in your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of the same, as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any man.
Vermont is the only U.S. state with a voter’s oath.
My second biggest contribution as a Republican Town Chair was swearing in new voters. At that time, only a Notary Public could administer the Freeman’s Oath; that’s the only reason I was a notary. I carried voter registration forms in my car pretty much everywhere because one just never knew where a potential voter might lurk.
A lot of them lurked at our local high school so Jim Douglas and I cooked up a Voter Registration assembly and civics lesson. Today pretty much anyone over the age of 18 who fogs a mirror can administer the oath, including the potential voter but back then only Notaries Public (actual or de facto) could give the oath. Town Clerks are de facto notaries so they swore in voters all the time. Other elected officials are not which means they can’t.
About 20 years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act, we filled the school auditorium with the older kids and put a couple of Dicks on stage.
Dick Snelling was the 76th and 78th Governor of Vermont. He jumped at the chance to talk to the kids when I asked him to drive up.
I introduced him. He got the crowd worked up in a few minutes and then invited anyone who wanted to register to come up on stage with us.
Our plan was that he’d greet the kids and keep them a little amped while Jim and I did the grunt work of filling out the forms and administering the oath.
The Gov. had other ideas.
“I’m going to swear in at least the first kid,” he told us.
Dick Snelling was a lot of things, but the Secretary of State who knows these things knew he wasn’t a notary. The Secretary of State who knows these things also knew that you have to be a notary to give the oath.
Jim and I looked at each other. “You going to tell him?” he asked.
“Not I.”
I think we registered about 40 kids that day. Most of them still vote.
How do I register to vote [in Vermont]?
If you are registering to vote in Vermont for the first time by mail, you must include a photocopy of an acceptable form of ID. Acceptable forms of ID are: Valid photo ID (driver’s license or passport); current utility bill; current bank statement; another government document.
Am I required to show identification when I vote [in Vermont]?
No. In Vermont, only first time voters who have registered by mail have to show ID in order to vote. If you registered when you renewed your driver’s license, or as part of a voter registration drive, you will not be required to show ID.
What kind of identification do I need to bring to the polls [in Florida]?
When you go to the polling place to vote, you will be asked to provide a current and valid picture identification with a signature. Approved forms of picture identification are: Florida driver’s license; Florida identification card issued by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles; United States passport; debit or credit card; military identification; student identification; retirement center identification; neighborhood association identification; and public assistance identification. If the picture identification does not contain a signature, you will be asked to provide an additional identification with your signature.
Can I still vote [in Florida] if I do not bring identification?
Yes. You should not be turned away from the polls because you do not bring identification. If you do not have the proper identification, you will be allowed to vote a provisional ballot.
Q. What’s the definition of perfect pitch?
A: When you toss a banjo in the dumpster — swish, nothin’ but net — and it hits the bagpipes.
We went to a roots music concert last week, one in which I was the announcer. There was a piper but I was good. I didn’t tell a single bagpipe story and it about killed me not to.
I live in the middle of the Florida Keys on an island I can drive to. Three generations of my family has owned that house, so we have some history but we are newcomers compared to the real conchs.
Q: What’s the first thing a bagpiper says when he knocks on your door?
A: “Pizza!”
I wasn’t even born when the (pre-Global Warming) Labor Day hurricane destroyed the Florida East Coast Overseas Railroad or when Key West’s Mallory Square was the anchorage of pirates, the the center of the shipwrecking industry, or the assembly point of American forces for four wars.
I also missed the Mallory Square Sunset Celebrations of the 60s when the hippies and gypsies and freaks would watch Atlantis rise mythically out of the sunset clouds.
My first drive across the 7-Mile bridge was an eye opener. Florida DOT built the road on top of Henry Flagler’s historic “railroad that went to sea.” They poured two narrow lanes of concrete, then painted the old tracks white and used them as guardrails. The lanes were so narrow that two trucks would slap mirrors passing. Until 1982, when the adjoining new bridge opened, it was the only road cars could take to Key West.
My first memory of Mallory Square in Key West was a funky free-for-all with creosote piers and gravel and street vendors. The Cookie Lady was there as were artists and jugglers, jewelry crafters and a cat herder, and the southernmost bagpiper.
Alfred Hitchcock once said, “I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm. Unfortunately, the man-made object never equaled the purity of sound achieved by the pig.”
We’ve done the proper touristy stuff. We took selfies at mile marker 0 and at the Southernmost point. We have paraded with the pets at Fantasy Fest. And we have dangled our feet over the edge of the pier, waiting for sunset.
You can’t do that at Mallory Square any more. It is too clean, too concrete and the cruise ships have replaced the pirates.
Will Soto was setting up his high wire poles one evening when SWMBO and I were indeed sitting on the edge of the pier with our (bare) feet perhaps a yard or so above high tide.
“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” Mr. Soto said to us as he set one pole right behind us. He wandered away, pulling his wire with him and worked on the other pole.
Then he came back.
“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” he said again as he tightened the two guy wires. I figured this was just the normal hyperbole, drumming up trade. We were, of course, the trade. This combination of work and commentary continued for a couple more round trips.
He finally went back to the other pole to do the same and then returned.
“Tonight will be the best night of the year,” he said and I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Regular readers may recall that we’ve had some water issues here. I installed a conventional, electric water heater this spring primarily because the “domestic coil” in the furnace had some issues but we figured we’d get another season out of the boiler itself.
The Benefit Music Festival took over the Franklin County Field Days grounds yesterday with continuous music on two stages. The proceeds will benefit Camp Ta-Kum-Ta and help the Town of Highgate build a band stand.
A lot of them lurked at our local high school so Jim Douglas and I cooked up a Voter Registration assembly and civics lesson. Today pretty much anyone over the age of 18 who fogs a mirror can administer the oath, including the potential voter but back then only Notaries Public (actual or de facto) could give the oath. Town Clerks are de facto notaries so they swore in voters all the time. Other elected officials are not which means they can’t.
